Earlier this year, Google announced that it would shut down its Google Podcasts app in 2024, moving users to YouTube Music. Unfortunately, YouTube Music misses the point of why I used Google Podcasts in the first place: simplicity.
Broadly speaking, I can’t fault Google for entering YouTube Music into the podcast space. As the company was quick to point out, podcast creators are already uploading their content to YouTube, so offering a dedicated experience for podcasts is a sensible move. With the help of YouTube Premium, one can easily treat a video podcast as an audio-only one. Meanwhile, competing music services have also encroached on podcasts, with Apple and Spotify both offering exclusive series.
In a way, YouTube Music’s shift to podcasts was almost inevitable. However, I take issue with this transition spelling the end for Google Podcasts.
At its core, Google Podcasts is a well-designed single-purpose app. The homepage doesn’t overload you with ads or recommendations. Instead, all you’ll find are the latest episodes of the shows to which you’ve subscribed.
From the Library tab, you can manage your subscriptions – including manually adding an RSS link (useful for paid podcasts) – adjust your queue, view your listening history, and see which episodes are currently downloaded.
Then, there’s the Explore tab, which seamlessly combines podcast search and recommendations.
I can’t emphasize this enough. You have to seek out recommendations.
There are no ads and no pushy suggestions – just a dedicated tab for finding something new to listen to. By comparison to the podcast experience of Spotify, which prominently displays recommended episodes and occasionally includes podcast suggestions alongside your music, Google Podcasts is a breath of fresh air.
Once you’ve picked something to listen to, Google Podcasts offers a straightforward Material Design-inspired player with the core features you’d expect, including pitch-adjusted playback speed, a sleep timer, and the option to Cast. You won’t find advanced options like skip silence or volume boost, but the simplicity more than makes up for it, in my view.
And that’s all there is to the app. It does one job, does it exceedingly well, and stays out of the user’s way.
Top comment by Gregor Smith
Google Podcasts was lacking in basic features, like the ability to batch mark as played, and it would occasionally mark played items and entire series as unplayed.
Moved to Pocket Casts in the summer and not looking back
Meanwhile, YouTube Music’s podcasting features have been awkwardly cobbled in alongside the existing music-listening experience. Whether you’re hunting for a specific song or episode, your search results are cluttered with unwanted podcasts or music. (Thankfully, there are filters.)
The actual podcast player includes the same basic feature set as Google Podcasts, but it’s, of course, presented in the same cluttered manner as the rest of YouTube Music, with a scrollable button bar, switches, pull tabs, and dropdown menus. Worse, if you’re listening to a podcast hosted on YouTube (and don’t have a Premium subscription), there’s a good chance you’ll have to sit through YouTube ads before your episode begins.
For YouTube Premium members, I’m sure adding podcasts to the Music app will bring even more value to the subscription. For the rest of us, however, it’s frustrating to be given a Swiss Army Knife when all we wanted was a can opener.
Needless to say, when the time comes to say goodbye to Google Podcasts – currently scheduled for April (in the US) – I will not be making the transition to YouTube Music.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments