You can skip podcasts back and forth and change the reading speed if you are a fast listener and want to save some time. Google Podcasts offers plenty of options to play around with when you are listening to your favorite podcast. Google automatically displays podcasts based on your location, which is cool, but what if I want to change my region? 3. That will change the recommended podcasts in all categories. No donation option though.Īll the podcasts are neatly arranged in categories, and you can set the region at the bottom of the screen. However, when you tap on a podcast, you will see more details like site link, publisher details, and release frequency. I can subscribe to a podcast directly from the Discovery tab without going inside. With Pocket Casts, all my subscribed podcasts are available on a separate tab. You can subscribe, donate if you like their work, and listen to individual podcasts. Going back and forth, or rather up and down, felt like wasting time.Ĭlicking on a podcast will reveal more options. I had to scroll a lot to find all the possible categories that Podcasts had to offer. A minimalist approach works, but only up to a certain extent. It is amazing how neatly everything has been organized in Google Podcasts after noticing that the app has a single screen layout with no menu or tabs. Finally, there is the Profile tab which will show you some interesting stats about your listening habits. Then there is the Filters tab where you can sort through your subscribed podcasts and even create new filters giving you more granular control over podcasts using lists. I liked the Discovery tab, which makes it easy to search for new podcasts using categories.
Pocket Casts has a better UI with a navigation bar at the bottom with four self-explanatory tabs. The UI is neat, easy to use, and with little options to distract you. Scroll a little more, and you will find options to discover trending and top podcasts from different niches. You will see a list of all the subscribed podcasts at the top with a way to shift through new, in progress, and downloaded podcasts below that.
The material design theme that Google adopted for so many apps is visible on full display in Podcasts. And if it is, what else does it offer? Let’s find out. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.Let’s see whether Pocket Casts is indeed better at handling podcasts than Google Podcasts. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go.
Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories.
Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more.