Jan 8, 2020Yo @pocketcasts can I formally request the ability to make playlists? That'd be cool, I think. Y'all are dope btw.
I'm Paul Novak and I'm a big fan of the product Pocket Casts. It's what I use to stream podcasts all day long. I'd say 90% of the time I am listening via the Mac application. I was very happy to find Pocket Casts back in 2016-ish, a time where I was starting to listen to podcasts very regularly and also happy to support an indie app.
These ideas and suggestions I’ve put together were inspired by the spirit of Brian Lovin’s Crit series. The suggestions are not so much a deep critique of the Pocket Casts app but mostly selfish features that I would like to see and things I would personally use often.
I’m a user who uses the starring episodes feature to save my favorite episodes of podcasts that I will want to revisit and listen to later. For example I'm a huge fan of the podcast The Dollop and I get reminded of certain episodes from time to time. When that happens I search for it in the PocketCasts app and hit that ⭐ icon so I can easily find it later.
To make my life a little easier I've come up with a few ways to browse and re-discover the episodes I've starred over time. These prototypes are best viewed in full screen on a laptop or desktop computer.
To use my example of the podcast The Dollop, they have almost 550 episodes as of this post and I can have anywhere between three & 20 episodes starred at any one time. Finding all of those episodes together can be tricky. So here I am suggesting a small idea of adding an option to the Sort menu on a podcast's show page.
Select the (•••) icon to begin.
One other light suggestion is creating more keylines within the listing of episodes. Breaking away the star icon from the episode title will make it easier to scan a list of episodes and see which ones are starred, will also make it quite a bit easier to unstar a large number of episodes all at once. Less bouncing around for both your eyes and your mouse hand.
Another option or idea for finding these starred podcasts would be to make a few adjustments and additions to the Starred page itself. Personally I would love to be able to search through these episodes. The second thing is the idea of grouping this list "by podcast" and also just the idea of being able to sort this list in general. These are mostly quality of life updates but things I would use almost daily.
Select the Sort Menu (↑↓) in the Search Bar to begin.
I tend to think about podcasts in groups by their topic, and I end up being that annoying friend that is always relating a conversation back to a podcast episode I heard once. I was also taken with the idea of Wilson.fm when I first saw it, and the concept of podcast playlists. I think there are a lot of parallels between this idea and how the lists of shows by topics on the Discover page in the app operate. I would love the option to break that down to the episode level and empower users to generate their own links and pages to share with others. (Obviously a lot more to consider with this one, the idea sounds fun to explore further)
I even tweeted about this one once:
Jan 8, 2020Select the (•••) options menu on the first episode in the list, The 1984 Olympic Games and then select the new Add to Playlist option to begin.
I'll be honest, I don't use the Up Next feature a whole lot, I usually use my list of starred episodes and go there first to find what I want to listen to next. I'm a big fan of apps that take on a dynamic theme based on what is currently selected or happening within the app. Below is a quick idea of how the Up Next could be re-thought a little along with a more immersive "current podcast" type feature.
To be clear this is a bit of a tiny love letter to Rdio (RIP) combined with the way the now playing works in the current Pocket Casts iPad app. So needs lots of further thinking to be complete.
Selfishly I love a big, heavy overlay menu that takes over everything. Tossing in something that might be a bit unnecessary and a little bit flashy and too far. I do think this type exploration is so fun and gives you a place to start toning it back from and find that right level on the volume knob.
Select the (⇧) icon in the lower right to toggle the overlay.
One other small item I'd love to be more available in the Mac application is the option to select nearby audio devices. I use a Sonos speaker in my office to play podcasts and the easiest way to do this is either pulling out my iPad and using AirPlay or using my least favorite thing: the Sonos Mac App (I might have do another one of these all about that one).
Take a peek at this menu in the prototype above. A super simple menu to be able to select the output device similar to Spotify or the Apple Podcasts app would make me very happy.
If you made it this far and thought any of this was halfway interesting, I would love to hear from you and talk shop.