Podcast App & Player - Castbox

Name: Podcast App & Player - Castbox
Rating: 4.85256 (130361 reviews)

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Podcast App & Player - Castbox

News

4.9

130.4K ratings

Age Rating

12+

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Guru Network Limited

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$0.99 – $49.99

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User Reviews for Podcast App & Player - Castbox

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 guy who hates to admit, May 08, 2022

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.

actionjcl, Apr 03, 2020

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.

Blue8haze, Nov 10, 2022

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.

ChadAHall, Nov 28, 2018

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).

citizenkade, Oct 11, 2017

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!

dustin/flu, Feb 26, 2021

Recent issues

Update: Just want to say that developer responded right away to my issue. Whether it can be fixed remains to be seen. In any case, this is still my favorite podcast app: This has been my podcast app of choice for quite a while now. I love the playlists and the ease of use. Lately I’ve been having an issue with badges showing unplayed in my library. I have to go into the podcast to check for episodes I have missed and find the indicator in error. Also, when I unsubscribe from a podcast it disappears from my library initially but then shows up again, which is quite annoying. These are both recent issues that were not solved by deleting and reloading the app. I am leaving the five star review for now based on my experience with the app over a long time, but I am looking at other apps now to try to find one that meets my needs without these annoying bugs. Hoping these issues will be addressed. It seems they began after most recent iOS update.

Gingflynn, Apr 08, 2021

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

hazelsydney, Apr 26, 2018

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.

idonthaveacatchyname, Oct 26, 2019

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.

missRidiculous, Oct 21, 2021

Description

The best podcast app & podcast player to find, save, download, and listen to your favorite podcasts, FM, and audiobooks. Access over 95 million audio content including podcasts, audiobooks, FM radio, white noise/fan noise, guided meditation podcasts from 27 different countries. Download Castbox and turn your iPhone or iPad into a fully functional podcast player.

You would be able to control the playback on your apple watch, switch to the next episodes using CarPlay, or meditate to the guided meditation podcasts with your Apple HomePod, Amazon Alexa. Discover popular podcasts on various topics, including: - TV Series podcasts: Binge Mode: Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones The Podcast, History of Westeros (Game of Thrones), Game of Thrones LIVE; - News & Politics podcasts: CNN 10, NPR News Now, Fox News Radio Newscast, The Overcast by The Seattle Times; - Music-related podcasts: Dissect from Cole Cuchna & Spotify Studios, Defected Radio, Capital FM; - Games & Hobbies podcasts: Wolverine: The Lost Trail from Stitcher; - Sports podcasts: The Ringer MLB Show, MLB Network, The Chicago Audible; - Technology podcasts: The Overcast Podcast, This Week in Google, Google Cloud Platform Podcasts; - Talk Shows: Sincerely, X from TED and Audible, By The Book from Stitcher, Luminary from Luminary.fm; - Business podcast:s Youpreneur FM Podcast; - Sleep: Sleep With Me, Guided Sleep Meditations, Sleep and Relax ASMR - Popular shows: SiriusXM Entertainment, Waze, WazeOut Radio Super intuitive and easy-to-use podcast app & podcast player for iPhone with： - Personalized podcast recommendations according to your podcast list - A powerful search engine that allows you to find your favorite podcasts effortlessly - Smooth streaming and downloading of podcasts, radio, FM, and audiobooks - The convenient Widget for you to continue enjoying the podcasts easily - Smart speakers supported, including Apple HomePod, Amazon Alexa - Fully support cross-device syncing for iPhone/iPad/Apple Watch/Google Devices - Daily top podcasts list - One-click subscription and never miss an episode for every podcast - Sleep timer to fall asleep soundly - Adjust playback speed during the podcast to accommodate your listening habits - Volume Boost - Trim Silence - CarPlay Support - Podcast Community - Live audio streaming service - Import your favorite podcasts with OPML from Google podcast, Overcast, iHeartradio, Pocket Casts, Podbean, Podcast Addict, Spotify, Stitcher, the Podcast app, Tunein, and apple podcast app! - Join the millions experiencing better bedtime, lower stress, and less anxiety with Zen mode! Privacy policy: https://castbox.fm/policy.html Terms of use: https://castbox.fm/termsofservice.html Love Castbox? Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/castbox.fm Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CastBox_FM