I’ve been warming up to switching to GrapheneOS for months. Last month I bought a Pixel 8 (which is the buggiest effing phone I’ve ever owned, good job Google). I’ve just been waiting to have the bandwidth.
But with Google sunsetting Google Podcasts, I’ve decided to make time next week. Podcasts are a MAJOR part of my daily functioning.
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Hard disagree, unless I’m missing something. I just set up ABS in the last week to have all of my podcasts self hosted along with my audiobook collection. So far, I’ve seen multiple features missing that make it untenable for podcasts on my phone, including:
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App on my phone doesn’t auto-download episodes
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App doesn’t autoplay the next episode
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- Hitting next only plays the last few seconds of my last episode
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Default sort is newest first, haven’t figured out how to permanently set it to oldest first
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No automatic playlist of all episodes of a series downloaded
I like it for audiobooks, but the podcast side feels very much like an afterthought. I’ll probably be moving to another podcast platform at some point. ABS is usable for podcasts, but at this point I wouldn’t recommend it for that feature unless they’re ok with lack of standard features or already have it set up.
Yeah I think you might be missing something tbh. My Audiobookshelf auto downloads new episodes, playlist features work fine, sort features work fine. I don’t know if there’s a way to throw every downloaded but not yet listened to episode in a playlist, but I haven’t ever needed that feature. For keeping up with my podcasts though across platforms and for all my day to day podcast needs it has excelled.
Is it downloading them to your app, or just to your server? My server downloads just fine, I’ve just had a couple instances where I haven’t been able to continue what I was listening to after leaving the house.
As for playlists, I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I created one playlist but it was more work to use than just using the feed. Haven’t been able to get it to play next tracks on podcasts at all, which has been rather frustrating. Might just be an issue with the app.
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Check out Antennapod.
Antenna Pod is great. Podverse is also pretty decent, especially for downloading as an .mp3
I’ve been trying podverse, but for some reason it uses Google Admob. So if he’s trying to degoogle it’s not a viable alternative
Daaammn, good to know, thanks
I use PocketCasts but all of the responses here are making me consider trying out AntennaPod.
I was a pocketcast user for years, switched to antennapod a few months ago. Here’s what’s bothering me:
- Antennapod has a weird separation between new episodes (inbox) and what you’re listening to now (queue). PC has that abstracted away where you only have to check one place for your podcasts.
- There is no simple service to sync your subscriptions and listen progress. Gpoddersync is basically abandoned and the protocol lacks features. Hopefully this will change with openpodcastAPI, but they haven’t managed to secure funding yet.
- I’ve been spoilt by having a server doing the heavy lifting of refreshing my podcasts. It’s a minor annoyance that I need to wait approx. 1.5 second per feed to refresh. It’s just the way it is.
There are also things that antennapod does better:
- chapters actually works in AP.
- episode pictures also works in AP, PC only showed the static image of the feed.
- search is just as good as PC.
- its FOSS and hopefully resistant to enshittification (unless all producers go into a closed ecosystem like Spotify tried with their recent purchases of pod-studios).
Best of luck from another pod-nerd.
I’ve been spoilt by having a server doing the heavy lifting of refreshing my podcasts. It’s a minor annoyance that I need to wait approx. 1.5 second per feed to refresh. It’s just the way it is.
In the podcast settings for each podcast, does “Keep Updated” not handle this for you? I don’t think I ever manually refresh my podcasts. Apologies if I’m misunderstanding.
Antennapod has a weird separation between new episodes (inbox) and what you’re listening to now (queue). PC has that abstracted away where you only have to check one place for your podcasts.
I don’t like the queue myself, though possibly for different reasons than you. Again possibly misunderstanding your concern, but I have “Enqueue Downloaded” and “Continuous Playback” both disabled in the Antennapod settings, and I just pretend the queue doesn’t exist.
Just throwing those things out there in the hopes they may help.
You’re actually understanding my issues quite well 🙂
The “keep updated” works, but I try to keep it to twice a day to have my battery last longer. So I manually trigger in-between. It’s a natural consequence of the technical choice, really.
As for the “Enqueue downloaded”, I stream everything as I have a massive mobile data plan. Due to this, I can stream a lot but I still have to deal with a separation between inbox/queue.
Thanks for those suggestions, I’m sure they’ll be of help for others that’s not part of my edge case 😁
Ah thanks for the reply, and sorry I couldn’t solve any of your issues. 🙂
Thanks for the detailed info!
Same
I use pocket casts and I tried switching to antenna pod because of a thread like this one and came right back to pocket casts. The deal breaker for me was no skip forward 30 seconds (e.g. ads) from the lock screen.
For you or others who are curious and want to do this:
AntennaPod settings > User Interface > Set playback buttons.
You can decide what shows up in your notification on your lock screen.
Also make sure to toggle Persistent Playback Controls on.
I did the same. I haven’t switched back yet, but I’m very close. Audio doesn’t continue playback when connecting to Android Auto, the screen shows suggestions instead of the queue, and silence trimming is all-or-nothing. Also, and this is just personal preference, the UI isn’t as intuitive.
Antennapod hands down.
Works great and have been using it for years.
Its also what i’m using. Its the best podcast app I’ve used.
AntennaPod is great and Audiobookshelf is my preferred app, if you’re into self hosting services.
Antennapod on Android and Kasts on Linux, synced via Gpoddersync on Nextcloud.
Just recently switched from spotify to antenna pod and can recommend it so far, especially as a lover of any app that will give you stats/graphs.
Only small issue is when playing there are two options: stream, and download. It seems that unlike spotify, stream does not buffer at all, so if you lose connection the player immediately stops. For me I can resolve this by downloading the episodes before I leave for my commute, but something to be aware of.
This is a great combo choice.
My setup as well, and happy with that.
AntennaPod has been working really well for me.
Antennapod is good
Agreed, grab AntennaPod from the f-droid store.
Antennapod is good
I’m using PodcastRepublic on Android right now. It does a fantastic job of organizing my daily playlist for exactly what order I prefer to listen to episodes. The down side is that there is no easy way to translate this nice playlist stuff to the browser website. The state of the website is “mostly functional” and plays audio. Not much else. There is no sync to the Android app.
What I am going to try next is Audiobookshelf with a python script on their API to get the same playlist sorting features. I’ve got the architecture written out, but haven’t gotten the time to write the code.
Reading into gpodder here is making want to give that a try, but the only website listed on this table doesn’t say it syncs playback progress.
So what I’m looking for is something this can sort playlists like PodcastRepublic and sync playback progress like PocketCasts. AFAIK that combo doesn’t exist right now.
I love Player.fm
They have both an android app with a lot of good features (stream or download, can set how many episodes to download at a time, when to delete old ones, all per podcast and as global defaults, set up your own categories/lists, display order, play order, etc) and an actual web site where you can log in and listen to your stuff as well with synced history, so you can pick up pretty much at the exact spot you paused a podcast on your phone (or vice versa).
Audiobookshelf
If you self host nextcloud, another option is to put the rss feeds for your favorite podcasts into the news app. I listen to all of my podcasts through that.
However… I’d totally be interested in a better self hosted podcast app that allows me to see a record of everything I’ve listened to, while also allowing me to download the episodes to my phone, lol. That’s the only reason I’m stuck on the news app still.
Audiobookshelf is self-hosted and has an Android app. Playback is synced between everything.
93 nominations for the same thing, means I’m probably the wrong answer but I don’t Graphene, but I was degoogling and found PlayerFM listed among good Free Open Source Software FOSS options. Hope it works as Graphene option.
I don’t use graphene (yet?) but Player FM is pretty good. I had their paid plan for years. I’m on PocketCasts now.
I recently switched from Google Podcasts to Podcini (fork of Antennapod) and it’s great so far
