I was a shameless, self declared and proud apple fan-boy. They got unvaluably and ludicrously expensive. They released a device with the single biggest design flaw in the history of devices – the God forsaken ‘notch’. I packed my fruit basket and went on a picnic with another from another mother – Samsung and Android. The rest was history.
Until today however, my heart’s been a little void of fulfillment because I had no native podcast app (atleast nothing I knew about) that could live up to what was still a great love affair, the apple podcast app. The trophy for podcast convenience and origins, for me atleast, rests with Jobs and his design genius. Today however, a new player in the market has emerged – the Google Podcasts app.
In a recent tweet, Casey Neistat himself has called the app straight 🔥, or atleast referenced his podcast Couples Therapy in the same sentence, close enough I guess.
Here’s what my Google Podcasts home screen looks like (yes I’m subscribed to my own podcast – consider it quality control);
As you can see, plenty of white space, subscriptions right on top, a nice centered UI to allow quick play of new episodes. There is no noise, no clutter and the search feature is as clean as a freshly bleached bathroom.
Take a look…
The icon for the app is crispy, stands out and is true to the Google brand colour pallet. Subscribing to a new podcast requires only 2 IQ points it’s that fresh – just search, tap the podcast you want and hit subscribe. No RSS links, no complicated search screens like what’s required with some apps. Just convenience.
All-in-all I’m pretty well set in the podcast streaming space now. I’ve deleted all other apps that attempted to fill my void.
I give this app, so far, a 5/5.
Ivan Siladji 