Samsung Podcasts To Shut Down: We Have A New App To Try!

As apps like BlogTalkRadio, Samsung Podcasts, and Google Podcasts exit stage left, new ones are stepping into the spotlight! We're reviewing a fresh podcast listening app, Queue, which is purported to be the "simplest podcast app out there".

Don't forget to submit your response to last episode's sound-off question: Have you ever experienced a podcasting pitfall? What did you learn from it?

Transcript

Alban: 0:00

Just us today, jordan yeah just us. Kevin is at a swim meet and he offered to do the podcast from his car, which we politely declined.

Jordan: 0:09

Yeah, we shut that down real quick. It's like I can do it, guys. We're like no, we don't want you to.

Alban: 0:22

So what are we talking about today?

Jordan: 0:23

All right, we're talking about podcast apps. So recently, BlogTalk Radio and Samsung Podcasts announced that they will be shutting down.

Alban: 0:33

So BlogTalk Radio was started in like 2006. And it's not exactly, you know, analogous to Buzzsprout or Transistor or Podbean or one of you know. We're not exactly one to one Because BlogTalk Radio, I mean they're not exactly a one-to-one, because BlogTalk Radio, I mean they launched 2006. It's almost been 20 years, wow. And they were kind of old school and they had like you could call in. It was very focused on like call-ins and live streams.

Jordan: 0:57

Yeah, like they're more like online radio.

Alban: 1:00

Yeah, blogtalk Radio.

Jordan: 1:02

Yeah.

Alban: 1:07

And then years ago, maybe like six years ago, they were bought by the company that owned Spreaker, and then they combined to make a larger company.

Jordan: 1:12

That makes sense.

Alban: 1:13

And so you stopped seeing them at the events. But back in the day, I mean, you would talk to lots of people and they'd be like oh, my podcast is on Blog Talk Radio and I think a lot of people were using them because it was really nice if you wanted people to call in. Now I think it makes a little more sense to use Riverside or Descript or something where people can call in during the recording.

Jordan: 1:33

Okay, yeah, so they're going to be closing in January next year, and then Samsung Podcasts is going to be shutting down on December 1st. So in a few weeks here, which I was really surprised that they're shutting down. It feels like they just started, didn't they?

Alban: 1:49

They just started. Yeah, I felt that too, though remember, when they launched, their logo was so far off of the Samsung logo that I thought that we got the wrong logo when we put it on our website. Oh, really. It was like a big thing that said free on it. Oh my gosh. And I was like oh, did we put this random free logo up instead of the Samsung one? And then I think Megan was like no, that's the logo that they have.

Jordan: 2:13

Yeah, Samsung free. That's really funny.

Alban: 2:17

It seemed like a cost thing, not a Samsung thing. There should have been maybe a little more. I'm sure the branding wasn't what held them back entirely, but it didn't ever pick up and so they're shutting it down. But probably you know a good decision when you when something doesn't pick up after a while there's a point where you have to cut your losses.

Jordan: 2:34

Well, I kind of doubt that any of our listeners are using these two apps, but just be aware that they're shutting down. But there is a new app that's been kind of like making its rounds online, and how new is it? It's pretty new, right. It's called Q, it's by Ike Drescher and it's this really lovely podcast app.

Alban: 2:51

I think it's brand new, like a few days old.

Jordan: 2:54

Wow, really.

Alban: 2:55

I'm not sure how it made its way over to me, but I saw it on Twitter and the creator just launched it and it's beautiful. It's gorgeous, it looks like a designer. And then I started recognizing other apps that he'd worked on and so it kind of made sense. But it's like there's a ton of attention to detail. Everything looks nice. One of the ways that that came out was every podcast that I clicked on, just the show notes always look perfect, and I just went and did a big deep dive looking at different apps and there's tons of podcasts that Apple podcasts and Spotify they all display differently or the formatting just doesn't look right.

Jordan: 3:32

Yeah.

Alban: 3:32

And yet, with Q, every one of them look good. Buzzcast looked really good, all the bullets are supported and everything to my eye look great and, yeah, I really enjoyed it. I mean there's tons of positive things, but it's brand new, so there are a lot of these. I don't know podcast nerd, podcast, snob features that it doesn't have.

Jordan: 3:54

Yeah, so is this a free app or is it paid?

Alban: 3:57

Free for now. I think that I'm on maybe a trial, but I think ultimately the goal is to move you over to like $4 a month paid plan. If it had a few more features, I think that it would be in contention for like the app that I would use all the time. It looks beautiful. All these were like really cute little animations and there's things that I kind of enjoy. I feel like the creator must be a big podcast fan.

Alban: 4:22

It's got a whole section about the founding of podcasts. The opening video has a little clip from Steve Jobs announcing that podcasts are going to be coming to iTunes back in 2005. It's everything you subscribe to podcasts. There's no follow. If you click the button for subscribe, it changes color and then just adds a D to say like you've subscribed. Oh cute, it's all these like cute little animations. It's got nice use of haptics.

Jordan: 4:54

Yeah.

Alban: 4:54

It feels really polished. The downside is that I've been totally spoiled by all these other apps that I'm like expecting. Oh, where's the voice boost? Where's, like, the adaptive speed control? Where's my CarPlay app? Oh yeah, you know these are things that are probably going to come after there's like more than 100 people using the app.

Jordan: 5:15

Yeah, okay. So looking at his app, it seems like on the Q Pro you get chapter support listening insights where you can see your top podcasts, total listening times and longest episodes you've listened to, which is very fun, and then customize your skip intervals and then they also have like listening streak, which reminds me a bit of Duolingo, when you get like the thing like don't ruin your streak. I like that. He's kind of like gamifying podcast listening.

Alban: 5:44

All the little, all the streaks are fun. You're looking at them. I used to love Overcast would keep a record of the smart speed control, how much time it saved you, and so you'd use it for years and then I never felt like I listened to anything except at 1X, and then it would be like you've anything except at one X, and then it would be like you've saved 40 hours with smart speed control, because over time it was just shortening silences, but they added up and yeah, I really liked the app Few things that I would really like we've mentioned but the main thing about it and I think this will work for some people it definitely works for me, but maybe not everybody is it's organized around the queue like a chronological list of all the episodes.

Alban: 6:28

There's not a page to go. Look at all the episodes you subscribe to. At least that's not a default page. I didn't see any way to create playlists or group episodes together. It's just like here's the queue, here's all of your episodes. And it starts playing at the top, or you can scroll down and click another one and play that one.

Jordan: 6:45

Okay, I haven't been in this app as long as you have. I know that you've subscribed to podcasts with it. You've tested it out a little bit. I quickly downloaded it just to test things out and I noticed that in the app store it's listed as age four plus years old. But when I opened the app for the very first time, they have this gorgeous video intro before you can get like signed into the app and it has all these clips from like podcasts and like the artwork spinning around and it's really beautiful. But something that kind of took me aback was one of the podcasts was like very explicit and dropping like F-bombs and I was like whoa, okay, Like I haven't even signed in yet. Man, I think I'm just going to issue that little warning.

Alban: 7:30

If you're going to open this app in front of your children, they might hear the F-word.

Jordan: 7:34

Yes, I would definitely issue that warning because luckily my kids were not around, but I had my phone on full blast.

Alban: 7:40

Oh, it's a really pretty app. If you are on the search for a new podcast listening app, I think it's very well done and I'm always happy that this is a space that seems to be getting more love. We just talked about Samsung free shutting down at Google Podcasts shut down and blog talk radio is kind of everything's going into Spreaker and so sometimes you see those and you're like, oh, that's a bummer.

Alban: 8:05

But what we really needed were people thinking about the podcast listening experience, and I'm really excited to see more people entering the space. There had been kind of a period where not a lot of apps were getting a ton of development. So like Overcast was kind of like the main one that a lot of people were using, and now there's a ton of options. I've been bouncing around quite a bit because I'm playing around and having fun. So very cool that Q is out there in the world and maybe people should check it out.

Jordan: 8:38

And we still need responses for our sound off question from our last episode, which is have you ever experienced a podcasting pitfall and what did you learn from it? So make sure to send those in and, until next week, keep podcasting.