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Hello, I've got a Samsung 10+ and it's one week that music stops playing while I got my phone in my pocket sometimes for a minute, sometimes for longer. It happens every 2 minutes!! ?I need to press pause and play on my earphones to restart listening. Why?
Same issue, new phone, fresh install of spotify. Tried 2 different headsets, one wired, the other bluetooth. only happens in my pocket. started 2 days ago. Had it out of my pocket and no issues at all. Can walk and shake it, anything and no issues. If i put it in my pocket. it pauses. first time i click to play it will play for 1 sec and then off. 2nd time it will last a min or so. then repeat the issues with 1 sec then 1 min. etc.
One thing the new version of Pocketcasts does is sync the Up Next to Echo devices, so I can listen at home on smart speaker, then pick it up in the car where I left off.
I'm not aware of any other app except maybe Stitcher Premium that does that so far.
It is unfortunate there is no standards based way of putting podcast state somewhere in the cloud and then have the option to use the best podcast client for each platform.
Or perhaps there is work here that I am unaware of?
I would love to use Overcast on iOS, and something else on my mac, and yet other choices on my windows and android devices, and not have to limit myself to one vendor that provides a "good enough" solution across all my devices.
More articles on the best apps to use please. It is painful to wade through the app stores, reading endless and pointless reviews, and paying money for something you can't return after an hour or so. Windows phone had that one right! App stores have almost completely eliminate piracy, yet they still don't let you remove the app in exchange for your money back.
That and app cost hyperinflation through subscriptions make me puke.
Only up to 2 hours can you get an automatic refund. Within 48 hours you might get a refund if you know where to look, but it is at least 6 steps and has essay questions, including that you need to say that you want a refund. Absolute Bullshit for us consumers.
In reply to dcdevito:
I'm still genuinely confused by the complaint about having difficulty telling played and unplayed podcasts apart in the new PocketCasts interface. It is visually obvious to me, with unplayed items showing in a much bolder font. I wonder if this is a phone-specific issue or something. I'm using it on a Pixel 3XL.
Otherwise, part of the reason why the new interface doesn't make much of a difference to me is that I almost exclusively listen to podcasts in my car using Android Auto. That interface is largely unchanged.
In reply to jgraebner:I'm wondering if he's talking about the unplayed episode badges issue. On most of my podcasts I had to go through and at the last played episode, long press and say archive from here, to get the unplayed badge number to match up. It was a minor hassle. Some glitch with the update I think, but once done it's been fine. I honestly don't know what the strong reactions are all about, but everyone's entitled to their opinion.
When Jeff Bezos reads this, what is to prevent him from buying or coding a "cast" app a la Audible and use the same delivery approach as the latest Tom Clancy? Or, as is now the case, the latest WSJ. (Truth in advertising, I only listen to/watch: you and Brad, and your competitor Dan on my computer, all else including books I listen to in the car so will "try out" Castbox.) Thanks for the review.
I've used Pocket Casts for years, my most frequently used app on my phone. I loved it, the new version I rated a 1 star review. In my review, I suggest this new version will appeal to Windows 8 fans. Everything happens by some sort of secret magic. I think just having some sort of user manual might help a lot.
Thanks for your post, I hadn't heard of the podcatcher you mentioned, I'll look at it. I've been so happy with Pocket Casts for years that I haven't kept up.
Normally I like the latest and greatest of anything, but it is somewhat annoying that a lot of developers seem to feel like they are never done. So they keep "improving" a product until it fails to do it's task properly, whether from feature bloat or from always following the latest fashionable look.
Potential design and technical mistakes are then made more aggravating with the popularity of app stores which make it hard to ignore or roll back updates if they aren't wanted.
I knew the writing was on the wall when NPR bought them out. It started going down hill since then. I had used Pocketcast for years. I have abandoned them too a couple months ago. Podcast apps in general have become bloated and complex to use. I dusted off my Ipad and tried some podcast apps out when my phone started having charging issues and i was amazed to find out how unintuitive and complex the main podcast apps are. Add to that that developers like Marco are now openly bragging and virtue signalling about censoring feeds that they feeeeeeeeeel are (insert subjective weaponized label here).
The whole podcast scene in general has been hijacked by NPR mainstream PC drivel and advertising $$$ that don't even know the audience of the podcasts. FOX Sports (Ben Maller Show) now has advertising for a Women's fashion podcast on an overnight radio show that barely has any women callers. Also, the Database of podcasts are now basically NPR shows at the top, with Serial being in the top 5 for years now even though they only release content for 2 months a year. I'm calling bull on that.
Ok, so it wasn't just me. I knew it was in beta I guess but it just seemed like the redesign was too overly complicated. Also quite buggy. So I just tried out a couple others, preferring something that is cross platform if possible. Thanks for the recommendation of Castbox, I'll try that but when on Android I'm happy enough with google podcasts I guess, although not cross platform.
I don't think the newer PocketCasts UI is an improvement, but to be honest I haven't found it to be an impediment. The status of things seems clear and I'm able to find and play/resume what I need to.
I've only used it on iOS, where the new UI has been available for awhile. Is it worse on Android?
I placed a negative review and dropped my rating to one star on principle. They had a perfectly good ui and messed it up. However I'll stick with pocketcasts. I still get the podcasts I want to hear. I just sigh now when I see the app. Their widget started working again, so between Android auto and widget I rarely see the app.
The problem here is not the feature set (which I happen to love), it's the Windows Vista-esque development style where they froze development for 2 years and then dumped a massive, somewhat buggy, and overly ambitious change that users were not prepared for. If they just introduced some of these features piecemeal, there would probably be less complaining
I used Pocket Casts when I had to carry a Android phone and iPhone for work reasons (MDM resposibilties). Now that I have passed that responsibility on and only have a iPhone, the built in PodCast app works just fine.
For the life of me I do not know why anyone would choose any Android phone, but many do so what do I know.
What do you get for your $.99 per month FOREVER subscription? Is it syncing across all your devices or something like that? The ability to use your podcast library as the screen that appears when you launch the app seems to be a totally ridiculous thing to charge for, not to mention something I would pay for, which I would not. Like you, Paul, I do NOT like at all some of the recent changes to Pocketcasts. I have really enjoyed using Pocketcasts for years, but the new version completely grunked up the Archiving function to where I just hate the app now, and am quite interested in what you have found as an alternative. I have declared that I will no longer be paying any more monthly fees for ANY software, as this trend has gotten completely out of hand, and it stops now. I will be watching your research with great interest, thanks very much for these articles.
I just don't see the issues with the new PocketCast app. It is not exactly intuitive and lacks explanations, but once I figured out the changes, I liked the improvements, to include archiving, the queue system, and the player controls.
In reply to dkrat:Agree, yes it is different but have found it fine apart from occasionally the play screen is slow to refresh after podcast changes. I turned off auto-archive in profile, suspect the way it behaves might be responsible for some of the 'confusion', but also had that (autodelete or whatever it was) off in the old version
I stopped using Pocket Casts recently myself. I thought I could roll with the punches and just adjust how I was using it, but the changes have annoyed me to the point that I no longer enjoy using the app. Uninstalling it from my phone was a hard decision.
In reply to Willenator: Years ago I picked Pocket Casts because all of the other podcast apps stunk. The new Pocket Cast UI is messy enough that I will give Castbox a shot although I will never pay a subscription fee.
I'm starting to like Pocket Casts, a little. Now that it is automatically downloading and lining up my podcasts for me on the playlist.It is odd, I set the defaults to download and add to playlist, but it didn't work. On Friday I went into the settings for each podcast and changed them from defaults to individually set them to auto download and automatically be placed in the playlist, it now seems to be working.Maybe the default settings are somehow borked.
Paul Thurrott is an award-winning technology journalist and blogger with 30 years of industry experience and the author of 30 books. He is the owner of Thurrott.com and the host of three tech podcasts: Windows Weekly with Leo Laporte and Richard Campbell, Hands-On Windows, and First Ring Daily with Brad Sams. He was formerly the senior technology analyst at Windows IT Pro and the creator of the SuperSite for Windows from 1999 to 2014 and the Major Domo of Thurrott.com while at BWW Media Group from 2015 to 2023. You can reach Paul via email, Twitter or Mastodon.
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