I think PocketCasts is pretty awesome. So far Overcast isn't doing that much more for me than PocketCasts.

Is the iOS version of PocketCasts as bad as the Android version? The Android version does fundamentally work, but isn't robust. For example it will randomly stop playing mid podcast for no reason, forget that it is playing a sequence of podcasts, play two hours after pressing the play button, forget play position and revert to an earlier one, not sync play status between devices reliably and the list goes on. None of these are a big deal if you have the app in your pocket but are awful if you are driving since they require interaction to fix.

Weird. I use Pocket Casts on both an ipad and an Android phone every day with 50 subscribed podcasts and haven't had any of those things happen. Literally not a single one of those things. Several of those sound like a dodgy headphone connection though.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it's getting a bit unresponsive on the ipad 2 when you switch back to the app - takes a few seconds to respond to buttons.

I always connect via bluetooth to my car or to a jambox. The most recent time it randomly stopped playing was yesterday afternoon while driving - right in the middle of an episode on a long straight on the highway. For the record I have never had Google Music randomly stop playing using the same device(s) to the same car and jambox.

The position loss usually occurs with Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast where each episode is 3 - 5 hours long. I listen to about 30 minutes each time on the same device and sometimes it just resumes from a previous stop point rather then the most recent.

To demonstrate it forgetting about playing a list of items, start playing from an episode filter choosing Play All. Stop playing and then come back later. The lock screen will show that current playing episode as does the bottom of the UI. Press play in that. It will then play till the end of that episode and then stop - ie it forgets you were doing a Play All.

AFAIK it's a different codebase, and I've never had any problems.

PocketCasts has those weird popup windows that feel very cross-platform.

It also uses a lot of private apis from ios6. (I found out running the ios8 beta and looking at stack traces)

So I've had to revert to Downcast. I have bought every podcast app on ios anyway to get away from the godawful native podcast app. Whats one more app amongst friends.

>> It also uses a lot of private apis from ios6. (I found out running the ios8 beta and looking at stack traces)

Good to know. It completely stopped launching for me on iOS 8 beta 3. Shows the default.png and the freezes and crashes after a few seconds. I'd downgraded to the Apple Podcasts app (which I hate). Tried Overcast this afternoon and I like it. The only probably for me is there is unlikely to ever be an Android app and I occasionally use an Android device so PocketCasts syncing between devices was great.

I can't find an app the works on beta 3. I switch away from pocket cast to Apple podcasts. That worked for a day and then wouldn't play. Tried castro and it also worked for a while and now I can go to the episode view. Trying overcast now but the auto downloading is annoying and there no all downloaded view.

Downcasts runs on beta3, as does overcast but pocket casts is a crash happy maniac on it.

Yeah, given how much time I listen to podcasts, I don't mind spending a few bucks twice a year to try new clients.

On the Android side I used PocketCasts as well. I certainly can't call it awesome - more like limited and unstable, but still better than the alternatives.

Castro is a great podcast app.