I see high ratings for Apple’s podcast and really understand. The enjoyment I get from the amazing range of (free) podcasts is massive. This 1 star rating is for the app, which frankly is terrible. The app itself has not changed much since the first versions I used back on iPhone 4. It freezes, it glitches, it’s almost impossible to sort podcasts and some of my favourites like The Daily just never appear in my latest feeds. It’s also a massive memory hog, and you’ve few options for listening offline other than to download every episode of a show. Another bugbear is that most of the app is given over to promoting podcasts I have no interest in. A “shop window” is nice starting out, but as an experienced user this app leaves me cold, especially when what I’m looking for is well hidden. It’s a real shame, this app is the gateway to amazing content. It’s just been neglected, with bells and whistles added while the engine is as old and rotten as you’d expect from something over 10 years old.

I’d like a podcast app to allow me to play podcasts in order of release date, please Apple this would be so much better. What kind of a psycho would binge a podcast from most recent to oldest? It’s so poorly designed in iOS that it’s genuinely hard to use. The ‘Listen Now’ tab is cluttered with suggested podcasts and all sorts of stuff that should just be on ‘Browse’, to get back to a podcast you were listening to it’s at the very bottom of this page. Run out of signal when you were playing that podcast, and it won’t resume at all, just completely stuck even back on wifi, after closing the app, after playing something else, after downloading the podcast, just stuck. 1 star for not being able to resume a podcast.It’s so buggy on Apple TV, scrubbing mostly doesn’t work (no matter where I click on the timeline, it plays in the same spot, especially if going backwards). Pressing right on the controller skips to the next podcast… when every good app would let you skip 10 seconds or something. Up and down do nothing, there’s no speed controls, the softest swipe through episodes in the Cover Flow mode (ie now playing tab) takes me 2 shows along every time when I only want one, it’s a horror show. I’d like it to remember where I am up to across all my Apple devices including Apple TV (Netflix does all of this better), it files something I stopped listening to with 14 seconds left under ‘unplayed’, it’s generally just not a very user friendly experience for Apple.

It’s a shame that something as fundamental as up next queue doesn’t currently work. I assume this is a bug introduced by the latest update? Tapping on ‘play next’ or ‘add to queue’ does not add an episode to the queue which only shows what I am currently playing, and occasionally, and without my choosing in any setting, adds new episodes from podcasts that I follow. If this is by design (not being able to see or manage your queue and adding shows I do not request) then this is a pretty idiotic approach and you’ll be better off with Pocket Casts, Castro, Overcast, or whatever. However, if and when Apple fix this it’ll be a five star app as it adds the capabilities of Snipd (transcripts) for free - although the bookmarking capability of Pocket Casts can be useful. If Pocket Casts gets transcripts feature of 17.4 then it’ll once again be better than the weirdness/bugginess of Apple’s current approach. One way around this if you like transcripts and don’t want to pay for an app like Snipd that has this functionality is to use your app of choice (i recommend Pocket Casts) as your principal app but when there is something in a show that you want to note down you save/go to the same show in Apple Podcasts and extract the text for your notes. A faff and would be much better if the queue just worked like a normal queue that you can manually control, but unless until Apple fix the issue this is one way to make use of transcripts.

Honestly it’s the worst podcast app ever. It has always randomly downloaded episodes, whether it’s one I listen to weekly or have set not to download, I go look at my app and think “oh, new episode!” And discover a random ep, often from years ago. Happens so often I had to turn off downloading on mobile data as it was using all my data up. Still you have to check frequently as at one point it downloaded 187 eps of a podcast that isn’t even running anymore and my phone almost stopped working because of the storage space. Also, if you do listen every week to a podcast, you need to check regularly that it is actually giving you all the episodes, because some weeks it will just decide not to bother downloading. The thing that has tipped me over the edge is now it is refusing to download eps I’ve already listened to, it shows as downloading, they appear briefly, and then they disappear. I’m travelling this week without access to Wi-Fi or mobile data. I’m trying to choose the podcasts I want yo listen to, but because I’ve listened before I’m apparently not allowed! (I say this because I also chose some new stuff and that’s downloaded ok, so it must be because I’ve listened before). I have been meaning to move apps but I listen to hours every day so have hundreds followed and lots at different stages, and having to spend hours changing apps was a depressing thought, but now I have to, because the app literally won’t let me decide what to listen to. The most infuriating app ever, absolutely pointless.