Introducing Anytime podcast app and seeking VoiceOver feedback

By Ben Hills, 10 April, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi everyone,

I have developed a free and open source podcast app, called Anytime Podcast Player, which is available for iOS and Android. I've been working on improving accessibility within the app and particularly the screen reader support, but I know there is more improvements to be made and I was recommended this forum - thank you Robert.

I would be very grateful for any feedback, tips or suggestions that can help me improve the accessibility in Anytime and make it a better app if anyone would like to try it.

It's available on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anytime-podcast-player/id1582300839#?platform=iphone

Many thanks,

Ben.

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Comments

By Ben Hills on Sunday, February 1, 2026 - 21:02

Hi Kroni,

Thanks for giving Anytime another try and for your feedback.

I have reproduced the problem with the full screen option, and I can see what is happening. I will fix this for the next release.

I'll look into the forward, rewind and the slider options. 10 second increments on the slider probably isn't very helpful. I've just compared it to Apple Podcasts and that jumps in 3 minute increments.

Thanks.

By Troy B on Sunday, February 1, 2026 - 21:41

I made the changes you suggested and along with the other things that I already knew about I think this is going to make it much easier to keep up with new episodes.

I'm not usually much of a podcast listener, I mostly listen to podcasts dealing with my favorite major league baseball team and even then I mostly listen during the off season, but I already much prefer anytime to the native iOS app and the way you keep improving anytime I'm liking it more and more so keep up the good work.

By Kroni on Monday, February 2, 2026 - 08:50

Hi Ben, I have a question about the layout. In the settings, it says "Highlights of new episodes." What exactly does this setting do? As a VoiceOver user, I don't see any difference when I enable or disable it.

Another suggestion: I personally would like it if the main overview displayed the titles of all unplayed episodes of every podcast. That way, I could immediately see if a particular episode interests me and I want to listen to it, or if not, I could mark it as played.

By Ben Hills on Monday, February 2, 2026 - 10:48

Hi Kroni,

The 'Highlight new episodes' option marks podcasts in your library that have new episodes since Anytime last did a fetch. As you move over each podcast in your library, VoiceOver will read the title, followed by the number of new episodes (if there are any).

A few people have asked for an episode view across all podcasts, so it is on my list to look in to. There are several ways I could do this, and I am thinking over the options. Thanks.

By Kroni on Monday, February 2, 2026 - 14:00

Hi Ben, thanks for your reply. One more thing: I generally like to support developers who want to make their apps accessible to blind people. Therefore, it would be great if there was an option to donate within the app.

By Ben Hills on Monday, February 2, 2026 - 19:24

Thanks Kroni, I appreciate that.

A few people have asked me to add a donate button, but unfortunately doing so can get an app rejected from the stores as it essentially bypasses their payment system. Some apps seem to get by, but I know of several others that have been kicked out or have had their updates rejected due to adding a donate link. It's a shame, but I'd rather err on the side of caution and not add a link.

By Kroni on Monday, February 2, 2026 - 20:35

Hi Ben, couldn't you arrange it via an in-app purchase?

By Roaratron on Tuesday, February 3, 2026 - 00:57

will episode notifications come to Anytime? Also, as a previous poster said, you can add a tip jar as an in-app purchase in the app store.

By Ben Hills on Tuesday, February 3, 2026 - 13:07

I'll take another look into the rules, but adding in-app purchases would change Anytime to a paid for app. This means that on the store listings, the developer's registered address and telephone number would be displayed. As an individual developer, and not a company, this would be my home address and telephone number.

AntennaPod, a popular open source podcast player on Android, has a contribute button. This opens a web page with ways to help the project, including donating, so I might look to see if I can do that. I do have a ko-fi page and it would be nice to have a way to make it more visible.

By Ben Hills on Tuesday, February 3, 2026 - 13:08

Yes, Roaratron, notifications will definitely be coming. This will be included as part of adding support for per-podcast settings, which I will hopefully begin soon.

By Troy B on Saturday, February 7, 2026 - 23:28

I made the changes that Ben suggested in the layout section under menu, and it initially seemed like it was working great but I just noticed that more episodes have been added to a couple of podcast feeds I follow, including my favorite feed, but when I tap on the podcast button no episodes are showing at all. Help again please? It's obviously something simple and I'm just missing it, once I get it fixed I'll just leave it as is instead of trying to hide older episodes that I'm not interested in.

By Ben Hills on Friday, February 13, 2026 - 07:41

Hi Troy,

When you are noticing these new episodes, is this Anytime showing there are new episodes or that you know your favourite podcast has released new episodes? If Anytime is indicating there are new episodes, but when you go in they are not there, would you mind sharing one of these podcasts so I can try it here to see if I have the same issues?

Thanks,

Ben.

By Troy B on Friday, February 13, 2026 - 14:54

Ben,

I was wrong the new episodes are still showing. The feed I thought I was having trouble with is a baseball podcast, so I plugged the feed into a couple of other podcast players including the native iPhone podcast app and I discovered that the feed hadn't been updated with new episodes since the last few days of January.

The feed had had new episodes at least once a week over the past few months so that's why I thought something was wrong, especially since I had done something recently where the new episodes weren't showing but in fact 4 new episodes were posted yesterday.

By Ben Hills on Tuesday, February 17, 2026 - 08:00

Hi Troy,

Thanks for the update. I'm glad everything is working as expected.

Ben.

By quanchi on Sunday, March 1, 2026 - 22:44

Thank you for making this app.
I downloaded it and I really like the simple interface it has.
I will import my podcasts from Overcast and see how it goes, but I have a couple suggestions:
1. I'm coming from Overcast. It has a feature where it trims silence from episode files and it's a really good feature and it can save you a lot of time. It would be nice if you can add it to the app.
2. Listening stats. I love stats. Stuff like how many episodes I have listened to, how much time I spent listening to episodes, how much time trimming silence has saved me, etc.
It would be nice if we can also filter by stats for all time, last week, last month, 3 months, year etc.

It's really good that you have the app on both iOS and Android so we can have the same experience on both platforms