Now that Google Listen has been
discontinued, some of you out there may be looking for an alternative.
Or more likely, you never used Google Listen, but you wanted to know
what the best options were for managing podcasts on your Android phone
or tablet. Luckily, there is absolutely no shortage of podcast apps
available in the Play Store. If anything, there may just be an
overabundance of options, but we've narrowed it down to 5 solid options
that should cover any user preferences.
That
said, the tablet UI isn't really the most intuitive out there, and it
can be a bit clunky to navigate, but most of these issues were in
portrait mode, and as such will likely be more of a problem for Nexus 7
users than most 10" tablet users. Overall, BeyondPod was a bit sluggish
on the Nexus 7, and definitely needs some optimization. Still, we have
faith that the team will work out the kinks.
DoggCatcher
is the other granddaddy of the podcasting world of Android devices.
Like BeyondPod, DoggCatcher has a big feature list, and also an
incredibly impressive amount of control over individual feeds should you
choose to dive into the settings.
Pocket
Casts is an app that has a great set of features, and a few pretty
interesting features you won't find anywhere else, which is why we have
to include it here. The trouble is that there is no tablet version at
all, and while the app looks beautiful on Android phones, the graphics
do not scale well even just to a 7" screen, and things look blurry. But,
if you're just using an Android phone, this may be a good one to look
into.
doubleTwist
isn't a dedicated podcasting app, which is why it's best for the casual
listener. doubleTwist will not only give you options to build a podcast
queue, it is one of the better all around solutions for syncing media
easily from your computer to your Android device. Essentially,
doubleTwist wants to be the iTunes for Android, and in that regard it
does quite well. It's not stellar for podcasting, but it does so many
things well that makes up for it, and best of all, it's free, although
if you want the option to sync your content wirelessly, that will cost
you $4.99.
Stitcher
isn't what you'd normally think of when talking about podcasting apps,
but it definitely has its place, especially for those who really don't
listen to podcasts all the time. When you think of a podcasting app,
you're normally thinking of an app that will download content for
offline use, but Stitcher is a streaming-only option. But, this can be a
great solution for casual users who don't always listen to podcasts, or
like to periodically check in with certain content feeds.
As we
said, there are a lot of podcast options out there, so if your favorite
isn't in our list just let us know which one you prefer, and be sure to
tell us why it's your favorite. We know that some of you out there may
prefer PodKicker, PodTrapper, MyPod, or OneCast, but while those were
all solid apps, they didn't quite have enough to make the list. So,
without further ado, let's get into it!
For the podcast enthusiast
BeyondPod
gets to start off our list for a few reasons. It's not only packed to
the brim with features, but it's one of the granddaddies of the Android
podcast app space, and the developer (BeyondPod Team) is very engaged
and constantly working. To that point, this is one of the few podcast
apps that doesn't just scale to tablets, but has a version specifically
designed for tablets, which is impressive.
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As
far as the feature list, BeyondPod will have most everything you need
to search for, or discover new podcasts. You can also import OPML files,
or even pull in specific feeds from your Google Reader if you want. The
special feature of BeyondPod is the Smart Playlist option, which can
learn from your listening habits and automatically create playlists of
your favorite podcasts.
There are free versions of BeyondPod for both phones and tablets
(although the tablet app is still called "BeyondPod for Honeycomb",
which is a big problem,) but if you are really a podcast enthusiast,
you'll probably end up paying $6.99 for the unlock key. But, the good
news is that even if you have BeyondPod on both your phone and tablet,
the unlock key works for both, so you won't have to pay twice.
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As far as
performance, we've never had an issue with DoggCatcher, unlike the few
hiccups we ran into with BeyondPod. But, that could very well be because
DoggCatcher is a bit more conservative with its design. There is no
dedicated tablet version of DoggCatcher, and there really isn't much
difference between the phone and tablet interface. That's not
necessarily a bad thing, but you will get more info about each podcast
and feed item without as much digging with BeyondPod.
The
dev team for DoggCatcher is a bit more reliable with updates than the
BeyondPod team as well. DoggCatcher is also a bit cheaper at $4.99, but
the trouble there is that there's no free version to try out.
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Maybe the best
feature of Pocket Casts is what the team calls "instant refresh" or
"warp speed". Essentially what this feature does is to leave the polling
for new podcasts up to the Pocket Casts servers rather than forcing
your device to do it all the time. This has two benefits, not only
making it a lot faster to check for new content (because the app just
checks one spot rather than however many podcasts you listen to), but
also in using less data (ibid).
Another
cool feature sets up two large touch zones on the player for easy
skipping ahead or backwards in a podcast (as you can see in the image.)
The last standout feature is for those of you out there who tend to go
for video podcasts. Pocket Casts has a pretty interesting feature which
allows you to toggle the video on or off for a podcast, so you can
switch between as you want.
Presto
isn't a podcasting app, but we had to mention it in the section for
podcast enthusiasts, because it's really something anyone who loves
podcasts should have. Presto is the tool that allows other podcasting
apps - like BeyondPod, DoggCatcher, and others - variate the speed of
playback with pitch correction. Technically only playback speeds of up
to 2x are supported, but it is possible to go faster than that if you
really want. It'll set you back $4.99, but it's worth it if you find
that you have more podcasts to listen to than you have free time.
For the casual podcaster
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doubleTwist scales well from phones
to tablets, which really just adds to its "jack-of-all-trades"
reputation. And, of course being the iTunes for Android, if you are
coming from an iTunes life, doubleTwist can import your iTunes data for
easy transfer. So, if you'd rather just keep using iTunes to manage your
podcast subscriptions, that's no problem here.
There is a companion app for Mac or PC to help sync data, and doubleTwist can even stream content from your mobile device to devices such as Xbox, PS3, Sonos, and Apple TV (though not AirPlay).
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Even
better, Stitcher has much more content than just podcasts including a
huge store of live radio, and radio clips. So, even if podcasts aren't
your thing, you may be able to put together a playlist of content that
fits your needs.
One strange thing is that
Stitcher is one of the best examples of Android's responsive design
philosophy that we've seen (as you can see in the image to the left).
The app looks good on phones, and even better on tablets. The layout
scales and adds in a nice set of features and options that slide in on
tablets. Of course, this may not be all that useful because as we said,
this app is streaming-only and many tablets are WiFi-only. So, unless
you have a tablet with a mobile connection, or you tether, or are always
around WiFi, Stitcher may not really be of much use for tablet users,
as pretty as the design may be.
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