Best Podcast App for City Walking
If you live in the US, Google Podcasts has already stopped working for you. For us north of the border, we have a short reprieve with the app functioning till the end of June. For many people, listening to podcasts as you walk around your city is a great way to pass the time and be entertained or learn something at the same time. For the last few years, I have been using the Google Podcast app to listen to podcasts, it has a simple interface, easy podcast discovery and worked well on my Android phone. While the app has been doing its job well, Google has been wanting to consolidate services within its popular YouTube brand. This consolidation has now extended to podcasts with Google wanting all of the podcast listening to now occur within the YouTube Music app. I did attempt this transition to YouTube Music, but the discovery did not work well and some of my podcasts would not appear at all. So began my search for a new podcast app to use as I walk around the city. In addition to YouTube Music, I tried three other apps out and have now landed on which one I am going to use going forward. I thought I would share what I thought about each of the three apps and why I decided to stick with one of them as my main podcast app. The three apps that I tried are Pocket Casts, Podcast Republic and AntennaPod. Each one is quite different and all have a large download base, so they must each be appealing to a certain group of people and your choice in the end will be a personal one once you have tried the apps. Okay on to the reviews.
Pocket Casts
Pocket Casts was the first one I tried as it seemed to be the one that came up when I searching around for alternatives. It is available on the Google Play Store and has a large download count. Before I downloaded it, I did note the 3.7 star rating which is not great. Once I got inside I quickly understood why. The app is loud and I don’t mean that in a sound way. It is bright and is jumbled and it makes it clear that the path to perfection is by purchasing one of the premium accounts. There are also quite a few ads that are visible throughout. That said, I was able to find my favourite podcasts and it had all the regular playback features that you would expect, including speeding them up and a queue of new podcasts as they come in. The discovery tool once you get past the ads, shows you podcasts you might be interested based on your choices previously. This one does have a desktop option, but you have to by the premium subscription. I quickly decided that this was not what I was looking for in a podcast player and moved on.
Podcast Republic
The second one I tried, and I will say it was the name that caught my attention first, was Podcast Republic. When you get into Podcast Republic, you are treated to a much more mellow experience than with Pocket Casts. Rather than a lot of bright ads filtered around the screen though, there are ads at the bottom. You can once again pay for the app with no ads. The no ads version is a lot cheaper than with Pocket Casts at only $6.14. I believe Pocket Casts was more than $25.00. There is a web app that you can access though I didn’t actually try it out. There is also the ability to stream radio stations which is pretty cool. This might be a feature that will make you want to stay on this one. I once again could find all of my podcasts no problem and the playback functionality was all there. It even had a car mode, though again I didn’t try that. It has a much higher rating than Pocket Casts and you can see why. That said, coming from Google Podcasts, it felt actually like too much and the ad thing bugged me even though I totally understand the need to make money. I thought I would try one more app, though my thinking was that if I didn’t find anything, I would make Podcast Republic work for me.
AntennaPod
I did a little more research and found some discussion of an app called AntennaPod. The first thing that I noted was that it is an open source project run by volunteers. This sounded like something I should try just to give it shot. On the Google Pay Store the app has 4.8 stars which was the highest of the ones I had looked at. Opening the app was almost like a breath of fresh air after the last two. This was a basic, clean interface with no ads. Of course, there are drawbacks hinted at by the clean design and the fact that it is an open source app built by volunteers, and that is the lack of features that some may want. There is no web or desktop version and there is no plan for one. There are no radio stations and the discovery function has been turned over to using Apple Podcasts. I saw the lack of these things as a feature though as this led to the feeling of the app being focused on solely you listening to the podcasts you want to listen to. The playback functions are just as complete as the previous two that I have discussed. I instantly felt at home on this app after leaving Google Podcasts and it was the only app to do that. I have been using AntennaPod for the last two weeks and I haven’t looked back. Sometimes the simplest thing is truly the best and this is definitely true for me with this podcast app.
What podcast app have you moved to since leaving Google Podcasts?