Google Podcasts review: Bringing podcasts to the forefront

Google just recently released a brand new podcast app on the Play Store and (apparently) integrated the service into both Google Assistant on smartphones and smart speakers with Google Assistant. Since I’m a compulsive app downloader, I installed Google Podcasts on my phone and checked it out. Here are my thoughts on the new Google Podcasts app.

User Interface: Material Design 2 is awesome

The first thing I noticed when I launched the new Google Podcasts app on my phone was the interface. If Material Design 2 isn’t just the best-looking UI style I’ve seen in a while, that’s for sure. Google has been steadily improving the Material Design UI it first developed in Android Lollipop, and with Material Design 2 they’ve made significant improvements to the already great-looking UI style.

The Google Podcasts app is impressive as far as UI goes. Right out of the box , the app brings podcasts to the forefront . The app categorizes these podcasts into categories such as “Top Podcasts,” “Trending Podcasts,” and more, and the app’s home screen displays a large number of podcasts. Still, the app manages to look appealing rather than overload your senses . I think this is due to the fact that Material Design 2 uses a nice large card style layout with nice curved corners and plenty of white space.

Podcasts you’re subscribed to are placed at the top, which makes sense, and just below that there’s a “For You” section with new episodes, as well as episodes you’re currently listening to and downloaded (if any). ) tab is displayed.

Overall, the Google Podcasts app is a very well-designed app that keeps everything in one place and doesn’t feel like it’s too difficult to get started with.

Search for podcasts: Your search ends here

The Google Podcasts app is very different from most other podcast apps. While other apps use multiple screens (including screens for categories, search, etc.) to display information and separate sections of the app, Google Podcasts lacks the ability to display other screens. . The search button is on the top left, and the search feature is very good, allowing you to listen to a wide variety of podcasts.

Google Podcasts already has some of the most popular shows, including The Daily, Modern Love, and The Daily . Plus, search is top-notch. Looking for something about cars? Just search for “cars” and you’ll see tons of podcasts talking about cars. Interested in learning about history? Search for it. Google Podcasts already has a lot to choose from , and this is Google we’re talking about, so I’m sure this collection will only get bigger over time .

Additionally, the app uses your listening habits to learn the types of podcasts you prefer and, over time , begins to show you suggestions that are better suited to your tastes . So if you listen to a lot of technology podcasts, the app will show you more to check out. However, since this is machine learning-based, it will obviously take some time for the app to properly learn and understand your preferences and choices, and display your podcasts accordingly.

Playback: Simple, synced across all devices

Once you’ve subscribed to all your favorite podcasts that you want to listen to, the next important thing is how the app handles playing the podcasts themselves. As it turns out, Google Podcasts also does a great job of listening to podcasts.

The basic idea is the same as in other podcast apps: tap on the podcast episode you want to listen to, and the app will start playing it. However, Google’s podcast player is a convenient card that drags up the entire page instead of taking up the entire screen. There are controls to play/pause, skip forward/backward, go to the podcast details page, and control playback speed. This can be adjusted between 0.5x and 2x, which is sufficient for most people.

The app also displays a persistent notification when a podcast plays , and this notification uses all of Google’s notification features at once. There are the same buttons to control podcast playback, and the notification itself uses the podcast image as a background, making the notification both functional and beautiful to look at. Unless you’ve hidden notifications on your lock screen, the controls will also extend to your lock screen , where they’ll also appear along with your podcast thumbnail.

However, the most interesting thing about Google’s podcast app is that it syncs your progress across all your Google devices . So if you have a smart speaker with Google Assistant at home, you can continue listening to podcasts on your smart speaker right where you left off on your phone. This is pretty cool and definitely a feature I’d want if I were using Google Home instead of the Echo Dot, which I actually use.

Future upgrades: AI… AI… More AI

It’s no secret that Google is all about machine learning and AI, and it shows that Google is planning future upgrades to its apps. Over time, we may see exciting new features, such as automatic subtitling of podcasts using speech-to-text features. According to a Google blog post, the company may also start using Google Translate within its apps to automatically translate subtitles into multiple languages.

Although Google hasn’t announced a complete roadmap for the future of Google Podcasts, the app will improve over time and implement more AI-powered features into the app to make the experience more exciting and engaging. There is no doubt that it will become something. . However, we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

See also: 10 Best Podcast Apps for Android (2018)

Google Podcasts: A beautiful podcast app worth your time

In conclusion, I can definitely recommend the Google Podcasts app to anyone. For those just getting into the world of podcasts, the Google Podcasts app offers a clean interface with easy-to-understand search functionality that makes it much easier to truly immerse yourself in podcasts. If you’ve been listening to podcasts for quite some time, you probably already have a favorite app that you’re familiar with, but I still recommend giving Google Podcasts a try. It has all the great features you want in a podcast app, and has an interface that’s unmatched by most podcast apps out there.

Download Google Podcasts from Play Store ( Free )