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> Also, I've tried 4 different podcast players and they're all terrible except for Spotify's. You’re the first person I’ve heard with anything positive to say

> Also, I've tried 4 different podcast players and they're all terrible except for Spotify's. You’re the first person I’ve heard with anything positive to say about their podcast UI, so I’m really curious what those four are.

cccybernetic 4y ago
"Terrible" was too strong of a word -- I actually like Overcast, but find Spotify superior.
eastbound 4y ago
> so I’m really curious what those four are. Apple’s podcasts app goes out of its way to avoid showing the tracklist of the current channel or the list of recently played podcasts, or to make you misclick on the little channel name which changes the current track (given that you can’t list the recently played, any misclick is a major annoyance). I think they might have hired a AUX, an “anti-user experience” engineer.
- mrcwinn 4y ago
  I use Apple Podcasts every day and experience none of these problems. Maybe give it another try if and when Spotify’s extra layer on ad logos and banners wears on you.
  - hnzix 4y ago
    Trying to setup chronological podcast playback on the Apple Podcast is horrible, and they are constantly fiddling with the terrible UI. I just want to binge 5 consecutive episodes of a history podcast, but everything in the UI tries to funnel you into listening to the latest episode of multiple podcasts.
    - mr_toad 4y ago
      It also seems to be impossible to get it to automatically download episodes in chronological order. It only wants to download new episodes. So if you run out of downloaded episodes it will skip forward to the new episodes, which could be years apart.
    - mbreese 4y ago
      Funny thing - this works very well, so long as you don’t use the UI. At least, it has recently, I do t know if things changed. I was listening to a history podcast (British History podcast), which has been going on for years. I listen while running, so it’s managed on my phone. For a while, I would occasionally get the app trying to skip ahead, but only if it had issues downloading the next episode (again, I was out running). I eventually just downloaded batches of 10-20 episodes and everything worked perfectly in chronological order. And more recently, it all “just worked” even while new episodes were released. My guess is that some behavior recently changed, but I can’t confirm it. So, I think the UX goal is to try to get you some content of it has issues with the next chronological episode.
- threeseed 4y ago
  There is a Recently Played screen. It is accessible from Listen Now at the very bottom.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    Oh damn. See, that’s what I mean with bad UX: I’ve been searching for that since they swapped everything around last summer.

cccybernetic 4y ago

"Terrible" was too strong of a word -- I actually like Overcast, but find Spotify superior.

eastbound 4y ago

> so I’m really curious what those four are. Apple’s podcasts app goes out of its way to avoid showing the tracklist of the current channel or the list of recently played podcasts, or to make you misclick on the little channel name which changes the current track (given that you can’t list the recently played, any misclick is a major annoyance). I think they might have hired a AUX, an “anti-user experience” engineer.

mrcwinn 4y ago
I use Apple Podcasts every day and experience none of these problems. Maybe give it another try if and when Spotify’s extra layer on ad logos and banners wears on you.
- hnzix 4y ago
  Trying to setup chronological podcast playback on the Apple Podcast is horrible, and they are constantly fiddling with the terrible UI. I just want to binge 5 consecutive episodes of a history podcast, but everything in the UI tries to funnel you into listening to the latest episode of multiple podcasts.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    It also seems to be impossible to get it to automatically download episodes in chronological order. It only wants to download new episodes. So if you run out of downloaded episodes it will skip forward to the new episodes, which could be years apart.
  - mbreese 4y ago
    Funny thing - this works very well, so long as you don’t use the UI. At least, it has recently, I do t know if things changed. I was listening to a history podcast (British History podcast), which has been going on for years. I listen while running, so it’s managed on my phone. For a while, I would occasionally get the app trying to skip ahead, but only if it had issues downloading the next episode (again, I was out running). I eventually just downloaded batches of 10-20 episodes and everything worked perfectly in chronological order. And more recently, it all “just worked” even while new episodes were released. My guess is that some behavior recently changed, but I can’t confirm it. So, I think the UX goal is to try to get you some content of it has issues with the next chronological episode.
threeseed 4y ago
There is a Recently Played screen. It is accessible from Listen Now at the very bottom.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Oh damn. See, that’s what I mean with bad UX: I’ve been searching for that since they swapped everything around last summer.