Podcast App & Player - Castbox App Reviews

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Wayyyyy better than Apple.... I discovered podcasts back in 2005. I’ve been using and recommending Castbox for the last 2 years (premium subscription should also reduce advertisements during show). Totally understand at beginning and end, but plzzzzz edit the amount DURING the podcast). Castbox is my preferred podcast listening app. The boost sound and individualized speed are SUPER SEXY additions!!! I would have given a 5 star rating if there were limitless pods that could be saved (a recent and NEGATIVE adjustment-if I want to OD on podcasts, that is my decision). Also, about a 1/2-1/3 of my saved podcasts don’t automatically refresh/have notifications for new episodes- (the other half does). I will click on a podcast and there will be 1-3 new episodes. I would like to see a more diverse selections of podcasts added to the suggestions- overkill on the mainstream suggestions. Most are already on the ratings list. Mix it up!!!

The Best App for Organizing Podcasts. I never rate apps, but I love this one so much that I had to! I tried half a dozen other podcast platforms before Castbox, but none of them let me organize things the way that I wanted. Castbox, on the other hand, has so many different organization options that you can really personalize it however you like. Some features that I love include being able to create and organize playlists without having to download the episodes, categorize your subscribed podcasts, mark favorite episodes, filter your playlists based episodes you have and have not listened to, and so much more. There is a slight learning curve to figure out all the features, but it’s not too bad. I was a little thrown off by the fact that there’s not a queue like in most other podcast apps, but I just created a “Queue” playlist that honestly works even better for me than actual queue features. The one suggestion that I have for the app is to potentially let users filter their playlists based on episode lengths. A lot of times I’m looking for an episode that’s just long enough to last a car ride, so being able to filter by length would be awesome! Anyway, this app is phenomenal and if you’re on the fence about trying it out, definitely download it!

Update is awful. The last few updates have changed the layout and functionality so much each time it’s impossible to keep up. There’s no rhyme or reason i can see as to how these podcasts are organized. All my subscriptions are is no order what so ever. All my most listened to are at the bottom. Downloads are stuck and can’t be downloaded again without exiting out completely and going back in. Downloads are now listed in the most useless order ever. Not even grouped together by podcast just a list of random foolery. I can’t list them as I’d like without the app completely freezing and shutting down. The layout before the last few updates was fine. Now it’s an impossible to use mess that is literally a nightmare to use while in the car. What happened to this apps functionality?!??

almost perfect. What I like about this app: 1) easy to organize and tag podcasts 2) I can add episodes to more than one playlist, set the app to download those episodes, and have the episode automatically deleted from the playlist (and from downloads) when I've played it. Suggestion for improvement: change the app to mark episodes as played only after they have been COMPLETELY played. Currently the app marks an episode as played as soon as you start playing it, like even just a second or two, with the result that episodes get removed from playlists before I have finished listening to them. This is annoying. And yes, I know I can turn off the "automatically delete played episode from playlist" feature. But I like this feature - I just want the app to wait until I've finished listening to an episode before it is automatically deleted!

Great for Apple Watch Users. After trying what felt like hundreds of different podcast streaming apps, I feel like I’ve finally found an app that will occupy a permanent place on my phone. The kicker, for me, is the Apple Watch app. When I’m out and about, trekking the mile or so between buildings at my university, it’s nice to have the ability to control my listening from my wrist. I do wish there were a more intuitive way to add specific episodes of podcasts to the playlist without having to click on each episode and then click the “add” icon, but it’s not annoying enough to deny the developers a well-deserved rating. The development is solid and I’m sure the app will only improve over time.

Gone downhill fast…. This app has been wonderful for years running with virtually no issues plus it’s a fairly intuitive (easy) layout. Unfortunately recent updates have really disappointed! Ads are more often & recently becoming very intrusive-claiming the screen while you’re in the middle of interacting with the app. This has really taken away from the experience! Now today as I open the app an ad immediately took over. After finally finding it’s close button I think “well, at least the ad is out of the way” thinking I won’t have to deal with another for awhile. BUT swear-to-God another ad pops up just seconds later! I understand ads help pay the developers but this is too much. Recent updates also ended the ability for the app to play in the background. Why would a developer allow their good app to fall to this level? Podcast apps are in great supply & I’m starting to try out others. Just check out all the recent bad reviews this app has received. DO NOT download this app. There are better alternatives. This used to be a 1st class app but now it’s just another bloated glitchy waste. :( Edit (2 months later): checked back to see if developer responses meant things would improve-NOPE! They haven’t fixed anything. Judging from all the negative reviews this app is simply unusable. I’ve found another app that works fine & deleting this app.

A Clunky Mess Hellbent on Streaming Everything. Never mind I’ve got got 10,000 hours of free RAM on my phone, this app will insist on streaming everything live so you end up paying $5 per podcast on expensive cellular service. Controls are on multiple screens, forcing you to pull over to the side of the road and fiddle around with the clunky interface. Clearly the money is made in the promotion of podcasts — this app should be free. There’s no way to build your own playlist (if there is, it’s so cryptic you’d never figure it out). There’s no way to tell at a glance if the podcast has been downloaded or is streaming. I want to be able to sit down on Sunday night and download a whole week’s worth of programming on my cheap home WiFi network and not burn up my expensive cellular data plan. I bought this program because it is supposed to sync with my iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch but that feature does not work. If you’re a developer who wants to make the next “killer app,” design a podcast player with a clean, intuitive interface. This is not it and no one else has figured it out either.

I like it so far, some small issues.. Dark mode is great, UI is easy to use. I don’t like that the Apple Watch controls are sluggish, I wish you could just use the watches “Now Playing” feature but it forces the app. All the podcasts I can think of are here. The live feature seems like a gimmick, but not a bad one. Overall the app is solid. My biggest issue is the ability to post and comment and talk to other people. At first this looked like a great feature. Pretty soon though the posts became pretty far/alt right and it seemed like half the posts turned into a screaming match. Not sure what can be done about this though. I also wish when you stopped using WiFi and went to mobile data, that the app didn’t interrupt you and tell you that you’re using mobile data, and then buffer for a bit.

Good, but not great. A podcast app’s only job is to be a good and reliable media player. Most of the time, the app works great. But far too often, the app exits when I have it playing in the background and buffers more than usual (my Internet connection is fine, it is only while using the app that I experience issues). It makes the app pretty unreliable sometimes. In addition, I find that the queue of episodes is not very user-friendly. I have been listening to the same podcast in reverse order and I find that if I listen all the way through Episode 112, for example, the queue will play Episode 455 afterwards instead of continuing down the list. Overall, however, the app works well enough that I still use it to listen to certain podcasts.

Podcasts glitch frequently, too many ads. I wanted to like Castbox. I love the multiple playlist feature. What I didn’t love were how many ads are built into the app. Not in the podcasts themselves, in the actual app. I go to a playlist, and have to wait for an ad to finish. I select an episode, and have to wait for an ad to finish. If I accidentally touched the screen anytime during the ad—except to X out at the end—it would freeze the entire app and I’d have to shut it all down and reopen…which, you guessed it, more ads. I could live with this, but what finally made me delete the app was the podcast glitches. Podcasts (different podcasts, this wasn’t an issue with a single episode or even a single podcast) would randomly jump to points seconds or even minutes in the past while playing, then later would jump forward. I felt I was constantly backtracking to hear what I’d missed, or fast forwarding to get back to where I should be. These constant glitches were the dealbreaker.

The ads are atrocious. The ads in this app, are absolutely pathetic and horrendous. Look, I get it, don’t get me wrong, I understand apps have paid tiers: one with ads, and one ad-free. But my goodness, the ads in this app make it insufferable and almost to the point that you dont even wanna use the app anymore. They’re distracting and slow down the experience. It’s really too bad, cause this was my hands-down favorite podcast app ever. And now, the ads have made it so annoying to use, i just decided to move on to another app. Just absolutely terrible. Cause the app was NOT like this. The app always had ads, but at least it was very feasible. The ads didn’t interfere with the experience or usage of the app. Now? It almost seems like the developers decided to make the ads so insufferable to practically force you to upgrade to their paid tier. Whereas before, you were pretty well off with either the ad or ad-free tier. Absolutely pathetic. And i know 1st hand. I've been using this app for so long, I literally saw it in real time practically getting worse & worse & worse.

Apple Bluetooth Incompatibility. I tried this app out (long term, like 5 months) because one of my top podcasts endorsed it. I liked the layout better than apple podcasts. There were issues with the badges that each podcast gets (for new episodes)…I repeatedly tried to turn them off and they always came back, whether I wanted them or not. But the issue I absolutely could not get over is the (intermittent) problem of pausing on bluetooth. Sometimes it just simply wouldn’t pause at all, then I had to go find my phone (while working) to pause when someone was trying to talk to me. Other times it was even worse, where it would pause but it would play my itunes at the same time. The music was usually louder than a podcast. So here I am trying to listen to someone talk at work, trying to pause a podcast, and even louder music plays. I contacted them twice on this issue and all they could say is swipe my itunes app away. That is not convenient because I listen to it in the car 3xs a day. An audiobook app had the exact same issue, and it was fixed at their next app update. This app has consistently had this issue, and they don’t care to fix it. So I quit it, which is very inconvenient after you’ve listened to hundreds of podcasts, because you have to manually update your other app on each episode you’ve already listened to, unless you want to accidently relisten to them all. Yes I tried several bluetooth devices.

Cool discovery but confusing UI. Definitely one of the better apps that has a relatable feed to help you discover new/interesting Podcasts. What I like: 1. Easy to discover new podcasts 2. UI/UX in some ways is better than Stitcher and the Apple podcasts app 3. Episode and podcast descriptions are easy to read through 4. The user comments for episodes and podcasts are useful Current gripes with the app: 1. I can’t figure out how to set it to auto download x number of episodes for each podcast I subscribe to. Super useful feature I love on Stitcher since it auto downloads on WiFi 2. The UI is confusing. I get that you’re trying to focus on discovery but more often I am opening the app to simply listen to a few new episodes of what I’m already subscribed to vs looking for new podcasts. Way too many taps to figure out what new episodes have been released. Why can’t I simply see a feed of all episodes from my subscriptions sorted by newest up top. I should be able to more easily go to the “new releases” button in the Listen tab 3. Unsure of the benefits of the paid subscription, I’m on the 7 day free trial but see basically no value lol. Feels extremely forced by fixing users onto the “discover” tab 5. No way to access my subscriptions via the desktop

SHAME, SHAME Castbox!! 🤮👎🏼🤮👎🏼🤮. I am a podcast junkie so I use several apps to organize my shows. I recently cycled-back to Castbox and noticed that it no longer continued to play when I opened other Apps. After reviewing the Castbox Help Option, Checking my Settings, Searching the Internet, and Restarting My Phone (all without a success), I returned to my Castbox Settings and out-of-curiosity, selected the option, “Allow Tracking.” IMAGINE MY SHOCK TO REALIZE THAT THE APP WAS SUDDENLY CONTINUING TO PLAY, EVEN WHEN I OPENED OTHER APPS. Yes, I checked this several times to verify that my observations were correct. 1). Castbox— Are you telling me that you are requiring customers TO ALLOW SPYING/TRACKING in order for them to multi-task with your App?!? None of my other podcast Apps do this. 🤮👎🏼🤮 2). Apple— Are you telling me that you would ALLOW mandatory tracking from one of the Apps FEATURED in your “Store?!?”🤮👎🏼🤮 3). Clearly, NEITHER CASTBOX NOR APPLE has ANY RESPECT for their customers. This is a dealbreaker for me and hopefully a dealbreaker for ALL of your other customers too. 4). SHAME, SHAME, SHAME 🤮👎🏼🤮👎🏼🤮

Mostly fixed, but still better than anything else!. I've tried quite a few podcast options in the wake of Apple's "upgrades". My priorities are large volume queue management for about 40 podcasts that I am either caught up with or listening through their back-log. This app does that wonderfully. The tools are all there with common sense features to allow easy and safe handling of all your episodes. My queue is usually around the 200 episode mark and I have no issue organizing the episodes. Edit: Fixed I say mostly fixed as there's a few sequencing errors where returning to the app and hitting play won't actually start your queue, but these are easy to work around and don't get in the way too much. Edit: Fixed There's also one or two podcasts that I've found that turn up errors when trying to listen or load their pages, but I still have the Apple podcasts app and it had to be useful for something, right? I’ve moved to my backup app for a little after I lost my queue due to my own error, but I miss the navigability and the ease of use for the UI and especially queue management. The Devs have been really active in taking care of issues and even invited me to one of the recent betas. This is definitely a solid app. I just need to get back over here!

Better than most but missing obvious features. I’ve searched for a good podcast platform and so far this is my favorite However, it’s missing obvious features that may push me to continue my search. For example: there are no settings to be able to change the play settings. No option to choose skip forward or backward time. Most apps let me choose between 15 and 30 seconds. It also has no option for me to turn off the auto play next episode. This one drives me crazy It also does something super funky when you share an episode with others - it shares the image of the podcast, then the title, then the link so it looks like I’ve just sent 3 separate obnoxious texts to someone instead of just the link which includes all of that data anyway Finally, I wish that when I click on listen, the page below my options for downloaded, playlist, and new releases that it listed my subscriptions there instead of a separate tab. It feels counter intuitive and I’m still getting used to the strange navigation. Why I’m using this one over other apps - it’s a cleaner design, has the sleep timer, playlist etc. The main game changer - this is the only app I could find that let me mark something as played without downloading the episode first or playing it and skipping it to the end and letting it play out.

Needs work. So much to like about this app but there are several key issues which need to be addressed especially for a premium app. The biggest and most important is that the app has trouble picking up new episodes and showing them in the new releases section. Maybe it’s because I have a lot of subscriptions but I went through my shows individually and found seven new episodes that the app had not surfaced. Of all the features a podcast app must get right, this is number one. Until this is fixed, I can’t recommend people trust the app. Secondly, if you share the link to an episode and the person opens it on a computer, they get a nice web interface to listen in. This is a great way to share and to get people curious about the app. Unfortunately, they’ve taken the opposite tactic on mobile. If some one open the link on their phone it forces then to download the app. This is just bad user experience. I can promise that no one ends up downloading the app from a tactic like this. This just click out of the link and never listen to the episode. And as almost 100% of what we share is opened on a phone not a desktop, this makes the user stop sharing. I have. Make the web app available on mobile browsers. More people will share and hence more people will know about castbox.

Lost all my settings. I had to redownload the app after it randomly stopped playing every time my screen would turn off or it would be put in the background. I checked all settings and it had nothing to do with the phone settings, and all other playback apps worked. I deleted and redownloaded. That fixed the issue but all of my settings were wiped out including manual sort order of podcasts, download settings, auto delete settings, and playback settings. Why would these settings not be linked to the account? Additionally, the ads are much more in your face than they used to be, often taking up the whole screen and frequently without an “x” button to close. In those instances, I have to close the app and reopen for the ad to go away. What was a really good app has become a terrible user experience.

A recent update made the app a nuisance.. Not sure when it started (less than a month ago), the app started to never continue playing episodes in my downloads. The app use to just continue on playing things in order in my downloads. Now it plays an episode, then stops or the sound freezes at the beginning of the next episode. Then if you press pause then play again, it starts playing the latest episode from the podcast, not the downloads. I can no longer just listen for hours on end, one podcast after another. I have to babysit the app between episodes and it’s super annoying. Another thing (this might have just been fixed the other day), when I finish in episode, the next episode would start playing at normal speed even though it said it was set to the 1.3 speed. I would have to toggle the speed to get it to continue playing at the correct 1.3 speed. I wish I could choose the order of the downloads to play in as well.

App & Website Makes Claiming Ownership Extremely Difficult. Hello, I am the owner of a podcast and would like to claim ownership of it on this site. In order to do that, I need to create an account-that’s fine. I made an account with my Apple ID but there is still no option to get to the “Creator Studio” once the account was made. I deleted that account and want to use my email instead, but there’s no option to even “Sign-Up”. There’s only options to “Login”. But even when I had logged in, there was no option to claim my podcast. This app and website is a huge mess. The only saving grace is that my podcast is already on the website to begin with. Besides that I can’t even claim it! Not a good design and it gives you the run around. This platform is not podcaster friendly at all. You can have our content on there just fine but when we need to access it properly-there’s no dice. Please fix it so that me and other creators can properly grow our podcasts. Thank you for your time.

Best podcast app! Wish there was a one time cost to remove ads.. So, first - huge compliments for the design and interaction flow of how this app works. After going through about 5 alternatives, this really is the best. My one unhappiness is that I occasionally see off hiccups where the app won’t play already downloaded podcasts, forcing me to force quit or reopen the episode to get it going. This almost always seems to happen when there is an issue with an ad loading. Maybe I am right at the edge of connectivity or something - not sure why each time. I would love to pay for the app to turn off ads and that is it. I really don’t want to pay for another subscription and just don’t see that making sense to have to repeatedly pay over and over for - to essentially fix a buggy issue. Other than a great design, I really don’t use anything else that the subscription would add, other than wanting to just have no advertisements. So 4 stars on a 5 star product. Please consider something a $10 cost to just remove ads. Thanks!

The One. I consider myself an avid podcast listener, and have been pretty unhappy with the standard podcast app, but every other option I looked at was either too expensive or just wasn’t “the one”. I finally got a tip to give castbox a try, but just recently got around to it. I wish I wouldn’t have waited. I’m extremely happy with the app. I find it a much more intuitive to use. Also the recommendations are pretty much spot on. I have paid to remove this ads, which were not that intrusive, but I wanted to support the developers at least a little. I recommend giving it a chance, especially if you are frustrated with the native app.

Decreased Quality. Castbox was always my go-to app because it had such a broad variety of free podcasts available. The ads were only a minor inconvenience considering the access I had to phenomenal podcasts. There have been periods where the app has some annoying bugs, but they were fixed relatively quickly. Now, the most annoying thing about the app are the intrusive ads. Sometimes multiple ads pop up only seconds after being closed. This has been going on for well over a month without any hope of having them go away (or become less invasive). Furthermore, the app developed a bug where an episode will be skipped when you hit play on your list of downloads.

EDIT: Problematic update. EDIT: Download issues were fixed, app is back to being my favorite podcast app by a mile (and I’ve tried pretty much every one at one point or another). Bonus was remarkably responsive customer service from the developer, who really cares about a good app experience. (Here was my original comment: App no longer allows for podcast downloads (freezes app completely) and podcast downloads are now weirdly ordered, where once it was logical (most recently downloaded podcast at the top). A few updates have been posted since this has happened, still an issue. Really liked the app before, very disappointed.)

Could be the pod catcher I’ve been waiting for. About once a year, I get fed up with the Apple Podcasts app and go in search of an alternative, only to come crawling back. I’m so glad to see the Downloads view. It is the one feature I’ve been craving all this time. The app is simple and straightforward. Could be a winner. It’s almost there! Here are the features I’ll be looking for in future releases that will get me to stay: Need the ability to customize the order of my subscriptions list so I can put my favorites at the top and have a consistent order that I get used to so I can quickly navigate to my favorite shows. Need to be able to quickly scan while scrolling my subscriptions to see which of my favorite podcasts have new episodes so I can decide between them which one I’d like to listen to right then. (I never use the running list of newly released episodes. I always start from my list of subscriptions.) Need the ability to mark episodes as played. Implementing this might be enough to solve the previous issue. This is useful primarily for my most listened to shows that I keep up with. Might even be useful, since you can’t know which shows people are caught up on, to offer a Mark All as Played option. That would allow users to get the app quickly customized, making it stickier. Need to be able to set the play order (I prefer oldest to newest in almost all cases, but there are exceptions).

Great other than download management. Having used various podcast apps extensively over the last decade, I can now say with certainly that this is my favorite one. Presentation, features, and organization are top tier. That said, I do have one suggestion. When it comes to deleting downloaded episodes, one cannot do it from the main podcast section, you have to go to the “downloads” section and delete everything from there. This obviously isn’t a deal-breaker, but it is inconvenient and the only area where Castbox doesn’t outdo the competition. I don’t have any other reason to go into “downloads”, so my stock builds up for a week or two until I run out of space and am forced to cull the herd en masse. If the app was updated such that you can delete downloads from the same area you can mark them as “played”, this would bump it up to 5 stars.

Ads take over screen and sound. I had been using this for 5 years but over the last year it has gone downhill. Ads take over the screen and audio. They also are extremely intrusive and make using the app difficult. The ads are also very low quality often in Mandarin with no obvious way to close them. I tried to stick with it while they figured out the ads but its been a year and it has only gotten worse. Now the last few months there seem to be more bugs than fixes with each update. When I select an episode to play it immediately skips it and plays the next. It can take quite a few tries for it to finally work. This has been happening the last five months or so. For the last two months the app’s audio will just cut out (except for ads of course) forcing you to close the app multiple times for it to work again. And recently the app no longer remembers what part of an episode you are at and starts the podcast from the beginning. I’ve reported bugs in the past but the answer is always the same “please record the app not functioning correctly and send the video file to us”. I’m not your debugger or beta tester. I don’t record my phone screen all day so I can capture the 5 seconds this app stops working. This has gone on for too long. I’m moving on.

Wanted to replace Apple Podcasts but Nope. Really wanted to like this app. Mostly because some podcasts I listen to are partnered with Castbox, so it would benefit them to listen through Castbox instead of Apple Podcasts. Anyway, here is why I am going back to Apple podcast and deleting Castbox: 1.) If you’re in the car and listening to a podcast on Castbox, the podcast will not pause during the Maps instructions. So you can count on every 1-3 mins missing about 5 words of what your podcast is saying if you’re not on the highway. I looked through the settings and couldn’t find a way to pause the podcast during Map instructions. 2.) First two pages are “discover pages”. I like the “Subscribed” but it would be nice if the “Listen” page showed your recently updated podcasts. Also, “Subscribed” is not in order from most recent uploads, so it’s easy to miss a new podcast if you don’t scroll down and look for the tiny orange “1”. Also, if you want to change the discover page or anything you have to pay. Overall, good app but is not a replacement for Apple podcasts. You don’t have to pay for Apple Podcasts, and you don’t have to discover new podcasts unless you want to. In app purchases is a no-go considering podcasts are free

Downgrading my rating. I have use this app literally for years. I tried other apps, but I’ve always come back to this one. I drive a truck for a living, so I need apps that are reliable, and are easy to use while I’m driving. requiring no more interaction than I spend on my instruments or controls. This app used to be it... I don’t mind ads running on the bottom, nor do I mind the podcast picture being replaced by an ad. Not that big a deal, brings in revenue for the developer. However, they have started running interstitial ads. Full page advertisements that are unskippable in many instances. Again, as a truck driver I rely on ease of use. This app is no longer easy for me to use while I’m driving. I now have to wait for the ad to run its course, and/or search for a little tiny X in the corner, or the word close, or the fast forward button, just to skip the interstitial ad to be able to get to the podcast. Often times, the ad will not clear itself, requiring searching out that little X or skip button. I can’t do that while I’m driving. This app now requires me to stop my truck to change podcasts or episodes, and that is unacceptable. I don’t begrudge the right to try to make money, however, this app is simply not usable for me now because of the new ad structure. Beyond that, it’s a fantastic app.

Was great until recently. Castbox was pretty good when I started using it 8 months ago. However, since that time they have started using popup ads which are incredibly annoying, and the app crashes all the time. Adding to the frustration is the fact that the podcasts almost never download automatically, the way they are supposed to. So I always have to check and see what is current, and I *always* have to go to the downloads and watch them come in - a huge waste of time - if I don’t want to use cellular data and/or battery life in situations where I can stream wirelessly. That’s a total failure. I see now that there is a "premium" version being offered, so go figure. I'm sick of companies pulling this sort of bait and switch. Definitely gonna switch to another app once I get a free hour to laboriously transfer all my podcast subscriptions over yet again.

We are addicted. One of my coworkers shared with us that she found your podcast on. Now there is three of us in the office that get together in the morning and we have our own crime junkie discussion to share our thoughts and questions. We shut the door sometimes and listen to the podcast as a group. So thankful for the two of you and for keeping it real. I honestly have tried to listen to another pod cast while waiting for yours to come out but I find myself not as interested for lack of better words or maybe it’s that I can’t relate to the podcasters. Thank you so much for putting on a show and sacrificing so much of your free time to bring us another episode. Absolutely love the updates. PS- I think genealogy is going to be the future to solving a lot of cases. Signed, Nurse Crime Junkies

Best Podcast App. After growing fed up with the UI of the Apple Podcasts app after a few years of use, I began exploring other Podcasts apps but none were able to woo me away from the continuity of Apple’s. This app, however, is worth the diminished continuity between phone and computer because of the far superior UI it offers. I was hesitant to recommend this app a few weeks ago because it lacked a “Recently Released” section for your subscriptions, but now that feature has been added and this app now can receive my full recommendation. Next feature needed: App for Windows and OSX with seamless handoff between devices. Great app!!

It’s fine.. The pros: you can select which podcasts automatically download episodes to your phone and how many eps are downloaded - excellent for older phone owners. There is a great selection of podcasts, too. You can even access patreon podcasts! The cons: the main interface adds too much crap you dont need, such as: the Discover page where you can see podcasts youve never heard of and will never care about or podcasts you cant get away from. The most egregious part of the main interface is the “Community” page where you can find out what every Trump-loving uncle has to say about everything and anything. In addition to those annoyances, there is an actual technical issue where episodes will almost always restart after the ep finishes instead of moving along to the next episode in the queue. The castbox website says to make a separate playlist to circumvent this issue but that seldom works, either.

Current fave but…. I’ve been using Castbox for at least 2 years (maybe 5+). I love the playback speed so some talk podcasts I can run at 1.5x speed. now per-show setting is even better so I don’t have to endure chipmunk music! Recently ads have become much more common, intrusive, and deceptive. My least favorite is fake dialog stating (storage space low (done, settings). Tap and it opens ad to download a cleaner app from apple App Store. This is HUGELY deceptive. As long as you carefully dismiss and ignore ads all is fine. However this alone is making me look for a new podcast player. I will restore 5-star and update my review when predatory ads go away. If I move to new podcast app then this review remains.

nightmarish lack of organization. I am a serious podcast listener and when I imported in just a fraction of the shows I subscribe to, I knew immediately that this app was not built for me. The podcasts display with no discernible organizational scheme, and after having to google organization (because it’s not intuitive) it seems that podcasts can only be sorted by last update—even alphabetical is not available. There is also not way to organize playlists by category, which is a vital option when you have well over a hundred podcasts that you listen to. At the very least, having the option to sort podcasts alphabetically is essential when you like to listen to backlogs, or prefer to save podcasts for a certain mood or task. This seems like it was built for algorithms, not practical human use. Maybe its suggestion algorithm and search are great, but the UI is unusable for me.

Ads, ads, ads!. Up to now I would have given this app a 5 star rating. I like it enough to have paid for the premium subscription which is supposed to eliminate visible ads. Over the past couple of days I am faced with ads blocking the entire screen every time I sign on. Either remove the ads from premium accounts or refund the price of the subscription! UPDATE: after a few more days, the problem seems to be resolved, no more visible ads on my screen. Changing my rating back to 5 stars because for my purposes the app is just that good. Thank you for the fix!

Small problem. I love the app, it’s great, one small problem that has occurred for me, fairly recently, it wasn’t like this when I first got the app, but uh, when I am listening to a podcast the three lines and kind of a half arrow icon that you tap on to switch the direction of which the podcast plays, (ex. 1-20 or 20-1) It is stuck on backwards, so I can’t just listen to the episodes in order, after an ep is at its end I have to open the app, scroll down to the next episode, and manually play it, now I do not know if my settings are messed up or this is a bug but if someone could point me in the direction of fixing this that’d be greaaat (and yes I have deleted then reinstalled the app and turned my phone off and on) Thanks!!

Solid Design, Unreliable Performance. I’m a big fan of the design of this app. In (almost) every way it is a solid improvement over Apple Podcasts. You can make playlists, create categories, and even “like” an episode of a podcast to add it to your favorites. All of these are welcomed innovations. Sure, there are ads, but the developer should make money somehow. My main gripe is the unreliability of it all, at least on my phone. Castbox frequently crashes, forcing me to reload the app. The app is also slow to load in general, so I’m often left waiting long periods of time to simply play a podcast that suddenly stopped playing. Additionally, and this is pretty minor, it won’t let me press play from my iPhone’s lock screen or the little menu that appears when you swipe up. I may stick with it, I may not. I really like the design and features, but can’t bring myself to pay a premium price tag for a slow app that constantly crashes.

UPDATE: Still best of the worst but not gre. Want to love it but it constantly crashes and freezes. UPDATE: Went to listen this morning and it forced me through this ridiculous 10 step swipe thing and then I realized that somehow I had been logged out- assuming the app updated and kicked me out. So I logged back in and NONE of my 100 subscriptions are there. Nothing. So now I’m really annoyed and looking for another app. ORIGINAL: Title says it all. Better than apple podcast app, but it constantly freezes if you leave the app open while it’s streaming. It also does this thing where it will show it’a still playing by the timer but no volume for a few seconds to a few minutes and then suddenly it comes back. This is not due to switching to other Bluetooth devices because I turn that off if I’m not using it. Wish they would fix it. I have an iPhone XS Max and 200mbps Fios so it’s not connection speed or old devices- it’s the app.

Did Apple create this?. I had been using Apple Podcasts, but the overall design was getting to me. Is it just me or has Apple gotten a bit lazy more recently with the design of some of their apps? Anyway, I tried another app that looked like a winner as the app itself looked more like something Apple could have created but it just didn’t seem to have any reason for why the put certain things within certain sections (example, it had a section for recommendations but in the podcast section, it had recommendations as well). That’s when I decided to try Castbox, boy was I blown away at the design, just wish it wasn’t so big of an app. It looks like something Apple could have designed. The only issue I have is that is when you click on a podcast under library section, under details, the suggested shows that show up aren’t always even the same type of show. For instance I listen to Steam Deace Show and none of the suggested shows are even closely related to his shows. There are many Blaze podcasts that should probably show up there instead. How are we suppose to discover similar podcasts that we might be interested in, if they don’t show up for us.

Wish list. I love listening to podcasts and I am constantly trying to find a player that works for me. I like Castbox because if it’s simplicity and for the most part it does what I want and helps me control how I want to listen to podcasts. However there is one thing I wish it would do, I wish it would give me the option to download not the new seat episodes, but the oldest episodes. One thing I really do not like is going through a manually choosing the episodes I want to download. I don’t want to automatically download the most recent. I had a player that I love, it was the RSS Radio player. The option of choosing which episodes to automatically download and it would automatically build my playlist for me in the way I wanted it. I had to get rid of it because since the last update it did no work very well. It was extremely slow or unresponsive, the app kept shutting down, and it would get rid if my podcasts so I had to find them again. If Castbox would give me the option of choosing which ones to automatically download and build my playlist for me, I would consider this perfect. I have chosen to upgrade for now, but I will keep looking for the player that allows me control of how to download and listen. Also, this keeps crashing whenever I’m trying to work on my lists. Thanks for this app overall. You have a great selection and I love that you have old episodes of some of my favorite podcasts.

Mmm, My Favorite (request for dev.). I’ve been using this app for about a year now after being frustrated with Apple’s version. I wanted something that looked a little sleeker and still functioned professionally. There have been several key updates since I started and now I keep this at the forefront while Apple’s has been lost to the sea of Apple apps I never use. Much better production and the darker interface is so much more appealing. Easy to sort your subscribed casts, multiple options for displaying your library, picks up the last episode you were listening to at the correct time upon reopening. Personal favorite. I really appreciate how tuned in to the community these devs are. They’re constantly fixing, updating, and adding things commented on. One request I have is if we can add a blocker to commenters. Not completely necessary, but I notice a couple frequent commenters on podcasts I regularly listen to that just really bug me. I’d love the option to mute their comments from my feed via blocking their handle. Still waiting for some solution to the toilet bowl every comment section has become.. I like using it for the odd legit convo with another poster but then the entire post is bombarded with off topic harassment and the report option doesn’t seem to address anything. At least I can meditate on it, I guess. 😉

Bug maybe?. I love castbox and its definitely my prefered podcast app. Ive used it for years now, but Ive had an odd bug just in the last couple days. I made sure to update the app to make sure it wasnt that before writing this review, but since it just happened again Im not aure what it is. Anyway, every now and then when im listening to something but using another app, like playing a game or something while i listen, the sound becomes distorted. Im not sure how to really describe it, it sounds very distorted and static-y. Once i pause the episode it will be fine as long as im on castbox but as soon as i switch apps it starts again and i have to close the other app completely sometimes to get it to work right and then reopen the other app and itll be okay for a while again. Despite this i still prefer castbox to anything else, but if this were fixed it would be an easy 5 stars.

Almost 5 stars except it falls short with this. I got tired of the Apple podcast player for reasons that I won't go into now. Overall, I have really enjoyed and appreciated CastBox. My favorite feature is that I can sync between different devices, even if some of those devices are not an Apple device. Best thing ever! I've been listening to podcasts at 2x speed for a few years now. I am disappointed in the sound quality when listening at any speed faster than 1x. I don't know how to describe what happens other than that it sounds like there is an echo in the background. This happens across all podcasts, but the same thing does not happen when I listen to the same podcasts on the Apple podcast player.

Great, but not intuitive. I love Castbox and have been using it for years, except for One. Thing. Whenever I want to add another podcast to one of my previously created tags, I have to Google how to do it every single time. It’s not intuitive at all to click on the title, especially when there’s no indicator to let me know that it can be clicked on. I’d assume the action to “add or remove podcasts from my tag” would be under the plus sign or the three dots at the top. I nearly stopped using Castbox a while ago because of this problem. I just find it incredibly frustrating. The three dots should include “layout, sort, clear badges, edit list.” I really enjoy the app, but this one thing really drives me crazy.

Is this the one?. It might be the one. Like many people, from time to time I just get too frustrated with Apple’s Podcasts app and I go searching for something better. I think I’ve tried basically every alternative, and there’s always some reason why I go back to Apple. But Apple just can’t seem to get it right. I don’t understand. I really like Apple products and software design in general. Anyway, I’ve only just started using this one, but it appears it’s just perfect for me. It’s got the right balance of clean, attractive design, easy usability, and general features. It doesn’t have the fullest set of features out there, but I have found that the ones that do are just more complicated than what I want to deal with for podcast management. For me, I like a clean interface, intuitive management of downloads and playlists, and, most important, a great searching platform that makes it easy to find both podcasts to subscribe to but also individual episodes that feature people or subjects I’m interested in. This one seems to have it all—and no ads! (My other favorite, “Podcast App,” was just as good but had annoying full screen pop-up ads.)

Best designed app for podcasts. This had all the right features for what I wanted to do, mainly favoriting, queuing a list, and downloading the queued episodes so I can have a go to list of episodes to listen to. The things I wish it had: 1) is there a reason favorites isn’t just a list I can link? I want to be able to send my favorites as a list to friends. 2) is there a way to sort by episodes of most liked or most popular? Sometimes I just want to listen to a crowd favorite, episodes can be hit or miss sometimes. 3) I thought I could see how many times an episode was favorites by other ppl, but it seems to not show it anymore... why? 4) the Home Screen is pretty useless to me. It’s a bit of a throwaway and it could be better used. 5) search can be improved. I have to type EXACTLY what I’m looking for and sometimes it doesn’t even pull up what I’m looking for. For example I typed in ‘the daily’ and ‘radiolab’ and nothing showed up 6) the bar at the bottom of the screen that shows your current episode floats on the screen for iPhoneX. I don’t know if that’s on purposes but many times I hit it when I’m scrolling. Thanks and keep up the great work.

My new podcast app. I used another popular player for 4-5 years, but found the menus less and less intuitive, with commands being in different parts of the screen and/or being hidden and requiring a swipe to view. Castbox is a breath of fresh air. It has all the main commands easy to see (share, star/favorite, download, etc) easy to see and consistently in the same place together. Really, a dream to navigate, and a very clean interface. And this to me is the mark of a great podcast app, because all of them have basically the same features. The key is being able to find and use the ones you use the most. Been awhile since I’ve rated an app 5 starts, but Castbox is worthy.

What about the users?. This player works fine, and has a large and diverse number of podcasts to choose from. Although I’ve only been using it for 3days, it seems they are focused on getting you to upgrade, and focusing you on content that I suspect they receive kickbacks for directing you to. Why do I want to livestream on this app— its a podcast player!! That said , it would still be a great app if the interface were only user friendly. The podcasts you download are accessed by hitting a small dim, miniature icon in the middle of several others at the bottom of the page. When driving - which is what a huge number of us choose to use podcasts for- it nearly impossible to access your content easily and safely. I can imagine the same is true for joggers hikers, treadmill users etc. Really misses the target audience in my opinion.

Need simple update. Hello guys your app is perfect and better than all the podcast apps in Apple store believe me I tried all the other apps to get the best one but I didn't find any app like this one 👍🏻 But it seems like I can't use all the features of Airpods with it!!! you know the airpods has the most useful feature at all which is tap twice on the airpod to move to the next audio or get back to the previous audio but it doesn't work very well!!! I mean next audio ok but previous audio didn't work what makes me go to the phone to replay the audio that I need even if I being away from the phone doing any work or exercise or whatever.. Otherwise this app is the best one I tried 👍🏻 So please try to fix this thing soon.. Thank you so much

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Intrusive ads. I had switched to Stitcher and then back because I wanted to try this app again. Tried playing a podcast only for the app to start playing ads during playback that needed to be clicked out of (I was driving so completely inappropriate). I don’t mind ads if they are not video, I have honestly never bought an advertised app and never will. I’d be happy to pay a small yearly fee but your prices are ridiculous. Will try another app and if not will return to Apple Podcasts over this app.

Prefer to go to list of episodes. I’d really like it if it would go to the list of episodes I’m listening too, and if it could be much easier to see what episode is next, that would be great. I hate that I can only tell what I’ve listened to, based on the %played (which is a really light font!)

Usually a great app - ads are now too aggressive. I have used this app for years, really like the range of podcasts and search functionality. Recently the ads have been encroaching on listening experience - not just appearing in the app, but forcing you to watch before you can access the podcasts or controls, and I even had one ad stop my podcast halfway through until I reopened the app and responded to the ad asking if I wanted to follow a link to open audible. This is seriously impacting the listening experience. There also seems to be a glitch at the moment that means the app won’t work when you lock your phone or open another app - again seems to be linked to the ads they currently have in place, as it tends to happen after viewing one of these videos or pop up’s.

Latest version stops podcast playback in background. Don’t know what happened but last time I updated it stopped playback in the background which is so annoying

OK if you don't mind streaming. It doesn't work very well if you opt for downloading rather than streaming. Also it is pretty much unusable if you turn off mobile / cellular data altogether. The playlist only sort of works in as much as it seems that it is easily interrupted. The app also has the annoying habit of prompting you to play the last podcast you just completed rather than the next podcast in the playlist. All in all, I think the developers would have done better to get the basics right before trying to add all the pretty things. Unfortunately there seems to be a dearth of good basic podcast players around. Everyone seems to have a different angle to monetise their apps and none of those really seem to serve the need for basic user convenience and offline performance very well.

Pretty good. This app is super intuitive and does what it says on the tin. One awesome update (unless it already exists and I’m a goof for missing it) would be the option to play podcasts in release order rather newest to oldest. Would make listening to series podcasts waaaay smoother.

Just want to see last 5 episodes. Castbox is good but I always have 99 alerts which is annoying. I just want to see the last 5 episodes for each podcast I have subscribed to. Is there a setting for this!

Could be better. I listen to a lot series in my car. Takes a while to find last episode played as there is no resume. Once the episode has played it plays the first episode in the series. So have to select the next episode before the previous has ended to avoid this. The app has now stopped playing through my alpine car stero. So going to find a new podcast app

It’s actually good. I actually like this app a lot, there’s so much variety and everything is so easy to find and no ads are in the way no interruptions, please keep it like this!!!

Castbox. I decided to investigate new podcast apps after the Apple one refused to load my library on devices. This one seems reliable although the ads are annoying.

Love it!!. Just started using this after “the other” completely changed. So easy to navigate even for the tech challenged like me!

Great for podcasts (but). No complaints about the service and the subscription is more than affordable. However, if I’m paying for this service it would be great to get this as an iPad app instead of a dumbed done iPhone app experience.

Not great with Apple CarPlay. With the latest update I now find that it does not work well through Apple Car play. Eps still play but you cannot control on the screen so it’s pointless for the car. Any chance you can look into this and fix? Thanks

Great app. As a podcast app goes, it is really great I’ve had a few issues over the years which have been solved quickly when reported I’ve been having some stability issues recently (iPhone 14 plus) where my control centre pause button won’t work & the podcast just keeps playing. When opening the app, it crashes. I assume being an iPhone thing that it is being reported often and will be fixed soon. Other than that, it is 5 stars for sure

Fantastic. This app provides an unrivalled, easy to use podcast streaming experience that keeps exact track of where i was in any episode of any cast. The only gripe I have, and the only way Castbox loses to the iOS podcasts app is iPad Support, please please PLEASE make it useable in landscape for iPads.

Almost Perfect. Near Perfect but for the last month now when I click to download podcasts I have to stay in the app for it to download where’s before you could leave the app and when you come back it’s all done but now You have to stay on it for it to download. If that gets fixed it’s great again

Dev Raga!. You’re so clear and succinct and make investing seem easy! Thank you for making your podcasts simple ; it certainly has given me and lots of others understand how to proceed with their financial planners . I am so happy I came across your podcasts

Good player, but.... Good search function that has allowed me to find some of my more obscure podcasts, but three short comings: 1. Subscriber function doesn’t allow you to open on “New Episodes” screen; 2. Played episodes disappear from “New Episodes” list - I’d like an option to keep them there; and 3. I can’t find a way to turn off automatically playing next episode.

Needs iPad app. Great on my iPhone so far. However, there really needs to be an iPad app. I can’t even use the castbox website on my iPad as you can’t login on the site in mobile/tablet view (it just pushes you to download the iPhone app). There are a lot of users, like me, who solely or additionally use an iPad to play music and podcasts.

Castbox. Love Castbox. My only complaint, and I could be just missing something, but I wish I could easily find my listening history. But really enjoy this app.

Annoying feature. Only annoying feature is that it doesn’t like you relistening to an episode you’ve already listened to. If you pick that “listened to” episode to listen to again, it just skips to the next unplayed. This is a really annoying feature that I’m unsure of the user story - why would this be written in!!?

Unusable. I was a happy using, paying subscriber for years. Now, whenever I get these pop up ads (often) the app then gets glitchy and won’t play unless the app is open on screen (can’t do anything else on my phone). I have to force close and reopen for it work. Every time. The final straw is seeing political ads for Craig Kelly - a man who pollutes the earth with dangerous misinformation. Deleting.

Poorly designed, check alternatives first. I’m staggered this app gets so many good ratings. It’s dreadfully unintuitive and lacking in basic functionality. It may be that the features you would expect are available on the premium version but there’s nothing about the free version that makes me want to find out. To create a playlist you have to download episodes then rather than add episodes directly you have to open each episode up and then select a playlist. If you try to add an episode from the show listing it chooses for you what playlist to add the ep to. The basic Apple iOS podcast player offers all Castbox does and more. Best avoided.

It’s gotten meh. Initially enjoyed this app because of how the episodes of shows are ordered but now it’s just ads within ads within ads constantly and I’m over it. Think I’ll switch to a new platform tbh.

Excellent for listening to podcasts. Has tons of material to choose from and easy to navigate through.

No good for downloads or location. Update: I downloaded this on the strength of the positive reviews. But after persevering for months, I finally ditched it and moved to Stitcher. And what do you know, every thing works! Podcasts actually download. I should have made the move ages ago! Castbox could learn a thing or two about podcast players by looking at Stitcher. Original review: Castbox is a great streaming client, but a lousy podcast player if you’re looking to play downloads. You would think that downloading would be a simple matter, but it almost never manages to download anything (it streams perfectly, so evidently it has no trouble accessing the internet). I can leave it turned on all night, ready to go out running with a full load of podcasts, but in the morning there will be 7 downloads in the cue with nothing actually downloaded. And it has serious issues with location. I can set the location to Japan, but if I happen to be currently in Australia, the ads are for Australia (!). I am happy for Castbox to be supported by advertising, but what is the point of subjecting me to ads from a location different from my location setting!?

Lacks several features. Needs several features to catch up with other similar apps: - Skip intro option - Voice enhancement option - Conditional auto download (e.g. skip all podcasts containing x in the title - Option to add new episodes from a particular subscription to either the top or bottom of a playlist

Where is the airplay and chromecast streaming support. You are claiming in your description you have airplay and chrome cast support but it’s not available? I have tried this on my home wifi and work wifi where I have chromecast and airplay a viable devices but your app doesn’t ever display the symbol to stream it or even have it in the settings of the app. Castbox you really should look into this feature and fix it I understand it could be a premium feature but it’s not included in the premium features list under the subscription in your app. I look forward to your response and feedback.

Update change to playlist. Yesterday there was an update, and it’s removed the facility for the episodes to play consecutively. Now, each episode plays - and then stops??

Bad free experience. They’ve recently updated the app to include video ads that make the app non-functional. It’s a free version, so fair enough that there are more ads, but they’re unskippable and break the app. Once a video ad is over you can start listening to a podcast, but as soon as you switch apps or lock your phone it will stop playing. The only fix is to restart the app, which sometimes will bring on another unskippable video ad! You can get stuck in this loop of not being able to listen to any podcasts. I understand the need for ad revenue, but this makes the app unusable. Wish there was a way to keep my played history because it looks like I’m switching today.

Excellent app with more potential. The app is great, however, it really needs to have a “playlist” section. The podcasts I listen to are from a wide range of topics and when I save them they all get saved together in the favourites folder. If I could create playlists that would be nothing short of amazing and much appreciated.

Please release an iPad version. Great podcast player and it has everything important to me like Chromecast, Car Play, Sonos Integration, however, I can't make the switch to Castbox since the missing iPad version.

Good but still has issues. I’ve recently installed this program and have been happy with it for the most part. The Apple Watch component is glitchy however. It hangs regularly and the only way I’ve found to reconnect is to uninstall the app from my watch and reinstall. This is a feature I use regularly so would like to know if there is anything I can do.

Terrible app. Terrible app. It used to be good years ago when I first downloaded it. Since then the ads have increased to the point it’s almost unusable. It’s also really buggy now. The playback speed keeps increasing on its own. Today, every time I tried to access the playback speed to turn it back down the app would crash and I’ve finally decided to delete the app and try something else.

Good app. Pretty good player. Although would be so much better with smart playlists.

Functional but in bed with big tech. Fine if you want to throw away your privacy, constant push to go pro, many support features not working, will ditch when find privacy supporting better app

Annoying ads. I actually really like this app and I respect the need for ads, but the newer ones are like the sneaky ones from shady websites (difficult to find out how to get rid of them so you accidentally end up clicking into them). Will be looking for a new podcast app.

Was good. Was good until the latest update... now podcast order always goes back to episode 1 as UP NEXT no matter what episode I’m listening too

Castbox has changed the podcast game!. Castbox is extremely easy to use, it offers a massive selection of podcasts with a fun community theme throughout the app. The newly added Livecast feature is a game changer, this offers podcasters and people all over the world a chance to connect instantly with like minded people.

Full of ads.. This app has gotten worse and worse over the years. It was great in 2018 when I first got it. Now, if I want to download a podcast, I need to watch an add first. When I play a podcast, my screen doesn’t say what I’m listening to, it’s, yep you guessed it, an ad. Use pocket cast, use anything, he’ll, even use the awful Apple podcast app. But not this.

I'm not a robot. The sign up process is terrible! The recaptcha system has been set to "ultimate annoyance" mode, so to create an account you have to spend 10 minutes just proving you're not a robot. And then AGAIN to login.. On the plus side the ui looks okay and finding podcasts is easier than any other app. It doesn't seem possible to mark episodes played or unplayed all at once for a show. Something a lot of people would want to do if switching from another app.

I’ve given up. I have ended up with multiple accounts due to log in issues. Even when I got access sorted I was unable to comment using the ‘say something’ feature. I know lots of other people make it work just fine but I’ve given up. Thanks and sorry.

Apple play shut down.. I like this app a lot. Have you heard of any issues using this app on car audio systems on Apple play? I find the app shuts down after 30 seconds. I have tried all different ways to trick it, but there doesn’t seem to be an easy foolproof solution yet. I can easily play music without any problem on Appleplay. I can play the app via a jack audio cord from my device to the car audio. Hmmmm

Used to be ……. Was a great App. But like so many, since the new updates, is buggy and freezes and crashes after almost each podcast now. So you have to get your phone out. Close the app more than once some times, to clear the creche and then hopefully you reopen the app, you can play the next episode. A real pain when walking with airbuds in on my way to work.

Issues with 8.5.1. Ever since updating to the latest version 2 days ago the app has been very buggy - it no longer shows up on the lock screen on the control panel and requires navigating back to the app itself to pause, or fast forward. It also is prone is shutting down, and requires a longer start up time. Is there any way to revert to an older version that worked much better?

OMG the robot verification process OMG !. How to design a non user friendly app. The robot verification process is utterly stupid. Granted I am happy to verify I am not a robot one or two times but to make me go through this 8 times then verify my email address which I did then again be asked to verify the fact that I am not a robot over and over. Did it 4 more times. Stopped then deleted the app. Do not waste time or your life on this app. Stop being lazy people use the generic apple podcast app it is actually very good once set up. Arghhhhh!

Dissapointed. I have been using this app for over a year. Recently it had become slow and glitchy and despite regularly updating the app, these faults never went away. I would have still stuck with Castbox regardless, however since the last update full screen ads have been appearing at random. These ads require me to click out of them in order to continue using the app which makes it almost unusable as a platform and has really impacted my experience as a user. I have deleted Castbox and am now using an alternate podcast app.

Good app but a few ways to improve. Enjoy the app a lot. Looks great, has a good overview of podcasts and the search and recommendations appear to produce useful suggestions. I can't find a way to mark all podcasts as played which is a bit annoying. When one is finished it will go to the next "unplayed" pod which I've already heard on another app. Possible I've missed the function. I'm also not interested in logging into the app so the reminders are annoying.

The best podcast app!. This is my best podcast app. It’s almost perfect but it would be nice if I could arrange my favourite episodes based on podcast station as same as in my downloaded podcast

Video ads playing while listening. This app was really top notch for a long time. Really I enjoy it and think has an amazing ui. However now you guys added video ads that destroys the whole app unfortunately I moving to another app.

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New bug. New episodes don’t show up

Use to be the best. This app use to be my go to for podcasts but within the last year or so it has gotten really buggy. There are some podcasts i subscribe to that I just can’t download any of their episodes no matter what, they just instantly fail no matter how many times I try. There are a lot of times where it will just delete episodes I have downloaded already and then won’t let me redownload them. There has also been times where double downloads of the same episode will so up so I will just have multiple of the same episode.

Love this app. Sometimes it plays 2-3 (or more) minutes of a episode and then starts the episode over from the beginning… but still at the 3 minute mark, 6 minute mark… etc. fast forwarding - no matter where I am on the timeline, it’s still at the beginning and won’t play more than those 3 (or whatever) minutes. Closing and re starting doesn’t help… so I have to play that episode on a different podcast app. Only happens on Castbox. Issue is not specific to a podcast, and very sporadic, maybe happens 1 out 20 or more episodes.. so not enough to uninstall but annoying when it does happen. I always try Castbox first. Hope you guys can fix that. Cheers.

Amazing podcast 👍🏻. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Used to be good.. It keeps downloading the episodes that I marked not download again and again. Sick and tired deleting them. Funny thing is that it downloads the previously subscribed channels episodes as well even though I'm not subscribed anymore. Advertisements became annoying as well since it's too much.

Freezes. I’ve been using this app for years but lately it seems to be really glitchy and doesn’t allow you to fast forward. When you try it just freezes and continues to start from the beginning. Extremely frustrating

Used to be good. I loved this app for many years. Never had any issues whatsoever. But lately whenever I try to play a podcast it just doesn't load. I've tried clearing my cache and all that, doesn't work. And if I want to skip ahead through ads on an episode or something it'll restart the episode even when the play bar shows it's at 19 mins through. So annoying. May be looking for an alternative podcast app.

Glitchy. I’ve been using this app for over 2 years and it’s started to get very glitchy and crashes daily

دوپامين. بسيار عالي و مفيد

Just thanks, ppl!. Thanks for creating the best, my favourite, podcast app out there!

Good. Good app

Was great…. I’ve used this app for years but unfortunately it’s become to buggy. Most of the time when I try to download something it counts up to 100% then says ‘download failed’. This never used to be a problem. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app and it hasn’t made a difference.

Great place to listen to podcasts. Castbox is my go to place to listen to all my favourite podcasts and to also find new podcasts! I like that you can change playback settings and arrange your saved podcasts the way you want!

TO MANY ADS. It's a shelf for podcasts. I already have to listen to endless ads in the podcasts, I can only put up with so many popping up in the app. Peace Out Castbox ✌🏼

Locked Down. Did you just make changes so that the podcast no longer plays if another window on my iphone is open?

It’s fine at best. I only switched to this app after there were problems with the apple podcast app. It does play podcasts with few issues but the sheer number of ads it shows in a clear attempt to pressure me into their paid subscription is infuriating. Some of these ads even stop podcasts that are currently being played. I don’t think they realize that I would sooner set my phone on fire than pay for the non-ad version of their mediocre app. I would rather give up on podcasts all together and talk to strangers on the bus. Please, for all that is decent, chill out on the number of ads you show in on your app!

I used to love this app. I’ve been a power user for the past three years, with thousands of listening hours. Recently add that can’t be closed started popping up (I didn’t use to see ads) and now they pop up within minutes of using the app at random times, which make the app unusable. I’m leaving if this isn’t fixed in the next update.

Too much advertising. Too much annoying ads

Recent updates are making this app crappy. I have been using this app for soo long now….. at one point it was the best app and I’ve tried others but always preferred this app and kept coming back but these recent updates have really made this app annoying and dislike for the app now. Every ad now makes the podcast stop and can’t continuing playing after ad. The only way to continue playing is to force close the app and restart it. These updates and add are for song me to find a new podcast app…. This one was great but the developers have ruined this app for me

App suddenly decided it wasn’t going to open anymore. The app was working just fine for years and now all of a sudden it won’t open at all. Immediately crashes within 0.5 sec of clicking on it. And now I’ve lost all my subscribed podcasts, just great.

New ads. New ads make app not work correctly in background. Plez fix. iPhone x

It’s the only app that will work for the podcasts I want.. It had ads but does not interrupt the actual podcast.

Decent app. It’s okay. I liked it a lot at first, but right now it’s consuming 17 GB on my phone with no way to reduce how much space it uses without deleting episodes individually. Also they added ads. Playing most recent podcasts is also a weird two-step process (Library-> Downloads). I need something simpler and easier to manage.

Normally my go to podcast app, but lately downloads will fail frequently.. Under normal circumstances this is an easy 5/5 podcast app and my go to service, but lately episodes will fail to download for no apparent reason, regardless of how many times I try again. Additionally there is an odd glitch that cause the audio to stop playing if you exit the app/lock your phone. When these are fixed, it will be 5/5 again.

fine but ads are over the top. the app itself works absolutely fine, 5*. however they started using full screen invasive ads that can't be skipped and last 5-6seconds. that was after adding delays on your podcast start so you look at your screen longer while an ad is playing. i deleted it and moved to another app.

What’s Going On???. ever since the last update in april 2022, every podcast you go into to download an episode will result in an annoying 5 sec ads!!! and when you get out of the podcast to another location of the app, another 5 sec ads!!

Too many ads. Too buggy.. All the interstitial ads are creating a buggy experience. Playback of a podcast won’t even get paused, and won’t even resume after the ad is done. Time to move to another podcast app.

Ruined after update. When I first started using this app (when a certain other native app updated and ruined its interface) it was great. Quick, simple, easy to use, with the occasional ad to pay the bills - no problem. Then it updated. Now it’s constant ads every time you try to change screens, it’s laggy and crashy. Don’t even bother with this app.

Podcast stops when you lock the screen. This used to be a great app but the recent update ruined it. Podcast stops when you lock the screen

Ads are very pushy. Every little touch on the app pops up a sneaky little ad and somehow takes a bit longer to go back. Used to be good. Uninstall.

This app killed my storage. I have a 64 Gb phone, and this app took up most of it. The response of tech support was essentially to start over. I didn’t want to lose the podcasts I followed, so I didn’t start over, but tried to manage to make sure episodes were marked as played (to be deleted). Well one too many times, I ran out of storage and my phone has just died. Stuck on the Apple screen. Needless to say, I won’t be going back to this podcast app once I get a new phone (writing from my husband’s account, since my phone is dead)

Ads. I tried paying for the ads removal membership and the ads wouldn’t go away. The help support was confusing and directed me to Apple support which didn’t do anything. The end.

App freezes all the time. Castbox is pretty much unusable now for my 14 pro, 512 gb phone. It freezes every minute or so .

Too many Ads!. The ads are very frustrating!!!

Foreign language. Ads in a foreign language so I can’t click the right spot first time is a new low

The best app for podcasts. A very intuitive and well-organized app - great for seeing all your subscribed shows in one place and saving/favoriting episodes you want to listen to. So much better than Apple’s app!

Uninstalling. Adds every 2 minutes it's way too much.

App Freezes. Castbox plays ads before beginning the podcast episode. This frequently freezes on the last episode, with a spinning animation around the Pause button instead of playing the next. I have to close the app, then restart it. One podcast show refused to play at all when I went back to the beginning rod, when previously, there was no issue.

Montreal. The application is very bad, when you open the application, the screen freezes, in addition to that the application turns off by itself, some podcasts are not loaded.

Too many ads. I enjoyed using the categories to organize the podcasts but the developer pushes to hard for the premium and the ads are relentless and jams up the app sometimes so you have to restart the app…i’m out.

Close, but not quite right. Advertising hangs the application forcing an app restart. Advertising also interrupts user interaction at important times.

I used to really like Castbox…. Castbox used to be my go-to for podcasts but it recently has become riddled with bugs and it’s become unusable. I have tried restarting my phone, checking for updates, and even deleting/reinstalling the app. It still stalls upon opening, crashes at random intervals, and freezes. It’s easier just to go to the podcasters own site to listen. I’m actually sad because it feels like the end of an era.

Unsatisfied Subscriber. I have been a premium subscriber and yet I am still not allowed to have more than 100 subscriptions. The ads are so annoying you can’t even go back to the app.

Bg. Best app

So Far So Good. This is a great app. Forget the others, support one that focuses on podcasts and only that. It is very user friendly!!

Want to love. Want to love this app, been using it a while. But it’s so so glitchy. It never loads properly, images never load, and often doesn’t download properly, and playback is often spotty. So annoying, since I pay for it... It’s so janky 😭

Awesome! — Apple could learn from this. The ‘fade out on pause’ feature is awesome. Why has Apple never figured this out for Apple Music? The genius of Castbox is the easy way it assembles and helps me find my podcasts, as well as connecting my interests to new ones. 👍🏼👍🏼

Simply Wonderful. Castbox does really make a difference, I’ve been using it for a long time, easy to follow your favourite channels as well. Once I had a question, sent an inquiry and they got back to me in no time and I was so happy with it. Keep it up, Castbox people, you do an amazing job. My only suggestion is that, the producers put a lot of effort into creating nice posters, please put the ada somewhere else, graphic designers need to be able to share their hard works with people who do not have premium accounts. That’s the only suggestion which I really hope you’d consider changing. Let’s value the designer and put the ads somewhere else, in other apps you do get to see them easily but not here in our favourite podcast app!

works better than apple podcast. is updated quicker than google podcast and never freezes like the other major podcast app(yes im looking at you apple podcast, which you cannot pause and keep playing from the same spot an hour later) Castbox is solid

Love playlist ability. Not many podcast apps offer the “playlist” ability, which is oh so essential in my life. There is a big difference in function between playlist and play next. So I love this app for its playlist option. Unfortunately the player randomly speeds up play, sometimes to the point where you can’t make out what’s being said. Reinstalling does not solve the problem. And The same thing happens on all my devices. Sadly I may have to bail from this app soon if the speed up issue doesn’t get resolved.

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Ads have ruined this app. I’ve had this app for a few years. I understand it’s free and I don’t mind sitting through ads because of that. But in the past few months they’ve updated and ads won’t close properly so I have to restart the app. Additionally they make ads where the exit button is hidden. And most importantly, the app runs so much more poorly than it did previously and this all started with the updated ad experiences. A lot of the time, the podcasts won’t play or they will skip around. I recommend getting a different podcast app. I will be deleting this one after years of use.

Yet another podcast app that fails the basics.. I ran into a problem with this app: it decided not to allow me to download particular episodes of a podcast. Evidently the stars were misaligned when I first tapped that button. The official fix from the developer is to delete the app, including all its data. Then you have to redownload the app and start from scratch. This includes subscribing to the same podcasts again, downloading the episodes you still want to listen to, et cetera. I did this and it worked like a charm. Then the problem happened a second time. So I deleted the app, including all its data. But this time I’m not reinstalling.

Great, but one major issue. I’ve been using Castbox as my primary podcast app for years now, and it’s easily one of my favorites, and I haven’t found another I like as much as this one. My only issue is something that only started to show itself in the last year or so, and that’s the obtrusive ads. I’m not typically mad about ads on things like this, they were fine how they were before they started having obtrusive pop up ones at seemingly random times. A few years ago this app would have had a five star rating from me, but now it has to be a three with just how the ads are.

I love everything but. the lack of an option to add a different podcast episode to play next. I, like much of the people here, am over using Apple’s podcast app. However, I do appreciate the option to just add an episode of a different podcast to play next instead because I don’t typically listen to podcast episodes in succession; I like to piece them all out at different times, depending on my mood of what I want to listen to. So adding a queue option would make this app MY APP for podcasts officially, making me delete the Apple podcast app off my phone forever. PLEASE DEVELOPERS! HELP ME DELETE THAT CURSED APP! Thanks in advance.

Good UI but bug makes it largely unusable. After Apple’s most recent updates that ruined the native podcast apps I downloaded a few alternatives. Cast box was my favorite in terms of UI however I have consistently had an issues where when driving and using google maps the player will pause for the directions but they don't actually play (I get maybe the last word or two). As someone who listens to podcasts in the car and while on road trips this issue is a deal breaker. However, if you mostly listen to podcasts at home this is a great option.

I love Castbox but there’s one thing.... I have spent many years going back and forth between Castbox, Overcast, and Downcast as my primary podcast playing app. With all due respect to the other two Castbox is hands down the best app of the three. So thanks for the awesome work and keep it up. If there’s one area of improvement that would result in 5 stars from me it’s with your Playlist setup. I believe that your app would be so much better if I was able to more easily group the podcasts I want to listen to and be able to count on them being in the right place with out so much hassle.

Was good but got worse. Started using this app once the Apple podcast app glitched out almost 3 years ago… recently the unavoidable ads and crashing of the app had brought me to my breaking point. I truly loved this app and the customizable playlist feature it offers. Unfortunately, I feel as if I need to make the inconvenient switch back to Apple podcast app due to the full screen adds that won’t go away no matter how many times I got the ‘x’ Icon. As a broke college student who cannot afford the premium version without the glitchy adds and the time it takes to reload the app when it crashes…. I will be taking the time to refollow all the podcasts I’ve gained in the past 3 years on Castbox back to Apple podcast apps🥲

Trevor Noah pod cast. The episode with LA Mayor Karen Bass was exactly what I needed to hear today. What a wonderful perspective from a political leader. Especially now when so many things are off the rails. I worked in healthcare safety and risk management in 7 different states and in Abu Dhabi. Everything Mayor Bass said about the housing issue is true. The issues of housing and safe affordable healthcare is clearly and tragically connected and often ignored by the people who can facilitate change. It warmed my heart to hear a political leader talk about how these two essential human rights issues are connected. Thank you!

Keeps pausing. App started off great then suddenly the audio keeps pausing and won’t restart no matter what. Either the pause button just keeps spinning or the podcast just stops playing completely. I’ve tried to force close and restart the app. Didn’t help. My WiFi and service range in great. And this has been a problem For almost 3 months now!!! Please stop telling people to email “whoever” to report the problem. Many of us have reported the same problem for months now and you have no doubt collected enough data to know what the problem is. I was going to upgrade to premium until I started having all these problems I would never spend money on an app this glitchy and I would strongly suggest other people don’t either.

Switched from apple podcasts. I started using this after the most recent apple update made their app basically un-useable. This one is better in a few ways. At least it doesn’t take ten minutes for my list of episodes to open. It really bothers me that listening to a podcast uses so much battery. I can basically only listen to 30-40 minutes of an episode that I have downloaded before I’ve used most of my battery life. Seems counterproductive to have a mobile device that I can’t carry around with me while I listen. Otherwise the app works well for the most part.

Very nice app. I am enjoying the app quite a bit, I have bounced from app to app trying to find one that works. And I have to say so far this has been great. There is one thing I miss when I compare it to similar apps though , the ability to skip forward from a steering wheel button, the button forward seems to only go to the next podcast in the queue, but sometimes I just want to skip the pesky advertisements. It would be nice if one press if the button would skip 30 seconds, while 2 pushes would skip to the next episode, or something like that. If this is already a thing, please let me know, since I clearly couldn’t figure it out by myself.

One of the better podcast apps out there. There are a lot of podcast apps out there now, but a lot of them astonishingly lack features that really seem useful. You can speed up or slow down the playback, set timers for the playback, skip forward and back easily. Podcast discovery is easy, you can comment on podcasts and episodes... the list goes on. These are features that exist in other apps, but often are scattered around — a couple features in this app, a couple features in that app. What a pain. CastBox has all the stuff I’m looking for in one package!

Love it already!. Only had it for a couple of hours and I like the layout, the ease with which I found my favorite podcasts, and I LOVE the Favorites option, something I wish the Apple Podcasts app had instead of the add to/remove from library thing. Most of the items in my podcast library don’t sync to the desktop app lately anyway. Just add the ability to read the complete title of the episode and it’s perfect to me. One bug: lack of background updating with the notifications when new episodes come in. I’ll take a look at my settings, but if I hadn’t opened the app I wouldn’t have known I had 11 new episodes instead of 2.

The ads are truly terrible. Recently tried this app out because I got tired of how slow Apple Podcasts had become. I actually really liked the look of this app and its overall functionality, but the ads were so obnoxious that I just couldn’t stand using it any more. Constantly popping up and consuming the entire screen while I was trying to navigate the app (and they are the type of ads that look like you’ve just downloaded a virus on your phone - poorly translated text designed to look like a phone alert to trick you into clicking on it, weirdly sexual shovelware games, etc.). Immediately switched to Pocket Casts and am enjoying it far more than this app. Could be great, but they really need to figure out a better way to monetize. Current implementation is awful, intrusive, and user-prohibitive.

Its… okay.. I came from Apple podcasts. I liked that alot but i share an account with my wife and she wanted her own collection. So i tried a few podcast players. Castbox is… okay. I have constant pauses in my streaming, even with good cell or WiFi. The constant ads are annoying visually, and make it hard to know what you are listening to at a glance. The suggestions are laughable. And I dont like that I have to wade through them to get to my list. Setting up a queue is annoying too. I think you can get rid of some the ads by subscribing, but I hate getting bled once a month. Everyone wants a bite now. Just sell me the app ans be done.

Brilliant layout and design, great developers. I tried out a variety of podcast apps and Castbox fit my needs the most, so I decided to subscribe to them. They have proved that that decision was the correct one with their amazing response time. Yesterday (1/7/19) they released update 4.21 and there were slight issues with the updated UI. I sent them a tweet with a screenshot and in less than 24 hours they turned around and released a patch that fixed the issue (1/8/19). I will continue to support them because the app is great and the people behind the app are great too!

Great app gone wrong. I’ve been using Castbox for the past five years and the first four deserve five stars. More than five, it that were possible. However, for the past few months, the app is glitchy and crashes, it randomly rewinds about 30 seconds every once in a while - just often enough to make me think I‘m going nuts and sometimes, when I press play on a podcast, it will mark the one I want as played and skip to the next in my list of downloads. This never used to happen before the ads. What’s going on, developers?

Love the app. This is my favorite podcast app since it has a great selection and great design, love the dark theme and the overall organization. It does not, however, have many extra functions in the part of playing podcast. I would love to see so..e thing like voice boost which boost only human voices and smooths them a little so they are clear and pleasing to hear. Also smart speed would be nice which cuts out silences in each podcast while keeping the voices normal speed and over time it saves lots of time while the speaking is clear. One podcast that uses this is Overcast but I prefer this so it would be amazing if these smart, innovative features could be implemented.

My new favorite. Came over from Pocket Casts after its developer decided to rip off everyone who paid for the app. It took me awhile to find the right replacement, but Castbox is it. I’ll gladly pay the subscription to go to a better developer. Only two minor gripes: I wish new subscriptions were added to the bottom instead of the top, and I wish that the next episode didn’t automatically play. But these are only minor, and everything else is great and highly recommended.

pretty UI！complete functions！my favorite podcast app！！. I love this podcast app so much and I'm using it every day on my way to work. It is super intuitive and easy to manage my favorite podcasts. I've tried Apple podcasts, Stitcher and Overcast, but I switch to Castbox because the UI style is my favorite. They also have a functionality to recommend popular podcasts like the dropout, Phil in the blank, both are my favorite shows now. It's so great considering the convenience to discover and download the hot new podcast. Perfect podcast experience!

App no longer opens. Agree with several other reviews re: glitches and suggestions. When podcasts finish, the app often begins replaying the same episode rather than stopping or moving to the next unplayed episode. I also find the discussion/ comment function clunky and nearly unused. Compared to other podcast apps, hardly anyone discusses episodes on Castbox. Also, comments seem to be threaded at only 2 levels (OPs and replies). I'd also like better tools for more precise navigation within episodes (more than just back 15 sec, forward 30 sec, and an imprecise slider). Update 1: After recent app update, app no longer even opens. Tried uninstalling/ re-installing (at risk of losing all subscriptions and data). Still no. No useful info for this issue on their help site. Update 2: Developer requested screenshot of the app not opening. Funny. Update 3: Subsequent update worked for a while, but with update to 8.18, app is back to crashing when I attempt to open it. Tried restarting phone. Hesitate to uninstall/ reinstall bc it wipes data (subscriptions, record of played episodes, etc.).

I (used to be) “ALL IN” in with this podcast app.... The biggest reason is this (was). However, due to syncing problems between various devices on various versions of iOS I would end up having duplicate subscriptions to the same podcast which really used up a lot of memory which was a total waste of memory so I switched to “Overcast” and I can sync across all of my iOS devices beautifully. In other apps, when I slow down (even to .9x)speed the sound becomes terribly annoying. Castbox sounds so very normal at slower speed playback. This is a huge advantage over other podcast player apps. I just had to get this out. There’s more reasons to switch to or choose this app but I’ll check bac later. UPDATE: on the newest release I can go to .8 playback speed but not .9 This is ridiculous because nobody needs a wide a range rather a more incremental speed control. I rolled back a few versions to get the ability to playback at .9 :-) Still my favorite still the best in my book.

Love this app!. I tried out every free podcast app I could find, and they’re all absolute garbage (Especially iTunes). When I was trying this one out I gave it the usual 2-week trial, and decided it wasn’t any better than the others. I was about to undownload it, when I noticed it had an update available. I decided to give it one last go, and I’m so glad I did! You guys have made some spectacular changes with the last two updates! There are still some things I think could be improved, but out of the maybe ten or so apps I tried it’s still the most user-friendly of them all! Keep up the great work! 😁

Ad driven. Barely functional. This app is ad driven. The ads are extremely obnoxious. They pop up randomly and unpredictably. They often block critical app functionality. It’s so difficult to switch podcast apps, and I feel like I was tricked by this app. It acted very useful at first, but the ads and functionality have slowly made it worse and worse. I suspect that the functionality is designed to create this effect. You are lured in with a working app, but slowly given an ad machine. Eventually you will be driven to switch, but only after many ads and much suffering.

Der größte. Here's how much I like the app: This review will consist of a complaint, but I'm giving it a well deserved five stars. The complaint: Since the latest update does the app continually suicide mid-playthrough. Playback does not just stop, but the app's presence disappears outright. The rating: I've tried them all. This is the best. The UI is clean, playback options most intuitive, the ads unobtrusive, the search function and system of organization premium. There even exists an unexpected community of commentators. My favorite feature and the only one that exists on this podcast alone is the chronological list view of episodes before and after that which you're listening to. It's a one button push, and allows you to queue up the next episode - especially if you listen to anything that relies on narrative semblance. But please curb the suicidal tendencies of this app. It's not a game breaker yet, but you know you all are capable of better. Thank you!

Want to love. I always used Apple podcasts to listen to podcasts. Then they changed things and it was so slow I couldn’t handle it any more. I tried a different app that I didn’t love and then I found Castbox. I like the format and the way they showed suggested podcasts. However, this is the glitchiest app I’ve used yet. I prefer it over the others as far as format but I am constantly having to close the app and restart. The latest annoyance is it doesn’t play if I turn off my screen. When I try to push the play button from my sleep screen, it’s greyed out and doesn’t work. I want to love it but it’s such a hassle I may go back to Apple podcasts. :(

Grateful first time podcasts listener.. I initially chose Castbox because of the numerical ratings. And I am grateful that I did. At first I sought a podcast app to get to hear a specific podcast. Now I am enjoying many others and audio books. Thank you for developing the app and making it relatively easy to navigate. Without going into detail about the things that I would appreciate seeing in the app, I am confident you folks will get around to including and or making modifications to enhance the user experience. In the meantime, I will encourage others to use this app to listen to all that Castbox has to offer. Thanks again.

Good, but still missing a key feature.. NEED an option to add single episodes to the “next up” queue. Maybe the add to playlist button can also give the option to add to Next Up. Also, I’m not a huge fan of the Next Up queue automatically adding every single episode of a podcast when I pick a single episode to play. Or maybe at least add a “clear all” button. As someone who uses Next Up way more than playlists, and likes to add/remove single episodes from many podcasts, I’d love to see this added in an update. Pocket Casts does this really well which is why it’s my main player right now, but I’m willing to switch if you guys can add it!

Great app, but buggy and crashes. I like how this app functions when it works, but after over a year of waiting for the bugs to get worked out, I have to look elsewhere. One of the worst issues is that this app has crashed my entire phone into a reboot several times now, never had an app do that except when using this one. Also it will just freeze up quite often and require me to close and reopen the app. Other little annoying things like I can pause it with the button on my Apple ear buds but the app does not respond to resuming play when I use the same button like most other media apps do, instead I have to open the app and hit play again. If they could get it together and work these issues out, I'd stay with the app.

They ruined it. This used to be the best app to listen to podcasts on. It was intuitive and simple to use, episodes were available to listen to earlier than other platforms, and every show I searched for was available. Then they released an update about a week ago and suddenly there’s video ads that completely take over your podcast. You have to open the app and close the add to continue listening, and 9 times out of 10, it stops playing when you move out of the app or lock your screen. Meaning you can’t listen to it in the background, which is the entire purpose of a podcast. It’s so disappointing. Now I have to go back to a worse app because they ruined it.

Best podcast app!. About a year ago I started really delving into the podcast world. As I started listening to more and more podcasts, I realized the iOS app wasn’t cutting it. So the big hunt began. I’ve tried several different apps ... and they worked fine but not perfect. Then I discovered Castbox. For me, this is the perfect app ... easy to organize, easy to discover new podcasts and easy to delete the ones I didn’t like. The ability to customize without needing a manual is what pushed my decision to move to the premium version. I also appreciate that the app works for my iPhone and iPad. Great app!

SO much better than the podcast app. Tl;dr- 100x better than iTunes podcast app I’m in love. So much better than the Apple podcast app. Multiple speed options that Apple doesn’t have. I don’t know- there’s a lot of features I don’t really use/care about- I just want to listen to podcasts and find cool new ones from time to time. As far as that core functionality goes these guys have crushed it. Heard about the app from when they got more funding but I totally see why it’s funded and hopefully y’all can figure out a business model that works because the app is dope.

Excellent Podcast Player. The Castbox podcast player, is such wonderful software, it has everything you need, to capture your library and update all the daily shows. I’ve been using Castbox for over 3 years now, and I love the simplicity of the application. The developers are also super friendly, helpful, and go the extra mile to answer any questions with your account. The software developers also work hard at further developing, this already top shelf application.

Better than apple but not quite perfect yet. 1. It doesn’t keep track of where you left off. 2. Is there a way to make your subscriptions your default screen? 3. I already have quite a variety of shows that i’m following and i don’t want to get all the noise about different shows (minimize shows similar to) 4. I liked the feature of the old apple podcast where it will load all the new episodes as opposed to me manually adding to my play list. Thank you

Busy, not worth the upgrade. After a pitch from my favorite podcast, Going in Raw, I tried this podcast out. It has a very functional watch app, and it is fast and responsive. It gets 3 stars for doing what it needs to do in a fast, responsive manner. But...it is focused on discovery, opening to a feed of new podcasts to listen to. Playlists have to be built manually. It just lacks features i have gotten used to on other apps. Smart playlists, smart audio boost, auto download new episodes, custom number of episodes to do so. Overall, i might have even given this 4 stars if the app prioritized me listening to my podcasts over discovery. But it’s not the best.

Great Apple Podcast replacement, but….. It’s crashing more and more often in the past month. In the middle of playing an episode: CRASH. In the middle of downloading an episode: CRASH. In the middle of scrolling through a playlist: CRASH. Just sitting idly with the display on: CRASH. Plus, my phone becomes uncomfortably warmer than usual and my battery drains faster whenever the app is on. It’s either using too many resources and/or is becoming bloatware. I LOVE the simplicity of the app, and I want to keep loving it, but all the crashing is becoming more stressful than it’s worth. PLEASE FIX THIS BUG!!!

Best way for me to educate myself. I love CastBox especially when I need to educate myself on certain subjects without the need of buying a book with tired eyes. There’s tons and tons of different topics on subjects that I need to catch up on that I never knew existed and this app allows me to do just that especially on my lazy days when I still feel the need to be productive without batting a lash. Please try this app and listen to all the amazing audiobooks , self help podcasts, comedians, debates on every topic etc. (I can go on forever)

Since latest update. Since the latest update yesterday it’s not working well at all. When I try and play a pre downloaded podcast it plays a few seconds with very poor quality then closes app. Not to mention the fact I recently had to download all my podcasts again. I opened the app the other day to find that all my downloaded podcast were gone. Before these issues started I loved this app and would give it five stars again when these issues are resolved.

Sooo good - but. Why is it slow? Takes a while to open the app and for it to become responsive. I still think that it is probably the best podcast player out there but it’s not there yet. It looks like it downloads all the icons and info of the subscribed podcasts every time I open it. Instead of keeping the info on the phone - and that makes it freeze for a couple of minutes and sometimes to freeze. The new update that doesn’t allow for over 100 subscriptions (I’m a heavy user..) is a shame but I get it, the developers should get paid for the amazing work they’ve done. In short, the best player by far but not perfect yet

Like it, but performance issues holding it back. I like the interface and the functionality of the app but have had too many performance issues with it. These include freezing of the app interface so I can’t change podcast or move within the app without closing and reopening multiple times. Not having the podcast restart where it ended when I turned off the car, instead it picks up from where it stopped two times ago. If they get the performance issues fixed this would be a strong replacement but until then, I’m going to have to move on.

Best Podcast App. After growing fed up with the UI of the Apple Podcasts app after a few years of use, I began exploring other Podcasts apps but none were able to woo me away from the continuity of Apple’s. This app, however, is worth the diminished continuity between phone and computer because of the far superior UI it offers. I was hesitant to recommend this app a few weeks ago because it lacked a “Recently Released” section for your subscriptions, but now that feature has been added and this app now can receive my full recommendation. Next feature needed: App for Windows and OSX with seamless handoff between devices. Great app!!

Ads have ruined this app. I’ve used Castbox for several years and used to be happy with it. In the last year or so, however, the ads have become increasingly intrusive to the point that I am about to delete the app because the experience is so terrible. An ad pops up every single time I click on something - sometimes the ad makes me wait 5 seconds before I can close it, sometimes it’s an ad for offensive sex games, oftentimes the ad is in Chinese and I can’t figure out how to close it. Sometimes an ad will start but then just go black and unresponsive so I have to close the app and re-open just to continue listening. Sometimes the app just randomly shuts itself off. It’s gotten to the point where I spend more time closing ads and/or the app itself, and I’ve had it. I am done.

It looks very good, just missing the elusive feature I am searching for in a podcast app. The app looks good and I could see myself switching to it if the app could add the ability for the listener to categorize the podcast feeds. For instance ideally one could create a “folder/station/playlist” for all news podcasts and another group for the history podcasts that they are subscribed to. Possibly similar to how iOS uses folders. I am probably subscribed to over 75 feeds and find the current set up used by most podcast apps to overwhelming. I know I am not the only one that is looking for this feature as a way to organize the chaos. Thank you.

Bad playlist functionality. After reading what some of the other reviewers wrote, I was really hoping this would be the one that would let me delete the Apple podcast app. The interface is great, but the playlist functionality doesn’t work, or only works sometimes. You’ll add a podcast to your playlist, click on the queue, and it’s nowhere to be found. If you like to listen to episodes one at a time, without an ongoing queue, or if you like to binge-listen to multiple episodes of a show at once, then this is the podcast app for you. However, if you’re like me and want to add episodes from your feed to your queue, then back to Apple podcasts it is.

Great. I previously rated this app as a one star because there was bugs in it. Within one day that developers fixed the issue and now I am a happy user. As promised, this is a five star app. Here was my original post: Like some of the other reviews, this was my favorite app until a few days ago. Now it freezes up. It has been such a good app that I'm sure they will work out the bugs. But I hope they do it quickly because I miss listening to my podcasts. My 1star review will go back to 5 stars when problems are resolved.

Great podcast app, but pop up ads?. I have used this app for the past four years and it is/was the best app out there! Really easy to find new podcasts, easy to download episodes, great interface. I would give this app five stars all day long, but... since there last update, there is a high number of pop ups. I understand the need to advertise and don't mind a few, but the number that I get is getting really annoying. I hate even thinking of looking for a different player, but the number of ads is getting to me. I would be happy to get the Premium version, but wish it was a one time fee.

Long time listener. I’ve been using this app daily for years. The last 6 months I have seen a huge uptick in ads for trash mobile games and the like, most of which last at least 20 seconds and require 2 separate taps to exit from. Often these ads come up after every other tap within the app. The frequency is maddening. I get how ad revenue works but this change has really cheapened my experience. However, in the last 2 months or so I have been getting ads for a fake university that won’t allow me to navigate away from. I have to close the app and restart it. Then I’ll reopen the app, tap "library", and it’s the same ad! Close. Restart. Library. Tap on the podcast I want. Same ad… Close. This is infuriating and needs to be changed.

There is hope...but needs improvements. I am unable to rewind 30 seconds via Bluetooth. I’m usually listening to podcasts in my car and sometimes I miss something or need to relisten to make sure I understood what I just heard. I try not to touch my phone while driving but sometimes I have to because of this issue. Other than that, I pay for the premium podcast player and am a fan. I have even recommended this app to friends and family. Please fix this bug! *****update 6/30 I was contacted by the developer and there will be a fix in the next update. I look forward to this fix! Thank you for reaching out Teresa, it does mean a lot. *****update 7/9 I updated the app as requested by the developers and glad to report that I am able to rewind and forward without any issues!! Thank you for following through on this issue and resolving!!

Solid player with a couple annoyances. This app does the essentials well - podcast playback and download management are both solid and it’s easy to keep up to date on new episodes. That said there are a couple simple improvements they really should make: 1. There’s no permanent option to stop playback at the end of an episode. (It automatically plays another episode.) 2. The in-app browser for viewing links in show notes is difficult to use and buggy. There should be an option to open links in your default browser.

You’re the product. Everything about this app feels like any other upsell forever-on platform like Instagram or the like. Couldn’t find a place to stop episodes from just running forever. Comments also just go in a loop once you hit the end - instead of indicating that this is the end of the comments. What are we afraid of, the digital void? Every podcast page has the Twitter, Facebook buttons built in. If we learned anything from the web this means they are following you along. Which, in all fairness they disclose right there in the App Store. This is just an all-around creepy experience so if you have too much fomo to step away from the “socials” I guess this is your jam. If you want to listen to podcasts try pocketcasts or overcast.