If you're as frustrated with beyondpod as I am, there is an up and coming alternative. Player.fm is free, and has a fairly pricey pro version. ~50$/ year gets you a great product, a price required by most developers to provide development and support. Beyondpod will need a similar revenue to be able to do the same I'm sure.
It doesn't quite do everything I need, including importing virtual feeds from folders. Still, the Devs will probably add it in short order as they actively respond in pro support.
$50 a year is not necessary for a product like this. $5 for a lifetime of BeyondPod is probably too low, but $50 a year is absurd for something to play podcasts. All that being said, it looks like Player.fm has 3 main tiers: Free, $1/month, and $4/month.
As a side note, I think $1 a year would be a fine price for BeyondPod if it meant avoiding things like their Android Auto fiasco. But after waiting for a fix, I'm not sure that I'd be willing to put any more money into BeyondPod if there are alternatives.
I've installed Podcast Addict. It take a little getting used to as the UI is different but it's free (though you can donate), works well with Android Auto and even can do radio stations (I don't believe BP does that). The only thing I'm missing right now is the ability to manually re-arrange the playlist.
1tg1 - not sure what "virtual feeds from folders" means. I was able to import my BP OPML file without issue. All the podcasts I listen to are in Podcast Addict now.
In my frustration with the various issues with BP over the past year I have tried various alternatives. BUT I have not found anything that even comes close to the BP Smart Playlist with auto-rebuild. It's the only way I can listen to a large number of podcasts in anything like a sensible order, while driving, without having to manually select podcasts or episodes as I drive.
Has anyone else managed to achieve something similar on any other app? If not then I will stick with BP in the hope that the current issues get resolved. No idea what I'll do if they never get fixed!
On the matter of cost, I agree that a 'one-off' payment model is not ideal, as there is no ongoing commercial engagement with existing customers. I'd happily switch to an annual subscription model at a reasonable level ($50 per year is definitely too much, I guess $10 - $15 would be OK) if it meant that the app is kept up-to-date with rapid response from support and devs.
I'm using Podcast Addict and it seems to work in a similar way to BP's Smart Playlist, You can't sort them based on categories but you can put your podcasts into priority classes. PA can then auto download and auto refresh all your podcasts into a list. Alas, if you want to further drag and drop them into some sort of order you need to turn off the sort to manual, then drag and drop things, then you need to put the sort order back on. I'm gonna ask the author if he can change it to allow drag and drop reordering without requiring this toggling from sort order to manual and back.Originally Posted by MarkP666
As a bonus this app is free!
All,
We have just pushed v4.2.40 to Production today in the Google Play Store and AA is aware. AA will then work on lifting the ban for BP. They did let us know that it will take a few days for them to lift the ban and get that back to being available for all users so just be aware of that note after upgrading to Prod v4.2.40 that AA may still take a couple of days while their team works to make it available again.
Thank you.
I quite like the idea of priorities, but I can't get it to auto build a list? Any tips?
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