Ever since Google launched podcasts in Google Play Music for people in the US, those of us in the rest of the world have been waiting for a way to listen to podcasts through Google. While it seems we won’t be seeing that in Google Play Music any time soon, we may be getting a standalone podcasts app.
9to5Google uncovered a string during a teardown of version 8.7 of the Google app which points to a prompt that will ask you to download the Google Podcasts app from the Play Store.
<string name=”install_google_podcasts”>Get the Google Podcasts app<string>
<string name=”install_google_podcasts_accept”>Get the app<string>
<string name=”install_google_podcasts_message”>Get the Google Podcasts app in the Play Store for quick access<string>
<string name=”install_google_podcasts_reject”>Not now<string>
Also found was the logo in the title image (the text we added), so that could soon be showing up in Google Play.
The string is likely to be a simple pointer to functionality already existing within the Google Assistant app, which again is limited in availability outside the US. The player in the US lets you find podcasts through Google Search with the latest episode shown, but an option to view older episodes offered.
It’s not clear if Google will be offering podcasts to everyone globally – there’s literally no reason we can think of why they don’t – or if this will simply be a more polished version of the web player for US users. No announcement has been made, but it’s looking almost ready to launch, so hopefully it won’t be much longer.
