App Review 4: Apple Podcasts

A few weeks ago Apple completed a major update of its Podcasts app for iOS. Overall I think it is a good update. In this update we see the first signs of Apple moving away from its trademark “skewmorphic” graphics. In this update the reel to reel graphics have been replace with a much simpler and sleeker style.

The main reason why I like this app is because this is the first podcast manager I have come across that has dedicated buttons for editing and deleting individual podcast episodes. Other apps have ways of doing this, like swiping, but they are not immediately obvious, unless I have missed them.

To subscribe to a podcast, double tap the Store button. Search for the podcast you want, double tap on the title, and then double tap on the subscribe button. Double tap on the Library button at the top of the Store screen to return to your podcast library list.

To play a podcast episode, double tap on the podcast title. You will then see a list of episodes for that podcast. Double tap on the episode title and that episode will start playing. Once the episode starts playing, you have the standard play deck buttons. You can double tap the play/pause button to pause the episode, or double tap the skip back or skip forward buttons to skip back or forward 15 seconds.

Once you have finished listening to that episode, you can delete that episode. Double tap on the Edit button in the Episodes screen, then double tap on the episode title you want to delete. You will then see the message “1 file added to edit”. You can double tap on as many episodes as you like to add them to the list of episodes to edit. Then double tap on the delete button, and those episodes are deleted. You can also mark episodes as read or unread once you have selected the episodes you want to edit. To exit Edit mode, double tap on the Done button in the episodes list screen.

Overall I think that this is a good app for managing podcasts on my iOS devices. The iPhone version is better than the iPad version for one reason: The iPhone version has a Back to Library button in the episodes list screen. The iPad version does not seem to have such a button, which is a little frustrating, unless I’ve missed it again. I would prefer to use this app on my iPad because my iPad has greater internal storage than my iPhone. For that reason alone, I give this app 4 out of 5 stars.