I'm so glad to see the team behind Pocket Casts find success. It's one app I've never been disappointed with and supported right from the beginning.
The paramount quality of a good app is how easily it gets out of the way and lets you enjoy the content. Pocket Casts has done a spectacular job at that.
It's that vanishing breed: designed well but not overdesigned, technically solid, no hidden agenda or ecosystem to push, all for a fair upfront price. Hope they don't mess it up.
Yea it's been my favorite podcasting app since i found it. So glad it's NPR and such that acquired it and not a company that's going to fill it with ads (the main reason i stopped using any other apps).
I got the app for free from Amazon and then I heard how that hurt the company and went and bought the app on Google Play. I have never looked for another podcast player since this is next to perfect.
Good on them for the acquisition. I've always got on better with Podcast Addict which seems better optimised for my primary use-case of falling asleep listening to podcasts.
This strikes me as potentially bad news. PocketCasts is a great little app, with the characteristic advantages of being produced by a small indy outfit with no agenda beyond selling a good quality product for cash. I'll keep an open mind, but it's hard to imagine it maintaining its current user-focus and content neutrality while under the thumb of content-producers.
[Edit: there's a blog post on the topic from ShiftyJelly: https://blog.shiftyjelly.com/. It's a little misjudged in tone, maintaining their jokiness which has been enjoyable in other contexts but feels more like misdirection when a user is hoping for information on the future. Perhaps mildly reassuring though]
I mean, it wasn't acquired by a for-profit publishing house or media company (e.g. a music label, Netflix, Amazon, etc.), it's NPR. They aren't for-profit, and they generally have pretty solid products (or at least content) in my experience.
I'm not gonna say that there isn't cause for concern that an organization like NPR might not be very good at this sort of development or product, but I don't think naked greed or exploitation needs to be a significant concern. And more than any content producer I can think of, I'd trust NPR to maintain relative neutrality towards external content.
I like the tone. It comes across as a normal guy who is excited about his product extolling the virtues of what was probably a very hard decision.
I use pocketcasts daily and share your unease at anything changing. But. It looks like things may stay broadly the same so maybe we have nothing to worry about?
There's also Russell discussing it on the Material Podcast (https://www.relay.fm/material/149). That gives me hope (but it is a shame to hear he won't be on the podcast as often).
> Pocket Casts is an enormous opportunity to improve discovery for listeners, provide podcast producers with better insights
Translation: we're going to start tracking listeners' behavior.
> And yet despite this remarkable renaissance, the listening experience — particularly around discovery — has remained virtually unchanged. Pocket Casts will enable us to forge a closer relationship with our listeners
Translation: the podcast ecosystem being built on open, decentralized standards limits what we can do (see above), so we're going to use the market position we just acquired to "extend" it with proprietary features.
Cynical fatalism plays better when the supposed perpetrator isn't NPR. Speaking of organizations I would trust with my personal info, it's hard to think of any better.
I think you are exactly right. NPR pushed NPR One in order to track users. It failed miserably. So now the plan is to join with other big networks and buy a successful podcast app to then try again. It will likely degrade Pocket Casts and I am disappointed with this news.
If you're so concerned about a 'podcast ecosystem being built on open, decentralized standards limits' then why are you even talking about a proprietary app in the first place? You're trying to set up a strawman here that you yourself say that you don't agree with.
Just tell people to use a FOSS podcast app like Antennapod and to avoid closed silo listings and move on.
This is the exact opposite of what Marco just did with the recent release of Overcast. They even spoke about it on Accidental Tech Podcast this week. He's actively working against allowing people to track podcast listeners more than what they can get from straight HTTP downloads of their shows.
I think I've tested all the major podcasts app out there, paid for their subscriptions etc... The one that was clearly over the others has always been Pocket Casts. I'm also a subscriber of https://play.pocketcasts.com, their web platform. I just love them. I'm really happy that they've made the money they deserve (or I hope they did anyway).
That being said, I don't feel confident at all that NPR will now respect my privacy as much as Pocket Cast, the company. I'm really scared that NPR will change the app like all those media companies do when they acquire something good - that is transforming the tool into an ad machine, or at the minimum something to track users.
Despite the blog post where they announce that nothing will change, I hope Pocket cast's team will continue their good work and resist the pressure of a media company.
The NPR One app does collect statistics such as when do user start and stop podcasts etc. I remember them mentioning the app in a couple of their podcasts and how they use that data to improve their podcasts. It's very likely that they will use Pocket casts for that purpose and it's probably why they bought Pocketcasts, since so few people use the NPR One app.
Podcast Addict (android only i think) has always been my go-to app. Even paid for 'donate' version even though it doesn't really do anything extra I think. Really recommend it to anyone who wants to try something else.
I'd give Downcast a shot. It's been my go to podcasting app for years and it's regularly updated. It has never asked me login or any other information. It's not a silo either: you can import and export podcasts lists.
I've been frustrated with many free podcast apps so I paid for Pocket Casts and I've been happy since. I think it's a smart move by NPR et al. What they want is the usage data like where they pause, where they skip, etc. These data were traditionally not available to podcast publishers because podcast is really just an mp3 file uploaded to some server.
NPR has the NPR One app but I guess not enough people are using it. They've been open about what data they're collecting and I honestly don't mind NPR knowing about my podcast listening habits.
The only caveat to this is their insight into advertisements. Lets say a podcast runs ads during its first 5 minutes, they can now tell exactly how many people are listening or skipping those ads and may be incentivized to start putting ads in the middle of podcasts, or implement some sort of non skip-able interruption.
I also love Pocket Casts, particularly with the "skip pauses" feature. Often podcasts are full of short pauses... to date, I have saved 9 hours of time with the feature enabled!
So is this basically a confirmation they're giving up on NPR One? It hasn't been updated for 7 months, after about 24 straight monthly updates.
If so, I wonder if they're going to cram livestreaming into Pocket Casts. That'd be enough for me to switch to something else, I much prefer apps that do a single thing extremely well.
NPR One was toxic for NPR (the national company) in their internal politics. Smaller local stations fought back against having to promote the app on their broadcasts out of fear it would drive their local listeners away.
"Pocket Casts users will continue to enjoy: A wide variety of podcasts from hundreds of national and international producers;"
I hope this is just an unintentional underrepresentation of how many podcast producers are out there (many thousands, not just hundreds) and doesn't mean they're limiting which podcasts can be listened to in Pocket Casts.
It's possible it's just a count of how many podcasts are included in the "Discover" section. I don't know what the process for getting added to that is.
It covers almost all of the "big" podcasts, but there are a handful of local ones I've had to add manually.
The Apple podcast app has gotten continuously worse over the past few years, I'm excited to see that 3rd parties are picking up the slack, but I'm still pretty disappointed that Apple has neglected one of the most important aspect of the phone (for me, anyway).
I've never used the Apple one, but Pocket Casts is the only app I've ever paid for on four platforms (Android, iOS, Windows Phone and the web player) and not regretted it at all. It's a gem.
That's funny, I've had the exact opposite impression. The only thing I don't like about Apple Podcasts is that, by default, there's no way to play episodes chronologically, independent of podcast. But you can add this feature by creating a "station".
> The Apple podcast app has gotten continuously worse over the past few years
Can you name a few specific ways in which you think this is true? (I personally think it's come a long way from the awful skeuomorphic reel-to-reel metaphor, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.)
> Audio veteran Owen Grover will serve as CEO of Pocket Casts. Grover previously served as Executive Vice President and General Manager at iHeartRadio, and before that as Vice President of Programming and Marketing at Clear Channel Music & Radio. Pocket Casts will operate as a joint venture, with founders Philip Simpson and Russell Ivanovic in leadership roles and the existing staff and developer team remaining in place. To ensure development aligns with the mission-driven ethos of public radio, the board will be comprised of representatives of the public media leaders.
I just have to say it: This is one GOD DAMN good app. I've been using it for years and the only issue I have with it is that I've got to pay again to download it on my iPhone after switching from Android.
In a world full of free stuff, this is the only piece of paid software that makes my day better. They deserve this.
> Pocket Casts will operate as a joint venture, with founders Philip Simpson and Russell Ivanovic in leadership roles and the existing staff and developer team remaining in place.
> “We turned them down because the unique thing about this opportunity is the mission driven nature of these organizations. They want what’s best for the podcasting space, they want to build open systems that everyone can use.”
The initial headline had me worried but I like the tone of the press release and have no reason to doubt the intentions of Shift Jelly or NPR. I hope they continue to improve what I feel is the best medium to consume podcasts that currently exists.
"What's best for the podcasting space" is more scary than it sounds tho imo. A lot of business people would consider web-like analytics "the best for the podcasting space", even though it would be horrible for podcast listeners.
I was quite happily using the Podcast iOS app until iOS11 where they completely ruined it. Someone recommended that I buy Pocket Casts and I've been using it ever since.
One thing that annoys me, when I go to a new Podcast I like to listen from the beginning, and Pocket Casts marks old episodes as "Played" so it's hard to go through and listen to them in order as I forget where I've gone to.
Any solution for stopping the app marking these old podcasts as played?
When you first subscribe, navigate to the podcast and click on the '...' menu. If there are any episodes currently unplayed, the first menu item will be "Mark All Played". Go ahead and mark them all played, and then tap '...' again. The first menu item will now be "Mark All Unplayed".
If you're having issues with Pocket Casts marking old episodes as played when new ones come out, go into the settings (either for the whole app, or for a particular podcast) and turn off "Auto Cleanup".
It's unusual because a non-profit doesn't really have an owner (stockholders). But it is still a corporation and many states in the U.S. (non-profit and for profit corporations are created under state law) allow a non-profit corporation merge with a for-profit entity. The transaction is treated like the non-profit sold its assets to the for-profit buyer and then wound down by donating the proceeds to other non-profits.
I look forward to trying something besides the horror of the npr one app. I don't need a netflix tile for every show. I need relevant information on the show. Not a mini billboard with no information.
I sure how they don't cram in a requirement to also be a local station supporter to use certain features in the app. I think that's a big misstep of the PBS app.
I love Pocket Casts! Here are my top feature requests (I’m on iOS so some of these features may exist already on other platforms)
- Let me search within a podcast (search titles as well as descriptions). I just found out about Planet Money but it has nearly 1000 episodes. The internet can help be find highly recommended episodes, but there’s no easy way to jump to these in the app.
- please let me set playback speed.
I also have a faint hope that this acquisition would allow Pocket Casts to go open source.
The playback speed is a feature in the Android version (pretty much the deal breaker with other podcast apps for me) so hopefully that's in progress for the iOS one too.
"Thanks to the mission-driven nature of this partnership, and of public media overall, we'll put the needs of producers and listeners at the heart of everything we do with Pocket Casts" == We are going to add useless features, bloat the app and switch to SaaS model.
My favorite podcast player + my favorite radio/podcast station = Future Greatness! (I hope)
I just came here to say how much I enjoyed reading the list of changes every time there is an update. There is always something super funny in there. I really hope they keep doing that!
Is there any chance this will lead to being able to listen to old TAL episodes via RSS? It's kinda strange that TAL is buying a podcast player company but they don't want us to listen to their podcasts...
You can also listen to TAL in the TAL app - although it’s not a very good app and pretty buggy at times. Built by Black Pixel (https://blackpixel.com).
I purchased PocketCasts app a couple of years ago but recently switched from android to iOS and never re-downloaded it. I'm sure I'd have to re-purchase it, right? or is there a way around that.
The storytelling format podcasts shows have replaced evening television in my household. I guess we've reverted to the time of old fashioned night time radio shows.
Pocket Casts representative will say:"Now we going for new subscription model - every month only $3.99 and you can listen to unlimited podcast with CD quality!!!"
From the article: "New York Public Radio's investment in Pocket Casts was made possible, in part, by Cynthia King Vance and a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York."
I don't think it was from donations, but I could be wrong
While I am happy for Russell and the rest of the Shifty Jelly team, this acquisition does worry me. Historically, NPR hasn't been the most unbiased source of information, and allowing them direct access to who can and cannot be seen on the discovery feed could easily kill the diversity of views that the platform enjoys right now.
Are you... not familiar with NPR? It's a non-profit public radio entity. It's some of the least-ad-ridden content available on the planet and a tremendous resource.
I hope not. I bought my first copy for Android back at version 3. When I moved to iOS, it was the very first app I bought. I'll buy it again if it keeps ads away.
eigen-vector|7 years ago
The paramount quality of a good app is how easily it gets out of the way and lets you enjoy the content. Pocket Casts has done a spectacular job at that.
m_fayer|7 years ago
simcop2387|7 years ago
cgag|7 years ago
baldfat|7 years ago
gadders|7 years ago
crispinb|7 years ago
[Edit: there's a blog post on the topic from ShiftyJelly: https://blog.shiftyjelly.com/. It's a little misjudged in tone, maintaining their jokiness which has been enjoyable in other contexts but feels more like misdirection when a user is hoping for information on the future. Perhaps mildly reassuring though]
BookmarkSaver|7 years ago
I'm not gonna say that there isn't cause for concern that an organization like NPR might not be very good at this sort of development or product, but I don't think naked greed or exploitation needs to be a significant concern. And more than any content producer I can think of, I'd trust NPR to maintain relative neutrality towards external content.
alexktz|7 years ago
I use pocketcasts daily and share your unease at anything changing. But. It looks like things may stay broadly the same so maybe we have nothing to worry about?
tomw2005|7 years ago
mintplant|7 years ago
Translation: we're going to start tracking listeners' behavior.
> And yet despite this remarkable renaissance, the listening experience — particularly around discovery — has remained virtually unchanged. Pocket Casts will enable us to forge a closer relationship with our listeners
Translation: the podcast ecosystem being built on open, decentralized standards limits what we can do (see above), so we're going to use the market position we just acquired to "extend" it with proprietary features.
asfasgasg|7 years ago
jrwiegand|7 years ago
synchronise|7 years ago
Just tell people to use a FOSS podcast app like Antennapod and to avoid closed silo listings and move on.
dangoor|7 years ago
robinhood|7 years ago
That being said, I don't feel confident at all that NPR will now respect my privacy as much as Pocket Cast, the company. I'm really scared that NPR will change the app like all those media companies do when they acquire something good - that is transforming the tool into an ad machine, or at the minimum something to track users.
Despite the blog post where they announce that nothing will change, I hope Pocket cast's team will continue their good work and resist the pressure of a media company.
newen|7 years ago
midasz|7 years ago
starik36|7 years ago
unethical_ban|7 years ago
hsljekskfh|7 years ago
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peterjlee|7 years ago
NPR has the NPR One app but I guess not enough people are using it. They've been open about what data they're collecting and I honestly don't mind NPR knowing about my podcast listening habits.
crispinb|7 years ago
That's exactly what I don't want
> These data were traditionally not available to podcast publishers because podcast is really just an mp3 file uploaded to some server.
Good. Long may it remain so.
obenn|7 years ago
jadbox|7 years ago
kondor6c|7 years ago
Additionally you won't have any new requirement to create a new account or pull analytics from your listening habits as you mentioned towards the end.
dv_dt|7 years ago
scrooched_moose|7 years ago
If so, I wonder if they're going to cram livestreaming into Pocket Casts. That'd be enough for me to switch to something else, I much prefer apps that do a single thing extremely well.
pflats|7 years ago
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/03/npr-decides-it-wont-promote...
pnutjam|7 years ago
hsljekskfh|7 years ago
[deleted]
tripplethrendo|7 years ago
torgoguys|7 years ago
I hope this is just an unintentional underrepresentation of how many podcast producers are out there (many thousands, not just hundreds) and doesn't mean they're limiting which podcasts can be listened to in Pocket Casts.
scrooched_moose|7 years ago
It covers almost all of the "big" podcasts, but there are a handful of local ones I've had to add manually.
gumberculese|7 years ago
MBCook|7 years ago
I finally gave up on the Apple app years ago after it was unable to sync my place for the 1200th time.
Never had that issue with Overcast.
julianz|7 years ago
LeoPanthera|7 years ago
CharlesW|7 years ago
Can you name a few specific ways in which you think this is true? (I personally think it's come a long way from the awful skeuomorphic reel-to-reel metaphor, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.)
driverdan|7 years ago
JustSomeNobody|7 years ago
smpetrey|7 years ago
Well, that sucks.
pilatesfordogs|7 years ago
In a world full of free stuff, this is the only piece of paid software that makes my day better. They deserve this.
qzervaas|7 years ago
Important to note that it’s not NPR per-se, but a group including NPR.
lintroller|7 years ago
> “We turned them down because the unique thing about this opportunity is the mission driven nature of these organizations. They want what’s best for the podcasting space, they want to build open systems that everyone can use.”
The initial headline had me worried but I like the tone of the press release and have no reason to doubt the intentions of Shift Jelly or NPR. I hope they continue to improve what I feel is the best medium to consume podcasts that currently exists.
mort96|7 years ago
dominotw|7 years ago
sengork|7 years ago
crispinb|7 years ago
Accacin|7 years ago
One thing that annoys me, when I go to a new Podcast I like to listen from the beginning, and Pocket Casts marks old episodes as "Played" so it's hard to go through and listen to them in order as I forget where I've gone to.
Any solution for stopping the app marking these old podcasts as played?
meej|7 years ago
If you're having issues with Pocket Casts marking old episodes as played when new ones come out, go into the settings (either for the whole app, or for a particular podcast) and turn off "Auto Cleanup".
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
manigandham|7 years ago
The perfect syncing and playback (speed + silence) of Overcast, with the fast (older) web UI of PocketCasts, with the searching abilities of CastBox.
Someone please make this.
fluxsauce|7 years ago
I use both the Android and the Web versions of Pocket Casts and it syncs, trims silence, does speed adjustments, and so forth.
eggpy|7 years ago
binoyxj|7 years ago
amasad|7 years ago
matthewmcg|7 years ago
ngold|7 years ago
DanCarvajal|7 years ago
erlend_sh|7 years ago
- Let me search within a podcast (search titles as well as descriptions). I just found out about Planet Money but it has nearly 1000 episodes. The internet can help be find highly recommended episodes, but there’s no easy way to jump to these in the app.
- please let me set playback speed.
I also have a faint hope that this acquisition would allow Pocket Casts to go open source.
corobo|7 years ago
Play a podcast episode and tap on the "now playing" bar to open up this screen http://i.imgsir.com/1OMb.jpg
The settings are hiding here http://i.imgsir.com/GZAL.jpg
remybach|7 years ago
bladewolf47|7 years ago
smtpserver|7 years ago
javiayala|7 years ago
I just came here to say how much I enjoyed reading the list of changes every time there is an update. There is always something super funny in there. I really hope they keep doing that!
sid-kap|7 years ago
icebraining|7 years ago
But you can use RSS to listen to new episodes, so I wouldn't say they don't want us to listen to their podcast.
Cenk|7 years ago
talisnotnpr|7 years ago
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devmunchies|7 years ago
paragraft|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
Dowwie|7 years ago
Good old fashioned entertainment in 2018.
thecybernerd|7 years ago
asdz|7 years ago
tadah|7 years ago
Time for me to start looking for another podcasting app...
ghostbrainalpha|7 years ago
But it feels weird to me knowing that I donated money to NPR, and that money might be used to purchase a private company.
eddieroger|7 years ago
paulgb|7 years ago
mrbonner|7 years ago
nickwanninger|7 years ago
I don't think it was from donations, but I could be wrong
emodendroket|7 years ago
zsgoldberg|7 years ago
peterjlee|7 years ago
flaque|7 years ago
OedipusRex|7 years ago
cerberusss|7 years ago
brent_noorda|7 years ago
zaatar|7 years ago
borplk|7 years ago
Call me a cynic but I have a feeling their bias (and questionable tech capabilities) will drive it down to the ground.
muddi900|7 years ago
syntekz|7 years ago
neolefty|7 years ago
hitlin37|7 years ago
CNJ7654|7 years ago
21717117|7 years ago
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izacus|7 years ago
disillusioned|7 years ago
roywiggins|7 years ago
DoofusOfDeath|7 years ago
JustSomeNobody|7 years ago
analogmemory|7 years ago