Google could have made podcasts awesome. Instead, it gave up on them.

The Podcasts app is just the latest product to go through a process I’ve come to call The Google Cycle. It always goes the same way: the company launches a new service with grandiose language about how this fits its mission of organizing and making accessible the world’s information, quickly updates it with a couple of neat features, immediately seems to forget it exists, eventually launches a competitor out of some other part of the company, obviously begins to deprecate it and shift focus to the new competitor, and then, years later, finally shuts it down for real. The Google Graveyard is full of apps like Reader, Duo, Inbox, Allo, Wallet, and countless others that have been through The Google Cycle, and it feels just as bad every time.

    • somenonewho@feddit.de
      10·
      3 months ago

      Antennapod definitely is the GOAT. Been using it for years, it only got better. I hate the whole “podcast app” thing and like to just simply subscribe to RSS feeds and automatically download my podcasts and Antennapod does that for me. It’s so out of the way.

    • SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      8·
      3 months ago

      Cant search for individual podcast episodes, otherwise pretty good and my podcast app of choice.

      Pocket casts is the other one i’d suggest.

      Podverse a DISTANT third. But it has one feature I like and thats sorting episodes by listens.

      Edit: my other issue with antennapod is being unable to listen to an episode of a podcast without subscribing. You have to subscribe. Even to open the podcast page you have to subscribe.

      • nudny ekscentryk@szmer.info
        2·
        3 months ago

        Edit: my other issue with antennapod is being unable to listen to an episode of a podcast without subscribing. You have to subscribe. Even to open the podcast page you have to subscribe.

        You can and it’s called Previewing, just under the episode info when looking through the podcast catalogue or search results

    • nudny ekscentryk@szmer.info
      5·
      3 months ago

      It is the best one available, but unfortunately lacks some basic features like autodownloading enqueued episode (you can either auto download everything or nothing at all)