Simple podcast app?

[dylane]

I'm looking for a simple podcast app. I've been using Doggcatcher, but fine the automation frustrating. I just want to search for podcasts, subscribe, view a list of episode descriptions, and then quickly go through and manually choose which ones to download. Same goes for deleting. Both options should be one, or two at the most, clicks.

I don't mind paying for an app, but I want to know that it works for me first.

 

[dylane]

So a short summary of the apps I've tried so far.

Doggcatcher - paid for this and used it for a number of months, but I realized how annoyed I was with the automation getting in my way after I went back to my N800 for a couple of weeks and used its media player.

Podkicker - Read some good reviews and liked how they were really clear and upfront about what permissions were used for. But it was still two clicks to start a download, meaning I can't just quickly go through an episode list and pick all the podcasts I want to queue for download. Pro version has apparently an entirely different UI, which uses automatic rules for downloading and deleting

AntennaPod - Used this for a bit when I first got my phone. I remember thinking that the UI was kind of confusing, but don't remember that clearly. Might have to give it a try again to refresh my memory.

Doubletwist - Downloaded this, but to unlock podcast support is $9.99, which is expensive, especially since I don't know if it handles podcasts the way I'd like.

AstroPlayer, Rocket Player, and ZPlayer are all media players with podcast support. I like the idea of an integrated music and podcast player so that there isn't the chance of the media player picking up BT commands that were meant for the Podcast player, and vice versa. But I haven't tried any of them yet.

Any others that I should give a try that might have good support for manual management?

 

[yabadabadoo]

I use and recommend Podcast Addict.

 

[dylane]

Update:

Tried Rocket Player and Astro. Rocket Player doesn't seem to allow you to subscribe and download podcasts to the device at all, and this isn't listed as a premium feature either. As far as I can tell you're supposed to sync with something like iTunes using an addon.

Astro Player seems to work only through adding a Feedly account, which I don't want to use. You might also be able to add the RSS feed to the subscription manually, but I'd prefer to be able to search a directory. The UI didn't really appeal to me either right off the bat, but I'm sure I'd get used to it. Probably need to come back and actually add a feed to see how well it handles manual downloads.

ZPlayer doesn't seem to have a free version to try or demo. So if anyone uses this for podcasts I'd appreciate hearing how it works.

I redownloaded AntennaPod, and it uses Miro for its podcast search function, but so far I haven't been able to find even one podcast that I currently listen to in Miro's listings, so I need to manually subscribe. I also find the UI confusing. I have to click on a button to bring up a menu to start downloading an episode, but I get no indication (that I can tell) that it is downloading or when it is done. Clicking on the episode just brings up the description of the episode, and it isn't clear how to actually start playing it.

It doesn't seem like this should be so hard to find. For an example of what I'm looking for see this Youtube video of Canola2 podcast support.

 

[dylane]

I use and recommend Podcast Addict.

Thanks. Just downloaded and am checking it out. This seems to be the closest I've found to what I'm looking for, thanks to the "Action mode" that lets me select a bunch of episodes for bulk download or delete. I wish it would default to the action mode, instead of making me go through the menus to activate it each time. I also think the indicator that an episode has been downloaded isn't really clear, and could be better differentiated.

Still, definitely the best I've seen so far on Android.

 

[FishenFool]

I like Beyond Pod.

 

[dylane]

Another update. I ended up playing around a bit more with AntennaPod, and for some reason I'm now able to find most of my podcasts using hte search function (I think you have to use the start of the string, not just any keyword). With that, and a couple of other improvements that have been made in the last few months since I used it last, it now seems like a pretty decent podcasting client. I think I'm going to use it for a few weeks and see how it goes. I like that it is open source and has an active community developing for it.

 

[gingersnapgirl]

I'm looking for a simple podcast app. I've been using Doggcatcher, but fine the automation frustrating. I just want to search for podcasts, subscribe, view a list of episode descriptions, and then quickly go through and manually choose which ones to download. Same goes for deleting. Both options should be one, or two at the most, clicks.

I don't mind paying for an app, but I want to know that it works for me first.

If I'm understanding correctly what you're looking for, ZPlayer does this. You can choose to subscribe to a podcast, or download individual episodes.if you subscribe, you can choose to either auto download new episodes (options) or still download manually.

 

[whhsh]

Just chiming in to second Beyond Pod. I like that I can just search for a feed and add it, then download or stream episodes. You can create a playlist and go from one podcast to the next. Pretty nifty!

Amy