Seeking testers for my new iOS and MacOS Podcast App

Will check this out imminently.

Have you considered integration with AudioBookshelf, as an alternative/in addition to iCloud? Would make it even more attractive for hoarders, but it's not a top priority for me at the moment, I'd just love to see it.

Cheers for the work!

Great and thanks for the reply - I will grab that test link and check it out asap.

One more question - a feature request I sent Downcast ages ago which they said they would aim to implement and then no updates since and some time has gone past - a feature I liked from the BookPlayer book app and the Audible app, if playback speed set to increased speed the remaining listening time could be set to be shown based on that listening speed i.e. at 1x a book might show as 1hr listening time remaining but at 2x it would reflect real remaining listening time of 30mins (or what it is based on math by smart people) would be great to have something like this for podcast episodes or playlists etc

I've just downloaded the beta, are stats available yet? Or is this coming in the later versions of the app? If they are available, where can I find them?

I'm a long-term podcast listener who typically gets through a couple of hours of episodes daily and has used most of the main iOS podcast apps over the years, always gravitating back to Overcast. This new app has a compelling set of features and an accessibility focus that could finally pull me away from Overcast.

I have noticed one issue that's making it difficult to transition to this app: audio quality degrades quite noticeably to my ear when increasing playback speed. I normally listen at 2× or above, and at those rates the audio is noticeably harder to bear in this app compared to Overcast or others I've used. I wondered whether my combination of the audio enhancement settings — Voice Boost, the EQ, or Smart Speed — might be interacting in a way that causes this, so I disabled all of these , but the degradation persists.

Has anyone else experienced similar quality issues at higher playback speeds? And does anyone have suggestions as to whether a particular combination of the available audio settings might be contributing to this?

Please add custom rotor similar to what is found in Mona and Lire RSS reader.

Thanks for the speedy response, Ashley — really appreciated. I'm genuinely excited to see how the app develops.

One other thing I noticed while testing: on the player screen, the playback speed adjustment only goes up to 2.0×. Given that the app supports up to 3.0×, I wanted to flag it in case it's an unintentional omission rather than a deliberate design choice for that screen.

I must say, after having a look at this app, I think I might have found a replacement for Pocket Casts, it does all the things I like and more, as I have not explored all the settings yet, but the app seems incredibly customizable. It also has live radio as mentioned, so might enable me to like it says there, use one app for both.

Wow I can't wait!!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi,
I put this through test flight feedback, but I'll mention it here too.
I've had a few instances where the app would crash, these are:
Firstly when tapping on the create smart playlist button, this was on my iPhone 15 Pro running the latest iOs.
Second, for some reason, and this may be due to the fact it's running the beta on an iPad. The app worked rather slowly in some parts, and when I turned on iCloud to move my stuff across from the phone, the app was not responding very well, and crashed a few times.
Also on the iPad. I played an episode of the podcast, once the episode started playing, the app became unresponsive. I could not use VoiceOver ot navigate to find the player screen or anything. Once I managed to get to the home screen., and with effort close the app, it kept playing the audio for a few seconds, then stopped playback, and a dialog popped up about the app crashing.

I'm also encountering unresponsiveness. For me it happens consistently when expanding the player to full screen, but also in other situations — most notably when the app is refreshing my subscriptions, of which I have 50 or so. When it occurs, my iPhone 15 Pro becomes noticeably warm.

Because of this I haven't had much opportunity to properly evaluate the audio quality issue I mentioned in my earlier post, but what I have been able to hear unfortunately suggests it may still be present. I'd be curious whether anyone else has impressions on the audio quality, particularly at higher playback speeds.

I'm also interested in testing. We really need a decent podcast program on macOS and iOS, and this sounds great! Please get in touch using the contact form for my account on here.

Hi, I’m wondering are you still looking for testers for your iOS app. Took me a while to find the thread to comment and reply.

You deserve it. It's a shame it only gives 5 stars on the app store. It deserves 20 stars.

I can absolutely confirm that. A great app with an incredible number of settings. For me, it’s already the app of the year. Always responded very quickly to my feedback and ensured that the problem was solved. Great developer

I completely agree. This is the developer of the year. I've never seen someone work on something until it is solved. This make take a few attempts but this dev just keeps at it. I'm seriously thinking of doing a podcast on it when it is on the store. Just be aware it will be long as I will cover as much of it as I can.

(Edit) I found the testflight link and I’m excited to start exploring the app.

I’d love to test for ios. I listen to podcasts pretty often, at least weekly, and it sounds like this app will have my favorite features from the players I use. I also used downcast for a while, but switched when I saw it wasn’t being updated and now I use pocketcasts and overcast. I’d love to switch to something with an accessibility focus. I know your in the beta phase right now, but do you have any longterm plans about things like whether this app will have a premium version or be completely free? Looking forward to hearing more about your work!

Hi Ashley,
When I export my library from pocketcasts I’m unable to upload it to this app. I’m using an iphone 14 pluss on ios 26.5 with voiceover. I can see the OPML file when I’m given the option to select something from the files app, but voiceover just says dimmed and doesn’t let me open it. I can open the file with no problem from the files app. I’m not sure if this is user error or a bug. Thank you for your time.

I got the import to work and now I’m trying to set up the inbox. Is there a way to get it to only show the latest episodes from the podcasts I’m subscribed to, and how do I get it to remove episodes from the inbox once I’ve listened to them or marked them as played? This app has a lot of settings which is useful but a bit confusing in the beginning.

Try settings under more. Start with inbox and cue.

Simulcast 1.0 (49) is ready to test on macOS.
What to Test
Quite a few fixes in this build.

iCloud:

Fixed iCloud settings being overwritten when sync starts on a new device.
Improved iCloud account-change, quota, and oversized-settings handling.
Fixed shared collections failing to save or open from iCloud invitations.
Made shared collection saves atomic and cleaned up temporary share files.
Improved iCloud Drive safety for downloads and custom notification sounds.
Fixed iCloud notifications incorrectly reporting that they downloaded new data.
Reduced background feed refresh work when iCloud library sync is on, which should reduce CloudKit disk writes and background termination risk on large libraries.

UI:
Refined the interface across Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Apple Watch.
Cards, banners, empty states, and appearance controls now use restrained native styling.
Added Automatic, Focused, and Expanded large-screen layout options.
Improved adaptive podcast grids, dashboards, artwork, player sheets, and import sheets.
Added a native Mac Settings window and customisable toolbars.
Improved Apple TV and Apple Watch layouts and text wrapping.
Improved onboarding visibility, larger text, Reduce Motion, and calmer presentation.
Improved Insights, Year in Review, menus, searches, and progress wording.
Aligned Translucent Surfaces with system materials.
Added an Interface setting to show Previous Station and Next Station buttons while playing radio. The station buttons appear in the full screen player and mini player and follow the same radio navigation source as remote media controls.
Playlist rows now show episode counts and total duration.
Playlist rows also show speed-adjusted remaining time when that interface setting is enabled.

Accessibility:
Improved VoiceOver navigation in Library Options.
Improved VoiceOver focus after queueing or removing Inbox items.
Radio track change announcements now speak the station before the song and artist.
Added a VoiceOver setting to announce the station after Previous Station or Next Station starts playback.

Siri:
Improved Siri playback after a cold background launch.
Added iOS 27 Siri queue warm-up and repeat support.
Siri now cancels interrupted playback promptly.
Fixed Siri playback for radio stations without an ID.
Siri suggestions now avoid duplicates.
Siri radio playback now handles small speech or spelling errors in long station names.
Siri radio playback now handles longer spoken station names more reliably.
Siri radio playback now avoids timing out while a live stream is still buffering.

General:
Lots of work on feed handling, refresh reliability, OPML imports and speed
Feed refresh diagnostics now write less often during long refreshes.
Fixed radio streams that could show 0KBPS when the server only exposed bitrate in the stream path.
Automatic downloads now make room before downloading when a keep limit is set.
Feed subscription approval now prefers the correct HTTP warning when a secure upgrade fails but the HTTP feed is usable.
Added optional app icon badges on iOS and the MacOS dock icon. You can choose what the badge counts in Notification settings.
Badge choices include Inbox, queue, unplayed, new, downloaded, in-progress, or a selected playlist.
OPML imports now protect the initial backlog by default.
Initial OPML hydration no longer auto-downloads, auto-adds to playlists, queues, indexes, or notifies for existing feed history.
Added a refresh diagnostics export in Network settings.
Added a Duplicate Feeds review from Library Options.
Podcast library episode counts now say they are locally known episodes.
Podcast settings now shows a retryable loading message if the selected podcast is not available immediately.
Factory reset warnings now explain how local reset and iCloud data interact.
Episode Info is now easier to open from episode action sheets.
Fixed Apple Music searches that could show an error while typing or after a cancelled search.
Apple Music search now retries temporary access failures.
To test:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/VrMXgQsS

Hi I have the latest iOS on my iPhone 14 and I would like to be a tester.

This info was given yesterday *smile*
Look at the bottom of all my post where I post what is new. I always put the link
To test:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/VrMXgQsS

Even developers make mistakes. Glad to know an apple TV version is on the way. I look forward to testing the apple TV version when it arrives. This is by far the best app of the year!!!!!!! I will continue to keep this ghread updated so watch for updates.

Yes, I appreciate that it's technically challenging. But is there a way? I have many podcasts in various states of playback and file locality due to Downcast's sync being effectively broken, and merely using the macOS version to migrate the library of downloadable episodes won't be complete because many of the files were imported directly on my iPhone.

Could we, perhaps, simply have an option whereby the location of the database file and Downloads folder could be specified by the user? I would then arrange to pull the data out of my iOS backup, for instance.

No worries if this is thought to be too baroque, I understand, but I'd like a cleaner iOS migration if possible. Thanks.

Sadly, no, there's no UI to export the data. The closest you can get is to turn on iCloud syncing and then access the data on macOS, however this doesn't bring over the media files themselves, which will only be included in an iTunes or iCloud backup if you turn on a switch to include them. Hence right now the best you can really do is to sync macOS to iOS with iCloud, and download as many of the episodes that your library is still referencing. This is certainly a whole lot better than nothing, of course. Doing better means breaking the sandbox, and as far as I can see the only realistic prospect for doing this is backing up to a computer and then reading that backup. This can certainly be done, even if it's not exactly child's play.

And, in case it isn't already clear, thanks for your work on this awesome app! I can't wait to cut over to it completely.

Hi,
Can you add me please?
Afik.sofir@icloud.com

Thanks.

I haven't tested because it seems like there are enough people, so I figured I'll just wait until it's out. Is there a way to focus on currently playing things per podcast? Let me try and explain.

Right now I'm using Downcast. Say podcast A has 2000 episodes. I'm on 137. I switch to podcast B, and start playing an episode. SO far as I know, in order to resume Ep. 137 of podcast A, I have to get to that episode in the table, after of course picking local or remote episodes or whatever it calls them, and scroll to that episode and hit play on it again.

It would be nice to have something that resumes and maybe even puts you on that episode in the list, if possible. I know the normal solution to this is to only get X recent episodes and all, but I really don't listen to podcasts like that. The one I'm thinking of as my example recently ended so I actually downloaded all thousand plus episodes locally. So it would be nice to not have to scroll through all of that to get back to where I was at, if I decide to play something else.

I honestly feel that, once this app goes live, it is going to become one of the most popular podcast apps for iOS. I cannot speak for the macOS version, as I don't really use macOS these days, but the iOS application is stellar.
True story. 🤔

I've never met a developer so responsive to user requests. The only radio and podcast app on my phone is Simulcast. The app just works. That is the bottom line. I truly hope it is number 1 once it hits the store.

Hello,
How can I see the show notes for episodes I am listening too? I cannot seem to find any way to see them in the app.

Thanks,
Greg Wocher

Select the podcast you want. Then double tap on the, more, tab at the bottom right of the application. Then swipe to the right until you find, Episode Info, and double tap. Finally, swipe right until you find show notes. Directly under this will be the actual show notes.

@Ashley,

If we could make the show notes label into a heading or something accessible to the rotor, that would be wonderful. 😊
OK, I know there is a Static Text rotor option, but honestly, who the hell uses Static Text in their rotor these days? 🙄👎

Hi,
This is most certainly a great app, and has all the things that many other apps have had. However, I'm still having it crash when I'm trying to access my stats, has anyone else had this?

Steps to reproduce please? I'd love to try and see if I can reproduce this but have no clue how to do so.

Hi Dennis,
IN my case, when I open the app and tap on library options, and from there double tap on stats, the app becomes unresponsive, and the focus gets stuck in the status bar. going out of the app and entering it again from the app switcher doesn't help either. If I then close the app, a few seconds later I get a pop up saying that the app has crashed.

Have you submitted the crash report?