Deeper integration between Pocketcasts Wear OS and mobile app
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Wear OS app is one of the primary reasons I have Pocketcasts Plus but I’ll put it plainly, the app is sluggish even on a last year’s Galaxy Watch 6. It can be jerky sometimes/slow to respond and swiping back is way too easy unintentionally to the last page. However, I am not here to fuss about the Wear OS app since there are essentially only 2 things I do with it: download stuff for offline listening and then playback them later.
It would be a charm if one could queue episodes for download to Wear OS watch via mobile app/website. Like you click a button and it starts downloading on the watch. Google Play works on a similar system. When logged in with same accounts, one can install apps from website for watch and they are installed onto the watch later when wifi/tethered data is available. Can’t a similar system be done for Pocketcasts as well since a person has shared login credentials b/w Wear OS, phone and web players.
Downloading and navigating on the watch is quite slow. This would be a time saver. Another thing I noticed is that played episodes are also shown by default[and there is no way to hide them] in the Wear OS app. When one clicks on the episode, it shows that they have been played but logically, there should be a filter/option to auto hide archived/played episodes just like on phone/website.
I am not sure how ahead/feature complete Apple Watch variant is compared to Wear OS one but the latter seems a bloated mess, IMO. Please don’t take this as a takedown of your app but as valid criticism from a paying user who wants to see the service improve.
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Hi @strummerj912 – Thanks for these suggestions for improving the Wear OS integration. As well as the general performance improvements, we have existing feature requests for all of the specific suggestions you made, so I have added your vote for each of them, so our developers can take them into consideration as they work on improvements.
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To add to the above, I am not sure Filters are supported on Wear OS app as of now. Plus Played/Unplayed episodes are not showcased either. It would be way easier if played episodes are hidden from view (or is there a setting I am missing?). Currently, If I am browsing on Wear OS, I need to click on episode title and then see if it’s archived or not [read:played or not].
I can’t emphasize how important integration is key to Pocketcasts’ success. I can use Antennapod on Android and another Wear OS podcast player (yes: atleast one reliable one exists), but the problem is they won’t sync. Pocketcasts has the ability to sync, but as of now it’s only doing the basics; it can much more. It is not the mobile app that people are paying for (because IMO competing ones offer equivalent features) , it’s the companion apps and the SYNCING ability.
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To add to the above, I am not sure Filters are supported on Wear OS app as of now. Plus Played/Unplayed episodes are not showcased either. It would be way easier if played episodes are hidden from view (or is there a setting I am missing?). Currently, If I am browsing on Wear OS, I need to click on episode title and then see if it’s archived or not [read:played or not].
I’m currently asking the developers for confirmation about these, and we will get back to you as soon as we know more.
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@strummerj912 I’ve heard back from the developers, and they confirmed that the Wear OS app currently doesn’t hide the episodes. I’ve filed a feature request for this on your behalf, however
They also confirmed that filters are available on the Wear OS app:
Are you currently not seeing those in your app?
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Is anything happening here?
@staff-donnie, it’s been 10 months since the original post and you said at the time that there were already existing feature requests for these items. But so far, none of the features have made it to the watch app.
When I go out for a run with my phone, I open Pocket Casts, select the oldest unplayed episode of one of my podcasts, and go. It works great.
When I go out for a run with my watch, I can’t do any of this. There is no way to tell which episodes are new vs. played (without tapping on each individual episode to see if it has an “archive” button or not). So I have to find the first unplayed episode on my phone then find it again by name on my watch. I know I can add the episode to “up next” on my phone, then sync my watch (BTW, why is Refresh Now so annoyingly slow?), but why can’t I just see what is played vs. unplayed right on the phone?
Also, playback is sketchy on the watch. Occasionally a podcast will get into a loop of stuttering and dropping out every 10 seconds or so. Frequently, when I start a podcast it won’t play at all, and I’ll have to start a different one then go back to the original one. It’s not my network connection (the same thing happens with pre-downloaded files) and it’s not my watch (Pixel 3 – not the latest, but not exactly out of date!)
Fix the watch app please! Your premium subscribers are paying good money for it.
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Watch app had a unique issue for me. It was showing me unsubscribed podcasts for me in it’s list. Sync was working, I could confirm that, because new folders were arranged and updated in watch properly. But the phantom podcasts [something which I had unsubbed months ago] were still present. Even logging off and re-logging did not help.
Only after letting the watch app be open for quite some time, did it sync (or more like add again the unsubbed podcasts)to normal web/app of Pocketcasts from where I was able to fix them for good.
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@josh2112 thank you for reaching out about these suggestions again. While our development team has been focusing on other areas of the app recently — transcripts, playlists, and launching the web app for free users — we haven’t had time to work on these specific components of the Wear OS app.
They are certainly still on our radar, but we don’t have an estimated timeframe for them at the moment.
@strummerj912 if you’re still experiencing issues where podcasts you’ve unfollowed are appearing as followed in the watch app, could you reach out to our support team through the app? That will send app logs along, which can help when investigating issues like this.
You can navigate to Profile > Help & Feedback > Contact Support > Get Support. You may receive an automatic response with suggestions from our support guides, but you can feel free to reply to that message to reach us directly.
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