Shifty Jelly has today updated Pocket Casts to version 5.0, bringing with it a Material Design overhaul and a few new tweaks and features.
The headline feature which a lot of people have been waiting for is the Material Design update and it’s been worth waiting for. The update has new icons scattered throughout and Shifty Jelly has incorporated a bunch of really cool new animations such as this transition of the Play/Pause button on the player:
Part of the new look, which includes an update to the mini-player that now shows a colour co-ordinated background much like the previous update colour co-ordinated the media scrubber.
But it’s not all about looking pretty either, Shifty Jelly have been working overtime to get some new features ready to go. Features like the ability to swipe right to left from the list of podcasts to mark a podcast as finished/’read’ – if you make a mistake however you’ll get a chance to undo from the pop-up after you swipe.
From the Mini-Player you can swipe to the left or right, swiping to the right brings up the Show Notes, with all the same information you’re used to, the ability to ‘Star’ the episode and share it if you want. If you swipe to the left you’ll now bring up a mini-playlist which shows what’s up next, and allows you to re-order and your podcasts as you need to.
There’s also a neat Audio Effects panel in the Mini-Player, tap on the dial icon in the bottom left to bring up the panel with a host of easy to access functions, some new, some just easier to access. From the panel you can change playback speed, remove silence and boost the volume – with the option to apply to all podcasts. It’s a sweet, easy to access panel which allows you to access a whole range of functions which can get you through podcasts quickly by chopping out the proverbial ‘chaff’.
In this day and age we all love data, Shifty Jelly has incorporated a new Stats window into Pocket Casts, it shows how much time you’ve listened to podcasts for -including a fun fact about that time – but more importantly it shows how much time you’ve saved by Skipping, using Variable Speed, Removing Silence and Skipping Intros. To check out the Stats go to Settings > Help > Stats. You can also share these stats easily to social media or anywhere in the Android share intents menu.
The What’s New from the 5.0 Update on the Google Play description:
- Material Design! We agonised over jokes/puns using the word ‘material’ for hours, but in the end we spared you. I still have ‘Material Girl’ playing on loop in my head though 🙁
- Swipe episodes to mark as played/unplayed. Viva la revolución!
- New Audio Effects: Volume Boost and Silence Removal. If you can’t guess what the first one does then you’re beyond help.
- Up Next list now in your mini player, swipe across to see what’s coming up and quickly add more.
If you haven’t purchased it already, Pocket Casts is a paid app, which will set you back $3.99 – but if you have purchased it, this is a free update. The update for Pocket Casts version 5.0 is available to update in Google Play now, so you should be seeing a prompt to update. The new re-design is pretty nice and pairs a fantastic new look with a heap of new usability features which makes it a real pleasure to use, so head on over and grab it now.
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