Downcast for Android

Best podcast app to organize your podcasts and choose the order you want to listen to them.

This app is everything I’d want in a player - it has all the features I want. Sadly, however, it’s very bad at playing podcasts. It is one of *the* buggiest pieces of software I’ve run across. It consistently starts playing episodes of other podcasts, instead of the one I just chose. Or, sometimes it plays different episodes of the same podcast. It doesn’t remember what podcast I was in when I leave the app, so I have to scroll through a dozen to find what I’m looking for. Sometimes playback gets a “glitch” where it starts repeating the same 15 seconds until I force-quit. It handles changing networks, like switching from Wi-Fi to cellular because I walked out to my car, particularly ungracefully, by throwing a modal dialog box about playback errors. These errors will persist, *even* after the connection is restored, until I force-quit the app. It’s like it caches a error state somewhere then forgets to re-check connectivity. The UI makes it very difficult to scrub to the beginning or end of an episode because the start and end points and right up against the edges of the screen. But mostly, this app is incredibly maddening because it simply is bad doing the job of playing back an MP3 file from a remote server. They should really try to get that part right.

I’ve used Downcast for many years. Love the interface and how the app works with a wide range of controls on headphones, earbuds, and automotive systems. I really value the ability to backup all my media on my Android. Those files are them backed up everyday when my phone is backed up to iCloud. I have long, carefully constructed playlists of programs and podcast series. Before Downcast, I wasn't always able to redownload them after a phone upgrade.

If you listen to podcasts, you should be using Downcast. I understand some other apps might look better, but Downcast has a better grip on how people listen to podcasts and sets the app up this way. I've stopped listening to podcasts that don't offer their feed on Downcast

This is the best podcast player there is. Simple to play and learn