Wondery: For Podcast Addicts Reviews

Edit: with the ability to listen to the premium content on other apps as explained by the developper in reply to my review, I’m changing back to 5 stars!

The content available is great, no question about that. But Wondery , OMG, it’s bad: ergonomics are weak, it gets stuck all the time, when it doesn’t just crash, the ability to download stuff for offline listening is works maybe 50% of the time at best, no CarPlay integration which makes listening in my car on my way to work less safe. I really wish there was a way to subscribe to the premium plan to avoid the ads but listen on the apple native app. Or any other app but the this app one.

I want to like Wondery. I really do. But it’s a hot mess! Several issues plague Wondery that don’t effect other podcast players. Here’s a few;

You’re listening to a podcast & you get a call, Wondery doesn’t pause & resume after the call. Oh no. It resets itself & you have to reload it from the start. If you’re lucky the show you were listening to held its place. Pause a show to look up something? Full reset. Stay paused for too long? Yep full reset. Here’s another issue. The fast forward & rewind buttons don’t work when playing. You can literally wind up anywhere in a shows timeline if you make the mistake of touching those buttons. The content gets scattered all over the home screen of Wondery with no sense of organization. It won’t save a playlist of shows you’re listening to. No notifications of new episodes so you have to keep checking. I could go on but it’s in several reviews already. Just read up. Bottom line... I got the subscriber feed from the website & just downloaded them from there in another player. I love the content. The shows are fantastic. I’m a subscriber. But Wondery isn’t worth the trouble.

Fix this this app!!!

I was prepped to pay for the content. I really enjoy some of their podcasts. I got so frustrated during my free trial that I cancelled early. Podcasts starting over after anything happens in iOS was already enough to put me over the top. But another super irritating thing is I listen at 1.5x most the time and that would reset and you’d have to cycle back through the speeds to get it fixed but if you do that too fast it wouldn’t pick it up right. It’s like the state management in Wondery is completely an afterthought. I’m usually pretty forgiving as I myself am a software developer but it’s like there was zero testing done on the features that exist.

I think the primary reason I ended up dropping the subscription and why I’m writing this review is because most people listen to podcasts while driving and Wondery effectively makes it unsafe to use unless you’re okay listening to the same episode repeatedly and slowly due to all the bugs.

I’m honestly stunned Wondery has over 4 stars in aggregate. It currently fails as a podcast player which is a shame because the content is excellent.

This application is pretty, but it is also the least efficient or intuitive of the four podcast applications I have used. It seems to be, primarily, an advertisement for podcasts I don’t listen to, advertising that complicates my ability to enjoy the podcasts I do. Wondery is not as slow or bloated as it once was. Many of the issues identified in previous two-star reveiws have been fixed. Nevertheless, using this applciation remains a mystifying slog. I discover new frustrations. Most recently, I have found that the latest episode of a podcast disappears for a week after I listen to it... even if I fall asleep and don’t actually hear the end of the episode. I cannot find the episode until the next episode is released. There is no (obvious) way to set a sleep timer or review a listening history, features that seem to be routinely included in other podcast applications. The general problem seems to be a focus on aesthetics and advertising over functionality and all the bug-squashing in the world won’t fix that approach to app design.

I really like Tides of History, so I figured I’d get the subscription and maybe a little of my money would trickle to him. But Wondery works so poorly!

There is big stuff—it constantly logs me out and doesn’t recognize my credentials until I uninstall and reinstall, and downloaded episodes will regularly disappear for no reason, which is frustrating because I often download big chunks for periods where I’ll be out of reception and then they’re not there. There is also just little stuff that works really poorly—if I’m using it at the same time as google maps, it doesn’t pause when that app takes over audio to give directions. Every other podcast app can do this! Some even rewind a second so you don’t lose context on resumption. This is made even worse because the 15 second rewind button on the lock screen rarely works.

All in all, I’ll probably go back to Apple Podcasts and deal with the ads. Especially because the 30 second fast forward button on that app actually works.

The content they offer is top notch. I want to get that out of the way. This isn’t a review of a single show or related to multiple shows. I enjoy most of this app content. I also wouldn’t have these complaints if they didn’t make you pay for it.

This review is based on their app entirely:

1) Wondery constantly restarts itself and is worthless as far as getting out of the car and getting back in. Every other audio app I have picks up where it left off on car restart. this app shuts itself down and you have to restart it on your phone at each stop...then navigate their interface...each time. As when it restarts, it resets what you were listening to previously.
2) This doesn’t help since, their start screen doesn’t make it easy to get back to the show you were on.
3) It also doesn’t help as they push “episodes” over shows so you have to start an episode in order to mute it just to repeatedly click on the title of the program to get to an episode list. Why is it so difficult? Just let me have a quick option to go to shows I listen to if you won’t allow continued listening.
4) I like the this app productions, but Wondery is very flawed. I just want someone who is looking through reviews to know, before they purchase a subscription, that Wondery will give you more grief than it’s worth. It is easier to listen the normal way.

Although there are several this app podcasts I’m interested in listening to, the player itself is what is going to keep me from subscribing.

Yes, the lack of ads saves time, but the limited options to speed up playback (1x; 1.25x; 1.5x; 1.75x and 2x) most of the time leave me feeling like I’m either listening too fast or too slow. There are several podcast apps and audioplayer apps that offer speed up in increments of .1. A lot of the time 1.3 or 1.4 is perfect when listening to this app podcasts on other apps. I really don’t understand the limited options especially from a brand as professional as this app.

Something else that is very frustrating, is that when you play back episodes on the continuous setting where the next one automatically plays, if you had the speed set to 1.25x the next episode starts playing at 1x speed even though it shows that it’s 1.25. I thought maybe I was crazy so I played something through the end at 1.75x and the next episode automatically started but it was at 1x, not 1.75 as Wondery was showing. So every time a new episode starts I have to stop what I’m doing, go back to Wondery and click through the speeds one time until it resets and starts speeding up again.

If these issues are addressed and rectified, I would 100% become a long term subscriber. Until then, I’ll probably listen in another app at an optimal speed. It’s not worth the headache and optimal speed is so important to me.

If I try to rewind 15 sec it freezes, or keep playing and then 3 min later rewind 15 sec. Every time I open Wondery , the player displays the very first podcast series I listened to on this app (like 6 shows ago!) and it takes a few minutes for it to refresh. Pretty much anything I do, rewind, try to read episode details, go back to home screen, there is a delay OR more times than not it just freezes and I have to restart app and then go through a series of frustrating deejays to get back to up where I was (which I usually can't). For awhile there it. would freeze 2 min before the end of each episode and because the fast forward doesn't work, I'd end up having to listen to about 10 min I'd already heard. The content is totally up my alley... But I want to smash this app thru my phone at least three times an episode. I'm on a free trial now but don't think I can justify paying a monthly fee for this... Total bummer!!

Does not work well when your internet connection is intermittent, such as mobile cell service. If you try to load an episode with bad service and then move to an area with better signal, the episode will remain stuck on playback error cannot load episode please try again later. It will eventually start working, although it seems to be stuck in this state longer than necessary. The error message keeps popping up even after I can switch to other apps and load data. Pressing any button often lags for a few moments before going to the screen. Together with the network issues, it feels like Wondery overall is not very snappy and untrustworthy. Dowloading multiple episodes sometimes cancels the download of other episodes. I will not be resubscribing to this app with expection that I will listen through Wondery.

It’s inexcusable to have an app that repeatedly crashes like this one. Want to binge? Be prepared to restart Wondery multiple times. Clearly the “premium” I’m paying for is the content and not the listening experience. I feel lucky to get through a 25 minute episode and that’s not the kind of feeling I want from a podcast player. This does not happen with any other major podcast app.

I don’t want to think about if I’m in the mood to be yanked out of a story when I’m in the mood for a story. And that’s ultimately what I have to consider every time I think about launching Wondery. Which sometimes leads me to other non-this app content.

Wondery owes the content an apology. I’m not asking it to do super fancy superfluous things. I’m asking it to play an audio file without consistently crashing. That’s it. And how bad is it that inconsistent crashing would be an improvement?

Bear with me. I subscribed to this app so I could download shows to listen to while I was out of service ... no wi-fi, no internet, no nothing ... in the bowels of the Alaskan wilderness. Imagine how disappointed I was to be in the wilderness and try to listen to my “Downloaded Episodes” but noooo ... this app wanted me to log in, like I’d never logged in before or even used Wondery . Ok, no problem ... I’ll play their silly game and log in again EXCEPT since I wasn’t on-line, logging in is impossible and you get the message, “an error occurred.”

So I got NOTHING!!! I’d already signed in when I was in civilization so why this app needed me to sign in again is beyond me. The second I got BACK into service,
this app didn’t ask me to sign in ... it just automatically connected me (as it should no matter where I am!!)

Another HUGE negative to Wondery is that EVERY time you launch it, it searches and searches and searches FOREVER before you’ll see anything to listen to. Even if I’m using the this app app but switch to any other app (say, I want to look at my texts) switching back to this app starts the whole process over again. Fifteen seconds AT LEAST while it “boots up” again. If you don’t leave this app in the foreground 100% of the time and do NOTHING ELSE on your phone, it’ll be like the first time you’ve opened Wondery ... and the process starts all over.

Just HORRIBLE. Absolutely the worst app I’ve ever used.

I have written to this app support many times over the last year. I am shocked by how awful Wondery continues to be. As a premium subscriber, I expect at least an app that works. The problems are too many to fully list here. Using an iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Examples: open Wondery , app will take a full half a minute to render the home page (normal for Wondery). Click an episode to listen to, Wondery will crash. Force close, re open, click an episode (after waiting for the screen to render as if it’s on dial up internet.....) and it plays! Turn off the screen to pocket phone...content stops. Open phone again and click play. Turn screen back off- content stops again. Only plays if the screen is on.

These are only 2 of several regular issues. The only reason I haven’t deleted Wondery is that I’ve paid for the full year of ad free and love this app’s content. They desperately need new app developers though.

this app, and this app Plus provide a wide variety of high quality content but Wondery is terrible and support is poor, even if you subscribe to plus. I recently replaced my phone and couldn’t get plus content to load until after I unsubscribed to plus.

Finding your downloaded content is cumbersome. Your shows display could be improved to make it easier to find the shows you want to listen to. Sometimes I have to repeatedly sign in to Wondery , often multiple times in single day. I’d consider subscribing again after significant modifications to Wondery .

As many others have said, the content is excellent, but Wondery itself needs a lot of work. Episodes often take a very long time to load once you press play, once it starts playing often the buttons to pause, ff, and rewind don’t work or have a horrible lag. I have to restart Wondery entirely to try to get from the currently playing episode screen back to the library if I’m not into a particular episode because the down arrow doesn’t work at all. Listening to only a few episodes with no other apps open or in the background the other day somehow drained my entire phone battery. Also nearly impossible to get it to work with my apple carplay. I’m sure that improvements will come but not sure I want to pay to subscribe until Wondery is useable.

Updated***I find it hard to believe that with so many users complaining about app issues that they can’t get anything resolved. You are alway asking for feedback to help resolve the issues. Why don’t you just try using it yourself and you will see what everyone else is complaining about. Wondery has force closed 8 times on me today.

Let me start by saying that this app has some of the best content out there. But with that being said Wondery really makes me question whether I should continue to fight with it or delete and go somewhere else. It never picks back up, constantly force closes buffers, and sometimes it just won’t even play. I always having to restart Wondery . The most recent issue is Wondery says I’m offline when trying to play any episode even though I’m able to navigate through it and select different podcasts.

I just got this app, the paid version. I’m happy to support a good app, and I believe this app is good, as far as content. But there are definitely problems to be fixed right away.

1) Why am I never at the spot I stopped listening when I go back to an unfinished podcast? That’s ridiculous. I’m already getting very irritated by it. Because it’s almost every time. I will press play after having it off for even just a few minutes, and I’m way ahead of where I previously ended. It is very frustrating because then I have to keep going back, trying to find where I was so that I can continue listening from the right spot.
AND
2) Your play and pause buttons are also not very responsive. I’ve even tried pressing, then waiting a second before pressing again because the touch doesn’t seem to register until you do it a few times. I really like your content, but this needs fixing right away.

Aren’t these issues basically “elementary”? As far as my phone for touch sensitivity, it’s not my phone’s touch sensitivity. Everything else works without a problem. Please fix these issues. Thank you!

I shelled out the yearly subscription cost despite Wondery being slow, buggy, and not working with Apple car play. I did this because I think this app makes excellent content, but primarily because I truly hate ads. After the one month free trial, I thought it was a good investment despite the issues, which I wrote off as being par for the course for a new app. Btw, the issues haven’t gotten better, app is still slow and doesn’t work on Apple car play, but I’m lucky enough to be working from home rn so realistically not an issue.

But the true cardinal sin...

Now there are pop up ads. Full screen with a hidden x you have to hunt for. As previously mentioned, I hate ads, in any form (like most of the free world). Pop ups are some of the most offensive and it interrupts the already lackluster experience of using Wondery. They are ads for your own content, but they are still ads!

Hopefully you read this and make a change to fulfill your promise of an ad free experience (that I paid $35 for!). I suggest using notifications, like every other app does, to advertise new content to your users and ditching the obnoxious full screen pop ups. Please!

I have been listening to this app shows for a while. I love the content.
I recently subscribed to this app + and started using Wondery instead of the Apple podcast app.
I mostly listen to podcasts while driving, my cell phone is connected to my car on Apple CarPlay. Every time I receive a phone call or a text message Wondery resets itself and will not continue playing the podcast after the call is finished or the text message reading is completed.
I have to get my phone, unlock it, open the this app app again, push play again to continue listening. Not only is this extremely annoying, it is also dangerous to do while driving.
Please fix this. There is no value to this app + otherwise: I would prefer to continue to use the Apple podcast app

Wondery issues are why I’m discontinuing my subscription. I enjoy the content, but Wondery logs you out, doesn’t save your login info, randomly closes, etc. I haven’t had this many issues with other apps and have tried deleting and re-downloading it a number of times without any improvement. While not a huge deal in my life, I’m writing this as feedback for the developers. this app is a relatively large company so I’m kind of surprised that Wondery quality is consistently poor despite there being a lot of reviews pointing out this issue. It’s doing a disservice to the content creators who work hard to create their work, only to have people not listen due to a frustrating app experience.

I enjoy the this app podcasts and paid for a premium membership to boost their work and avoid commercials. But anytime I pause a podcast for more than ten seconds I lose the ability to restart. I must go to the podcast which restarts and spins for several seconds before showing the pod I was listening to on the bottom. It never goes back to where I was page-wise so I have to go the my library and find the pod I was listening to again in order to access episodes. For such great content, it’s a really poorly designed app. If I hadn’t paid the fee I’d listen on my other podcast app on which I can pause as long as needed before it takes me to exactly where I was. Such a bummer.

Best podcasts ever. Great and unique stories. I learn something new everyday on my commute. Wondery on the other hand feels very bulky and slow. Almost as if it doesn’t belong on a iPhone. I’ll click to start a show and lock my phone immediately, nothing will happen. I open the phone again and the whole app has closed before ever attempting to start the podcast. My first experience with podcasts was with Apple through iTunes, I imagine many of you had the same first experience. The flow of the Apple podcast app is like the back of my hand and feels like home. When having to transition to the this app app for premium, amazing content, I find myself fumbling, struggling to find the podcast I was just listening to moments ago. I have subscribed and unsubscribed several time over my love hate relationship with Wondery. I would love an option to subscribe through Wondery Store to premium channels within the existing Apple Podcast app.

this app’s shows are awesome, this feedback is purely about Wondery :

Wondery is frankly over-designed. Everything transitions in with a slow animation, buttons are often odd sizes and unresponsive for a second or two when you re-open Wondery . You also have to constantly watch the “Feel the Story” logo animation. The show you were just listening to is not given a higher priority when you re-open at Wondery .

My phone heats up when using Wondery , probably because of all of the animation and effects.

But the biggest annoyance is that Wondery doesn’t seem able to stay alive in the background while paused. If I stop my show for even a minute or two, Wondery closes or gets suspended and I have to go back into it again to find my episode to resume. You frequently can’t use system media controls or your headphones to unpause. Phone calls also seem to cause Wondery to either crash or get suspended in the background.

I want to listen to the shows ad-free but all of these problems resuming playback are more annoying than having your this app shows on a different app with ads.

First, this is not a review of the content, as they have great content. But the actual app is terrible. It doesn’t work like a normal audio app. Sometimes when an episode ends, the next one starts... often times it does not, and I have no idea why. Sometimes when I open Wondery , thumbnails do no appear, and there’s no text names, so there’s just big empty spots. If I pause a show while wearing headphones, hitting play does nothing, and I have to go back to Wondery and manually hit play. And lastly, Wondery crashes often and many times seems to refresh, so if an episode ends, and nothing plays and I go back to Wondery , it goes through the opening animation, as if I just opened Wondery . Not good, to the point where I probably will cancel before the trial ends.

Edit: a recent update seems to have fixed the bug in the system. Keeping my fingers crossed that Wondery continues to deliver.

Wondery is very glitchy. ☹️ Every time I try listen to an episode I previously started it restarts the episode from the beginning. Sometimes it skips episodes. Wish Wondery was better!!!! Not sure if I’ll renew if it doesn’t get better. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I do LOVE the content!!!!!

I love this app but won’t be continuing my free trial membership because Wondery is far too tedious. I’m not paying for ad-free content that I can’t easily listen to. Wondery is SLOW and glitchy. Crashes all the time esp when I let my screen dim, does not remember my last listening position when rebooted, and does not seamlessly sync across my devices. I can barely get through an episode without an issue, including when I download them. Make Wondery simpler with less bells and whistles (automatic video previews are extremely unnecessary imo) so that it can be functional for it’s most basic purposes. If you can’t get the basics right then it doesn’t matter how pretty it looks. I’ll probably just listen on a different podcast platform.

I wanted to love Wondery since I upgraded to this app Plus to avoid commercials. I am happy with the selection however Wondery is extremely unreliable. I’ve had it crash a few times and every time I open it an older podcast that I have finished appears as the current episode and I have to search for the actual current podcast AND episode. It doesn’t keep track of what I have or haven’t heard yet so I have to figure out or guess which episode I’m on. I just paused to make a phone call and switched back to Wondery and it restarted with the old podcast again. Hoping these bugs get worked out soon so it’s a better experience.