Tired of Apple Podcasts? These Are The Best Alternatives

Apple Podcasts is the go-to podcast app for many iPhone users, but that’s not to say it’s the only option out there. While Apple Podcasts may do a lot of things right, it’s also been faced with its fair share of issues that may push some folks to look for an alternative.

After being bundled in the iTunes app for years, Apple launched its standalone Podcasts application in 2012. In the years since then, Podcasts has seen a wealth of updates. It’s received numerous redesigns, new features, and continues to be the most popular podcast app for the iPhone. It’s also proven to be one of the best ways to listen to podcasts on the Apple Watch, allowing users to download episodes and stream them using an LTE connection.

For all the things Apple Podcasts does well, however, it’s also been faced with endless criticism since its inception. Users have long complained about syncing issues, missing features, and updates that break functionality from previous app versions. With the iOS 14.5 update, many Apple Podcasts users discovered that the app automatically downloaded hundreds of episodes and completely broke their subscriptions. For folks that use Apple Podcasts but just can’t take it anymore, here are a few of the best alternatives to download right now.

Pocket Casts

Kicking off this list, let’s talk about Pocket Casts. Pocket Casts has been around for quite a few years as a podcast player for iOS, Android, and desktop. As a one-to-one replacement for Apple Podcasts, it’s one of the best options out there. Why? It all starts with the design. Out of all the podcast apps on this list, Pocket Casts is subjectively the best-looking and most practical of them all. The home page shows all of the podcasts someone is subscribed to, and while it’s in a grid layout by default, it can also be changed to a list view. The Filters tab allows users to browse through their podcasts by specific characteristics (new releases, unplayed, in progress, etc.), the Discover page makes it incredibly easy to find new shows to listen to, and the Profile tab houses things like listening stats, downloads, and app settings. Not only do all of these pages make navigating Pocket Casts a breeze, but the look and feel of them are also top-notch. The app is fast, responsive, and presents everything in a very visually pleasing way.

The foundation of Pocket Casts is rock-solid, but where the app really shines is with all of the smaller features. From the Now Playing screen, users have access to an incredible amount of controls. They can adjust playback speed, automatically trim any silence from episodes, enable a volume boost, set a sleep timer, and quickly skip forward 30 seconds or go back 10 seconds (with users also able to customize these times in the settings page). If a podcast has a description and/or chapters, Pocket Casts shows those as well. Other features include the ability to auto-download episodes, download podcasts to the Apple Watch, syncing across devices, and support for Sonos, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

If there’s one downside to Pocket Casts, it’s that accessing all of its features requires a paid subscription. The core experience is available completely free to use and without any in-app ads, but to access the desktop app, Apple Watch support, the ability to upload files, and additional themes/app icons, users need to pay for Pocket Casts Plus. However, the good news is that it only costs $0.99/month or $9.99/year. It’s 100 percent worth downloading and using Pocket Casts for free to get a feel of what it has to offer, and if it ends being a good fit, $10 a year is a steal for everything it brings to the table.

Overcast

For folks who find Pocket Casts a bit too much for their needs, Overcast might be a better option. Created by developer Marco Arment in 2014, Overcast is one of the simplest iPhone podcast apps that doesn’t skimp on useful features. Design-wise, Overcast is about as minimalistic as it gets. The home page shows a list of playlists, subscribed podcasts, and nothing more. There’s a search bar at the top for finding new podcasts and toggles to view downloads, create a new playlist, or browse through podcasts by different categories. It’s not as visually striking as Pocket Casts, but for users who want to keep things as simple as possible, that may be a good thing.

While Overcast’s design may not be anything special, the app has it all when it comes to functionality. Users can control playback speed, use Smart Speed to shorten silence during podcasts, enable Voice Boost for higher-quality audio, set a sleep timer, and favorite specific episodes so they’re easier to find later on. There’s also a neat feature called Share Clip, which allows users to cut out a specific part of a podcast and then turn it into an audio or video file for easy sharing on social media. And, last but not least, Overcast can be used on the iPad and Apple Watch.

All of this is available for free, but similar to Pocket Casts, there is an optional subscription. Overcast Premium is available for $9.99/year and does all of the following: removes banner ads, supports manual file uploads, and comes with an alternative app icon.

Google Podcasts

Google Podcasts hit the market in 2018, making it one of the more recent players in the podcast niche. While the app initially lacked some key features and is still less functional than the apps mentioned above, there’s plenty here to keep most people perfectly happy. From a design standpoint, Google Podcasts looks quite good. The Home page shows a list of subscriptions at the very top, and below that is a feed of episodes from those subscriptions in order of release. The Explore page is a great destination for discovering new shows, offering a search bar with autofill suggestions, filters by specific categories, and recommendations based on each person’s listening activity. And, on the Activity page, users can quickly look at their playback queue, downloads, listening history, and a list of their subscriptions.

Surprisingly, Google Podcasts also has a fair amount to offer in the way of playback tools. There’s a sleep timer, playback speed control, a Trim silence feature, and the option to like podcasts to better train Google’s recommendation algorithm. The other big upside to Google Podcasts is how it integrates with Google Search. If someone searches for a podcast on Google from their desktop, they can start listening on the web just like that. Then, if they open the Google Podcasts iPhone app, they can pick up right where they left off.

Google Podcasts is 100 percent free to use, but unfortunately, it does come at the cost of some missing features. There’s no Apple Watch support, nothing comparable to Pocket Casts’ filters, and users can’t upload their own files. However, if none of that matters, Google Podcasts packs a big punch with zero cost involved anywhere along the way.

Spotify

Last but not least, there’s Spotify. While Spotify is primarily marketed as a music streaming app, it’s quickly tried to push itself as a go-to destination for podcasts, too. That means music and podcasts coexist in a single application, and unfortunately, that’s the biggest downside to the Spotify experience. While podcast recommendations are often surfaced on the Home page, finding new podcasts to listen to requires tapping the Search tab and then tapping the Podcasts shortcut. Only then can users browse through recommended shows and filter them by specific categories, making the experience feel a bit clunky from the get-go. The same is true of the Library page. Since music and podcasts are mixed up, users need to tap the Podcasts & Shows filter to only see their subscribed podcasts and not music.

The listening experience itself is also lacking. Users can control playback speed and set a sleep timer, but there’s not much else to do outside of that. Spotify doesn’t offer a way to trim silence in episodes, boost the volume, or a way to automatically download new episodes of a show someone is subscribed to.

If there are so many downsides to podcasts on Spotify, why put it on this list in the first place? One answer: convenience. For folks that already use Spotify for their music streaming, there’s something to be said about having it double as a podcast player. There’s just one app for users to worry about, there’s a decent amount of Spotify-exclusive shows worth listening to, and it gets the job done for casual playback. Some people just don’t care about all the extra bells and whistles of these other apps, and for them, having all of their listening condensed into one application is better than anything else.

Source: Pocket Casts, Overcast, Google, Spotify

About The Author

Joe Maring
(1527 Articles Published)

See also  Blue Bloods: 10 Facts You Didn't Know About Danny Reagan

Joe has been actively writing and talking about consumer tech since 2012. His biggest passion lies with smartphones, but he’s happy to talk your ear off about just about anything with a CPU. He lives in Kalamazoo, MI with his wife, two cats, and pit bull/boxer mix.

More From Joe Maring