I’ve been warming up to switching to GrapheneOS for months. Last month I bought a Pixel 8 (which is the buggiest effing phone I’ve ever owned, good job Google). I’ve just been waiting to have the bandwidth.
But with Google sunsetting Google Podcasts, I’ve decided to make time next week. Podcasts are a MAJOR part of my daily functioning.
I really love Podverse but ended up going back to Pocketcasts for the Android Auto support. They have a bounty out for the feature. I’ll switch back if they ever get it.
If you self host nextcloud, another option is to put the rss feeds for your favorite podcasts into the news app. I listen to all of my podcasts through that.
However… I’d totally be interested in a better self hosted podcast app that allows me to see a record of everything I’ve listened to, while also allowing me to download the episodes to my phone, lol. That’s the only reason I’m stuck on the news app still.
Maybe the gpoddersync-nextcloud app is more your thing? You can use that with all podcastapps that support gpodder sync. Works with Antennapod on Android and Kasts on KDE/Kubuntu.
93 nominations for the same thing, means I’m probably the wrong answer but I don’t Graphene, but I was degoogling and found PlayerFM listed among good Free Open Source Software FOSS options. Hope it works as Graphene option.
I use pocket casts and I tried switching to antenna pod because of a thread like this one and came right back to pocket casts. The deal breaker for me was no skip forward 30 seconds (e.g. ads) from the lock screen.
I did the same. I haven’t switched back yet, but I’m very close. Audio doesn’t continue playback when connecting to Android Auto, the screen shows suggestions instead of the queue, and silence trimming is all-or-nothing. Also, and this is just personal preference, the UI isn’t as intuitive.
I was a pocketcast user for years, switched to antennapod a few months ago. Here’s what’s bothering me:
Antennapod has a weird separation between new episodes (inbox) and what you’re listening to now (queue). PC has that abstracted away where you only have to check one place for your podcasts.
There is no simple service to sync your subscriptions and listen progress. Gpoddersync is basically abandoned and the protocol lacks features. Hopefully this will change with openpodcastAPI, but they haven’t managed to secure funding yet.
I’ve been spoilt by having a server doing the heavy lifting of refreshing my podcasts. It’s a minor annoyance that I need to wait approx. 1.5 second per feed to refresh. It’s just the way it is.
There are also things that antennapod does better:
chapters actually works in AP.
episode pictures also works in AP, PC only showed the static image of the feed.
search is just as good as PC.
its FOSS and hopefully resistant to enshittification (unless all producers go into a closed ecosystem like Spotify tried with their recent purchases of pod-studios).
I’ve been spoilt by having a server doing the heavy lifting of refreshing my podcasts. It’s a minor annoyance that I need to wait approx. 1.5 second per feed to refresh. It’s just the way it is.
In the podcast settings for each podcast, does “Keep Updated” not handle this for you? I don’t think I ever manually refresh my podcasts. Apologies if I’m misunderstanding.
Antennapod has a weird separation between new episodes (inbox) and what you’re listening to now (queue). PC has that abstracted away where you only have to check one place for your podcasts.
I don’t like the queue myself, though possibly for different reasons than you. Again possibly misunderstanding your concern, but I have “Enqueue Downloaded” and “Continuous Playback” both disabled in the Antennapod settings, and I just pretend the queue doesn’t exist.
Just throwing those things out there in the hopes they may help.
You’re actually understanding my issues quite well 🙂
The “keep updated” works, but I try to keep it to twice a day to have my battery last longer. So I manually trigger in-between. It’s a natural consequence of the technical choice, really.
As for the “Enqueue downloaded”, I stream everything as I have a massive mobile data plan. Due to this, I can stream a lot but I still have to deal with a separation between inbox/queue.
Thanks for those suggestions, I’m sure they’ll be of help for others that’s not part of my edge case 😁
I especially like the volume options for individual podcasts. Some are a standard volume and then others are quiet as fuck and the few are loud as hell.
Knowing these allows me to play different podcasts after another without having to either raise the volume or frantically lower the volume to prevent hearing loss.
I honestly can’t see myself using any other podcast app after discovering AntennaPod
Good job, you’re making a good choice! I’m on a Pixel 6 running GrapheneOS, love it. Takes a bit if TLC at the beginning, but it’s really nice and functional for me now.
For podcasts, I use Podverse. Works well for me, and runs well on GrapheneOS.
Antennapod is really great, but I found that it’s more complicated than I like. So I found another player called escape pod on fdroid that I really, really enjoy because of its KISS approach.
Edit: Oh, and congratulations. I have been degoogled entirely for about 2 years now and mostly degoogled for about 3 years before that.
Just downloaded it, loads of features, free and doesn’t have a premium option.
I was using Pocket Casts which locks few features behind a paywall and pushes it. I don’t really like having things in the UI that are locked by a paywall, it’s fine if the app has more features and an option somewhere to pay for them but don’t clutter my general day to day use with advertising.
Same. That said, I’ve been trying it Grayjay and like it okay so far. So far I only have Odysee and YouTube channels, and I’ll be looking out for other services as well (thinking of trying a Nebula account).
It’s not useful for podcasts, but there are podcasts on services it supports, so depending on what OP is looking for, it could work.
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