Migrating to a New Podcast Player on Android - But Which One?
May 4, 2019 7:17 PM   Subscribe

The latest version of Pocket Casts for Android (v7) runs intolerably sluggishly on my Galaxy 7. (Multi-second lag when navigating through the app, etc.) I’d like to migrate to a new podcast player, and am looking for recommendations. What do you use to listen to podcasts on Android? (Alternately, if you had problems with the latest Pocket Casts as well, did reinstalling the app solve your difficulties?) Thanks much! Special snowflake migration details inside…

  • I have a lot of podcasts. Ideally, the new player can import metadata from the OPML format that Pocket Casts exports in. Otherwise this is going to be a looong migration.
  • Easy navigation to very old downloaded episodes. I download lots of episodes and take forever to listen to them.
  • Easy re-downloading of episodes you’ve listened to before.
  • Quickly skip through ads, and skip the beginnings of episodes so you can avoid the preroll.
  • Ability to access subscriber-only RSS feeds - and to generally add RSS feeds.
  • Paying money to get rid of ads or even just use the program is fine - a few bucks for a good program is a worthwhile trade, and probably better than free.
  • The ability to queue up multiple episodes to play in sequence.
  • If the podcast player wants to allow episode streaming, It would be great to force it to download episodes instead.
  • A responsive GUI.
posted by Going To Maine to Computers & Internet (15 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: I use Podcast Addict and it has all of the features you mention. I like it well enough.
posted by lownote at 7:23 PM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I'm pretty sure that BeyondPod does all of those things although I haven't tried them all for myself. It works well.
posted by merocet at 7:51 PM on May 4, 2019


Best answer: Podcast Addict had been my choice until recently. Just started using Castbox because it allows jumping between the app and a web player. Both should meet your needs, but Castbox seems to be a bit more polished.
posted by hankscorpio83 at 7:59 PM on May 4, 2019


Best answer: I've been pretty happy with Pocket Casts. They've got a great discover page for recommending content
posted by Popular Ethics at 8:09 PM on May 4, 2019


Response by poster: I've been pretty happy with Pocket Casts. They've got a great discover page for recommending content

Have you experienced significant lag since the version 7 update? It has been significantly, obviously laggy for me since the version was updated.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:34 PM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Seconding Beyondpod. Thanks to this recent AskMeFi thread, also by a user who was jumping off the Pocketcasts ship, I learned how I can load my Stitcher Premium podcasts. It does have a search function but I've only ever added shows by RSS.

Beyondpod's model is paying once ($5) and you're in for life (so far).
posted by Sunburnt at 10:39 PM on May 4, 2019


Best answer: Another happy Podcast Addict user here.
posted by gakiko at 10:48 PM on May 4, 2019


Best answer: Just confirming that Pocketcasts has been slow for me lately too. I'm just hoping it will improve, though if it doesn't I'll be checking some of these out as alternatively
posted by kbuxton at 11:31 PM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I'm using Pocketcasts on Android and haven't had a problem with lag. I just checked and I'm on 7.0.4 on a Pixel 2. I will say I'm not a fan of the redesign, but it does run quickly.
posted by Preserver at 7:27 AM on May 5, 2019 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I use beyondpod and an generally happy with it. The functionality you're looking for and to be there, old old episodes can be a bit of a pain as it's just a long list and you scroll all the way down.
posted by Carillon at 8:17 AM on May 5, 2019


Best answer: I'm generally happy with Podkicker. The only thing I'm not sure about is subscriber only: It has an option for password protected feeds, is that what you need?
posted by Canageek at 9:18 AM on May 5, 2019


Response by poster: It has an option for password protected feeds, is that what you need?

Potentially in the future; at present I think I really only just need to add RSS feeds. (the one thing to which I pay money to subscribe just publishes an RSS feed that they only give to subscribers).
posted by Going To Maine at 10:25 AM on May 5, 2019


Best answer: I use Pocket Casts on S7. I also had some problems with lag but it seems to get better with each minor version update, so maybe it's worth waiting it out a bit. Reinstalling probably is a good idea too.
posted by the long dark teatime of the soul at 4:44 AM on May 6, 2019


Best answer: Doggcatcher is great. Not sure about import options, though.
posted by eotvos at 12:12 PM on May 6, 2019


I've been using AntennaPod for a goodly number of years now.

> I have a lot of podcasts. Ideally, the new player can import metadata from the OPML format that Pocket Casts exports in. Otherwise this is going to be a looong migration.

When I originally migrated to AntennaPod, OPML was how I did it. I can confirm there's a OPML import option under 'Add Podcast'. And an export button in case you decide you need an out later =)

> Easy navigation to very old downloaded episodes. I download lots of episodes and take forever to listen to them.

The default configuration throws all downloads into a queue, and deletes them upon listen. So by default, you'd have a very long list of episodes to scroll through.

You can however, change this behavior, and instead navigate on a podcast by podcast basis. But I don't know what your purpose here is well enough to say if this all counts as 'easy.'

> Easy re-downloading of episodes you’ve listened to before.

Playback history has a time ordered list of shows in what seems to be the last week; just click the download button and it'll work its magic.

> Quickly skip through ads, and skip the beginnings of episodes so you can avoid the preroll.

The UI has fast forward buttons, that default to 30seconds (this is configurable down to 5s)

> Ability to access subscriber-only RSS feeds - and to generally add RSS feeds.

You can add by URL, and while I've never done this, the edit podcast settings UI appears to support per podcast username/password fields.

> Paying money to get rid of ads or even just use the program is fine - a few bucks for a good program is a worthwhile trade, and probably better than free.

AntennaPod is open source, with a core dev community of about 3 and over 100 commiters listed on github. There are no ads to rid yourself of, but if you want to spend money, they support Flattr as a means of paying the programs you listen to.

> The ability to queue up multiple episodes to play in sequence.

As mentioned earlier the Queue is kinda central to the experience. The UI lets you queu

> If the podcast player wants to allow episode streaming, It would be great to force it to download episodes instead.

Antennapod defaults to downloading, though streaming is an option.

> A responsive GUI.

Not sure if this is related to this, but I find it responsive on my Nexus 5x. The UI is relatively similar to Gmail.
posted by pwnguin at 11:22 PM on June 16, 2019


« Older Is it possible to buy a generic drug from a...   |   Portable seat cushion for folding chairs at... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.