AudioiOSAppsPodcasts

What are the best podcast apps for iOS?

15

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Here’s the Deal

14 Options Considered

Best podcast apps for iOS	Price	Playback Speed	Platforms
-- Pocket Casts	$5.99	Yes	Android >5.0, iOS, Windows Phone, Web Player
89 Overcast	Free or $9.99/year	Yes	Web
68 Downcast	$2.99	Yes	macOS
-- Podcasts	Free	Yes	iOS
-- SoundCloud	Free or $9.99/mo	–	Web, Android, Desktop, Sonos, Windows Phone

Pocket Casts

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Top Pro

Automated playlist creation

Pocket Casts has a feature called Episode Filter, that allows automatically creating playlists based on setting such as playing states (unplayed, playing, played), status (downloaded, downloading, not downloaded), episode type (audio, video) and of course podcasts themselves. You can also customize the appearance of the playlist with a color and an icon to help it stand out easier. See More

Top Con

Doesn't sync with iTunes

Specs

Playback Speed:Yes

Platforms:Android >5.0, iOS, Windows Phone, Web Player

Smart Speed:Yes

Top Pro

Remembers playback speed & starting position

You can set a 'start from' position for a podcast to skip a set number of seconds from the beginning of an episode. Great for when you don't want to listen to an intro you've heard a couple of dozen times before. Additionally, you can also change the playback speed, to slow down fast talkers or speed up slow talkers. See More

Top Pro

Excellent, easy to use discovery system

Clicking the plus button in the top-right corner will bring you to featured podcasts. From there you can access multiple ways of finding new things to listen to such as: top charts (that can be separated in audio and video), search (that allows searching both by name and feed URL), a list of podcast networks and different podcast categories. They also have a great selection of podcasts to choose from. The team behind Pocket Casts work hard to maintain a reliable and high quality catalog so you can avoid out of date listings, problems with raw feeds, etc. See More

Top Pro

Vibrant aesthetics

Pocket Casts has one of the most colorful, pleasant to use interfaces. For example, the app takes the most prominent color from the album art and colorizes the rest of the playback interface based on that color. This allows the app to stay vibrant and slightly different for each podcast. Or the way it displays featured podcasts in a colorful mosaic made from album art, makes the whole experience of using the app pleasant. See More

Top Pro

Auto download specific podcasts

You can set Pocket Casts to automatically download the latest episode of a podcast, whenever a new episode is released. See More

Top Pro

Queue up next podcasts

From the playback screen swipe to the right to access your podcast playlist. From there you can easily queue up your next podcast. See More

Top Pro

Quick access to shownotes

When listening to a podcast you can swipe right to bring up all the shownotes with clickable links. See More

Top Pro

Sync with iPhone, iPad, Android

If you use Pocket Casts on more than one device, you can synchronize settings, playback positions, etc., across all your devices. See More

Top Pro

Sleep timer built in

Setting the sleep timer will stop the podcast after a set period of time. See More

Top Pro

Sonos integration

It is possible to connect Pocket Casts with Sonos, and play podcasts. See More

Overcast

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Top Pro

Smart Speed and Voice Boost

For listening to talk shows, Smart Speed allows you to skip silences and pauses. Voice Boost is very helpful when the speakers vary from really quiet to really loud - it balances the whole thing out. And you enable them during playback, so neither will mess up music podcasts. See More

Top Con

Unable to sort by playtime

It would be nice to have the ability to sort tracks like podcasts from the shortest to the longest. See More

Specs

Playback Speed:Yes

Smart Speed:Yes

Top Pro

Very good audio quality

It has the best sounding audio when sped up. It also has neat features like the "Voice Boost" setting being tuned for being played when the phone is set flat on a table. See More

Top Con

Very barebones webapp

Top Pro

Easy playlists

By far the easiest UI for making playlists of podcasts I've seen See More

Top Con

Unplayed episodes

Does not have the ability to show unplayed episodes for individual podcasts. See More

Top Pro

Voice Boost

Boosts and normalizes volume See More

Top Pro

Feed redirection

Sometimes podcasts change their hosts/urls. Overcast will handle and remember this. See More

Top Pro

Good catalogue

Pretty much the same as the other options, but nicer categories and list views See More

Top Pro

Ability to add podcast from URL

RSS or whatever else will work See More

Top Pro

Themes

Light, Dark (dark blue), Black See More

Top Pro

Podcast specific settings

speed, voice boost, smart speed, notifications, download/stream new episodes, See More

Top Pro

OPML import/export support

Top Pro

Twitter integration

Recommendations within the app are surfaced to your followers See More

Downcast

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Top Pro

Auto-downloads podcasts

Downcast can be set to automatically download new episodes of podcasts in the background. See More

Top Con

Extremely buggy

Around mid-2015 Downcast implemented some code that started to leave infinite loop processes that have the potential to cause the phone to heat up, lag, crash Downcast, or crash other apps. The bugs have only continued to get worse. Go with Overcast or Pocket Casts, or even Podcatcher for the Downcast feel. See More

CulturedKarkinos's Experience

It´s so simple and complete. I love it. See More

Specs

Playback Speed:Yes

Platforms:macOS

Top Pro

Straightforward discovery system with feed support

This app helps users subscribe to podcasts through browsing top lists and categories as well as entering a feed or OPML address. See More

Top Con

Doesn't sync with iTunes

Top Pro

Simple to use UI

Downcast has a straightforward, intuitive user interface. See More

Top Pro

Mac App available

Top Pro

Can stream episodes without downloading

Top Pro

Sync between iOS devices

Downcast can synchronize podcasts and settings across iOS devices through iCloud. See More

Top Pro

Can prioritize playlists

You can have Downcast prioritize your playlists automatically, allowing you to listen to podcasts in the order your prefer without you having to manually reorganize them. See More

Top Pro

Set how long you wish to keep your podcasts locally

Downcast can be set to automatically remove podcasts that have been on your device for a certain amount of time or take up a certain amount of space on your device. This can be done to groups of podcasts or on a per podcast basis. See More

Top Pro

Adjustable playback speed

You can change the playback speed to fit your needs up to 3x the speed. See More

Top Pro

Sleep timer

You can set Downcast to shut off podcasts after a set amount of time. See More

Top Pro

AirPlay support

Top Pro

Adjustable skip interval

Top Pro

Prioritizes show notes

Selecting a podcast for playback will bring up shownotes, instead of the more common choice of album art. See More

Top Pro

Supports password-protected feeds

Top Pro

Gesture shortcuts

Downcast supports multi-touch gestures for navigating around. See More

Top Pro

Accesses iTunes podcast library

Whooshkaa

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Subcast

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Instacast 4

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