Pocket Casts has to be both one of the best and one of the most used podcast players around, even Google’s Podcasts app can’t hold a candle to its design, features and usability.
Not being one to rest on their laurels ShiftyJelly, the Australian team behind Pocket Casts has hard been at work with the next generation of Pocket Casts version 7.0.
Today, after an exclusive closed beta and then open beta process, the final update is now released to the Google Play Store for everyone. Having been using the new version for a few months, I can attest that this is no small update. There are many minor changes to the app, both visible and under the hood.
Under the hood there’s a new sync system to track your current and up next podcasts progress and keep it in sync, undoubtedly this was needed to enable the recent Alexa integration. It’s a shame Google won’t open up the APIs needed for 3rd party media players to resume audio on a Google Assistant device like a Smart Display, it almost feels anti-competitive on Google’s behalf.
More in your face are enhancements like archiving, where you can swipe a podcast away out of your feed without actually marking it as played. This system allows you to take a granular control over your history and ‘up next’ feed in a way that will make it easier to choose what to listen to next, while never losing track of episodes you didn’t get around to listen to.
Another enhancement is the ability to choose to add a new podcast to the beginning or the end of your up next feed. At first, I found this new feature a little annoying, but now I don’t know how I ever lived without it. There are podcasts I immediately bring to the top of my list, and others an just wait near the bottom.
These changes are only the tip of the iceberg, check out Shifty’s announcement post here, and grab the newest version of PocketCasts from the Play Store today:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts&hl=en_AU
