Podcast Player & Podcast App - Castbox

Interesting that they keep on deleting negative reviews. People are complaining about the same: too many ads now. I used this app for so many years. I even had a paid plan at some point. Recently they have substantially increased the amount of Ads. To the point the app has became unusable. Too bad for an ex good app. Bye bye Castbox player.

Edit June 2019: for tge last month this app has been shutting down all by itself about 15mins into a podcast episode. It's utterly infuriating, I've uninstalled and reinstalled it 3 times and now I'm getting rid of it, it's just shut down 7 times in a 1 hour episode. Will happily give it another go if this issue gets sorted as it WAS an excellent app. So far this app is excellent, don't know why I struggled with soundcloud for so long when I could have been using this!

Castbox has been my primary podcast Ap for years. The layout is uncluttered and simple, unlike Spotify. However, the pop up ads have increased exponentially. Castbox is using video ads that run before you can navigate to a new episode. I fully recognize the need to maximize advertising revenue, but not at the expense of subscibers. I will be exploring other platforms that do not utilize incessant, time consuming ads. Other than that, thanks for years of a ( formerly) great product.

I'm a new user - looking to change from Player FM and Google podcasts, as it seems the range of podcasts is better. However, the amount of advertising is CRAZY. You've totally given over your UI to advertising, which ruins the experience. Usability is POOR due to the overwhelming number of ads. Also the app doesn't remember where you were on a particular podcast if it's been closed for a while. I'll stick with it for a while, but c'mon - remove some of the ads! They ruin the appeal of the app.

This is designed well, and it was worth it to me to subscribe for a few years, BUT it consumes SO much battery, I've had to switch apps. Basically, Castbox would keep my phone awake (even with the screen off) for hours after I was done playing anything. Closing the app doesn't stop the battery drain; I have to force close the app, and forgetting to do it meant that my battery might drop by 20-30% over half a day. That finally got too annoying, so goodbye.

This app used to be great but now there's so many ads. Basically anytime you touch something it's an ad, and not only that but they're mostly video ads now. I thought the video ads were only when I was on wifi, but I was wrong. It's a real pain to try to X out of the video ad while I'm driving, it's unsafe and they should remove them unless on wifi.

This used to be great but now is so overrun with ads that it is a nightmare to use. Every time you want to search, skip episodes or any basic navigation you are hit with another ad, usually video that you can't close until it has timed out. Please change this castbox otherwise I would suggest using another product to anyone considering this app.

I like this app, however it does have one issue that creates a safety problem. That issue is ADS popping up that require you to close them while you're driving down the highway. Is there no way this app could detect that you're in motion and not put ads up that require you to physically hit the X to close them while you're driving? To me this is a real safety issue.

Ads have gotten worse, they are full screen and harder to close often with delays of letting you close them. Just looking through new episodes of podcast you subscribe to you have to close apps several times. Often it's faster to just close the app and relaunch it entirely then wait for the opportunity to close one. Absolutely obnoxious design The app would be great otherwise but I'm deleting it now.

Castbox has been my go-to podcast app for several years. But recently, the ads have become INCESSANT. It is a huge disruption, and makes me not want to browse around for new podcasts if it will require me to wait for an ad every time I look at a new show. I get an ad every time I go to a show's page - even if I had been shown a different ad less than 30 seconds before. Sure, you have to make money since this is a free app, but you should at least limit it to 1 ad every few minutes.

The podcast player itself is quite good, it saves your progress and makes it really easy for you to pick up where you left off per channel. It has plenty of other quality features that I've dabbled with like playback speed and volume boosting. The ads however, are horrendous. 5 second ads that require 2 or 3 taps between almost every screen, completely demolishing the streamlined design of the app. For the environment I use the app in, this is unacceptable.

I wrote a review addressing this issue before, and for the record, this is still my favorite podcast app. But, I still don't know why the lockscreen player still hasn't been fixed. It just plain simply doesn't work. And i already changed my battery optimization settings to all the required ways. Still nothing. Good app. But I just cannot give it 5 stars due to the lockscreen issue.

Ad-megeddon. I've used this app for years but it's now unusable because of the ads. Search for a podcast, a full page ad appears and just stays there. It's impossible to stop the ad or move forward, the only way out is to stop the app and start again but then the same thing happens. It's about as useful as a chocolate teapot now, it's such a shame.

Decent podcast app. Let's you use RSS, blocks Bluetooth autoplay, has dark mode, lock screen player and a community feature (if you want that). Unfortunately it also has a few annoying downsides. If you reset or get a new device, it doesn't remember your settings and you have to turn off the obnoxious defaults every time. There's a lame micro-transaction coin market thing. Some of the useful features are pay locked, but at $20 a year that's not terrible... However, to get Zen/Pro it is $40?!?

I recently changed my review to 1 star because this app started forcing me to past multiple ads before using it at all. And it wouldn't be so bad, if I waited the 5-10 seconds and then was able to press the "x" in the top corner to move on --But what happens when you press that, is you immediately get taken to the ad website. And these are often very SHADY looking ads about identity theft. It's a waste of time and it doesn't feel safe.

Pleased with the app and the premium but have one issue I can't figure out. The app does not properly update the os with playback details. I for example the media controls on my s21 ultra and the media details on my galaxy watch 4 often say the name of the pervious title listened too. I while the pause and play buttons work the progress indicator just remains at 0:00. The issue is exclusive to castbox. Spotify, the Google podcasts, stitcher, pocket Casts and cloudplayer tested and have no issue

As a new pocaster to Castbox, I have some issues. When I deleted an episode from Drafts, I couldn't import it again at the moment, I mean no upload the same file from the phone. It doesn't let you add photo and description to your episode before uploading to the channel. It should be available at the moment of importing or then in Drafts, before the episode become public, so that notification been sent by that photo and text.

I have been a user for almost 2 years and I still am but I am changing my 5 stars to a 1 because of one particular advert for some sh×tty space invaders game which has sound effects that play over the podcast. Whoever approved that needs a slap, and if no one approves your adverts then you need to sort it out, Cast Box. I had also noticed the increased ads but I was putting up with it knowing that it is the way with all "free" apps these days, but this one has crossed the line.

Would change to 0 stars if i could. Ads have gotten to the point EVERY TIME i click on something it starts an ad. Once the batch of downloaded episodes hi have is done, im deleting this. And why ask everyone that has legit complaints about the ads, "can you send a screen shot/video of it". As if you dont know the amount of ads on your own app.

After I updated the app, I noticed that unfortunately, the trace of the new files I download or kindly delete are not applied in the default folder of the app. I have subscribed to many podcasts and downloaded them while the default folder is still empty and shows nothing. Previously, for each subscription and its downloaded files I had a separated folder that contained those files, but now, nothing happens. Furthermore, when I delete a file it is not deleted from the default folder as well.

Used to be a great app but the new ads are making it unusable. A timed add shows up with virtually every click meaning you can't even do things like pause or skip episodes at will. I understand free apps use ads but making it unusable seems counterproductive as I'm now switching to another player, as I'm sure many are.

Great for listening to podcasts. I've tried a few and always come back to this one. New users should be aware that the app will have you subscribed to some general podcasts and automatically will start downloading show so you have to go into settings right away and turn off that option.

I've been using it for ages, but lately - perhaps for a while - it's been overriding my setting in Android for when the screen goes to sleep. Obviously, this kills the battery pointlessly. There doesn't seem to be anything in the app's own settings that allows me to stop this behaviour, so for that reason I wouldn't recommend it.

I honestly love this app so it seems confusing as to why Im rating it 1 star but, as far as everything goes it's solid. Only gripe is, it seems to have a mind of its own and sets off at downloading random episodes from a multitude of podcasts. Just recently I saw a notification and when I checked inside the app, there were around 18 episodes slated for queue.