It's good to see someone go head on to compete with the bigwigs.Īutomattic says that it will continue supporting its premium subscription, Pocket Casts Plus. It explained that it wants to support a diverse ecosystem of third-party clients, as the reason for making the apps open source.
It is not surprising considering that the mobile apps have been open sourced now, because the company's other products, Simple Note and WordPress are also open source.Ī blog post that announced the news on Automattic's website says that the company does not want podcasting to be controlled by Apple and Spotify. The journey didn't end there, Automattic acquired Pocket Casts in 2021. Pocket Casts mobile apps are now open source If you switch between iOS and Android and want to sync podcast playback between platforms, Pocket Casts is one cross-platform solution. Pocket Casts 6.1 is a free update to existing customers new users can pick it up for $5.99 for both iPhone and iPad on the App Store.NPR acquired the rights for Pocket Casts in 2018, and a year later, the podcast apps were made free when the company introduced a premium monthly subscription called, Pocket Casts Plus. You can find our list of best CarPlay apps here, and our latest look at Apple’s CarPlay feature in iOS 10 here. Pocket Casts joins a list of other podcast players to work with CarPlay including Apple’s Podcasts app, Overcast, and Downcast. Pocket Casts 6.1 also includes new sorting options for iPad users. Not a bad way to listen to 9to5Mac’s Happy Hour podcast in the car. Prior to CarPlay support, the app was limited to a simple playback screen and not episode sorting.
This means you can use Pocket Casts on your iPhone to manage your subscriptions and playback, then connect your iPhone to your car and continue controlling the experience from your car’s screen. A few weeks ago Shifty Jelly updated its Pocket Casts podcast player for iPhone to version 6.0 with a major overhaul including a new dark mode, playback features, and multitasking, and now Pocket Casts 6.1 is out with support for Apple’s CarPlay infotainment feature.