r/pocketcasts

I played a podcast from Primary Technology and it was a video. When did PocketCasts start to support video podcasts? It's great to see!

I signed up for the 30-day trial to give Premium a go, only to realise shortly after that there's a 60-day trial via guest passes. Lesson learned—I definitely should have checked this sub first!

Is there any chance support would extend my trial, or am I out of luck? Also, for those who use it, is the approx. £40 subscription cost actually worth it?

Hi,

I'm relatively new to Pocketcasts but so far liking it. One thing I'd like to do is to block or hide podcasts that I don't like from appearing in my discover feed so that I can more efficiently browse for new podcasts.

Can I do this on Pocketcast and how?

Thanks

Avid Pocketcasts user since 2018 here, with over 280 days of cumulative listening. I moved to Pocketcasts 8 years ago because it was the only podcast app I could find with an iOS and Mac OS app to sync playing between them. I've mostly been very happy, but the Mac app stop working for me ~1 year ago. I was bummed, but switched to the website UI pretty seamlessly.

I've noticed some inconsistencies with the iOS app for a long time now. My most common issue is that I start a podcast on desktop then try to pick it up in the middle while on cell service and the podcast just refuses to play. Usually this is resolved by closing and restarting the app, but not always. Lately it's been happening almost constantly, though, and also failing to start brand new episodes on cell service. What used to be something that would come up from time to time as an annoyance is now basically a non-functional app unless I'm on WiFi.

I've also had issues with episodes not correctly syncing across platform, so when I hit play on another device it rewinds to some much earlier point in the episode and I have to manually fast forward to where I left off.

The final straw though is that today the website is just stopping playback randomly for seemingly no reason? It's happened to me 3 times today. It's fixed by a refresh and hitting play again, but why is it happening in the first place?

Is there anything I can do to alleviate these issues? Are other people experiencing them?

10 year user of Pocket Casts who hasn't updated the app on his primary device for years.

This was because some functions I relied on went from one tap to a several step process.

On my test device, I see PocketCast has restored most one tap functions I want, except "Mark All As Played" This option was in the same menu as the "Download All" command.

Currently one has to select an episode or tap "select episodes", then tap "select all", then open the action bar menu and tap "Mark as Played." There is no reason for this to be the only process.

Have contacted Pocketcast directly with this ask, but putting it here in case the developers check

At this point the app is very close to being ideal and it would be great to go to the current version.

Edited to add: It appears 7-8 years ago there were many posts complaining that Mark All As Played was removed and then no mentions, maybe because everyone gave up hope.

I recently started thinking differently about Pocket Casts’ Trim Silence feature. It is great for saving time, but removing too much silence may also remove some of the processing time our brains need while listening.
Working memory can only handle a limited amount of information at once. While listening to a podcast, the brain needs brief moments to make sense of what was said, connect it to earlier information, and prepare for what comes next. Increasing playback speed reduces those moments, and aggressively trimming pauses may reduce them even more.
Research on accelerated speech found that people had more difficulty recalling information when speech was compressed. When researchers added pauses back at meaningful points, recall improved and listening required less effort.
Other research found that longer pauses helped listeners understand spoken information by providing additional processing time. Interestingly, slowing down the actual speech did not always produce the same benefit. This suggests that pauses between thoughts may be just as important as the speed of the words.
Playback speed and Trim Silence work together:
1.2x with Low Trim Silence speeds up the words but keeps more natural pauses.

1.1x with Medium Trim Silence slows the words slightly but removes more pauses.

1.2x with Mad Max speeds up the words and removes most pauses, leaving less time to mentally process what was said.

The research on faster playback is mixed. Some studies show that people can understand accelerated audio without a major drop in performance. Other research found that faster playback hurt retention for some unfamiliar material. Results can vary depending on the listener and the complexity of the information.
The main point is that silence is not necessarily wasted time. Some pauses give the brain a chance to catch up. Removing every possible silence might make a podcast shorter, but it could also make listening more mentally demanding and make some information harder to remember.
I had been listening at 1.2x with Mad Max Trim Silence. I have now switched to 1.1x with Medium Trim Silence to test whether the slightly slower speed and less aggressive trimming help me process and remember more of what I hear.
Pocket Casts’ individual Trim Silence levels have not been directly studied, so this does not prove that one specific setting is best. It is simply applying what research says about speech rate, pauses, processing time, and memory. A moderate playback speed with less aggressive silence trimming may provide a better balance between saving time and remembering what you heard.

First off - LOVE PocketCasts. It is far and away my most used app and I use it across iPhone and desktop (mac). Thank you, developers!

Recently I've had an issue where if I use my airpods to control pause/play, I can't play it again because my phone seems to forget that I had PocketCasts active. I have to manually re-open the app to press play. I can pause with AirPods, but not play. This morning I paused it and almost instantly went to play it manually from the lcok screen, and the PocketCasts window disappeared under my finger and went to the blank ios "media player" thing with a play button but nothing else.

I think it may just be a hyperactive background refresh thing? Might have nothing to do with AirPods?

The only change I've made recently is adding "Background Sounds" for my tinnitus. But it seems to happen with or without background sounds on.

I recently updated to the newest ios, but this has been happening before and after.

Any advice for me? Thank you again!!!

I just remembered that this is a thing, and I've been a member for months. It's quite amazing that I was able to get Crossroads of Ravens for 'free'.

I am on 8.17 (9444) on One UI 8.5 Android 15, Galaxy A57, Galaxy Buds FE

Performance has always been great until lately, I have started getting audio glitches like it skips and makes the listening really horrible, it's like interference but happens out and about too so isn't solely in my home, turning off increased speed and trim silence seems to solve but I hate listening at standard 1x, anybody else having similar issues or can advise what could be causing this?

I’ve requested this before. Hopefully it’s in the works.

I listen to 12 music podcasts to discover and buy new music. On average, it’s 40 minutes of music for every 20 minutes of host talk. I very rarely care for what the hosts say, and if my hands are free I fast-forward.

I wish there was a feature to detect and skip speaking voice in music podcasts (and vice-versa).

(Alternatively, does anybody know of a podcast player with that specific feature?)