Castamatic Podcast Player

Castamatic Podcast Player

Indie, private, open

86 ratings
73 reviews
Free
In-App Purchases

Details

Released
July 20, 2015
Updated
November 5, 2026

Features

Castamatic Podcast Player screenshot #1 for iPhone
Castamatic Podcast Player screenshot #2 for iPhone
Castamatic Podcast Player screenshot #3 for iPhone
Castamatic Podcast Player screenshot #4 for iPhone
Castamatic Podcast Player screenshot #5 for iPhone
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About

This podcast player offers advanced features like on-device transcripts, automatic audio leveling, and smart playlists. It allows users to share audio moments as videos and offers premium features for enhanced control and an ad-free experience.

βœ“On-device transcripts
βœ“Automatic audio leveling
βœ“Smart playlists
βœ“Chapter selection
βœ“Share audio as video
βœ“Apple Watch and CarPlay support
βœ“Podcasting 2.0 support
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What users say about Castamatic Podcast Player

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+1

What's New in Castamatic Podcast Player

14.0.4

November 5, 2026

Version 14.0.4 - On CarPlay, when you resumed playback after a pause, the player sometimes lost the artwork and showed a placeholder. The artwork now stays. - With the iPhone locked, resuming playback, for example from your AirPods, could still leave the Lock Screen without artwork. The artwork now appears a few seconds after playback resumes. - On CarPlay, tapping Now Playing or the player on the Dashboard sometimes opened the app's main list instead of the player. It now opens the player with the episode you were listening to. Version 14.0.3 - On CarPlay, with an episode paused, the Now Playing screen stayed empty when the car connected until you pressed Play. It now shows the episode right away. - In Playlist Settings, dragging a podcast out of "Priority order" closed the app. The row now stays in its section. - When you played some episodes, the app sometimes closed unexpectedly. This no longer happens. Version 14 - Share a moment of an episode as a video: pick the start and the end on the waveform, preview it, and choose a vertical, square or landscape format. The video shows the artwork and the waveform, plus captions when the episode has a transcript. The vertical format goes straight to Instagram Stories. Find it in the player menu for downloaded episodes. - Premium: choose which chapters to hear. Turn off the chapters you don't care about in the chapter list, and playback skips them for you. - Premium: undo your last action. For 10 seconds you can take back a skip, a chapter change or an accidental "Listened". - Chapters for episodes that list them only in the show notes, as lines with a time and a title. - Smarter auto-download: "Skip Titles Containing" in Podcast Settings keeps episodes with the words you choose from downloading. - The player opens and closes as a card that grows from the mini player or from the episode row. Show notes, chapters and transcript open full screen, with the artwork colors of the player. - A podcast's episode list and the search details panel take the color of the artwork. Search genres are now a compact list with tinted icons. - The loaded episode shows its progress as a fill behind the whole row, and rows show the time left or the duration. On CarPlay, rows show the duration, and Now Playing opens at the first playback. - Podcast lists ignore leading articles such as "The" when sorting by name. - Native iOS swipe actions on episode rows, and the close button of panels is now on the left. - With Reduce Motion on, animations become dissolves. - Restoring a backup now asks what to do with your iCloud data: replace it with the backup, or keep it. Your other devices pause and ask before they take the new data. - A new activity indicator shows the real progress of OPML import, restore, export and sync. - OPML import no longer freezes the app with large libraries and no longer creates duplicate podcasts. - A backup, an OPML file, an audio file or a feed link opened while the app is closed now actually opens. Before, the app only launched. - Updating many podcasts at once sends at most one notification per podcast, and none for podcasts you don't follow. - A podcast opened from search without subscribing no longer marks its old episodes as played. - iCloud sync resumes where it stopped with very large libraries, and tells you when iCloud stays unavailable for more than a day. - When an action you started fails, the app now tells you instead of doing nothing. - Many bug fixes and performance improvements.

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Subscriptions & In-App Purchases

Premium Subscription

Remove all advertising from the app.

$14.991 Year
How to cancel Castamatic Podcast Player subscription ⁉️

User reviews

Great app

This is a wonderful app. I do have some suggestions for it however the contact link is dead. I would love to message the dev with an enhancement request!

Edit: found a few bugs but have no idea where to submit them to the dev. I hope there is an avenue to report these.

Great ALC, buggy player

The good: automatic level control. This works great when you have a podcast with multiple people speaking, whose audio levels are all over the place.

The bad: Audio drops out at random times in the podcast. It might be 30 minutes in, or it might be two hours in. Once the audio drops out, that particular episode is done. No combination of button presses will get the audio back.
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Great app, terrible UI

Honestly comes with a stack of excellent features hidden behind the worst UI imaginable, created by someone who clearly hates their users.

If you can figure out what all the little icons mean, congratulations. Personally I’ve given up trying to download podcasts on this app. I’m sure the control is …somewhere.
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Nice app but No dark mode

Please add a dark mode option independent of system dark mode

Hidden treasure of podcast apps

I’ve been hunting for the β€œperfect” podcast app and, imho, this comes the closest of anything on the market. It has pretty much everything you’d want in terms of sound boost, silence trimming, timed skipping of intros/outros, customizable global defaults w/the ability to save custom settings for each show, and no real ads – just a minimally invasive banner in the episode list promoting the premium version. The only (minor) quibble that I have is that the playback speed setting changes in 0.25x increments; a bit more granularity would be appreciated. Yes, you can subscribe for ten bucks a year to support the dev, but all the above features are available for free. Give it a shot, it’s an excellent app.
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Developer apps

User experience

🐞

Reported Bugs

30 issues

Contact link is dead

Bug

No avenue to report bugs

Bug

Audio drops out at random times

Bug

Once audio drops, episode is done

Bug

No combination of button presses will get audio back

Bug

Audio doesn't stop when AirPods are removed

Bug

Lost place 5-10 times this week

Bug

When playing on Bluetooth in the car, turning off the car can cause app to lose place

Bug

App starts from the beginning after losing place

Bug

App gets confused and loses place

Bug

App starts from the beginning

Bug

App has started over multiple podcasts at the beginning several times

Bug

Playback is not smooth

Bug

App freezes every time audio output changes

Bug

App freezes when trying to scroll through podcasts

Bug

App crashes often

Bug

Search feature often fails to work

Bug

Error loading podcast

Bug

Response could not be decoded

Bug

Data couldn't be read

Bug

App freezes on loading lists

Bug

Audio stalls while rebuffering

Bug

Audio gets caught in a loop

Bug

App freezes constantly upon loading

Bug

Cannot handle 100+ podcasts

Bug

All podcasts gone after update

Bug

App dies when touching 'Premium Subscription' button

Bug

App crashes on Apple Watch when trying to load episodes

Bug

Sync problem: playlists and played/unplayed episodes don't sync

Bug

Play sequence setting doesn't overrule individual podcast settings

Bug
✨

Requested Features

20 requests

Add dark mode option

Feature

More granularity in playback speed

Feature

Instructional videos or blogs

Feature

Filter episodes by keywords

Feature

Hide podcasts with no new episodes

Feature

Playback history

Feature

Live show notifications

Feature

Add RSS feed support

Feature

Easier to view shownotes

Feature

Add AirPlay 2 support for Nest Mini

Feature

Manually set swipe actions

Feature

Badge for downloaded episodes

Feature

Display only downloaded episodes

Feature

Auto-download on the go setting

Feature

Download/stream on Apple Watch

Feature

LIT support

Feature

End of chapter/episode sleep timer

Feature

Time-based limit for News Mode

Feature

Sync playlists across devices

Feature

1.75x playback speed option

Feature

FAQ

What are the premium features in Castamatic?

Castamatic Premium offers chapter selection to skip unwanted sections, an undo function for recent actions, unlimited external audio file imports, and removes the premium banner. These features are available through an optional yearly subscription.

How does Castamatic handle transcripts?

Castamatic provides 'Magic Transcript' which generates full episode transcripts directly on your device. You can tap any line in the transcript to jump to that exact moment in the playback.

Can I use Castamatic on my Apple Watch or CarPlay?

Yes, Castamatic is fully supported on Apple Watch and CarPlay. You can control playback, select episodes, and adjust audio effects directly from your watch or in your car.

Does Castamatic have ads?

Castamatic is free to use and does not contain advertisements. The premium version removes a 'Premium banner' and offers additional features.

How often is Castamatic updated?

The latest version, 14.0.4, was released on November 5, 2026. The app was originally released on July 20, 2015, indicating a history of ongoing development and updates.

What devices does Castamatic support?

Castamatic is available for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and CarPlay, ensuring a consistent experience across the Apple ecosystem.

How does Castamatic's audio leveling work?

The 'Automatic Leveler' uses machine learning to increase audio level consistency between different parts or voices within a show, without altering the original audio character. This ensures a more even listening experience.

What is the pricing for Castamatic Premium?

The 'One Year Premium Subscription' for Castamatic costs $14.99 per year. The app will display the exact price in your local currency before purchase.