Pocket Casts: Podcast Player Ratings and Reviews

Great podcatcher app, one big flaw

I love Pocket Casts. Sick of how buggy and confusing the proprietary Apple podcast app is, I switched to Pocket Casts over a year ago and haven’t looked back. The UI is much cleaner and easier to navigate. My one complaint is that the search feature is very basic and only searches for whole podcasts rather than podcast episodes. (So for example, let’s say I want to listen to a podcast episode about the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident; searching “Dyatlov Pass” wouldn’t yield episodes about Dyatlov Pass from various podcasts, it would only yield podcasts whose name happens to be similar to or contain the words “Dyatlov Pass”.) That’s a real shame because the one good thing about the proprietary Apple podcast app was that I liked using the search feature to search for some niche subject I was interested in, and I would discover new podcasts by listening to their episode about the thing I wanted to hear about. On Pocket Casts, I just have to just kind of browse their discover page and hope that I find some podcast that happens to have some episodes that interest me.

Best podcast app by far

I don’t normally take the time to write reviews, but I like this app so much I decided to write one. About a year ago I started looking for a new podcast app because I had kindov outgrown the stock Apple podcast app. I have tried about 5 other apps that I didn’t really like and just went back to Apple podcast. But after about a week of using pocket cast I deleted Apple podcast. My favorite part about it is the queue. You can add podcast to either the top or bottom of your queue, you can look at the podcast in your queue, and you can reorder them. It doesn’t auto play the next podcast if you don’t have it in your queue if you don’t want it to. I have found a few new podcast that I like through the discover tab. Also, the interface is very easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. Some of the other features that I didn’t realize I was missing in my life are: trim silence, volume boost (makes voices louder), changing playback speed in .1x intervals, and being able to have custom settings for each podcast. I also just noticed that it had a sleep timer that you can set to different times or the end of an episode. You can archive episodes and they don’t show up anymore (for example if you start listening to a daily news podcast you can archive all the previous episodes). Oh, and I almost forgot. You can change the app logo to be pocket cats! If your a serious podcast listener, you need this app.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for using Pocket Casts and your kind words! Appreciate that you shared your experience!

The BEST Podcast App!!

I started using this app at the beginning of December. I waited three months to leave a review to make sure I really liked it and it wasn’t just a fluke of relief from finally leaving that horrible apple podcast app. I must say that I do. I really really do love this app for listening to podcasts. I listen to a lot of podcasts, I am subscribed to 97 of them at the moment, so trust me when I say I have used this app a lot in the last three months. The customization features are great. I love all the ways you can organize your podcasts and create playlists all while being such a simple, straightforward, and user friendly app. There’s a lot of different ways to organize everything for you to play around with to make it suit your listening needs. I really don’t understand why a company with as much money as apple couldn’t figure out how to make this app. It’s fantastic and I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s awesome. Do yourself a favor and use this app. I like it so much and have tested it for long enough that I’m actually going to purchase the Pocket Casts Plus enhanced features even though I’m probably not going to use them (trust me, the free version is amazing). I want to purchase it though because I want them to be able to keep making this app and I am willing to pay $1/month for it, especially with how much I use it. P.S. bonus, the stuff they write in their app update notes are amusing. Which is nice.

Great replacement for Apple Podcasts

I’ve been using Apple Podcasts for the past ten years and have seen its interface go from easy and straightforward to complicated and lacking of up front info. I started looking for another app and found Pocket Casts. Downloaded it and got it set up with the basics and it was like a breath of fresh air. All of my podcasts are right up front and easy to access. I especially like the info screens (Notes) for episodes that are easy to see and give the info I’m looking for. The ability to touch an episode and not have it start playing is another bonus as Apple always irritated me when I’m just trying to find out info about a cast and have to click on a tiny link under the title to go to the cast for info. The big and straightforward download and play arrows tell just what I need to know about the podcast I’m looking at. Once I learned how to use and set up the filters I was absolutely hooked. The included New Releases filter is great and I added one that shows me what I have downloaded so that I can basically use it as a playlist. BTW I haven’t had any issues with downloading and episodes of one cast I subscribe to that were never available on Apple are readily available through Pocket Casts. I could go on and on but, all in all, I’m loving Pocket Casts right now and have completely switched over to it from Apple Podcasts without any regrets.

Best podcast app with a few quirks

I want to just echo what most other reviewers are saying, in that Pocket Casts is the best podcast player out there. The UI in my opinion should used as an example in exemplary design in UI/UX programs or schools.
I’ve tried others like Overcast or Google Podcasts, but I keep coming back to Pocket Casts. They’ve really put a ton of effort in refining their app over the years, often including entirely new features for free. They’re also one of the few companies that includes a quality web player so you keep up with your podcasts while your on your computer.
As someone who relies on this app daily, it’s only natural that some issues might arise from time to time. One feature I use heavily is the ability to Cast podcast episodes to our Google Home or Nest speakers. Most of the time it works fine, but lately it seems like there’s some communication or latency issues between the server and the app. There is a long standing issue where if you finish a podcast episode while Chromecasting and your phone’s screen locked, then when you unlock your phone and go back to the app, the episode you just finished will still show it’s progress as being where it was prior to the screen being locked.
Overall, this app is a must have. None of the other podcast apps, including the overly praised Overcast, come close to matching the ease of use and simple pleasure of using Pocket Casts!

Favorite podcast app but…

This is my favorite podcast app by far. The ability to add filters and the huge amount of control I have over what I play next is fantastic. And pocket casts actually shows the older episodes on my “up next” list on Apple CarPlay, something that Apple Podcasts refuses to do (for no good reason I can think of).
However, I’ve been running into an error that makes it difficult to continue to use this app. Sometimes, when I’m listening to an episode, the player will jump back to a portion of the podcast I’ve already listened to. The problem is that when this happens, the timer/progress bar (scrubber? Idk tech names for UI elements) doesn’t update, and the podcast will stop playing when it reaches the end of the timer, rather than the end of the recording, which means I can’t listen to the end of the episode!!! The only way to fix it is to force close the app and then start playing the episode again, but it always starts playing at some random point so I have to spend time looking for where I got cut off. I mostly listen to podcasts while I work, which means my hands are busy, so I either have to stop what I’m doing to fix the app, or miss the end of my episode (and I listen to a lot of true crime—the end is the best part). This would easily be a 5 star app if I didn’t have to deal with this pretty significant inconvenience all the time.

Look beyond the Apple store average and give Pocket Cast a look...you will not be disappointed!

I have been an Audible junkie for the past 5 years and just started listening to Podcasts about 6 months ago. I have literally tried most of the podcast apps (The Podcast App, Overcast, Castbox, Podbean, Himalaya, Breaker and Castro) in search of the best podcast app. To be honest, I did not try Pocket Casts because of the low rating on Apple App Store.

I downloaded the Pocket Cast app the other day and think they have one of the best (if not the best) user interface of any podcast app I have tried with the best functionality. The interface is smooth, they have very playback effect available (speed control, trim the silence and volume boost), an easy to access notes section that gives you the option to jump to a certain section of the podcast if available, and a nice way to organize the podcasts you subscribe to (although Castbox give the greatest control). In addition, you can stream via Chromecast (not all apps provide this) and a really nice iPad app that syncs nicely with you iPhone app. This is really a great app!

Look past the overall score of this app on the Apple store and give this app a look. You will not regret it!

I’m sad that I have to switch to another app

I’ve been using that app for well over two years. Since then, it’s been my go to for podcasts because it has a great interface and is easy to use. However, I don’t know why but I’ve been having so many problems with it lately. The main one is that podcasts won’t load. I don’t always have space on my phone to download my podcasts since I take a lot of photos and video on a day to day basis, meaning I stream a lot of my content. For some reason, I always have problems with podcasts from this app recently. It’ll load a couple of seconds, then it will refuse to play anything for a while, then all of a sudden it’ll start working again. It’s not like I’m losing internet connection, as it will even happen on WiFi. Sometimes it’ll even do it with downloaded podcasts. Then I have even more problems with CarPlay. If I plug my phone in to use pocket casts, sometimes it’ll just completely freeze everything on my phone until I unplug and restart my phone. It’s only with this app.
That all being said, I still enjoyed my time with this app and I loved its simplicity, which is why I’m sad to see it go now that I’m switching to another app that doesn’t give me these problems. I’ll come back eventually if these bugs get fixed. Till then, so long my friend.

Developer Response ,

Hi there! Thanks for your review. These aren't known issues, so we'd be very keen to look into them for you if you'd like? If so, please send us an in-app report of the issues via profile -> settings -> help & feedback -> get in touch -> get support. Emailing from there will automatically attach a debug file for us to look into. Thanks!

Bad update, unprofessional response

I was glad to find Pocket Casts at first. It was a decent cross-platform app, with a couple weird quirks, but the best option for me. I opted into the beta and wasn’t as fond of it, but decided to give it some time for me to adjust and explore. Some basic, useful features were lacking or implemented strangely and the UI change was a huge step back, considerably less intuitive.

Unfortunately, they didn’t really improve on any of these problems for the release despite feedback from users. I know it’s impossible to give every user what they want. Plus, so many users are too entitled and demanding. That doesn’t warrant not listening to them at all, or responding flippantly and condescendingly to feedback. Many of the developer responses have been deleted because it “doesn’t represent who they are” (except ... yes it does, because that’s literally how they’re representing themselves). I’m not surprised to see the drop in their ratings, which they reset recently in hopes of erasing the negative ones, I guess?

They already have the money of existing users, so maybe they don’t feel like it’s as important to respect them. But I know I will no longer be recommending Pocket Casts to anyone else. Fortunately, there are cross-platform alternatives I look forward to checking out instead, like Castbox.

Syncing is still really bad if you listen on two devices.

There are many good things about PocketCast (Video Support, Playback Effects, background downloading, notifications, etc.). But there are three things that bother me. 1) If you listen on an iPad and and iPhone regularly your syncing will be messed up all the time. For instance, open iPad app and watch a video show. Then open on your phone later an audio show and stop. Perhaps that evening you open your iPad again to resume the video you were watching that morning. It will sync the iPad back to your iPhone the play position of your audio podcast from that morning, not where you left off on your iPhone later in the day. I’m constantly opening Pocket Casts on my phone to find that my listening position was reverted back 20-30 minutes earlier than I left off. 2) I think the playback screen has an unnecessary bar at the bottom with the tools. Remove that bar and just put the icons for playback effects and others without it. 3) The cover art for the podcast is not centered properly on the iPhone X, XS, and XS Max iPhone. That’s just poor design. Please Russell and Co. fix these problems.