44 ms·

A Mac Podcast App You Can't Have

226 points by steve228uk 9y ago

skinnymuch 9y ago
That's cool that he was able to get a whole Mac app finished. Unfortunate that none of it seems to be open sourced, at least the non-private API parts. But maybe he plans to use the code to monetize something different in the future. On the other hand, for best iOS/Mac podcast app, I haven't been completely happy with any for years. New ones with smart speed - great feature, but I like one feature above all else. My favorite app was Instacast for iOS because it let me add time stamped bookmarks/notes. Audible has something similar. None of the apps mentioned in Product Hunt or his blog post seem to support this. Such a bummer. I paid for Instacast 5 before it was removed. It started crashing at launch on iOS 10 however. Edit: I recognize not many people, likely a single digit percentage of podcast app users would care for bookmarking/notes (thanks Void_)
- Void_ 9y ago
  Do a lot of people share this pain? It sounds like a very niche problem to me (as a macOS dev). But if those bookmarks/notes is a problem to a lot of people, then it might just be worth looking into.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Nope, doubt it's a feature many people care about. I should specify that in my comment now actually. Thanks.
    - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
      Imagine if you could share the notes. And the notes could be structured. And you could tweak your player to react to notes in various ways. We could have crowd-sourced ad-'blocking' on podcasts!
      - skinnymuch 9y ago
        Hah. That is true. Actually I have extensive time stamped notes for hundreds of podcast episodes including their ads starting and ending, but personally I'm against ad blocking. I've been in the process of removing those parts before publishing my bookmarks/notes.
        oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
        I think I agree, much as I hate ads! There is something about podcast ads that I find much more acceptable than most other forms; the only slight downside is they tend to be quite repetitive, both within shows, and across them. It would certainly be useful to have notes for a whole range of other benefits e.g. making it much easier to search an old episode for a specific topic.
        skinnymuch 9y ago
        That's actually why I started tracking the ad times. The same podcasts I listen to usually rotate through the same ads. So I would end up skipping them and noting it for fav episodes that I might come back to. Same issue ads on YouTube or Hulu when they become repetitive. I'm trying to not be against ad blocking, but when that happens, it's almost impossible to not be annoyed. And yeah the other use cases help for sure!
  - tommorris 9y ago
    If you think about it as "bookmarking" - no, don't care. Bookmarking usually implies a manual, fragile process. Being half way through on iOS, then being able to continue listening exactly at the same point on MacOS - yes. That's something iTunes and the iPod supported since day zero, and nobody else has yet properly replicated. And it's really useful if you listen to podcasts longer than about five minutes long.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Use Android :) MortPlayer has that feature.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    I admit I always prefer iOS over Android, but I already use a 2nd device as a music player. I can use another spare Galaxy now as my music player and as my podcast player with MortPlayer. Thanks!
ericzawo 9y ago
You know, it really is insane Apple continues to push this "we're a music company" narrative, especially with the release of The Defiant Ones. iTunes has been a car accident for over a decade, and the release of Apple Music has only further exemplified that the whole thing needs an overhaul.
- itg 9y ago
  What's wrong with Apple Music? I switched over from Spotify because it has better integration with iOS and it has a similar library and neither service has a distinguishing feature that makes it really stand out.
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    idk about the parent but I like the community albums in spotify and the radio from playlist feature that kinda learns my preferences
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jakebasile 9y ago
    Apple Music has some things Spotify doesn't have, some out of the control of Spotify Inc, some they choose to ignore: - Siri integration (this is Apple's fault, no reason not to open SiriKit to music services) - An Apple TV App (This is on Spotify, it's been asked for forever) - An Apple Watch App (This is also on Spotify, but there are rumors it's coming soon) But there are some real downsides to Apple Music vs Spotify: - Apple Music's playlists aren't as good, community playlists are tough to find. I've found links to Spotify playlists filled with interesting music, no luck for Apple Music. - Apple Music's radio is subjectively worse. Repeats far too often. - iTunes is a travesty and I'm forced to use it to listen on my desktop. It's slow, ugly, tough to navigate, terrible to search. It does 500 things and none of them well. - The Apple Music app on iOS isn't much better. UI is scattershot and it is tough to do some things that shouldn't be. - No cross-device play state sync. For example, if I start listening to a playlist on Spotify I can start at the same point in the song and pick up exactly where I was on any other device. - Social integration - I can send Spotify previews to people via Facebook Messenger, and Spotify integrates with other social stuff. Apple Music is all by itself. I think a big issue that Apple will run into is that they insist on tying releases of Apple Music to iOS releases. Spotify can release new versions whenever they want, but because Apple didn't announce something like cross device state sync there's no chance I'll get it until at least next year. I have both Spotify and Apple Music, but I'm not 100% happy with either.
pikepory 9y ago
I use Pocket Casts in its own window with Fluid[1]. It's too bad it doesn't support media keys, but someone could create a Chrome extension to control playback, similar to how it's done with Google Play Music. [1] http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidapp.com/
- rrdharan 9y ago
  I do the same thing, with Overcast.
scott113341 9y ago
I use PocketCasts in conjunction with BeardedSpice [1] to forward media key commands. It works very well! [1] https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice
eludwig 9y ago
I realize that this is about Mac podcast apps (hopefully you won't mind a quick diversion), but I'd like to quickly plug my favorite iOS podcast app: Castro (no relation, just a happy user) I tried Overcast and really loved the features (smart speed, etc.) but I didn't love the queue handling. It's not that there was anything wrong with Overcast in that regard. It certainly works fine (it's a great app), but it didn't map to the way I listen to podcasts. Castro is ideal if you only have a few hours a week to listen to the occasional podcast and you don't always listen to every episode of every podcast. All other podcast apps (disclaimer: that I know of) have an on/off relationship with podcasts. You are either subscribed or you are not. If you are, you can specify how many of the podcast episodes to automatically download and put in your queue. So if you like to listen to occasional episodes of, say, a hundred podcasts, you will use a TON of storage. Castro has a triage model. When you subscribe to a podcast, you can have the app automatically either queue it up immediately (like the traditional method) or have it appear in your inbox (along with a notification), which is a kind of temporary time-based view of recent arrived episodes, or you can have it put in the archive, which is where all of the older episodes eventually go. You can always queue up an episode from any of these locations. The best part is that only things that you put (or specify to automatically add, which I never do) in the "listening to now" queue are actually downloaded. So if you keep that list at 5 podcasts, then only those 5 are downloaded. Very nice and a perfect match for my use.
- hammock 9y ago
  Castro is discussed in the OP article..
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    In passing in one paragraph. This is much more substantial and has convinced me to try it out.
mark212 9y ago
My suggestion to the developer would be to talk to the Pocket Casts people about offering the desktop client as an in-app purchase and share those revenues (easily traceable) with the dev. Maybe they could create a special authorization key that would allow access to the unofficial API without locking that account. The app gets a desktop version and the dev gets some revenue for his trouble, and Pocket Casts has some increased income to support any additional load on its servers (plus profits). Just a thought. Tell me why I'm wrong / horribly naive / etc
- masklinn 9y ago
  The only thing I don't get is why the desktop version would be an IAP of the mobile one, that makes no sense. Though it would probably have been a better idea to do that before they discover you've spent the last week publicly tweeting about unauthorised use of their internal API.
- halflings 9y ago
  They already make people pay separately for the web version (even if you already own the Android/iOS one), but it's understandable that there's much less people listening to podcasts on desktop, so they think it's not worth developing a proper desktop app.
- criddell 9y ago
  One snag may be the collection of metrics. Marketing people seem to have realized that there's a burgeoning market that they haven't destroyed yet and they seem determined to correct this oversight. If they decide that they need to monitor listeners or make sure they can't skip ads, then third party clients are going to never happen.
- memsom 9y ago
  My suggestion to the developer would be to offer the app to Pocketcasts for a fee based on his daily rate (to cover the time he took to wrote it) plus a reasonable royalty percentage per year. He could then have his app, not need to maintain it at his own cost and possibly make a bit of cash from the royalty. If the Pocketcast people give it away for free, he makes only the dev cost back - but doesn't lose much really - but he gains the app he wanted.
delgaudm 9y ago
I agree that it does continue to be a problem. I've yet to find a suitable solution for recommendations that adequately surface more obscure titles. Likewise when you have a subscription / Premium podcast it gets even harder as things like Google Play dont seem to support custom feeds, at least in the Android App. It makes it all the more difficult to monetize and spread your Podcast. Slightly off topic, but I'm a recurring voice actor on the NoSleep Podcast, featured prominently in the imaging on this post. Thanks for Listening!
- swyx 9y ago
  that's pretty random! how did you get to be a voice actor? side gig or main gig?
333c 9y ago
This is something that is severely lacking in my life. The iOS podcasts app is just okay, and the Podcasts section of iTunes on macOS is very bad. It would be amazing if someone came up with a free or one-time-cost macOS podcast app, and it would be even better if it were open source.
- sanjeetsuhag 9y ago
  TBH a native macOS Overcast client would be the best.
- swyx 9y ago
  can i just ask why you want this on desktop so badly vs just continuing on your mobile? its not like your phone ceases to exist when you are working on your desktop? just trying to better understand the psyche of users like yourself.
  - 333c 9y ago
    I like to have certain things available on both platforms. If I am using my laptop, I don't want to have to pull out my phone to listen to podcasts. I want to be able to play and pause on my computer. I use email and messaging on both platforms, and I wish I could do the same with podcasts.
    - kitsunesoba 9y ago
      This sounds a lot like my own usage habits. If I'm using a computer of any sort, I don't want to have to pull out my phone for hardly anything. My phone is for times when a more capable machine isn't readily available.
  - salvar 9y ago
    Can't you make the same argument for any kind of desktop music player? Why have iTunes or a Spotify app when you can just use your phone?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
badprose 9y ago
I recently tried turning the PocketCasts webplayer into an app on chrome and while it worked well, it had a major flaw. I'm stuck at my computer! If I wanted to get a cup of water, check the mail, put clothes in the dryer, whatever, I would have to pause the podcast, or leave it on and lose part of the story. This is fine when I had radio, since I can dip in and out and it doesn't matter much. But if I'm listening to something with a deep plot like Serial or that Halo thing, I don't want to miss a thing.
- throwanem 9y ago
  What Halo thing? I'm always up to hear about new podcasts. Thanks!
  - TaylorAlexander 9y ago
    This made me curious enough to google it. Maybe this? http://huntthetruth.tumblr.com/tagged/s1 http://huntthetruth.tumblr.com/tagged/s1
    - throwanem 9y ago
      Maybe! I didn't Google it; I searched in Overcast, but found nothing clearly relevant. Perhaps if I had the perfect podcast app...anyway, thanks! Even if this isn't the same podcast, I've always been much more fond of the Halo mythos than the actual games, and this looks like being very enjoyable.
      - Kallie898 9y ago
        I get paid over $95 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I've been doing, •••••••••>>http://www.joinmate2.com http://www.joinmate2.com
- _asummers 9y ago
  There's a PocketCasts mobile app on Android that works reasonably well (can't figure out how to set >1x speed) and syncs progress. It should be included with price of web app, imo, but it's cheap enough for the pair that I was ok with it. You have to then carry headphones, and still have to pause, so that seems unsatisfying. Consider getting Chromecast Audios and cheap speakers through your house and creating logical groupings (e.g. I have an "everywhere" group, and common room paths + destinations for various things, like Living Room through Hallway to Bathroom), and using the Cast feature of PocketCasts. Much cheaper than Sonos, etc. and you probably have a bunch of speakers anyway. Also Google Homes double as a good enough speaker in annoying rooms that don't have many outlets, if you're ok with having a microphone in those rooms, and they obviously synergize well with the Chromecast Audios.
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
I've been a happy PocketCasts user for years so maybe a bit biased here, but I think they handled this really well.
mastax 9y ago
If you use the PocketCaster Chrome app, media keys work fine: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocketcaster/jmlelgnlpdinbjemiclfmgcpbpdjlhff?utm_source=chrome-app-launcher-info-dialog https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocketcaster/jmlel...
sillysaurus3 9y ago
Is there any reason not to just release it anyway? Users know the risks with using an unofficial app. Even though they reached out via Twitter with a polite "No," why not counter with a polite "I understand the issues, but I'd still like to release this"? It sounds like Pocket Casts are rather overstating their case. The dev put a lot of work into it. Unless they get a lot of traction, none of the concerns seem to matter much. And if they do get traction, it informs Pocket Cast what they should be building.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  Probably the "getting people's accounts locked" part, which might be too big a risk.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Sure, but users understand the risks. If the dev throws up a splash screen saying "Proceed at your own risk. Your account might get locked," then they can't be held morally accountable for that. I don't know. It would've been an interesting experiment to carry to its natural conclusion.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      On one hand, I agree with you, on the other hand, I'm 100% sure some users will send angry emails to PocketCasts and demand refunds because this third-party app didn't work well (or they couldn't figure something out, or any number of things).
    - bastawhiz 9y ago
      I think it might be a different story if you didn't have to pay to use the web UI (and consequently the desktop app). That's a pretty big risk, and would mean having an awkward conversation with a support person about why you were violating their ToS, and also not being able to use the web or mobile apps anymore.
- itake 9y ago
  I think that users knowing the risks of using an unofficial app is a bad assumption. PocketCasts has many options for blocking the apps use. They can simple secure / update their API regularly, thus breaking the tool or they can simply send him a cease and desist for violating their IP and ToS. PocketCasts would not want this app to exist, because they will be the ones that will have to deal with the influx of support tickets and customer problems related to this unsupported app.
mintplant 9y ago
Well that's disappointing. Don't mind me, just quietly shelving the Pocket Casts API client I was working on...
ndynan 9y ago
You know there is whitespace when a user goes and builds your app for you..... Some product managers from PocketCasts should be reading this thread.
swyx 9y ago
ok i listen to a lot of podcasts and fundamentally dont understand why there is this small group of people who have this deep desire for a desktop podcast client. I don't question that these people exist, but I just don't understand why they prefer desktop over mobile especially when headphones are wireless/you can connect to bluetooth speakers. mobile dominates in every aspect.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  I've given up on finding a good desktop app. I'd like one though. When I'm in my home office I want to use the speakers built into my thunderbolt display and not the phone speakers or headphones. In practice I'm playing podcasts via phone and music via laptop/thunderbolt display. That's because Google Play Music since perfectly and is good for music, but the iPhone podcast app doesn't.
  - chipotle_coyote 9y ago
    I admit that the times I want to play podcasts over my iMac speakers, I use Rogue Amoeba's "Airfoil Satellite" running on the Mac so I can airplay to it. Obviously this is a macOS/iOS-specific solution, but it works well enough. Having said that, in practice I tend to just play podcasts over a Bluetooth speaker (a JBL Flip for years, but as of yesterday a Bose SoundLink Mini II, as the Flip's battery life is down to well under an hour and it was time for a replacement/upgrade).
- djeikyb 9y ago
  Often I'm on my laptop doing something and want to listen to a podcast. Why should I use two computers instead of just the one? Why should I expend both batteries? Also, my macbook does wireless speakers just fine..
- eddieroger 9y ago
  I've been struggling with this, too, but then I realized that even through my home office has a bookshelf receiver that has Spotify capability, as does my iPhone, I still have Spotify installed on my Mac, and use it from time to time. As someone who jumps on video chats or calls pretty regularly, it's nice to have a keyboard key that can stop my music without the need to hop devices. Likewise, if I'm wearing my headphones already, I won't need to switch devices to the computer when one of those calls starts. There are reasons, I guess, and managed to talk myself in to a few.
onesneakymofo 9y ago
Why not use Electron to wrap the Web player?
- Rjevski 9y ago
  Why not just use the web player in this case? Wrapping it in this garbage called Electron will not magically make it any better.
  - onesneakymofo 9y ago
    I know it's resource-heavy, but at least you can start tying your own dedicated hotkeys inand sending out notifications from it. And you can build your own features that make it its own similar to Google Music Desktop Player Plus you don't have to worry about Pocket Casts breathing down your neck because it's still through their system.
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      You can have dedicated hotkeys with chrome if you want, there are extensions for that. I used to have some for google play, although never could get it working with the media keys on my keyboard.
    - Rjevski 9y ago
      The issue is, accepting Electron will encourage more people to make such garbage apps. We need to firmly say no until this fad dies off and people get back to writing proper apps.
cartyboi29 9y ago
YOOOO podcasts are lit fam I just started listening to them check out the turdsters podcasts they talk about funny shit
travmatt 9y ago
I'm surprised I haven't heard Downcast mentioned here yet - it's by far my favorite podcast app. iOS and desktop versions that sync together well.
- chrisrhoden 9y ago
  It's the first recommendation that the article mentions and then dismisses.
  - travmatt 9y ago
    ahh that should teach me to read the article :) but I do disagree with 'the UI could use some work', and I've never found I need the marginal time removed by smart speed.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
Girlang 9y ago
I use Grover. Works great.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gallerdude 9y ago
I've had one semester of Computer Science, and have zero clue of how people do stuff like this. How does he get the UI working so fast and looking so good? How do you reverse engineer an API - this seems like some hacker stuff you'd see in Halt & Catch Fire, in my mind anyways. I'm sure I'll get there, but right now there's a major disconnect between the C investment calculator text program I made, and these super functional, beautiful works of art.
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  Do something every day for 5-10 years and you get better at it? I think it’s good but he’s probably using electron or react native desktop, which cuts out time.
- imjared 9y ago
  I think the things I've been happiest with, at least visually, have been a result of the things I've been the most unhappy with to the point where I want to fix them. Things where I understand how I use them and understand how I'd _prefer_ to use them end up working well. > I've had one semester of Computer Science, and have zero clue of how people do stuff like this. Just wait, I've had about a decade of front-end dev experience and I think I could reverse engineer an API like this (maybe not quite so quickly). What I couldn't do, however, is write a C investment calculator text program. You're a whiz :)
  - vivekseth 9y ago
    I might be taking you too literally, but I think “just wait” is bad advice. Many of my peers at college graduated without ever building anything of substance on their own. Don’t know where they ended up, but I doubt they got good jobs. I think it’s super important for CS students to pursue their interests beyond what’s covered in school. It’s the only way to gain the skills you need to get a good job out of college.
- airza 9y ago
  reverse engineering an HTTP api isn't particularly difficult- it's a pretty simple key-value protocol 99% of the time so you just figure out what the values do through experimentation and tampering.
problems 9y ago
Just release it anyways, their problem that they don't have a public api, not yours. Sometimes you gotta break some rules to do something great.
toyg 9y ago
If I were him I'd try to work out some sort of contracting deal where he sells them the codebase and agrees to support it for X years, for a reasonable price. They would get a finished and polished app with zero effort, while maintaining control on the internal api; and he would get a nice runway to work on this and other projects.
criddell 9y ago
I wonder if he could define the minimal API that his application needs, then write adapters for different podcast services. Maybe one day Pocket Casts will have a public API or perhaps be willing to officially license him to use their private API. Or maybe he should spend next weekend and write the backend part himself. He certain seems to have the talent to do so.
wdhilliard 9y ago
Does anybody know who is actually hosting this content? Does pocket casts host the media files, or is it just a search platform for content hosted elsewhere? Seems like you could end up in a bunch of legal problems considering the number of people trying to own this market right now
tracker1 9y ago
I'm not sure why a Podcast app really needs an independent service, wouldn't it be easy enough to sync against a configuration stored on dropbox/drive, etc? Unless you are following a LOT of podcasts, or on a LOT of devices, it should be easy enough. (Or "self-host" to Azure/AWS/GCP tables/dynamo) For that matter, electron and/or react-native could make it easy enough to create such an application.
sjs382 9y ago
I just wish that PocketCasts web player would also sync playlists.

226 points by steve228uk 9y ago

That's cool that he was able to get a whole Mac app finished. Unfortunate that none of it seems to be open sourced, at least the non-private API parts. But maybe he plans to use the code to monetize something different in the future. On the other hand, for best iOS/Mac podcast app, I haven't been completely happy with any for years. New ones with smart speed - great feature, but I like one feature above all else. My favorite app was Instacast for iOS because it let me add time stamped bookmarks/notes. Audible has something similar. None of the apps mentioned in Product Hunt or his blog post seem to support this. Such a bummer. I paid for Instacast 5 before it was removed. It started crashing at launch on iOS 10 however. Edit: I recognize not many people, likely a single digit percentage of podcast app users would care for bookmarking/notes (thanks Void_)

Void_ 9y ago
Do a lot of people share this pain? It sounds like a very niche problem to me (as a macOS dev). But if those bookmarks/notes is a problem to a lot of people, then it might just be worth looking into.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Nope, doubt it's a feature many people care about. I should specify that in my comment now actually. Thanks.
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    Imagine if you could share the notes. And the notes could be structured. And you could tweak your player to react to notes in various ways. We could have crowd-sourced ad-'blocking' on podcasts!
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      Hah. That is true. Actually I have extensive time stamped notes for hundreds of podcast episodes including their ads starting and ending, but personally I'm against ad blocking. I've been in the process of removing those parts before publishing my bookmarks/notes.
      - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
        I think I agree, much as I hate ads! There is something about podcast ads that I find much more acceptable than most other forms; the only slight downside is they tend to be quite repetitive, both within shows, and across them. It would certainly be useful to have notes for a whole range of other benefits e.g. making it much easier to search an old episode for a specific topic.
        skinnymuch 9y ago
        That's actually why I started tracking the ad times. The same podcasts I listen to usually rotate through the same ads. So I would end up skipping them and noting it for fav episodes that I might come back to. Same issue ads on YouTube or Hulu when they become repetitive. I'm trying to not be against ad blocking, but when that happens, it's almost impossible to not be annoyed. And yeah the other use cases help for sure!
- tommorris 9y ago
  If you think about it as "bookmarking" - no, don't care. Bookmarking usually implies a manual, fragile process. Being half way through on iOS, then being able to continue listening exactly at the same point on MacOS - yes. That's something iTunes and the iPod supported since day zero, and nobody else has yet properly replicated. And it's really useful if you listen to podcasts longer than about five minutes long.
icebraining 9y ago
Use Android :) MortPlayer has that feature.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  I admit I always prefer iOS over Android, but I already use a 2nd device as a music player. I can use another spare Galaxy now as my music player and as my podcast player with MortPlayer. Thanks!

ericzawo 9y ago

You know, it really is insane Apple continues to push this "we're a music company" narrative, especially with the release of The Defiant Ones. iTunes has been a car accident for over a decade, and the release of Apple Music has only further exemplified that the whole thing needs an overhaul.

itg 9y ago
What's wrong with Apple Music? I switched over from Spotify because it has better integration with iOS and it has a similar library and neither service has a distinguishing feature that makes it really stand out.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  idk about the parent but I like the community albums in spotify and the radio from playlist feature that kinda learns my preferences
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jakebasile 9y ago
  Apple Music has some things Spotify doesn't have, some out of the control of Spotify Inc, some they choose to ignore: - Siri integration (this is Apple's fault, no reason not to open SiriKit to music services) - An Apple TV App (This is on Spotify, it's been asked for forever) - An Apple Watch App (This is also on Spotify, but there are rumors it's coming soon) But there are some real downsides to Apple Music vs Spotify: - Apple Music's playlists aren't as good, community playlists are tough to find. I've found links to Spotify playlists filled with interesting music, no luck for Apple Music. - Apple Music's radio is subjectively worse. Repeats far too often. - iTunes is a travesty and I'm forced to use it to listen on my desktop. It's slow, ugly, tough to navigate, terrible to search. It does 500 things and none of them well. - The Apple Music app on iOS isn't much better. UI is scattershot and it is tough to do some things that shouldn't be. - No cross-device play state sync. For example, if I start listening to a playlist on Spotify I can start at the same point in the song and pick up exactly where I was on any other device. - Social integration - I can send Spotify previews to people via Facebook Messenger, and Spotify integrates with other social stuff. Apple Music is all by itself. I think a big issue that Apple will run into is that they insist on tying releases of Apple Music to iOS releases. Spotify can release new versions whenever they want, but because Apple didn't announce something like cross device state sync there's no chance I'll get it until at least next year. I have both Spotify and Apple Music, but I'm not 100% happy with either.

pikepory 9y ago

I use Pocket Casts in its own window with Fluid[1]. It's too bad it doesn't support media keys, but someone could create a Chrome extension to control playback, similar to how it's done with Google Play Music. [1] http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidapp.com/

rrdharan 9y ago
I do the same thing, with Overcast.

scott113341 9y ago

I use PocketCasts in conjunction with BeardedSpice [1] to forward media key commands. It works very well! [1] https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice

eludwig 9y ago

I realize that this is about Mac podcast apps (hopefully you won't mind a quick diversion), but I'd like to quickly plug my favorite iOS podcast app: Castro (no relation, just a happy user) I tried Overcast and really loved the features (smart speed, etc.) but I didn't love the queue handling. It's not that there was anything wrong with Overcast in that regard. It certainly works fine (it's a great app), but it didn't map to the way I listen to podcasts. Castro is ideal if you only have a few hours a week to listen to the occasional podcast and you don't always listen to every episode of every podcast. All other podcast apps (disclaimer: that I know of) have an on/off relationship with podcasts. You are either subscribed or you are not. If you are, you can specify how many of the podcast episodes to automatically download and put in your queue. So if you like to listen to occasional episodes of, say, a hundred podcasts, you will use a TON of storage. Castro has a triage model. When you subscribe to a podcast, you can have the app automatically either queue it up immediately (like the traditional method) or have it appear in your inbox (along with a notification), which is a kind of temporary time-based view of recent arrived episodes, or you can have it put in the archive, which is where all of the older episodes eventually go. You can always queue up an episode from any of these locations. The best part is that only things that you put (or specify to automatically add, which I never do) in the "listening to now" queue are actually downloaded. So if you keep that list at 5 podcasts, then only those 5 are downloaded. Very nice and a perfect match for my use.

hammock 9y ago
Castro is discussed in the OP article..
- Karunamon 9y ago
  In passing in one paragraph. This is much more substantial and has convinced me to try it out.

mark212 9y ago

My suggestion to the developer would be to talk to the Pocket Casts people about offering the desktop client as an in-app purchase and share those revenues (easily traceable) with the dev. Maybe they could create a special authorization key that would allow access to the unofficial API without locking that account. The app gets a desktop version and the dev gets some revenue for his trouble, and Pocket Casts has some increased income to support any additional load on its servers (plus profits). Just a thought. Tell me why I'm wrong / horribly naive / etc

masklinn 9y ago
The only thing I don't get is why the desktop version would be an IAP of the mobile one, that makes no sense. Though it would probably have been a better idea to do that before they discover you've spent the last week publicly tweeting about unauthorised use of their internal API.
halflings 9y ago
They already make people pay separately for the web version (even if you already own the Android/iOS one), but it's understandable that there's much less people listening to podcasts on desktop, so they think it's not worth developing a proper desktop app.
criddell 9y ago
One snag may be the collection of metrics. Marketing people seem to have realized that there's a burgeoning market that they haven't destroyed yet and they seem determined to correct this oversight. If they decide that they need to monitor listeners or make sure they can't skip ads, then third party clients are going to never happen.
memsom 9y ago
My suggestion to the developer would be to offer the app to Pocketcasts for a fee based on his daily rate (to cover the time he took to wrote it) plus a reasonable royalty percentage per year. He could then have his app, not need to maintain it at his own cost and possibly make a bit of cash from the royalty. If the Pocketcast people give it away for free, he makes only the dev cost back - but doesn't lose much really - but he gains the app he wanted.

delgaudm 9y ago

I agree that it does continue to be a problem. I've yet to find a suitable solution for recommendations that adequately surface more obscure titles. Likewise when you have a subscription / Premium podcast it gets even harder as things like Google Play dont seem to support custom feeds, at least in the Android App. It makes it all the more difficult to monetize and spread your Podcast. Slightly off topic, but I'm a recurring voice actor on the NoSleep Podcast, featured prominently in the imaging on this post. Thanks for Listening!

swyx 9y ago
that's pretty random! how did you get to be a voice actor? side gig or main gig?

333c 9y ago

This is something that is severely lacking in my life. The iOS podcasts app is just okay, and the Podcasts section of iTunes on macOS is very bad. It would be amazing if someone came up with a free or one-time-cost macOS podcast app, and it would be even better if it were open source.

sanjeetsuhag 9y ago
TBH a native macOS Overcast client would be the best.
swyx 9y ago
can i just ask why you want this on desktop so badly vs just continuing on your mobile? its not like your phone ceases to exist when you are working on your desktop? just trying to better understand the psyche of users like yourself.
- 333c 9y ago
  I like to have certain things available on both platforms. If I am using my laptop, I don't want to have to pull out my phone to listen to podcasts. I want to be able to play and pause on my computer. I use email and messaging on both platforms, and I wish I could do the same with podcasts.
  - kitsunesoba 9y ago
    This sounds a lot like my own usage habits. If I'm using a computer of any sort, I don't want to have to pull out my phone for hardly anything. My phone is for times when a more capable machine isn't readily available.
- salvar 9y ago
  Can't you make the same argument for any kind of desktop music player? Why have iTunes or a Spotify app when you can just use your phone?

deleted 9y ago

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badprose 9y ago

I recently tried turning the PocketCasts webplayer into an app on chrome and while it worked well, it had a major flaw. I'm stuck at my computer! If I wanted to get a cup of water, check the mail, put clothes in the dryer, whatever, I would have to pause the podcast, or leave it on and lose part of the story. This is fine when I had radio, since I can dip in and out and it doesn't matter much. But if I'm listening to something with a deep plot like Serial or that Halo thing, I don't want to miss a thing.

throwanem 9y ago
What Halo thing? I'm always up to hear about new podcasts. Thanks!
- TaylorAlexander 9y ago
  This made me curious enough to google it. Maybe this? http://huntthetruth.tumblr.com/tagged/s1 http://huntthetruth.tumblr.com/tagged/s1
  - throwanem 9y ago
    Maybe! I didn't Google it; I searched in Overcast, but found nothing clearly relevant. Perhaps if I had the perfect podcast app...anyway, thanks! Even if this isn't the same podcast, I've always been much more fond of the Halo mythos than the actual games, and this looks like being very enjoyable.
    - Kallie898 9y ago
      I get paid over $95 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I've been doing, •••••••••>>http://www.joinmate2.com http://www.joinmate2.com
_asummers 9y ago
There's a PocketCasts mobile app on Android that works reasonably well (can't figure out how to set >1x speed) and syncs progress. It should be included with price of web app, imo, but it's cheap enough for the pair that I was ok with it. You have to then carry headphones, and still have to pause, so that seems unsatisfying. Consider getting Chromecast Audios and cheap speakers through your house and creating logical groupings (e.g. I have an "everywhere" group, and common room paths + destinations for various things, like Living Room through Hallway to Bathroom), and using the Cast feature of PocketCasts. Much cheaper than Sonos, etc. and you probably have a bunch of speakers anyway. Also Google Homes double as a good enough speaker in annoying rooms that don't have many outlets, if you're ok with having a microphone in those rooms, and they obviously synergize well with the Chromecast Audios.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

I've been a happy PocketCasts user for years so maybe a bit biased here, but I think they handled this really well.

mastax 9y ago

If you use the PocketCaster Chrome app, media keys work fine: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocketcaster/jmlelgnlpdinbjemiclfmgcpbpdjlhff?utm_source=chrome-app-launcher-info-dialog https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocketcaster/jmlel...

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Is there any reason not to just release it anyway? Users know the risks with using an unofficial app. Even though they reached out via Twitter with a polite "No," why not counter with a polite "I understand the issues, but I'd still like to release this"? It sounds like Pocket Casts are rather overstating their case. The dev put a lot of work into it. Unless they get a lot of traction, none of the concerns seem to matter much. And if they do get traction, it informs Pocket Cast what they should be building.

StavrosK 9y ago
Probably the "getting people's accounts locked" part, which might be too big a risk.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Sure, but users understand the risks. If the dev throws up a splash screen saying "Proceed at your own risk. Your account might get locked," then they can't be held morally accountable for that. I don't know. It would've been an interesting experiment to carry to its natural conclusion.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    On one hand, I agree with you, on the other hand, I'm 100% sure some users will send angry emails to PocketCasts and demand refunds because this third-party app didn't work well (or they couldn't figure something out, or any number of things).
  - bastawhiz 9y ago
    I think it might be a different story if you didn't have to pay to use the web UI (and consequently the desktop app). That's a pretty big risk, and would mean having an awkward conversation with a support person about why you were violating their ToS, and also not being able to use the web or mobile apps anymore.
itake 9y ago
I think that users knowing the risks of using an unofficial app is a bad assumption. PocketCasts has many options for blocking the apps use. They can simple secure / update their API regularly, thus breaking the tool or they can simply send him a cease and desist for violating their IP and ToS. PocketCasts would not want this app to exist, because they will be the ones that will have to deal with the influx of support tickets and customer problems related to this unsupported app.

mintplant 9y ago

Well that's disappointing. Don't mind me, just quietly shelving the Pocket Casts API client I was working on...

ndynan 9y ago

You know there is whitespace when a user goes and builds your app for you..... Some product managers from PocketCasts should be reading this thread.

swyx 9y ago

ok i listen to a lot of podcasts and fundamentally dont understand why there is this small group of people who have this deep desire for a desktop podcast client. I don't question that these people exist, but I just don't understand why they prefer desktop over mobile especially when headphones are wireless/you can connect to bluetooth speakers. mobile dominates in every aspect.

ajmurmann 9y ago
I've given up on finding a good desktop app. I'd like one though. When I'm in my home office I want to use the speakers built into my thunderbolt display and not the phone speakers or headphones. In practice I'm playing podcasts via phone and music via laptop/thunderbolt display. That's because Google Play Music since perfectly and is good for music, but the iPhone podcast app doesn't.
- chipotle_coyote 9y ago
  I admit that the times I want to play podcasts over my iMac speakers, I use Rogue Amoeba's "Airfoil Satellite" running on the Mac so I can airplay to it. Obviously this is a macOS/iOS-specific solution, but it works well enough. Having said that, in practice I tend to just play podcasts over a Bluetooth speaker (a JBL Flip for years, but as of yesterday a Bose SoundLink Mini II, as the Flip's battery life is down to well under an hour and it was time for a replacement/upgrade).
djeikyb 9y ago
Often I'm on my laptop doing something and want to listen to a podcast. Why should I use two computers instead of just the one? Why should I expend both batteries? Also, my macbook does wireless speakers just fine..
eddieroger 9y ago
I've been struggling with this, too, but then I realized that even through my home office has a bookshelf receiver that has Spotify capability, as does my iPhone, I still have Spotify installed on my Mac, and use it from time to time. As someone who jumps on video chats or calls pretty regularly, it's nice to have a keyboard key that can stop my music without the need to hop devices. Likewise, if I'm wearing my headphones already, I won't need to switch devices to the computer when one of those calls starts. There are reasons, I guess, and managed to talk myself in to a few.

onesneakymofo 9y ago

Why not use Electron to wrap the Web player?

Rjevski 9y ago
Why not just use the web player in this case? Wrapping it in this garbage called Electron will not magically make it any better.
- onesneakymofo 9y ago
  I know it's resource-heavy, but at least you can start tying your own dedicated hotkeys inand sending out notifications from it. And you can build your own features that make it its own similar to Google Music Desktop Player Plus you don't have to worry about Pocket Casts breathing down your neck because it's still through their system.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    You can have dedicated hotkeys with chrome if you want, there are extensions for that. I used to have some for google play, although never could get it working with the media keys on my keyboard.
  - Rjevski 9y ago
    The issue is, accepting Electron will encourage more people to make such garbage apps. We need to firmly say no until this fad dies off and people get back to writing proper apps.

cartyboi29 9y ago

YOOOO podcasts are lit fam I just started listening to them check out the turdsters podcasts they talk about funny shit

travmatt 9y ago

I'm surprised I haven't heard Downcast mentioned here yet - it's by far my favorite podcast app. iOS and desktop versions that sync together well.

chrisrhoden 9y ago
It's the first recommendation that the article mentions and then dismisses.
- travmatt 9y ago
  ahh that should teach me to read the article :) but I do disagree with 'the UI could use some work', and I've never found I need the marginal time removed by smart speed.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

Girlang 9y ago

I use Grover. Works great.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gallerdude 9y ago

I've had one semester of Computer Science, and have zero clue of how people do stuff like this. How does he get the UI working so fast and looking so good? How do you reverse engineer an API - this seems like some hacker stuff you'd see in Halt & Catch Fire, in my mind anyways. I'm sure I'll get there, but right now there's a major disconnect between the C investment calculator text program I made, and these super functional, beautiful works of art.

andy_ppp 9y ago
Do something every day for 5-10 years and you get better at it? I think it’s good but he’s probably using electron or react native desktop, which cuts out time.
imjared 9y ago
I think the things I've been happiest with, at least visually, have been a result of the things I've been the most unhappy with to the point where I want to fix them. Things where I understand how I use them and understand how I'd _prefer_ to use them end up working well. > I've had one semester of Computer Science, and have zero clue of how people do stuff like this. Just wait, I've had about a decade of front-end dev experience and I think I could reverse engineer an API like this (maybe not quite so quickly). What I couldn't do, however, is write a C investment calculator text program. You're a whiz :)
- vivekseth 9y ago
  I might be taking you too literally, but I think “just wait” is bad advice. Many of my peers at college graduated without ever building anything of substance on their own. Don’t know where they ended up, but I doubt they got good jobs. I think it’s super important for CS students to pursue their interests beyond what’s covered in school. It’s the only way to gain the skills you need to get a good job out of college.
airza 9y ago
reverse engineering an HTTP api isn't particularly difficult- it's a pretty simple key-value protocol 99% of the time so you just figure out what the values do through experimentation and tampering.

problems 9y ago

Just release it anyways, their problem that they don't have a public api, not yours. Sometimes you gotta break some rules to do something great.

toyg 9y ago

If I were him I'd try to work out some sort of contracting deal where he sells them the codebase and agrees to support it for X years, for a reasonable price. They would get a finished and polished app with zero effort, while maintaining control on the internal api; and he would get a nice runway to work on this and other projects.

criddell 9y ago

I wonder if he could define the minimal API that his application needs, then write adapters for different podcast services. Maybe one day Pocket Casts will have a public API or perhaps be willing to officially license him to use their private API. Or maybe he should spend next weekend and write the backend part himself. He certain seems to have the talent to do so.

wdhilliard 9y ago

Does anybody know who is actually hosting this content? Does pocket casts host the media files, or is it just a search platform for content hosted elsewhere? Seems like you could end up in a bunch of legal problems considering the number of people trying to own this market right now

tracker1 9y ago

I'm not sure why a Podcast app really needs an independent service, wouldn't it be easy enough to sync against a configuration stored on dropbox/drive, etc? Unless you are following a LOT of podcasts, or on a LOT of devices, it should be easy enough. (Or "self-host" to Azure/AWS/GCP tables/dynamo) For that matter, electron and/or react-native could make it easy enough to create such an application.

sjs382 9y ago

I just wish that PocketCasts web player would also sync playlists.