The Google Podcast App
Recently my favorite podcast player, BeyondPod, disappeared from Android Auto. It seems that Google had determined that BeyondPod was too buggy so it disallowed BeyondPod from the AA platform. And it does kinda feel like BeyondPod's been having some quality control issues.
Now Google has it's own podcast app integrated into Google Play Music. I had looked at it before and thought it not ready for prime time. One key piece of functionality for me was the lack of being able to set the playback speed to 1.5x which is the speed I'm used to for most of my podcasts. But with BeyondPod knocked out of the playing field I focused on Google's Podcast app again. Sorry to say but there are still some problems and missing functionality IMHO.
First off, Google's been integrating the Google Assistant into AA which is great. If you say "OK Google, what's the news" while in your car it will play, but what's playing it? It's not the Google Music app but, for lack of a better term, the Google Media player which appears as a media app section of AA. However it totally lacks any controls. The queue is empty, there's no way to fill it nor any way change the current podcast. In fact, if you're playing the latest episode of a podcast you'll have one button that goes 30 seconds forward, one to play/pause and one to go backward. Where's the forward button and what does the back button do? Tapping on the back button goes to the previous episode for this podcast. When there you then have a back and forward button. So you can only scroll through the current episodes of the current podcast. How do you change to the next, not yet listened to podcast? The only way I can see is to unlock your phone and select it there. Not good.
What I want is sort of what BeyondPod has - compose a playlist of recent episodes of the podcasts in your list of podcasts. And download them - automatically. Google Podcast (GP) has settings for how long to retain a podcast and when to get rid of them. And there is a download button, but it's per episode and you have to remember to tap it - for each podcast and episode you want downloaded locally! Not good.
The Google Podcast app (Google Media app?) running on AA needs more functionality so you can control this, in a convenient and safe manner in the AA setting.
Moving to GH, it's nice that you can say "OK Google, play <x> podcast" and it will resume where you left off. However if you say play it on say a set of speakers through your house connected with Chomecast Audio, GH will say "Sorry playing podcasts on cast devices is not yet supported". Can you say not yet ready for prime time? Also when playing podcasts on non cast devices like GH itself, after a few minutes the podcast simply stops! Not good.
So to summarize:
- Google's Podcast App (GPA) needs to be able to compose a playlist or queue. It should do so automatically for all of your subscribed podcasts keeping the top <x> episodes (configurable per podcast).
- GPA needs to download episodes from your podcasts automatically (configurable) paying attention to retention settings.
- GPA needs to be able to cast to all cast devices (audio and video).
- GPA needs a real interface for AA, one where you can select podcasts using the UI of AA as well as skip forward to the end of the podcast if you, for example, are not interested in listening to the rest of the episode.
- GPA has a setting for the speed of playback, but that setting is for the player. It needs to be for the podcast instead. I have many podcasts, most of which are spoken. Such podcasts I play at 1.5x playback speed. But I also have some podcasts that contain music that I want to playback at normal, 1.0x speed. In BeyondPod I could set the preferred playback speed for the podcast feed. I would set the music podcast at 1.0x speed. All other podcasts run at whatever default speed the player is set to (normally 1.5x for me). Thus all my spoken podcasts play at 1.5x speed and I can mark which podcasts I want to play at normal speed.
- GPA should have a player widget.
