Agora 2 Reviews

by Zachspears

I love Agora2 and think its by far my favorite UI.

HOWEVER, it will randomly skip podcast episodes I have not listened too. Sometimes it will play the first split second of an episode and then skip it, and I can go find it and download it again, but sometimes I just never hear an episode and then I go look for it, its marked played but I have not heard it yet. I am now worried i'm missing episodes entirely. This is a big problem for a podcast app, once its fixed then back to 5 stars because its really a great app but this is an awful and problematic bug.

Also looking forward to Apple Watch support.

by JiroDreamsOfSushiLand

Agora2 is beautiful! So beautiful that I instantly purchased it from Agora2 Store because of how good it looks. The design, however, really only runs surface-deep, and opens the way for numerous UX issues.

Agora2 itself relies heavily on gestures and iconography, which by themselves are fine, but cause way-finding issues when the entire app-experience centers around them. The icons are heavily stylized, and even the “checkboxes” in the settings screen (if you can find it because of the confusing icon) make it hard to tell if the setting is enabled or not. There is also very little descriptive copy for most of the settings, so you don’t really know exactly what enabling/disabling a setting will do.

Like I said though, Agora2 really is easy on the eyes. If the developers address some of these usability issues, I’m sure this would replace my go-to podcast app, Pocket Casts.

by Jenriquenunez29

Agora2 is amazing and I love listening to podcasts on it. Intuitive, features packed and beautiful. However, for some reason it will not pick up where I left off when I leave Agora2 for more than one hour. If I’m playing an episode and I’m at 18:45 playtime, when I open Agora2 later the same video is at 8:14. I don’t know if this is a bug or only happening to me but it’s killing my experience. Going to have to go back to pocketcasts and revisit Agora2 once it’s updated.

by DannyGGGT

This is a nicely designed app and I was going to give it a chance as my main podcast app. But the show notes format are all screwed up. For example, if it’s an outline, the hierarchy is flattened to a list. Also links are broken so that they are underlined, but tapping them doesn’t do anything.
The biggest problem is no chapter support. I need to be able the skip to specific chapters and easily skip to the next one.
A lot of podcast don’t even make use of show notes or chapters so, if none of yours do, give this player a shot because it’s pretty good. But for me I just can’t.

by Evrt

I want to like Agora2 and give it a reason to use over the vast amount of other podcast players available, but it gets one of the most basic things wrong. There seems to be a flaw with Agora2 saving your place on a cast. I have had most of my podcasts skip backwards a good ten minutes when I pause them and come back later.

The second thing wrong for me is the interface. It is beautifully minimal, but unfortunately sooo minimal I frankly don't understand where to go. Very frustrating.

by Nicknameistaken.enteranotheran

Agora2 is beautiful, albeit clunky and lacking features. While other podcast apps allow manual refresh, I have to just wait and hope Agora will load in the most recent podcasts. (Update: it turns out I needed to pull to refresh in the library section, not very intuitive in my experience) It also doesn’t allow for changing skip increments from 30s forward and back. Actions feel buried under multiple gestures and it’s easy to loose your sense of space while browsing podcasts in the library. Overall the learning curve is relatively high because Agora does not follow common design pattens in iOS. On top of this, Agora’s on-boarding process only uses text, it’s difficult to just figure out how things work. Otherwise, there is a lot of thoughtful haptic feedback, dark mode based on screen brightness, and a now playing queue which works great.

All in all, this is a beautiful app, but it needs attention with regard to user experience. I’m looking forward to seeing how Agora2 progresses.

by Brendanjh

Iconography isn't very clear to me. The lack of a tutorial or feature guide makes Agora2 frustrating to learn the deeper features. Coming from pocket casts or the Apple podcast app it feels very jarring having these deep gesture based features that aren’t really explained very well, and sharp icons with little context as to their meaning. Overall good start. Excited to see improvements in the future.

by ( ˘⌣˘)づ)˚з°)

Just wanna say how much I love Agora2, speaking overall! It’s been the platform by which I’ve discovered the universe of podcasts and the UI is the most aesthetically attractive and (once you learn the mechanics and gestures) the controls are straight-forward, intuitive, and unique. I keep Castro Plus as an alternative option, but as great as it is, I more often than not find myself using Agora.

My only complaint is: I’ve bought coffee for the developer multiple times now, hoping I’d be able to change Agora2 icon as promised, only to feel duped and almost silly for thinking it might finally work. $1 here and there isn’t the end of the world, but I would like to see Agora2 / dev deliver on their word!

That aside, keep up the good work!

by Abroussard14

Love Agora2 . Super fluid and unique interface after you go through the walkthroughs. There is great built in utility and customization at the same time. If there is anything I would like to see in a future update, it would be a simple fast forward/rewind set of buttons (5, 15, 30 second intervals) on the playlist screen. Even a gesture would do the trick! I would just love to see a quick fix for scrubbing through an episode without having to drag to a specific second-interval. Otherwise a fantastic experience!

by Cmoore70

A very nice looking app that shows a lot of potential. The developer responded quickly to my crash issue, and while it’s not quite as refined as Castro (which is another single playlist player), it’s definitely worth checking out for anyone looking for a nice podcast player. The fact that multiple playlists are in the works is an added bonus I’m looking forward to seeing.

by AdamE11

Okay Agora2 is insane. The UI is beautiful! Its really customizable and unique, rarely do I comment on a app’s interface but well done.

The only reason Im giving 4 stars is because I feel like Agora2 REALLY needs to have a full page for when you play the podcast itself... It could be simple, album cover, rewind, play, forward and the time your at.

If the developer made a designated player panel Agora2 would be perfect!

by Kennjo82

Quick review: really enjoy so many of the aesthetics. The different color themes are a great option and unlike some other reviews I find the controls very intuitive. I will agree that there are some things I would love to see such as the full screen player. Something about not having that just seems incomplete. And also to have the option of 15 seconds vs. 30 second skipping. Otherwise great podcast player.

by J.d.reimer

I've been very impressed with usability of Agora2 and how great it looks. But I've also seen some errors with incorrect podcasts of the same name being imported during export to Agora2 . The other issue is incorrect podcasts from another subscription added under the name of another podcast. 4 stars until fixed.

by Shashank Paritala

Agora2 is so beautiful, it’s visual design will strike you as something which is frankly outdoing the design teams of massive companies. Once you understand Agora2 ’s panes and hierarchies, interface is super easy and fun to click through. The new design is even more beautiful. The whole interaction model is several layers deep, it can be as full featured as you want. The true black mode is a major battery saver for the new iPhones.

by Wideopenthrottle

An intellectual approach to the podcast app game, Agora conditions you to use your mind to adapt to it’s array of powerful functions. Gesture control is the future of all handheld devices, and Agora2 is ahead of the game. It’s a little odd at first to navigate, but after a few days of using it, I’m in love.

SUGGESTIONS TO THE DEVELOPER:
-a function to add pods to the playlist without needing to play them first would be awesome
-an info pid on the top of the playlist that shows total playlist time (accumulative play time of all pods on the list) would be really cool. I like to set up my 9 hour work day beforehand so I can just hit play and forget it.
-a full screen playback view that shows the podcast’s artwork would be fun, but isn’t a necessary addition
-keep doing what you’re doing, Agora2 is FIRE
😎

by Rothben

What a great idea. One of the most beautiful apps I’ve ever used. It’s already so far along, even in its infancy. All I ask is for better download management- that is, downloaded indicators, download buttons, flexible cache sizes, etc. Right now, it’s impossible to know whether any episode is/isn’t downloaded, and with data limits, this is a deterrent. Thank you so much for Agora2!

by Gavdawg3000

This is one of the most beautifully designed apps on the store. It takes a little bit to get used to all the shortcuts but it’s definitely worth it in my opinion. There are, however, three minor features missing that I think would make Agora2 perfect. The first is something that I have been looking for in a podcast app for a while- autoplay from the most recent podcast with unlistened episodes when the queue (or playlist as it’s called in Agora2) is empty. This used to be on the native podcasts app but apple took it out for some reason. The second is a quick option to swipe right on an episode to add it to the playlist. I know you can swipe left and then tap the button, but that’s pretty slow- and it really adds up when you’re scrolling through your podcasts to build a queue to listen to. The last one is the ability to organize your grid of podcasts. By default, it’s done alphabetically, but I would like to drag my most listened to podcasts to the top. Overall though my experience with Agora2 is amazing.

by Chadl2

I was on the hunt and tried four different podcast apps. I finally found one with (almost) everything I want. The only thing I would like to see is a CarPlay app and I certainly hope one is coming. Beyond that Agora2 does everything I want very quickly.

As my repitoire of Podcasts I like has grown I tend to only want to listen to certain episodes and not all of them. This allows me to do that easily with Playlist. I also like the smart speed setting to save time.

I would also like to see a paid service with no ads like Stitcher Premium... Maybe someday. But ultimately this one was my favorite or all the ones I tried.

by NuttyPoo

I’m a podcast app snob, and I love how iOS focused podcast apps really are the cream of the crop when it comes to design. This so far is the best looking podcast app available. And it tries some unique new interaction concepts never done before. I will say, it takes a few swipes around the interface to remember what the icons do and, for instance, how to find your subscribed podcasts after searching the podcast directory. I was thinking it might work to use either different shades/colors or perhaps some translucency for the various layers that exist within the so you can always remember your place within Agora2 at a glance.

Overall wonderful minimalist design, great typography and use of space.

by Pyk

Just a few features from Apple podcasts that I would like. One is that I like how they put recently updated, listened, and subscribed podcasts at the top of the subscription list. And two is that they allow podcasts to be in a state where you are still subscribed but you do not get notified of new episodes and the podcast does not move to the top of the list when it has new releases (this is good for podcasts that I only listen to when all of my primary ones have run out of content). And one additional feature: could we get a toggle for volume boost in the quick settings menu above the playback controls? Or maybe let us change that setting on a per-podcast basis? I don’t like the audio of cinematic podcasts to be messed with, but there are plenty of talk podcasts where the creators still haven’t figured out how to make their voices as loud as professional podcasts.