Individual playback on devices
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Is there a way NOT to have playback queue shared b/w devices? I know the whole selling point of Pocketcasts is that podcast subscriptions and their playback state is synced across devices. Whilst I appreciate that, the playback queue sharing is a hitch.
Say I have two phones with Pocketcasts installed and both have their separate versions of downloaded podcast episodes. When I start a podcast on one device and move to the next, it immediately bumps that up to the queue. Please note that since both devices have separate downloaded set of episodes, if I continue playback of the older podcast on the new device, it will use mobile data.
It even syncs the state between Wear OS app and mobile phone, which is crucial to note because not every smartwatch has LTE built in and running with mobile data connectivity.
What I had prefer is to have the option to have individual playback queues or maybe, a global checkbox where I can select amongst which devices I need the queue to be shared. All I need is the playback state [played/unplayed, new episodes indicator and stuff] to be synced.
Ironically, I can achieve the same thing if I run a standalone open source client like AntennaPod [which lacks any kind of cloud functionality] and use gPodder to sync my play back states. This way, any client that integrates with gPodder service writes to the server my podcast subscription state and still leaves me to manage individual queue on my device. The problem with this method is that the official gPodder server is very unreliable and unless one self hosts, it is not worth the going route.
But the fact is, Pocketcasts, being a subscription service, is probably the most expensive podcast client out there. And despite all that, it is still light on features.
To give another example, there is something Pocketcasts will intelligently go back a little in your podcasts when you resume. Why is the client arbitrarily deciding for me? Why not let the user make the choice for themselves? If I like going back 18s each time the podcast resumes from interruption, the client should offer that option.
Also, why is there a targeted ad despite paying for a yearly subscription? I know there was no Upgrade to Patron option in the account settings till a month ago.Now, it pops up very visibly. Ideally, this should only show when user is initially subbing or resubscribing to your service. This is the equivalent of Netflix begging you to upgrade to 4K tier if you have a Basic subscription.
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As for syncing your Up Next queue, there isn’t currently a way to disable that. However, I’ve forwarded this along to our development team to consider for future development.
To give another example, there is something Pocketcasts will intelligently go back a little in your podcasts when you resume. Why is the client arbitrarily deciding for me? Why not let the user make the choice for themselves? If I like going back 18s each time the podcast resumes from interruption, the client should offer that option.
You can navigate to Profile > Settings > General and disable “Intelligent Playback Resumption” to disable this functionality.
Also, why is there a targeted ad despite paying for a yearly subscription? I know there was no Upgrade to Patron option in the account settings till a month ago.Now, it pops up very visibly. Ideally, this should only show when user is initially subbing or resubscribing to your service. This is the equivalent of Netflix begging you to upgrade to 4K tier if you have a Basic subscription.
The Pocket Casts Plus and Patron subscriptions do not remove ads from podcast episodes. We don’t insert ads into podcast episodes at all — any ads you hear during podcast playback have been added by the podcast creator themselves or their hosting/ad partners. If you’d like to remove those types of ads, you’d need to see if the individual podcast offers an option to do so on their end — many offer a premium subscription feed that doesn’t include ads.
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