Castro Podcast Player Reviews

by Sixseveneight

It’s bad enough when yet another developer jumps on the absurd subscription bandwagon and decides to screw the users who had paid for CastroPodcastPlayer by restricting all new features to ones who subscribe while also creating an equally restricted experience for the previous purchasers and the free users. It is another story to now shove an intrusive advertisement on the top of the podcast queue for the same users who shelled out money for the privilege of not being bombarded with advertising. That is the literally in the top 3 priority list of any customer that ponders whether to buy or not buy any app.

The developer may respond by saying it’s just a little banner at the top or by making promises to limit himself to just this one ad. If there is one truth that experience with all manner of businesses which force ads on their customers shows it is this: don’t believe them. They are now in the selling of ads business which means one ad is not going to suffice. More and more intrusions will come over time. As insulting as it is to shove ads to purchasers of CastroPodcastPlayer is—any future user of CastroPodcastPlayer that chooses to not subscribe should be aware that the experience of using CastroPodcastPlayer has and will continue to worsen over time. If you don’t want to pay for another outrageous subscription for something you can get for free elsewhere with none or most of the features that are restricted here then you should skip downloading CastroPodcastPlayer.

by Wastelander1369

This used to be my favorite podcast player, after using apple’s podcast app for the longest time. I even purchased CastroPodcastPlayer back when it cost money to own and use, not sure if its free now or not. I loved the clean, hassle free functionality of CastroPodcastPlayer and it was the only podcast player on my phone for the longest time. This was definitely a 5 star app back when they didn't require you to pay for a subscription in order to use all the functions of CastroPodcastPlayer . Now, I understand that everything is moving to the subscription thing because every service tries to continue making money someway but I just opened CastroPodcastPlayer today, went to the inbox and noticed that they added promoted adds at the bottom, which by the way totally ruins the clean look of CastroPodcastPlayer but I also went into the options to see if this was something I accidentally turned on, but come to find out, its a new feature which can not be turned off without a subscription. This would be totally fine if this was a free app, but mined you, I purchased CastroPodcastPlayer already and I have a problem with app creators who limit your functionality even after you purchased their product. So, because of this, CastroPodcastPlayer has dropped down to a one until this is fixed. By the way, all functionality should be available for those that have already payed for CastroPodcastPlayer . Your customers shouldn't have to pay twice!

by Nineteenth

I have been looking long and hard to find a podcast app that actually works on Apple Watch. I have tried Overcast without success and have also now struck out with Castro. Castro has a hard time syncing to the watch and it also will not stream episodes even though I have a cellular watch. If I choose the first title on my list and ask it to play, it will act as though it is playing that episode while actually playing something totally different and random. Today it insisted that it was playing, but refused to do anything. Incredibly frustrating! I cannot even get it to sync using the “sync now” option. Currently it is trying to sync, and it has been working on two episodes for 45 minutes without success. I’m paying for Castro Plus which is quite expensive. Castro also offers no support even though you can supposedly “email support”. There is never a reply. Skip Castro and keep looking if you own an Apple Watch!

by Double Nope

Excellent podcast player. There is one issue that bugs me personally though and that is if network conditions are spotty, the podcast dings out and then gives a red notification in CastroPodcastPlayer stating as much. I work outside and have to wear gloves while driving machinery so although the network might be spotty it comes back right away. However the episode I was listening to does not attempt to reconnect and even if I select it again it still does not play. I have to quit CastroPodcastPlayer restart it and then when I select the episode I was listening to it starts from the beginning which is annoying if I am a long ways into an already long podcast. This isn’t something I can just stop working for and deal with. It’s not much more than an inconvenience any other time, but it’s forcing me to try other apps that don’t have this issue, and since I really love the work put into Castro and enjoy its many other advantages. Please fix it. I’m happy to give it top rating regardless but sure am counting on you to read this and fix it.

Sorry but had no o cancel the subscription as the issue of stopping the podcast stream for anything but the clearest signal has not been addressed at all. Moved on to other players that can keep streaming should the connection weaken. Don’t understand why this was so difficult to do but maybe in the future somewhere down the road it will be.

by Msinert

A nice app overall. UI beats Overcast every time, especially the inbox and queue functionality. It’s a really pleasant app to use and the look at, compared to Overcast, which I used for a long time and to me always felt homemade, rather than professionally developed, at least on the front end. I find The inbox is almost always current. I like the streaming of podcasts, which saves space on my phone. I often airplay to my HomePod, which works great, or Bluetooth to a device. My one complaint: it doesn’t always play nice with CarPlay. Sometimes the library won’t scroll past the first screen. Sometimes CastroPodcastPlayer freezes on the screen on my car, but works fine using the phone. I’ll need to start a podcast from the phone and CarPlay takes a while to catch up, sometimes 8-10 minutes into a podcast. Sometimes both CarPlay and the phone freeze. I need to unplug and reply to get it going. Sometimes I need to force-quit Castro. Once in a while I need to actually restart my iPhone. Kinda annoying. I never had these issues with Overcast and CarPlay. I have these issues in both of my vehicles, an Audi and a Toyota, so I don’t think it’s the manufacturer’s CarPlay implementation, but I’m not a tech guy so who knows. It’d be great if the Castro folks could take a look at this bug. Thanks!

by Thomas_Ella

UPDATE: Lowering my review to two stars. The fact that there's still not trim silences is kind of unbelievable. It feels at this point like the developers are just folding their arms and pouting and putting their feet down because they're tired of the requests, but I've listened to their podcasts and I know they understand that this is easily the biggest, most requested missing feature. It just baffles me that they would rather dedicate so much development time to other features than just buckle down and add this one that is absolutely standard in today's podcast player market. Not to mention they still don't save playback settings per podcast or support chapter markers. What? It's a wonderful, unique app in a lot of ways, but it's missing crucial features that hold it back. It's kind of heartbreaking.

ORIGINAL: I want to love Castro, but to me, trim silences should be considered a standard feature in a modern podcast app. I've tried to get into Castro so many times now because they add such cool stuff with their big updates and the general hook of treating podcasts like an email inbox, but it's been months and trim silences, a long-requested feature, is still nowhere to be seen. (As well, I want Castro to remember playback speed settings for each podcast.) So yet again, back to boring old Overcast for me.

by Kairofan98

My favorite podcast app. This is my go to app for podcasts.....for now. CastroPodcastPlayer gives you a logical new way to organize your podcasts which is a breath of fresh air when it seems like podcast apps just try to out feature their competition while all being similar in their interfaces. This one focuses on organization which is both simple and smart.

Why knock off 2 stars? App support seems to be lacking. Clicking feedback link in CastroPodcastPlayer sends an email to the devs. The catch? No acknowledgement and no fix. One of the 6 podcasts I subscribe to doesn't display entire episode history and only shows 6 total episodes out of 30+ that I can listen to. Apple podcasts and my second fav podcast app 'pocket casts' both display the entire episode history. Feedback sent and issue still exists.

As much as I hate to say it if I have to go another app to hear one of my podcasts that doesn't work in CastroPodcastPlayer I will drop Castro for the simple reasoning that if a paid app cannot provide me the content that free podcasting app built into iOS can, it's time to move onto something better. Just not practical to have multiple apps that have the simple function of playing a sound file.

by Danjones0806

Very good podcast app overall, I especially appreciate the Inbox feature and the control it gives you over which episodes to actually download. However, a few changes would make the Queue (list of episodes you are ready to listen to) easier to manage (unless I’ve missed them): episodes not automatically moving to the top once you start them (I currently end up doing a ton of manual reordering to keep related episodes together because of this), being able to easily move multiple episodes at the same time, and being able to listen to just one episode and automatically stop at the end, even if there are more episodes in the Queue (I am often driving or otherwise engaged while using CastroPodcastPlayer , and sometimes want to listen in bed but don’t for fear of falling asleep and wiping out my entire Queue).

by Dr.when

CastroPodcastPlayer is ALMOST perfect. I was looking for a long time for a good podcast player after losing my patience with Apple’s. This is by far the best I’ve found (so much so that I subscribed to the paid version) but it’s missing a few things to make it perfect. For one, it would be super nice to be able to sort or reverse the oder of episodes both in your inbox and on the show pages themselves. So many shows are serialized and it’s a pain to have to scroll all the way to the bottom, especially when there are a lot of episodes.
Also, while I like the queue feature, I would love to be able to just click play on my inbox or on a specific show and it runs through all my episodes there, without having to add them individually to the queue. I know you can set it up to have new episodes automatically added to your queue, so this feature would mainly be helpful when you want to just plow through an entire show at once.
Finally, it would be super convenient to add all episodes from a show to your inbox at once, so you don’t have to drag each episode over individually.
Overall, it’s a slick, easy to use app!

by BenMedina

Castro has my favorite method of managing incoming podcasts: an inbox where new podcasts are shown, and a queue of podcasts I’ve decided to listen to. This leaves me feeling much more in control of which podcasts I listen to and in which order.

All other major features are there as you’d expect: voice boost, flexible playback speed, watch support, widget support. And a feature I haven’t seen anywhere else: pre-selection of chapters. This means you can set up a podcast to only play back the parts you’re interested in, skipping over dull topics without any extra intervention on your part.

The only major gap is support for Airplay 2, which means there’s a significant lag in the playback controls when streaming to Airplay speakers. It’s also slightly beaten by Overcast in playback quality when using voice boost or modified playback speed.

by Matthew Paul Smith

This podcast app is great. Arguably probably one of the best, if not the best. The fact that it organizes podcasts into an inbox so that the user can decided yay or nay on specific episodes is great. I feel like I really have fine-tuned control over my podcasts between that and being able to organize and manipulate the order of my queue on the fly.

Now, the areas it could improve. The discover/search section is just not up to par with other podcast apps. If you already know what shows you care to listen to, you're pretty golden. However, if you are new to listen to podcasts or want to find new shows to listen to, CastroPodcastPlayer will not be very helpful. Every modern podcast app has lots of features for discovery of podcasts. Featured sections, top charts, browse by podcast network, etc. Castro only has about 10-15 genres to browse through with like 10-20 podcasts in each. It is just not good in that regard and prevents me from giving it a full 5 stars.

by Pierrepressure11

I used the default Apple Podcasts app for years and *hated* it, but I could never find an app I thought could suitably replace it, either. Castro does everything I always wanted an app to do: Downloads are easy, queuing up what I want to hear is a breeze (simply drag and drop in the order you want), you’re able to turn off whether you want the episodes to play continuously or stop, playback speeds are easy to control, and best of all, there’s a “sleep” option, where you can tell Castro to stop playing anything after a certain number of minutes. Some nights I like to listen to podcasts to help me sleep, but of course with Apple Podcasts this meant it’d keep playing ALL of the episodes in my queue, one after another, after I fell asleep. Not with Castro :). There are even more great features in the paid version, but for right now, I’m happy with the free version!

Why the star docked? Castro’s one big fault is it’s navigation. There are certain screens you can navigate to where it’s impossible to tell how in the world you can get back to the “Home” screen. Sometimes I have to close out CastroPodcastPlayer entirely just so I can get back to a screen I recognize.

It’s really not too terrible, but it’s still a pretty big oversight. A “Home” screen might exist on those screens, but it’s definitely not obvious, and it should be.

Overall, I’m really happy with CastroPodcastPlayer and will be recommending it to anyone who loves podcasts!

by Mmccroskey

I’m a picky guy, and to me this is the perfect podcast player. First of all, the mental model of an inbox is exactly what I was looking for. Simple to understand, and keeps you from being overwhelmed if you follow a lot of podcasts. Also, since you’re less likely to be overwhelmed, you end up following more podcasts, and getting exposed to great content you would not otherwise have listens to. The UI is gorgeous and is perfected down to the last detail. I happily pay The subscription for CastroPodcastPlayer, and you should do the same.

Now, the one complaint. If I am trying to start a series of podcasts before going on a long road trip and I have poor connectivity, the user experience is very confusing. I’ll move a bunch of stuff into the playlist queue, but because the connectivity is poor, many things will start and then stop downloading and I’ll get spammed by a flurry of could not download alerts. This behavior surprises me, because as far as I can tell, my settings are such that these podcasts should already be downloaded. Other than this complaint, CastroPodcastPlayer is great!

by Rexerman

I really like CastroPodcastPlayer. It was hands down my favorite pod catcher app. I have been a Castro plus member for the last 2 years. But now there are several problems that make me want to look elsewhere. First off, there are problems with CarPlay, in which paused podcasts don’t resume until I skip backward first. Also, the Inbox doesn’t update when I connect my phone to CarPlay; I have to open CastroPodcastPlayer on the phone first to get the Inbox refreshed( not the safest thing to do in a moving car!) Another bug, podcasts don’t always resume where I left off. Instead, they resume about a minute or two earlier. Icons are very slow to appear when opening the Inbox, Queue, and Library. I have reported the CarPlay problems to support several times but only get the same generic “Thank you for reporting this issue”

by @GMCz

One example of the kind of awesome attention to detail: if you’ve gone deep into the menus searching or browsing, you can tap the search button in the bottom menu bar and each tap will take you “back” one level, finally taking you to the default “search” page. One more tap and it put the cursor into the search bar itself. This probably seems silly to read, and perhaps I explained it poorly, but in practice it’s exactly what you’d EXPECT CastroPodcastPlayer to do in that context and it’s flawlessly executed. “Little” things like this abound and make it a very pleasant experience to manage and listen to podcasts.

UPDATE: Castro on my iPhone SE, and original Apple Watch is zippy and fast. I appreciate that Supertop has apparently been thoughtful about keeping things humming on less popular, older hardware.

by BlackShredGold

Castro is hands down my favorite podcast app. Easy to search, browse, play, and import podcast RSS and URL links. I use it daily!

I think the premium features are worth the purchase, but not worth a yearly subscription. The “enhance voice” feature works really well, but sounds just like some extra compression and EQ to make podcasts sounds a bit more radio ready, which I could accomplish in 5 minutes in a DAW. Still, makes listening a better experience.

I would encourage the developer to move away from the subscription model and offer a la carte options to users for 1) an ad free experience, and 2) additional features such as Apple Watch playback, audio enhancement, and silence skipping.

I rarely choose to opt in to a subscription model unless I am really floored by a piece of software. To Castro’s credit, I have subscribed, but it did take over 6 months to make that decision, whereas I would have committed to purchasing a la carte features within a week.

I have still given CastroPodcastPlayer 5 stars due to the quality, design, and features available. CastroPodcastPlayer has a great team behind it, and it shows in my day-to-day usage. I hope Castro continues to deliver high-quality updates and adds additional features to justify my yearly subscription!

by Samcgass

Best podcasting app I’ve ever used. Much better than Apple’s confusing app. I paid for the premium version so I could Sideload audio that I download externally. Works perfectly. One suggestion about side loads though: I wish I could edit the metadata of a side loaded audio file. At least just change the display name in CastroPodcastPlayer or have to app update the display name when I change it in the iCloud folder. Because sometimes I download files directly into the Castro folder and they have strangely formatted names with underscores and I can’t change the name of the sideload in CastroPodcastPlayer without removing the file and then adding it back. It would be even better if I could add custom artwork or descriptions to side loads but my main ask would be at least to be able to change the name. Great app! Thanks y’all.

by 167-563-673

Why do podcast apps find it frequently difficult to treat podcast audio files like audio files. Apple podcasts scratched the itch well enough but started adding oddities like ignoring my playlist to download files I’d purposefully skipped or marking episodes as new because I stopped at the end credits.

Glad I decided to switch. Castro has been sleek, simple, and a pleasure to use. Turn it on, and it plays uninterrupted as long as I want, even without WiFi or data. So simple a purpose but Castro seems to be the only one willing to do that for me.

My only criticism is it does it too well. Would love to see an option where I can have it play my queue sequentially instead of jumping back to the top of the stack. I’ve got an extensive list of podcasts of different types and sometimes I need to switch it up if the mood takes me but at work or in the car I can’t reorder my queue on a whim.

by ABestoso

I moved from Overcast to Castro a while ago because of the queue system. I love that every podcast I want to listen to is in the queue waiting to go. Furthermore I love how clean the UI is, and how it flows between light and dark modes. The siri features they just added are also absolutely amazing if you spend a lot of time driving; you can now interact with CastroPodcastPlayer to a tremendous degree without touching the screen.

My only complaint is the notification system only half works right now due to changes in ios13. Castro is aware of the issue and I assume will be fixing it soon. Basically notifications only work if you have CastroPodcastPlayer in the foreground which if you listen to CastroPodcastPlayer a lot is not an issue.

I am also so happy CastroPodcastPlayer moved to subscriptions so that there is some kind of impetus to both add new features and keep it up to do with current ios. I cannot overstate how much I love CastroPodcastPlayer, and I want it to exist for many years to come.

by Jaie

I’ve tried a LOT of podcast players. It’s a long story. Anyway, I have not found any that work as consistently or as easily as Castro. It’s not overly fancy, but it is easy to use! There’s one queue — just tap a button to add an item to it — and the queue is super-simple to reorder, and it’s easy to automatically replace an old episode of something like an hourly news update with a new one.
With the improvement of the podcast discovery options, my only (slight) gripe is that I would like to have a way to categorize my podcasts by topic/type, either multiple playlists or just some kind of grouping, while retaining the ability to easily add something to the queue. But I’m not willing to give up anything about the way Castro currently works to get it. I’ve been a very happy premium subscriber for a long time, and it’s one of the few subscriptions I don’t see ever giving up.

by Sweetgurlyah

I love CastroPodcastPlayer. The best thing about it is I can organize individual episodes in the queue by whether I want to watch them soon or later. Its great for long drives where I can fit in multiple episodes. I also love how episodes can easily be dragged into different places on the list or into the inbox, and that episodes are marked if I have already listened to them. The option to favorite episodes is also very useful. I love all the features.

My only issue is that I can't look up episodes individually. Its difficult when trying to find episodes on a specific topic or look in podcasts I'm not subscribed to for new content. I have to go to apple podcasts and look them up before I can scroll to find them in Castro.

That's my only problem with CastroPodcastPlayer , but possible new features that would be helpful are related podcast/episode suggestions and social features.

by Steadicat

Of the popular iOS podcast players, Castro has the best UI by far (I also tried Overcast and Pocket Casts). Castro is unique and innovative in its approach to podcast and episode management. I love the inbox and the queue concepts. They work very well, especially for people like me who don’t listen to every single episode of every podcast they subscribe to. The Castro UI is quite polished and there are nice little touches sprinkled across CastroPodcastPlayer (like the theme switch animation, and the easily accessible newest and oldest episodes when looking at a new podcast).

Compared to Castro, Pocket Casts’s UI is even more polished, but very basic and conservative. Overcast somehow manages to be both basic and clunky at the same time.

Castro does not have some of the advanced features from other players (chapter support, silence shortening), but I prefer a UI that actually makes listening more enjoyable.

by Socialbrik

For a long time I used the Apple Podcast app before realizing that there might be something better out there. Specifically, I wanted to “Favorite” certain podcast episodes that I believed stood out from the rest so that I could hear them again in the future. Nothing seemed to satisfy this need I had, at least not in a user friendly way, until I found Castro. In the beginning Castro’s UI can be sort of hard to get used to, but after a while you understand how to use it, and you realize that those weird things that you didn’t understand how to use, actually help you take even more control of your podcast experience. So far, it really is the best podcast app I have tried and it definitely satisfies what I was looking for. I don't see myself moving to another app any time soon.

by TopShelfThots

The first iteration of CastroPodcastPlayer I found to be quite simply the best podcast app I’ve ever used. It was simple, beautiful, and had almost no bugs. I particularly liked that the UI changed colors based on the cover art of the selected podcast. This version of Castro is nice looking too, but I wish it had the dynamic colors. The added complexity/features I can tolerate, but not at the expense of all of the bugs it seems to have. Frequently it has issues downloading (popular) podcasts, and most annoying is that when I turn off my wireless headphones, or answer a phone call, the audio does not pause. This means it continues to play on the speaker, or even plays the audio OVER THE PHONE so the other person can hear the audio. It’s obnoxious. I’ll take the original (now discontinued) Castro over this version anyday.