Lock Screen Widgets That Keep You Podcasting!

With Buzzsprout's new iOS lock screen widgets, you don't need to refresh your app constantly to keep track of podcast stats. In this episode, you'll gain insights into the variety of widget options available—from instant access to the Buzzsprout app to real-time updates on daily and weekly download stats, and even your progress toward achievement milestones.

Lock screen widgets are only available for Buzzsprout for iOS.

Get Buzzsprout app for Android!

Chapters

• 0:00 Buzzsprout Lock Screen Widgets Launch
• 7:57 Growing Popularity of Podcast Apps

Transcript

Kevin: 0:00

let's snap cast, okay. So first of all, what do you guys think of the name change? Quick cast yeah, you sound excited about it everybody likes the snap cast name but snap cast go away. And isn't that what we're changing? But one thing we're exchanging, right, we all stack hands on this. We're not going to unpublish them

Jordan: 0:20

e're about like a, I don't know, like a mini-sode or like a snack cast?

Alban: 0:26

Snack cast, yes, snack cast. That's good, ordan. That's better than snack cast.

Kevin: 0:33

All right, welcome back to snack cast. All right, let's talk about something cool that has just launched for Buzzsprout.

Jordan: 0:41

I am so excited about this. I love when we have new features launched, especially when they're just fun.

Kevin: 0:49

Yeah, this is a fun one.

Jordan: 0:50

So fun yeah.

Kevin: 0:51

Alban, do you use lock screen widgets?

Alban: 0:54

My favorite new widget is the keep podcasting one from Buzzsprout. It tells me how many downloads this show got today, how many it's gotten in the last seven days, and I've also got one for my achievement towards our download achievement. Those are what I've got on there right now. Yeah.

Jordan: 1:13

I also have those exact widgets on my screen as well.

Kevin: 1:18

Oh, you've got the main, the rectangular keep podcasting, and then the two achievement widgets.

Jordan: 1:21

Yeah, I got the big one, I got the downloads, I got the episodes and they look pretty. They look so gorgeous. Yeah, so if anyone hasn't caught on yet, we are talking about Buzzsprout app lock screen widgets for your device. And yeah, this just rolled out. What was it yesterday?

Kevin: 1:39

Yeah, well, we have to be specific, because lock screen widgets do not exist in Android anymore. I've heard that they used to be a thing on Android and Android got rid of them at some point, and I don't know why.

Kevin: 1:53

but they still exist on iPhone or iOS devices, and so this is an update that we were only able to bring to the iOS app, and it did go live in the app store yesterday. So if you haven't updated your app yet or you haven't don't have auto updates turned on, it's worth grabbing this update, because then you can go configure your home screen and you can add some Buzzsprout widgets to your lock screen.

Jordan: 2:14

Yeah, so what kind of widgets do we have? I know we have a whole bunch of different ones that people can choose between.

Kevin: 2:20

Yeah, I'll kind of talk through them in order. So the first widget we call the pairing of widgets, we call the Keep Podcasting widgets and that's a small circular is what Apple calls it and a rectangular version. And one of them is just kind of a shortcut to quickly launch into the Buzzsprout app so you can put that right on your lock screen and anytime you want to jump in and see some stuff on your podcast you can just tap it. It's a shortcut straight to the app. The other one that goes along with this keep podcasting theme is a widget that gives you both the seven day and today's total of downloads that you have for your podcast.

Jordan: 2:53

Yeah.

Kevin: 2:54

And so I think it's going to be a pretty popular configuration to stick that rectangular one on your home screen and then, if you want, you could stick two other Buzzsprout widgets next to it. I'll walk through the other options, or you could stick any other widgets next to it, like weather. A lot of people do the weather on their home screen, um, calendar stuff like that, so it could fit with other stuff as well. The other widgets that we have is are an individual version of today's total downloads, an individual version of your seven day total, and then we have two different achievement widgets. One is your progress towards your next episode level achievement, meaning how many episodes have you published, and the other is a downloads achievement, which is your progress towards your next achievement that you have in terms of total downloads for your podcast.

Jordan: 3:35

Yeah, and what I love about those little achievement widgets is that they have this really pretty like metal icon on them, like an Olympic medal.

Alban: 3:48

You're working your way towards an achievement and the achievement comes with an award, and so Kevin made these cool little award icons. And the circle fills up and then boom, you've been awarded the medal.

Jordan: 4:02

I love it.

Kevin: 4:03

Yeah, and something you know. This is a little bit I don't know if it's an Easter egg or a little inside knowledge, but I'd like to. I'd like to tell anybody who's listening to this podcast about it. If you happen to see our physical achievements that we brought to podcast movement, the pins that we brought to podcast movement, the shape of those pins were different depending on the type of achievement that you were getting.

Alban: 4:23

So oh, did you bring that over to the lock?

Kevin: 4:26

screen, yeah. And so if you got like a number of years podcasting, that was like a trapezoid or something or a hexagon, I think actually, and the the episodes achievement, I think, was maybe more like a star shape, and then the downloads was a circle. And so these widgets use those same shapes to represent, like, what achievement you're working towards.

Jordan: 4:49

Yeah, they match. That's so cool. What I love about this is, you know we talk about a lot about stats and just kind of like the obsessive, like refreshing, and you go into your app and you like go to the stats page and they load it, load it, load it. And I love this because it's just kind of like an easy way to satiate that need to look at your stats. Now you can just like tap on your screen and you can just see where you're at for the day, and I just love that.

Kevin: 5:14

It does feel a little more passive, you're right about that. Yeah, like we definitely have some concerns. We talk about like stats addiction all the time on this podcast and how it?

Kevin: 5:23

can become a demotivator, especially when you're just starting out. It can be demotiv and so I don't necessarily think that anybody who's just starting out with your podcast journey probably shouldn't have these on your lock screen. That will probably be less healthy than healthy. But over time you start to get comfortable with your numbers and where you're at and you want to monitor your growth and this feels like a passive way to do that. So you know, on days where you might have an episode scheduled to drop or something, it's a good way to just kind of monitor. It Just be like. You know how are we doing, like I know we normally do. Whatever 400, 500 downloads on a day that an episode drops, how's the day progressing and you can just glance at it as you're going about your day. It could also be a great like safety net in case that episode was supposed to drop at noon and we still only. You know it's one o'clock and we still only have 50 downloads. What is going on?

Kevin: 6:07

You know it could bring something to your attention no-transcript you go in and fix it real quick yeah so that's the big news, for uh, what is this coming snack cast I think we'll stick to quick cast there's your, there's your tasty treat courtesy of jordan, the uh buzzsprout snack cast.

Jordan: 6:55

I feel like we're going to get a lot of feedback. Like Jordan, why don't you just take a step back and let them do the creative decisions here?

Kevin: 7:01

Yeah, well, I'll say one of the things I really love about the lock screen widgets and also, you know we were entertaining the idea of do we want to do any home screen widgets?

Kevin: 7:10

You know, kind of the full color versions that can live on your different screens within your apps, and we could do those on iOS and Android both. But what I love is like everyone kind of sets them up their own way, like you've got your own wallpaper, you've got your own order, that you want to have them in your own configuration. You pair them next to your own weather widget or something like that. I would love to see as many different combinations of these as possible. So, if anybody's listening, download the app. If you're on an iOS device, set up your Buzzsprout widgets for your podcast and if you're comfortable I know they kind of share some of your numbers, but we're not too worried about that I just want to see how they play out on your lock screen, how they look, and if you like them, love to see them like posted to threads or X or a Facebook community or wherever you do your online socializing.

Alban: 7:49

Yeah, tag us so that we can get them and we can share them. Maybe we could use them as like chapter artwork in our next episode.

Jordan: 7:57

That'd be fun. I love it.

Alban: 7:59

One thing I want to talk about next episode is Pocket.

Kevin: 8:02

Casts. Oh, I'm in love, I bet.

Alban: 8:15

I am all in. I don't think I'm not going back to Overcast. Overcast has such a clean design and I've always loved it, but I've just been running into so many bugs. Eventually I said I'm going to try Pocket Casts out last episode and the last week of using it has been really, really good. It's taken a bit getting used to, it's taken a bit of customization, but lots of friends in the show have been giving me tips and recommending features to look at and it's just like there's a lot you can customize. But, being someone who's been listening to podcasts for years and years, I have lots of strong opinions and nice to know that there's an app out there that will let me kind of use all those strong opinions and build the perfect app for me. So I want to dig into it more and chat about it and if anyone listens to this and has more thoughts, share them on. I have it on Twitter that I was posting about it. Let me know what you think about Pocket Cast so I can include it in the next episode.

Jordan: 9:01

Yeah, I think that you're not the only one that is feeling like this is the way to go, because I actually saw in pod news I think it was yesterday or maybe the day before Pocket Cast numbers have actually doubled year on year. So I think that they're definitely growing in popularity, and for good reason.

Alban: 9:20

Well, it's in the Buzzsprout stats too. Yeah, our platform stats.

Alban: 9:24

It might've been what James was citing there, but I've been looking at them and, slow but surely, they're growing, which is great because they're probably the largest podcast app. Well, besides, I guess Apple Podcasts supports the transcript tag, but besides that, they're, I think, the largest that supports multiple of the podcasting 2.0 tags. And so there's lots of things they're doing and they've announced there's going to be more, and it's great to see a good user interface combined with some of these forward thinking features. So it's cool to be using it and to like it, and it makes me happy to know there's more people out there innovating with podcast apps.

Jordan: 10:01

Awesome. Well, I'm really excited for our next episode. So until then, everyone keep podcasting.