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Show HN: Spreaker Podcast Radio – Podcast Listening Reinvented

15 points by roccozanni 11y ago

roccozanni 11y ago
We're thrilled to announce this huge update of our podcast listening application. The app has been rewritten from the ground up to provide the best podcast listening experience on Android, applying Material Design in its purest form, focusing on realtime data syncing and offline listening experience. When we started working on this app 7 months ago, we wanted to learn from all the mistakes we made on the previous versions, leveraging the best possible tools and technologies even if sometimes this meant throwing away previous assumptions, knowledge, and push ourselves out of the comfort zone. Here some tech details that we'd like to share: - functional reactive programming http://reactivex.io/ http://reactivex.io/ - networking with OkHttp by Square http://square.github.io/okhttp/ http://square.github.io/okhttp/ - image loading with Glide by Bump Technologies https://github.com/bumptech/glide https://github.com/bumptech/glide - audio streaming playback with Exoplayer by Google https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer - view injection with Butterknife by Jake Wharton http://jakewharton.github.io/butterknife/ http://jakewharton.github.io/butterknife/ - dependency injection with Dagger2 by Google http://google.github.io/dagger/ http://google.github.io/dagger/ A big thanks to @brigitadaisy for the huge effort she made in designing this app, @DrAL3X for helping me on Android development, @pracucci for providing totally new and super fast apis, and to all the @spreaker team for the support in those months of hard work.
- _kyran 11y ago
  | the best podcast listening experience on Android That's a big claim. Not to discount your work, but why should someone use your app over Pocket Casts (which I believe to currently have the best Android app).
  - acjohnson55 11y ago
    I haven't tried that app, but it would have to be pretty awesome to pry me away from Podcast Addict. The latter isn't the prettiest app on the world, but it gives me a ridiculous amount of control over the listening experience.
  - SyneRyder 11y ago
    I'd like to hear the pitch vs Pocket Casts too, but I think there's definitely room for someone to improve over Pocket Casts. I bought Pocket Casts and ended up never using it. I went back to an old iPhone with Castro, which I really love.
  - the_bask 11y ago
    To me it comes down to a few things: - Spreaker is "streaming first": it's way easier to just play something new that you want to listen to, without going through the Subscribe->my podcasts->download(or stream) flow. You can also download podcasts, but this appears to be a secondary mode of consumption. - There is great emphasis around curation: there are both curated lists (they somewhat look like the Play Store discovery experience) and channels, which are good when you don't want to pick something specific to listen to but you just want to play something. All things considered, it's a very different experience from most of the podcasting apps out there that come from the original iTunes-like subscribe experience. It might be better or worse, and this is very personal. But I believe this is moving in a different direction.
  - roccozanni 11y ago
    just wanted to add a couple of things other than what @the_bask already said: - live broadcasting and interactivity: our app offer all live broadcasts available on the Spreaker platform. If one of your favorite shows starts a new live stream, you'll be notified in the app, so you can listen to it while it's live and interact with the host using the embedded chat - we know that it's a big claim, but we put A LOT of effort in this app, working since the day one with a clear goal: offer the best experience; I think nobody works so hard with the goal to create NOT the best experience app :) We'll be very happy if you can spend some time playing with the app and tell us what you think it can be improved. Every feedback is welcome, especially the negative ones, so we can learn from them and deliver a better app
the_bask 11y ago
Finally a podcast app that includes some sort of curation; it feels weird to have to get most of the recommendations elsewhere and then having to look for a specific show.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Your account appears to have been dead for a very long time. The few comments you've made are good so I vouched for them. You may want to email mods to see what tripped their filters? (Although here you say "finally", yet you've submitted 3 articles about spreaker about 2000 days ago.)
emanuele_r 11y ago
Great job guys! App UX is absolutely slick :)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
DrScump 11y ago
It is really nice to see an app that doesn't harvest one's contacts / location / other unnecessary data that a user has to fear will be sold or misused.

15 points by roccozanni 11y ago

We're thrilled to announce this huge update of our podcast listening application. The app has been rewritten from the ground up to provide the best podcast listening experience on Android, applying Material Design in its purest form, focusing on realtime data syncing and offline listening experience. When we started working on this app 7 months ago, we wanted to learn from all the mistakes we made on the previous versions, leveraging the best possible tools and technologies even if sometimes this meant throwing away previous assumptions, knowledge, and push ourselves out of the comfort zone. Here some tech details that we'd like to share: - functional reactive programming http://reactivex.io/ http://reactivex.io/ - networking with OkHttp by Square http://square.github.io/okhttp/ http://square.github.io/okhttp/ - image loading with Glide by Bump Technologies https://github.com/bumptech/glide https://github.com/bumptech/glide - audio streaming playback with Exoplayer by Google https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer - view injection with Butterknife by Jake Wharton http://jakewharton.github.io/butterknife/ http://jakewharton.github.io/butterknife/ - dependency injection with Dagger2 by Google http://google.github.io/dagger/ http://google.github.io/dagger/ A big thanks to @brigitadaisy for the huge effort she made in designing this app, @DrAL3X for helping me on Android development, @pracucci for providing totally new and super fast apis, and to all the @spreaker team for the support in those months of hard work.

_kyran 11y ago
| the best podcast listening experience on Android That's a big claim. Not to discount your work, but why should someone use your app over Pocket Casts (which I believe to currently have the best Android app).
- acjohnson55 11y ago
  I haven't tried that app, but it would have to be pretty awesome to pry me away from Podcast Addict. The latter isn't the prettiest app on the world, but it gives me a ridiculous amount of control over the listening experience.
- SyneRyder 11y ago
  I'd like to hear the pitch vs Pocket Casts too, but I think there's definitely room for someone to improve over Pocket Casts. I bought Pocket Casts and ended up never using it. I went back to an old iPhone with Castro, which I really love.
- the_bask 11y ago
  To me it comes down to a few things: - Spreaker is "streaming first": it's way easier to just play something new that you want to listen to, without going through the Subscribe->my podcasts->download(or stream) flow. You can also download podcasts, but this appears to be a secondary mode of consumption. - There is great emphasis around curation: there are both curated lists (they somewhat look like the Play Store discovery experience) and channels, which are good when you don't want to pick something specific to listen to but you just want to play something. All things considered, it's a very different experience from most of the podcasting apps out there that come from the original iTunes-like subscribe experience. It might be better or worse, and this is very personal. But I believe this is moving in a different direction.
- roccozanni 11y ago
  just wanted to add a couple of things other than what @the_bask already said: - live broadcasting and interactivity: our app offer all live broadcasts available on the Spreaker platform. If one of your favorite shows starts a new live stream, you'll be notified in the app, so you can listen to it while it's live and interact with the host using the embedded chat - we know that it's a big claim, but we put A LOT of effort in this app, working since the day one with a clear goal: offer the best experience; I think nobody works so hard with the goal to create NOT the best experience app :) We'll be very happy if you can spend some time playing with the app and tell us what you think it can be improved. Every feedback is welcome, especially the negative ones, so we can learn from them and deliver a better app

the_bask 11y ago

Finally a podcast app that includes some sort of curation; it feels weird to have to get most of the recommendations elsewhere and then having to look for a specific show.

DanBC 11y ago
Your account appears to have been dead for a very long time. The few comments you've made are good so I vouched for them. You may want to email mods to see what tripped their filters? (Although here you say "finally", yet you've submitted 3 articles about spreaker about 2000 days ago.)

emanuele_r 11y ago

Great job guys! App UX is absolutely slick :)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

DrScump 11y ago

It is really nice to see an app that doesn't harvest one's contacts / location / other unnecessary data that a user has to fear will be sold or misused.