Awesome Stuff: Podcast Apps

Innovation

from the check-it-out dept

As you hopefully know by now, we recently launched the Techdirt podcast, and while I recently did an awesome stuff post on podcasts to listen to, I’ve been heard from a few people who don’t yet listen to podcasts, and aren’t quite sure how to use them. So this week, I thought I’d share a few podcast listening tools for smartphones.

• First up, Pocket Casts from ShiftJelly, because this is the app I use, and I love it. By far the most intuitive podcast listening app that I’ve tried. The interface is clear and simple to use (with a little learning curve up front) — and, most important to me, it has the ability to speed up podcasts up to 3x speed (and they mean it, unlike some other apps that basically lie, because Apple used to lie). I also like it because I use multiple playlists with different filters — so I have a “timely” playlist of podcasts I want to listen to as soon as they’re available, and a much longer list of other podcasts that I work my way through as convenient. I’m stupidly completist, though, in feeling the need to at least listen to some of basically every podcast I download. That’s why the 3x speed helps. Pocket Casts also syncs your account, so you can use multiple devices, or switch from device to device with ease.
• Soundcloud’s mobile app. We’re happily hosting our podcast on Soundcloud, and I know some people have just been using the Soundcloud app to subscribe and listen to our podcast. It’s a nicely designed app that also gives you the ability to record via the app and directly upload it to your own Soundcloud account. Also, since Soundcloud is so popular with musicians and DJs and such, there’s lots of good music to check out.
• It seems like Stitcher really stands out these days as one of the most popular podcast/radio listening apps out there. It’s the one that I most commonly hear people say they use. You can also listen to radio programs via Stitcher as as well. I used it for a few months and it was nice, but personally I like Pocket Casts a bit more. Stitcher seemed more focused on streaming live over downloading first, but it does let you do either one. Stitcher was recently acquired by Deezer (a Spotify-like service that has a big following outside the US). It’s not clear how the two services will integrate, but you could see how it might make Stitcher have even more variety going forward.

I’m curious what other podcasting apps people use. In the past I’ve also used AstroPlayer (worked great, but had a terrible and confusing user interface), and some friends have recommended DoggCatcher (which is Android only). On the iPhone side, I know Marco Arment recently launched Overcast (which is a great name for a podcasting app) and he tends to do really good work, so I’m assuming — without testing it, since I don’t have an iPhone — that it’s a good one. It certainly advertises some neat features, including “smart speed” to cut out silence to speed stuff up without having to speed up the voices, and “voice boost” to normalize volumes (which sounds really handy). What do you use to listen to podcasts?

Filed Under: awesome stuff, podcast apps, podcasts