Are there any good podcatching apps for the Samsung Galaxy S3?

November 28, 2012 7:02 PM

I listen to a lot of podcasts and my iPod Touch was great for that, but I've recently switched to the Samsung Galaxy S3 and I find their podcasting features extremely inadequate. Some of my problems include how it won't save the spot where I left off if I switch to a different podcast, there's no button that immediately rewinds or fast forwards 15 seconds, but the worst thing is that the two podcatching apps I've tried so far (KiesCast and MyPOD) don't allow me to subscribe to some of the obscure podcasts that are available in iTunes. Does anyone have any experience with a good podcatching app for the Galaxy S3?
posted by JamesAtMidnight to Computers & Internet (17 answers total)

Best answer: As far as I know MyPod *does* do the things you mentioned. On the player it has programmable forward and backward skip buttons (hold down to select how far back or forward to go). When I switch between podcasts as far as I remember it remembers the spot it was in for each of them. Obviously it doesn't support itunes so if you have a podcast that isn't available somewhere else, I'm not really sure what you would do for android.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:11 PM on November 28, 2012

Response by poster: Really? I should add that I only used MyPOD a little bit and gave up because it was too complicated for me to understand. Do you know of an online guide or help section where I can figure out how to use it?
posted by JamesAtMidnight at 7:15 PM on November 28, 2012

Best answer: I've had some good luck with Google Listen, which will remember where you were in episodes. You can manage your subscriptions easily through Google Reader. I usually use Stitcher though, which does all of that, but doesn't have all the podcasts I like.
posted by kendrak at 7:16 PM on November 28, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks, Rusty and kendrak. I found the MyPOD help section and I'll look into Google Listen. I'm not fully satisfied because MyPOD doesn't have some of the podcasts I want, but I think right now, that's the best an android can do.
posted by JamesAtMidnight at 7:27 PM on November 28, 2012

I use BeyondPod (on the GS2). It does everything you mentioned and has a very intuitive interface. I've yet to plug in a feed URL and have it not be detected by the app. The full version is $7, but you can try out the trial version first.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 7:34 PM on November 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

The best podcasting app I've found is Pocket Casts. It has all the features you listed above and it refreshes all your podcasts really fast as they use their own server to do it. It also has streaming so you don't have to wait for big podcasts to download.
posted by mataboy at 7:35 PM on November 28, 2012

BeyondPod is so wonderful that, after moving to an iPhone 5 from using Android starting at the beginning, it's the only thing I truly miss. It is such a wonderful app.
posted by InsanePenguin at 7:47 PM on November 28, 2012

Google Listen is abandonware: the search was shut down at the start of the month. I liked BeyondPod when I used it on a Nexus 7 -- and actually preferred the phone version's UI to the tablet version.
posted by holgate at 7:52 PM on November 28, 2012

I use BeyondPod, and it can import from Google Reader. I haven't tried it with anything that's only in iTunes. Another commonly recommend Android podcast app is DoggCatcher, which I have not tried. I only moved to BP about 3 months ago when Google Listen was abandoned-- I liked it quite a lot. Anyway, BeyondPod has an automation-limited trial version but it's worth the money.
posted by Sunburnt at 8:20 PM on November 28, 2012

Another vote for BeyondPod.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:39 PM on November 28, 2012

A vote for Doggcatcher.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:36 PM on November 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

In my experience, Doggcatcher is reliable and has probably more features than you'll need while still quite easy to use.
posted by faustdick at 11:46 PM on November 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

I just bought Doggcatcher last week. It works great.
posted by COD at 5:30 AM on November 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

I trialled various podcasting apps for my S3 last week and it came down to DoggCatcher or doubleTwist.

I decided on doubleTwist because:
- It's by far the most beautiful podcasting app available; and
- I was already using the company's AirSync and AlarmClock apps and love them both.

(This is an in-app purchase from the doubleTwist Player for about five bucks.)

If that doesn't float your boat, then I'm n'thing DoggCatcher.
posted by fakelvis at 5:45 AM on November 29, 2012

> I'm not fully satisfied because MyPOD doesn't have some of the podcasts I want, but I think right now, that's the best an android can do.


This doesn't make sense to me. Why would a particular podcatcher not be able to offer a particular podcast? Podcasts don't belong to a podcatcher. It may not appear in that software's internal podcast directory, but SURELY all of these programs allow users to subscribe to an arbitrary feed by entering a URL. I refuse to believe that's not the case.
posted by blue t-shirt at 6:37 AM on November 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

Another vote forDoggCatcher. Tons of features and the support is fantastic. The guy who writes the software answers questions on the forums and seems very nice.
posted by matildatakesovertheworld at 8:09 AM on November 29, 2012

For the itunes podcasts, I may be a luddite who owns some techy things, but I use a workaround to get the podcasts from itunes to my android phone: Keep itunes on your PC and refresh the podcasts from there, and then when you want them on android, plug in the USB cable and navigate down the path of MyMusic>itunes>podcasts>NameofPodcast to find the mp3 files and drag them over to a folder on the android.
posted by CathyG at 8:15 AM on November 29, 2012