Pros: Historically important, “Front Page of Podcasting,” comes bundled by default if you’re an iPhone userĬons: Kind of a pain to use, not available on Android Now, the Apple Podcast app is only available on iPhones, so if you’re an Android user, everything we just discussed won’t apply to you. The prominence of Apple Podcast’s “Browse” page will very likely change in the near future, as more platforms work to deliver better discovery features and chart ranking systems, but for now, the Apple Podcasts app remains the front page of podcasting. Publishers big and small continue to fret over the curated show carousel and obsess over charts placements - which, by the way, are meant to be indicators of “popularity” and “buzziness,” but can very easily be gamed. Those two things remain the most important pieces of marketing real estate in the podcast industry to this day. The app’s most valuable components can be found in its discovery features, particularly its Browse tab, which serve listeners with an editor-curated page of selected shows and other various charts. Its search tool is only marginally helpful. The user experience is bare-bones and fairly clunky, even when it comes to basic functions like subscribing. It’s a bummer, then, that the Apple Podcast app isn’t a particularly good experience. The app, which comes bundled with your standard iPhone by default, is historically important to the medium, because for most casual listeners with iPhones, it was likely their introduction to the wide universe of podcasts. We can’t talk about podcasts without talking about Apple Podcasts. Pros: Smooth user experience, great for casual listeners, available on iOS and AndroidĬons: Not the strongest discovery features (For the civically minded, Pocket Casts has the additional distinction of being owned by a coalition of public-radio organizations, including NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ, and This American Life.) There will probably come a day when we see stronger contenders - given all the experimentation, it’s easy to anticipate a near future where Spotify becomes essential (more on that below) - but for now, Pocket Casts offers a bit of polish around strong basic functions. It’s easy to pick up and learn, gets you listening to podcasts quickly without having to think too much about it, and it doesn’t bug out all that much. The app has a cozy look and user experience, featuring a main “Podcast” tab listing all of your subscriptions as a satisfying scrolling wall of tiles. Hard call, but at this point I recommend the generally well-regarded Pocket Casts for most people: heavy listeners, casual listeners, first timers, students, grandparents, and so on.
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