[anon(5518418)]

This is proving to be somewhat of a struggle, all I have tried have major annoying bugs.

Podcast Picker - This worked well until it came to actually playing the podcasts, it would often skip to the next podcasts for no apparent reason, but whats worse is the fact it doesn't save your position with podcasts, so it decides to skip to the next podcasts, you go back to the previous only to discover it starts right from the very start again, and who's to say if you start playing the podcast it wont skip to the next again at some stage?

Podcast Lounge - Rated as one of the best of WP, It imported my podcasts fine, I set it to sync and download my latest podcasts and went to bed. Got up in the morning and sure it had downloaded my podcasts but deleted all the playlists, Hit + to add a playlist "An unexpected error has occurred" meaning to listen to your podcasts you have to go into your faves etc and select making the whole process slow and clunky.

Pocket Casts - Used this for years on iOS and Android, this is the king of podcast apps, so obviously it would just as good on WP WRONG.

In the app I found it rather sluggish like it was using a hell of a lot of RAM, I signed in and synced it pulled in my podcasts list, then it came to auto download the latest episodes, the list set trying to download, it set 10 mins or more then gave FAILED, after much tinkering the only way I could get it to download anything was to do everything manually downloading 1 podcast at a time. Once downloaded I discovered you get a play button, no other controls, no ability to scroll forward or back etc, and once listened to the podcast remains in the downloaded list, no auto delete. Rubbish compared to ther iOS & Android counterpart.

Surely it couldn't be this hard to get a decent podcast app on WP?

[Koen C]

I have used Podcast Lounge : very good app.
Now I use Pocket Casts which I find a bit better, I especially like the way you can set several episode filters.

[gomezz]

I use i Podcast. Not perfect (ignore the option to download to SD card it is still buggy) and occasionally needs a full close down and restart but never lost a podcast nor even play points. One feature I like is the skip back 15 or 30 seconds which is useful to pick up where you where when pausing and resuming a speech item.

[anon(5518418)]

They all seem to have some issue or another. For occasional listening may be fine but I listen all day at work and none seem reliable enough

[Splacknuk]

I just use the built-in "Podcasts" every day for listening at work. I've never had a problem with it. Not sure what the features are from the other apps, but this one downloads podcasts and plays them reliably. Am I missing some amazing features?

[anon(5518418)]

I just use the built-in "Podcasts" every day for listening at work. I've never had a problem with it. Not sure what the features are from the other apps, but this one downloads podcasts and plays them reliably. Am I missing some amazing features?

Maybe I was spoiled on iOS and Android but some of the basic feature I expect in a Podcasts app:

Obviously the ability to search and add podcasts
Auto sync - It auto checks if there are any new episodes and alerts you, ideally being able to schedule this
Auto download - After it auto syncs is automatically downloads your podcast on WiFi, again being able to schedule this is a bonus
Once it downloads it puts the new episode in a playlist such as NEW
Then once listened it auto deletes the podcast.

These may seem rather advanced features but they are basic features on every other platform

[gomezz]

i Podcast does all of that. I too am a heavy user of podcasts and find it reliable enough for heavy day to day use. A once a week or less glitch is not enough to make me look elsewhere.

[gomezz]

After the glitches with iPodcast driving me into the arms of Podcast Lounge but that too becoming flaky with the latest update I have now switched to using Podcast Picker which has the functionality I need and is so far stable.

[wpbazaar]

Edit: News.ly is just as bad as the other apps on my list, it's only good for text content. My test was with an rss source that made a special effort to make audio easy to playback.

My search is for a WM10 podcast app that can use feedly as a source - BeyondPod would be the android equivalent. None of the WM podcast apps seem to be interested in being able to do this so I have mainly been looking at rss apps. Feed Me was my go-to because it was the only one I found that would continue playing in the background, but it has recently gone defunct. Modern Reader was my backup option but this is now PC only.

After a few hours' evaluation I have ended up with news.ly which was the only one that figured out there is audio attached to the article. It uses Edge to playback but at least it doesn't stop playing if backgrounded.

News.ly can hold my hand and comfort me for as long as I continue to lie on the WM deathbed :)

The list of failures as follows: Feedlab (nagware that displays links to audio in an inputbox??), Ini Reader, My Reader, Phonly (space-wasting so-called-"gorgeous" layout), Newskimmer (diabolically slow), Verbalize (can play text but not audio), Feed Viewer (menu occludes Feedly OAuth screen which prevents setup), Nextgen Reader.

Requirements below:

MUST - as a podcast user I want to be able to use feedly as a source so I don't have to set up 30 feeds individually
MUST - as a podcast user I want audio to continue to play if I switch away from the app or lock the screen so I don't lose the ability to use the device or put it away while listening
SHOULD - as a podcast user I want to be able to see many articles at a glance instead of just one or two, so I can quickly select the podcast I want to listen to

[gomezz]

Podcast Lounge had a stability update last week and is now rock solid again so I am back to using it as my preferred podcatcher.

I am keeping Podcast Picker installed with all my feeds added as a standby though and would be happy enough to use it all the time if push came to shove especially if I could figure out how to get it to play Playlists - seems to be an unfinished feature?

Sadly, iPodcast continued to prove to be unstable not just in its own operation but causing the phone to spontaneously reboot and also another oddity is it causing the audio part of the OS to get confused as whether it is supposed to be using the internal speaker, the headphone output or the Bluetooth connection needing the phone to be rebooted to clear the problem.

[elvard]

I tried many and settled on "Grover" no issues anymore. It also looks nice.

[gomezz]

Grover needs WM10 and not available on WM8.1 so not an option for me.