Who pays this much for podcast player? I’m happy I’m grandfathered in since it’s launch. I love it, I paid for the full version, but recurring payments? No, thank you.
I personally have lifetime plus due to having bought the app early on. I still use it regularly but don’t use the fancy web interface.
Same here. I have lifetime plus from having bought it ages ago, but I’ve simply just defaulted to listening to podcasts on my Nextcloud News app out of convenience. It has a play and pause button, and that’s mostly all I need from my podcast app.
Podurama is amazing! I was a long time pocketcasts user and have switched. Won’t ever look back!!
Podcast Addict (the free, ad-supported version) is all that I use for my podcasts. If you’re really into customisation, then try Podcast Republic.
I switched to Podcast Addict from Pocket Casts back when the app was first bought out. There were a ton of bugs at the time. I’ve been happy with Podcast Addict and had no desire to switch back.
Edit: Spelling.
I had bought it outright so I have the “lifetime subscription” after the uproar when the introduced this subscription model. This rate hike has me a little worried though they may go back on that and force purchasers to pony up for the subscription as well to get short term profits up (albeit at a reduced rate for like 3 months or so, as is standard with this sort of thing).
Just imported all my podcasts into AntennaPod to give it a go. I found that it also supports sync via Nextcloud which I absolutely need because I often listen on multiple devices and I want to pick up where I left.
Good to see alternatives, because that’s one of the main reasons I bought the lifetime subscription back in the day. I also used the trim silence feature, but I can do without that.
I’ve never heard of this, but I love podcasts.
Isn’t this similar to the totally free AntennaPod from f-droid?
Well, crap. This feels like the first sign that the app is going to die when it doesn’t get enough money out of this price hike.
What’s a good open alternative?
AntennaPod is open source and pretty good if you’re on Android. Podcast Addict isn’t open source (I don’t think) and it’s not as pretty but it’ll be the most powerful podcast app you ever use.
Pocketcasts is definitely a better overall app experience, however, that still didn’t stop me from switching to AntennaPod well over a year ago. It’s a solid app and one of the best FOSS app projects around.
No regrets. I just wish I could manually sort podcasts on the subscription page.
I mean Pocket Casts is already open source. If they end support for it, you can just fork it.
https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2022/10/19/pocket-casts-mobile-apps-are-now-open-source/
Man, I wonder why nobody has forked this already? It seems like a really easy way to get a new podcast app up and running. PocketCasts is widely loved, it’s just the business practices and lack of features that have put people off.
You know, I hadn’t even realized this. That’s great. Here’s their GitHub!
Holy shit that price is just insane. No one is going to be willing to pay that when Spotify is cheaper by a lot…
Do people really use Spotify for podcasts? I don’t find it a great experience. Pocket Casts seems to be solid as a free app along with other alternatives (including open-source).
I’m pretty sure the only people who use Spotify for podcasts are unvaccinated Roganites
This is kinda odd timing.
I just started using AntennaPod on Monday since I want to switch to FOSS apps as much as possible and also deleted my PocketCasts account completely.
It sucks that there is no such account in my Google Podcasts app, but uninstalled that too. AntennaPod, FTW!
I was surprised to learn that the Pocket Casts apps are open-source (Android GitHub, iOS GitHub).
This is for the older version though, IIRC
Edit: Ah, it seems I missed Automattic acquiring Pocket Casts. Would make sense they’re open source, since Automattic is a fully open source company.
Yeah, I’m very glad to see this and it actually makes me more inclined to support them.
AntennaPod
As a (now former) Pocketcasts user, I thank you for letting me know about AntennaPod!
@colebrodine @Idefinitelydonotknow Happy AntennaPod user here, very pleased with it 👍
You are welcome. Just remember that it haa 95% of the features as PocketCasts, but it is Open Source…
Honestly just wish AntennaPod had a way to easily sync between desktop and mobile. I love the look of it on my tablet but sometimes I like listening while I’m working on my laptop.
Fun fact about Antennapod, if you want to sort new podcast episodes by prioroty, rename the podcast with a number based on your priority for that podcast and then sort the que by podcast title. Now episodes of your favorite podcast will always be up at the top and ready even if a *newer episode of anothet pod is released. Reasons you may do this besides just having a favorite podcast over others is if you listen to timely podcast that you always want to listen to before others that can wait.
Damn, this is so cool!
I cannot wait to try this out.
I’m going to ask a legitimate question and I promise I’m not trolling but this seems insane to me and I have to ask.
Why in the fuck would anybody use a special app just for podcasts?
I just go to the website, download the show, throw it on my phone and I’m good to go. It takes very little time I don’t have anyone selling my listening data.
I’d genuinely like to know what the benefit is.
I just subscribe to a bunch of podcasts and it automatically downloads them for me. It handles keeping track of what I’ve listened to and can queue up a variety of them for easy listening like a customized radio station.
Here’s what mine looks like:
I spy with my little eyes a donut media podcast 👀
so you don’t have to go to the website and download each episode you want to listen to…
I don’t understand how going to a website once a week for under 10 seconds is a detriment?
If you listen to more than one podcast, either
- you visit once a week anyway, and just have podcasts delayed a few days from release to listen, or
- you visit every day that one of the podcasts is released, which means you may be visiting several websites every day.
Some podcasts I like to listen to the day they come out, or perhaps the next day if I don’t get to it, such as news podcasts.
Also, if you listen to even more than a few podcasts, you aren’t going to “a website” once a week, you’re going to a dozen websites once a week.
I just go to the website, download the show, throw it on my phone
That’s three steps, per podcast per episode. Not everyone has their phone set up where it’s zero-effort to copy files to the phone from their computer, so that may be a multi-step process itself.
Also, podcast apps offer some other features that to do manually either is more work, or more mental overhead:
- Favoriting episodes, so that they stay downloded: to do this manually you need some sort of filesystem hierarchy where you put favorited episodes, or keep a list of favorited episodes, or keep track some other way.
- Notifications for new episodes, for podcasts that don’t follow a strict release schedule, or those that put out “special” episodes off their typical release schedule, or even just not having to memorize which podcasts have what release schedules.
- Viewing of “show notes” inline instead of having to open the browser, navigate to the podcast’s webpage, then navigate to the episode page.
- Listening software designed for podcasts/human speech: silence trimming, speedup ratios, start/end trimming, smart chapter-based seeking and navigation, remembering where you left off. Some of these features may be available in whatever generic multimedia player you listen to podcasts in, but not all of them.
Of course, a podcast app is not required to listen to podcasts by any means. But if you listen to a lot of podcasts and value time your time, there is undeniable benefit offered by podcast apps.
Also, there are plenty of FOSS and tracker-free podcast apps, so it’s not a situation where you must sacrifice privacy for convenience.
Expensive, I’m just trying the free trial, don’t know if I’ll keep it.
Is there anything in particular you need from Plus? Also, I believe folks who subscribed before the price increase can keep the original price.
Good question! Not OP, but I’ve used the free version extensively and have no need for Plus. The free version works great and is the podcast app I recommend. That subscription price is just dumb though.
I’m one of the people who doesn’t listen to podcasts very much and therefore doesn’t need any extended features that would require me to pay for an app.
As long as the app has a play/pause button, and rewind/fast forward buttons, then that’s all I need lol
I listen to podcasts daily and have 107 days of listening time in pocketcasts over the span of years, but honestly their premium features just aren’t worth the cost, even at the cheaper level. I paid in the past because it’s a great app but realized I basically never used the paid features and stopped.
I think a lot of people who were also paying just to support a great app are going to second guess if theyre actually using those paid features with the price hike.
111 days here 😉
I use the free version. Though I wouldn’t pay for a aub, what do you get with it?
