Best third party app, but not good enough – Podcast App & Player - Castbox Review

I want to like Castbox. I really do. It has pretty much all of the features I’d want, especially the ability to place episodes in the download queue to wait for WiFi, and the ability to search for specific episodes within a podcast. It’s the best of all the third party podcast players I’ve tried, and I’ve tried a lot. But at the end of the day, I don’t enjoy using the app, and I’m switching back to Apple. Here’s why: The UI is way too cluttered. I appreciate Apple’s clean layout and find it easier to navigate and look at. Zen mode only added to the problem. A cool idea in itself, but it should be moved away from the Library page to somewhere less intrusive. Speaking of Zen mode, it’s virtually useless to me as a stream-only feature. If I could download, I’d use it. The episode artwork for some podcasts is just nondescript, general photos of nature or whatever else. I have to tap on the episode to see what show it’s from and whether I want to download. Using the podcast’s main artwork instead would eliminate this problem for me. The app has crashed 3-4 times in the past week or so. I love Apple’s stations feature. No other player I’ve tried has it. Playlists are ok, but they require more manual sorting. The ability to automatically have new episodes from all my favorites in one list, downloaded and ready to go, is a huge plus for me. The ads on the now playing screen aren’t a big deal for me, but they do take away from the listening experience. Definitely better than having them take up static space on another page, but combined with the issues listed above, made me enjoy the app even less. I realize this review includes a lot of my personal preferences. Listening to podcasts can be a highly personal experience. I don’t envy the developer’s job in balancing these things. Castbox has a lot of great features, but I think the app would greatly benefit from design and stability improvements. I’d suggest taking a step back to focus on those things. In the meantime, I’ll keep Castbox on my phone and see what future updates may bring. Apple definitely isn’t perfect either, but I’d give it 4 stars. Can Castbox beat that?
Review by Whep89 on Podcast App & Player - Castbox.