Google Podcasts Reviews

by Christofer Williams

This was my go-to podcasting app until about a week ago, when my feed was suddenly filled with two daily podcasts to which I’d never subscribed. Every attempt to unsubscribe, both here and on the web, is unsuccessful.

I can unsubscribe from every other podcast without any problems. I’ve tried everything, and there’s nothing in the help documentation or forums except hundreds of other people complaining about the same problem.

I’d be able to ignore this, except none of my other podcasts are daily, which means that to find the ones to which I’ve actually subscribed, I have to look through a feed that is literally 80% spam.

The unavoidable podcasts are both news podcasts (Slate and CNN), so I doubt it’s some kind of secret sponsorship thing. It seems like some major bug in Google Podcast’s handling of feeds.

Either way, it makes GooglePodcasts suddenly unusable, which is unfortunate.

by Mveras1972

In the user interface GooglePodcasts very well designed. I find that it is easier and more intuitive than Apple Podcasts which used to be the easiest to use, but after several bad choices in interface change, Apple Podcasts is just a confusing mess that I never got used to. The reason I am giving Google Podcast a one star is because Google decided to remove the ability to add your custom RSS feed. I subscribe to some paid shows that are not available for free and require a personalized RSS feed URL, and Google decided to remove this essential feature that effectively renders GooglePodcasts completely useless for me. If Google brings back the ability to add custom RSS URLs, I would be happy to revise my rating.

by Martianscorsese

We got a bunch of google nest mini’s for the holidays so I started looking for apps that I could cast my podcasts through. Naturally I figured google would have the best app for this. While it’s the best app for casting podcasts to their speakers, the actual interface is infuriating. Organizing new pods is so confusing, things don’t download, and the worst feature of all: when pressing fast-forward on a Bluetooth speaker instead of advancing the podcast 30 seconds like literally every other app, it’s skips to the next podcast and marks the podcast as finished. Add in that it just randomly starts playing and when casting it forgets your progress. With podcasts as huge as they are right now I’m dumbfounded that google’s official app for them could be THIS bad. Scrap it and start from scratch.

by Tgm14

Almost every time I try going back 10 seconds it will go back 5 minutes or more. The bar is constantly jumping around. This is a promising app with a better interface than Apple Podcasts but it needs to do its basic function well to be useful.

Also, one of the main reasons I downloaded this was so it would integrate with Google Home, but the integration is completely useless. I can’t ask Google to play a podcast from my queue, in fact even though I have Google Podcasts selected as my podcast provider it just ends up playing a random podcast I don’t subscribe to. What’s the point??

by King Rookie

I originally switched to GOOGLE PODCASTS after a series of buggy iOS updates rendered APPLE PODCAST unusable. But GOOGLE PODCASTS crashes at least three times each time I start listening to a downloaded show. I’ve grown so tired of having to constantly re-start (often while driving) that I’ve finally switched back to APPLE PODCASTS, which seems to be working better now. Apart from the crashes, another area for improvement with GOOGLE PODCASTS is the QUEUE. I don’t understand why it’s not possible to manually rearrange the order in which you’d like the downloads in your queue to play. Instead, you’re simply stuck with the order in which they were added to the queue.

by Zeroverse

When my screen turns off or I minimize and open another app...playback stops basically rendering GooglePodcasts useless to all listeners except those dedicated to staying transfixed to their podcast's episode description...and ensuring their phone's screen never turns off.

With billions in profit every quarter, you'd imagine they could afford afford QA testing... Come on Google, I use Google Podcasts so my listening is seemless across my phone and my Google home speakers...but this is NOT seemless.

Also, when we have a playlist built up, when we double tap on a playlist item...it should start playing the item...not take us to the podcast show page. How is that not obvious? You guys need proper UI experts on your dev team! Not everyone has to be a dev.

by Xxbirdxgirlxx

The user interface is the best of all the podcast apps I’ve tried. Its easy to build and rearrange playlists and very difficult to accidentally clear the whole playlist (like on apple podcasts). BUT! Is it just me, or is GooglePodcasts super buggy? First use of the day, it crashes while loading 5-10 times before it loads all the way. Lately, its had trouble loading episode lists from a show’s page, and some things I’d downloaded suddenly have a download error. Sometimes GooglePodcasts will crash after playing for 5 minutes. Is it too much to ask for GooglePodcasts to just work?

by Anoni 😝😝

I like listening to Podcasts when I’m driving around. The biggest feature that I love about Google Podcasts is that if I am listening to an episode and start another one, the episode I was listening does not get taken off my queue. With that being saying, my BIGGEST ISSUE is the playback error message that I keep getting at the most random times when I am trying to start an episode, when I skip to another episode, or when I skip minutes of an episode. I like listening to Podcasts when I’m driving around.

by D. Hill

Google Podcasts is a simple podcast application that will allow users to search for and manage their podcast library. It is easy to navigate whether by category headers or the search box. GooglePodcasts differs a little bit from some of the competition in offering more initial listed categories to browse for podcast shows. The UI design as stated before while easy to use is somewhat bland and ordinary. I would recommend this application as a supplementary to a regular podcast listener’s main source of content.

by Jklink13

This is a no frills basic podcast player that works well. It is missing some key functionality that would greatly increase usability: there is no option to “Mark all as Played”, which makes it almost impossible to clear the home view of old episodes of subscribed shows. Also, shows from RSS feeds (you know, the ones I pay for and care about the most) do not pull into the home view as new episodes become available. It’s still better than the bloated monstrosity that Apple podcasts has become, but just a couple of little additions would go a long way.

by Emmmmm

I’ve been using GooglePodcasts for a couple months now, and I do like it better than the Apple podcast app. However, I experience a handful of issues / annoyances. First off, it seems like the skip forward 30sec button doesn’t always function properly —— often times it rewinds my position in the episode by many minutes, and then I have to go manually forward to find my previous position in the podcast. This is an issue via my iPhone 12 Pro and Apple Watch.

An annoyance I’d love to be eliminated is that there’s no way to dismiss / delete / clear out podcast episodes in my main feed. Some topics I don’t care to listen to from an otherwise good podcast, and would prefer thru just get wiped from that feed.

by Onthehillmahaya

GooglePodcasts is better than the Apple app. There’s just one thing that’s really frustrating. The whole app will just shut down at random times and pretty frequently. In the middle of an episode, it’ll go off, so I’ll have to stop what I’m doing, unlock my phone, open GooglePodcasts and hope I didn’t lose my spot in the episode. If it’s been playing without trouble for a while, I’m hesitant to open GooglePodcasts to browse for a different episode, bc I don’t want to give it a chance to start messing up. It might just be me, but if so, I’d like to know how to fix it.

by JoshtheRoo

The Auto Download feature does not work, no matter what settings I use. Also, episode organization is really frustrating because it doesn’t tell me how many episodes of the same show I have downloaded. Every episode is a single item on the list. What if I have two episodes of the same show in one week? They should be together, not spread apart between five other shows I have coming in in between those two.

App is functional otherwise, just frustrating when you keep up with a lot of shows like I do to have to manually download each episode, AND have to scroll down through singular episodes of the same show from my Downloads list.

by Bippy_b

Overall the Google Podcast app is a solid app. Subscribing to podcasts you can listen to podcasts through streaming or (more importantly) by downloading the podcast. It seems to sync your position across devices which is helpful when switching devices. GooglePodcasts downloads quite a few episodes. My main complaints are:

-I don’t see a way to manually mass mark podcasts as “played” (multi select and mark)

-The one feature I would love to have would be integration with Sonos.

-There is no option to sync settings. So for example if I set Podcast A to listen “oldest to newest” then that setting should sync back to the cloud. I shouldn’t then have to also set that on Device B (because when you have 3 devices and around 15 podcasts that becomes a bit of a chore to get them all set the same).

-At the same time there should be an option to chose whether or not to sync settings for a particular podcast (maybe device A has 256GB of storage while Device B has 64GB)

by Gwinig11

Overall, this is the best Podcast app that I have used. I like the ‘feed’ style since I don’t have to constantly mark as played, it just displays all my podcasts like a Twitter feed. The feed with a queue is the best way to do it in my opinion since I don’t have to feel like I am managing anything.

One thing I would like to see is an iPad app, as well as add the Podcast feed to the web app for when I am on my Mac. Without that it is not great having my Podcast experience limited to just my phone.

by Carlos Burns

Over all a clean & solid app. Will be hard to dethrone the native Apple podcast app as well as Overcast as these have been refined really well. A lot of room for growth. Initialization of a podcast episode can be slow. Also a lack of a website, car play app, and Apple Watch version are opportunities for improvement. Otherwise solid app. Also may want to add in the future similar features like Overcasts that allow for skipping of the initial commercials at the beginning of the podcast would be great.

by Out & About With Yaya

I have a new platform on Google podcast and I have to say I feel like a rock star. I have a new lease on life being able to have fun communicating through a podcast with great support and customer service. I would give them a big thumbs up and refer them to anyone who is interested in having their very own podcast. You would be going first class if you utilize a Google podcast for your platform.

by Vossorganics

I was listening to Neal’s interview of Seth on my way to a buyer’s consult with a new investor. As real estate professionals with a moral compass, we must present triple bottom line scenarios to our investor clients. Look for opportunities to add value for your future tenants. Present the notion of investors modeling this kind of forward thinking for their children to your investor clients. Seth and Neal’s conversation is such good teaching for us as change oriented agents. A must listen!

by Soheil.Kasaei

Google podcast is awesome and I love its simplicity. if the developers could add these two features that would be perfect. 1. Listeners can add comments to every episode. 2. Usually each episode has a different cover from the general cover of the show. I found it when I was using “Castbox” and I believe if you can add this feature to google podcast that would be perfect.

by Hrozhek

It’s much better than shifty apple podcasts. You can listen from each episode easily. When you switch on other podcast in apple it is impossible to return to previous certain point because that piece of sheet doesn’t store the history (you can only find there some random episodes you listened to but not the last ones). GooglePodcasts is way better

by PeterMJR

This is a horrible app compared to every other podcast app available. Every single episode is available when you subscribe and there is no easy way to mark all complete except for going into every episode and doing it that way. I’ll stick with Apple Podcasts until this is fixed.

by Cmj05

The casting feature isn’t great which is strange because casting works great with my other google services. I’d also like a way to auto archive old episodes so they weren’t there when I look at a podcast. I do hope the recommendation engine works better than iOS’s though.

Also you have to have CarPlay. I think this is a rough draft and I trust Google will fox it and when they do I’ll change my score.

by DEVi8

GooglePodcasts is behind on some features that are found in other podcast players. I suspect a lot of people will one star GooglePodcasts but for me it does what I need it to. It keeps all my podcasts in sync across my devices. Most importantly for me Google Home. If I star a podcast at home I can now easily pick up where I left off at home on my phone.

Also if you have certain podcast you subscribe to from Patreon those specific podcast links do not work in GooglePodcasts at the moment. Hopefully this will get fixed in future updates.

by AFineShrine

GooglePodcasts has a really slick design, but it doesn’t appear to support adding RSS feeds, for example from private patreon feeds, which unfortunately stops this from being anything I’d be able to use as a main player.

by B-lake624

This is a nice BASIC podcast app, but it’s design isn’t well thought out.

1) Subscribe to a podcast and auto download? Be prepared for ALL 1400 Joe Rogan podcasts to download!

2) No skip intros/outros settings? Come on? Do you even podcast, bro?

3) UI is too stupid simple for the sake of matching Chrome interface (Google Maps anyone?). I want a global settings menu where every customization is accessible. I hate digging through 3 separate settings menus. It’s 2020, I thought we were over that.

Overall, 10 times better than Apple Podcasts but 1/10 as good as Pocket Casts(also free now).

by Derrick2011

Nice app however it’s missing the autoplay from within a podcast show. The only way I can autoplay is if I add episodes to a queue. I feel Iike it’s going out of way to do this. I would like to have autopay within a podcast show I select without having to add episodes to a queue.

by Ryanfoote

Not much to say other than a great start out of the gate from Google! I’ve noticed a couple things keeping this from 5 stars:

- Needs CarPlay support
- Needs an in-app UI cue for changing audio output sources (minor)

by Joeyv8

Clean and basic Podcast App! Very nice. Wish they had Apple CarPlay. Hope Google will add that feature soon.

by Elkhot

I love GooglePodcasts. Very easy to search and find podcasts. I love the trim over silence feature and adjusting the speed. It’s brilliant.

by Littlegreykat

I like the simplicity of Googles product and especially the feature of being able to sort episodes from oldest or newest first with one touch of a button. Lot more intuitive.
Looking forward to more features as this product matures.

by Paisley177

This is a decent podcast app that could be great if they add some features. For example, the ability to search within podcasts is missing.

by Footballllllover

So excited that Google Podcasts is now available on iOS. It’s interface is so intuitive and easy-to-use. It already has all my favorite shows and helped me discover some new ones too!

by AppleClient1555

It’s interesting in how difficult it is to find this despite searching for “google podcasts,” and reviewing google apps within the iOS App Store. I had to search via safari to find a link to GooglePodcasts Store.

by Pgmolina

Only thing I would like is the availability to change the layout of the screen that displays all the podcasts i suscribe to. Only option now is to have them vertically.

Love the sync as right now he podcast app I use requires a subscription to be able to do it. Most podcast apps require a subscription for this.

I assume this will get regular updates as well.

by Ashuvashu

I was waiting for something like this, thanks Google for this.