# Realm - Podcast App — Listen to original podcasts > Immersive audio storytelling app with curated podcasts and reading options. (iPhone/iPad app by Serial Box Publishing, LLC.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/realm-podcast-app/id988282641 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Serial Box Publishing, LLC](https://appshunter.io/developer/988282640) - Category: Entertainment, Books - Price: Free - Rating: 4.49/5 from 491 App Store ratings · 22 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 12+ - Requires: iOS 13.0 · 336 MB - Languages: English - Released: 2015-09-11 - Data updated: 2026-06-10 - Monetization: free with in-app purchases - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/realm-podcast-app/id988282641/reviews.md ## What is Realm? We create immersive stories unlike anything you’ve heard before, working with creators you probably have. Listen away. ===================== WHY YOU’LL LOVE US: • Curated shows, just for you: Created by award-winning, diverse, and best-selling authors. • Cinematic sound design: Immersive sound effects and swoon-worthy narrators like Tatiana Maslany & George Takei. • Easy-to-use app: Offline mode, autoplay, speed controls, customization, no ads, and more. COOL FEATURES: • Our gorgeous audio player with autoplay, sleep timer, device casting, dark and light mode support, hypnotic animations, and skip intro/outro • Download audio and listen offline • Sample everything for free • Switch back and forth between listening and reading • Scroll vs. swipe reading option • Stunning type and colors: select between 5 optimized typefaces and 6 color combinations • Advanced customization settings: custom margins, line height, word spacing, letter spacing TRENDING SHOWS: • Orphan Black: The Next Chapter. Narrated by Tatiana Maslany. • Memory Lane. Written by Pretty Little Liars creator Sara Shepard. • CTRL-ALT-DESTROY. Narrated by Firefly star Summer Glau. REALM LOVE: • "Like Game of Thrones, but for your ears"—i09 • "Best of the year"—Apple • "The HBO of reading"—NPR • "Must-have app"—Buzzfeed MORE REALM LOVE: "Their rich sound design has advanced audio storytelling."—John Carpenter (yes, THE John Carpenter of Halloween, The Fog, and The Thing!) "Next level amazing"—@brandenburgdm "...The narration is great and the music and sound design really add to the storytelling."—Seth Podowitz “It’s better than most TV.”—@AngelaRR56 “THE BEST audio narration. I’m a huge, huge fan of the app and the stories.”—@BookwormAsheley “Really rad to switch seamlessly between audiobook and eBook format. Would love to see this modal versatility be the new normal for all digital media!”—@dsjr__ ## Key features - Curated shows from award-winning authors - Cinematic sound design and narration - Offline listening - Autoplay and speed controls - Switch between listening and reading - Customizable reading experience - Dark and light mode support ## Recent user reviews (10 of 22) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/realm-podcast-app/id988282641/reviews.md ### 4/5 — REVISED: Paid for a year but still having to listen to ads *2023-07-20* Well I’m finally able to use my subscription so I’m revising my first review. I was having a lot of issues but almost all things are now working properly. I’m still having to listen to ads on a few shows every now and then even though I paid for unlimited. I really do love a lot of the shows they have and I’m getting most ad free so I’m pretty happy at this point. At least they kept working with me on this. So that says a lot about this company. I would definitely recommend this app now. ### 4/5 — Subscription *2023-06-29* I have an issue with subscription. I subscribed to Realm+ a week ago because on the website it said you can access all the episodes of the podcast I’m listening to (Bookburners) when you subscribe. I paid the fee, now all episodes on season 2 are available to listen to for me on Apple Podcasts but season 3 is still not available. I don’t know whether there’s a problem with my subscription or there was misleading information on the website since it said I would have early access to all the episodes. ### 3/5 — Amazing stories. Maddeningly frustrating app *2022-12-10* This is the most maddening app I’ve ever used in my life! Sometimes, the next chapter will play. Sometimes not. Ok. So, after fiddling around looking for the list of chapters (because it is not in the top title like you would think it is on the chapter you’re on, you have to do a search for the title story in the entire catalogue,) you tap the next chapter to play. Nothing. So you download it. Then you try to play it by tapping it to play. Nothing. You look at the three dots and think “maybe it will let me play.” Nope. All you can do is archive it. So you swipe and go to the downloaded files menu and tap the story…aaand get a list of chapters that don’t go with this story. When this works it’s a JOY. God help you when it doesn’t. I don’t think these developers have ever usability tested this app. Because it’s a fight. **Developer response:** Hi Heather, thank you for taking the time to share your experience and we are so glad to hear you're enjoying our shows! I'm sorry that you're experiencing some bugs and we apologize for the inconvenience. If you go to the "More" menu in the app and click on "Report a problem with the app" we'd be happy to work with you to resolve this. ### 3/5 — Content is amazing, app could use some work *2022-09-29* I love the content Realm/SerialBox has- I work as a house cleaner so I listen to podcasts/audiobooks 4 days a week for like 6 hours. The app isn’t the best, it’s had a glitch from the beginning that doesn’t keep my place in the show, my keep playing bar at the bottom and “pick up where you left off” box are on the wrong episode most of the time when i close and re open the app. Kind of annoying, I have to go to the show details and scroll to find my episode im in the middle of Another problem has appeared in the last week or so where when I am in the full screen player there is NO WAY to minimize it to search for a different show or skip to the correct episode im on. I have to close out the app and re open it, search my show, hit details and then find my episode. PLEASE YALL 🥴 fix this ??? **Developer response:** Hi Meg, thank you for taking the time to share your experience and we are so glad to hear you're enjoying our shows! I'm sorry that you're experiencing some bugs and we apologize for the inconvenience. If you go to the "More" menu in the app and click on "Report a problem with the app" we'd be happy to work with you to resolve this. ### 2/5 — 2 years later no fix on issues *2022-03-26, version 4.2.11* Media barons review 2 years ago mentions the exact same issues I’ve had ever since using realm. I only want to listen to orphan black and then happily never use this app or service HOWEVER I have a few more episodes but can’t even click on them if I played partial and as mentioned 2 years ago you can’t tell what episode you were on without restarting the whole episode AND THAT MEANS a whole process to get even the stupid thing to play. The UI doesn’t work. The entire scroll for the length of the podcast is wider than my iPhone 12 Pro’s screen? It’s been this way for 1+ year yet never read reviews and realizing not alone. If you want to make podcasts.. hire someone who can build a useable app at the least so people can listen with ease because this is horrific. If orphan black didn’t have 2 episodes left for me to or had ever come onto your podcast content radar to buy then I’d never use this again lol it’s awful . Hoping I can make it through this to the end… and worse is I’m paying for this??? **Developer response:** Hi, so sorry you’re having trouble with our app. If you wouldn’t mind, can you please go to the “More” menu in the app and click on “Report a problem with the app”? That will give us a bit more diagnostic information about the issues (and you can include screenshots or recordings of what you’re seeing in the app), which should help us figure out what’s going on here. Again, sorry you're having frustration using the app and we'd like to help you resolve it. ### 4/5 — Great content, wonky ui *2021-10-21, version 4.2.3* Update: thanks to support for being so responsive! The bookmark bug is being worked on, and the chapter numbers are missing only in Marvel titles, which they are now aware of. Original comments: Love the realm content. For the few I've listened to, the production values are quite high and the voice acting has been superb. I do have some problems with the app, however. First, a strange design choice to me is that when viewing the list of all chapters there are no chapter numbers provided. This means that I have to remember the chapter title so I can remember my place. I *do* see a chapter number when the app is open and the player is running minimized (for browsing other realm titles), so I know the numbers are there somewhere. Another issue is that there is no means to bookmark one's location while listening. This is supposed to be automatic but it doesn't always work. When listening to the Marvel's Jessica Jones title (which was great), the app returned me to the same early chapter over and over again, so I had to find my spot by hunting through the unnumbered chapter titles and basically guessing. I didn't find a means to email support with these issues so I'm posting here. I'll continue to listen to content and use the app. **Developer response:** Hi there, thank you for taking the time to leave these kind words about our content, and this honest review of your experience! Our team is looking into this, since both of these features should actually be available to you. If you wouldn't mind, can you please go to the "More" menu in the app and click on "Report a problem with the app"? That will give us a bit more diagnostic information about the issues (and you can include screenshots or recordings of what you're seeing in the app), which should help us figure out what's going on here. ### 2/5 — Clunky app and soooo much sermonizing *2021-07-16* I love genre fic and wanted to love Realm. But the app is clunky, stories never picked up where they left off so I was forever FF, and 'wokeness' seems to be have outranked storyline, character development, and narrative to these folks. Too many of the stories dragged. The most interesting aspect of a story shouldn’t be that it’s about someone non-binary! Reading the other reviews I see there’s so much content I never even came across! I deleted the app but I think there’s more in it than I could find. Please remove the huge orphan black header from the front page. It takes up most of the screen. Whenever I scanned for new titles I saw the same dozen, but it sounds like there’s so much more from SerialBox. Not intuitive to find! **Developer response:** Hello, thank you for taking the time to share your experience using the app, we are always grateful to hear honest feedback from listeners! I'm sorry to hear that finding new shows wasn't easy for you (you're right, we have plenty to choose from!) One tip I can offer you is that on our search page in the app, you can use the filters at the top to find the types of shows you're interested in - whether it's sci-fi, thrillers, or fantasy you're looking for, we have something for you! If you have any other feedback or questions for us, please feel free to email us at support@realm.fm! ### 3/5 — Top notch content, UI needs a drastic overhaul *2020-11-13* The content, narration/acting, writing, and music are all fantastic. In fact, it’s the reason I stick with it, because the UI is incredibly frustrating. No way to look at a list of chapters once you’ve downloaded, and I find the app often losing my place when I come back to a story, totally counterintuitive interface. It often just... stops playing! It’s bizarre how some relatively simple add-ins that could make this a superlative experience haven’t been made. What if I want to go back and re-listen to a chapter? Why is there no mechanic for that? Or rather, there is, but only from the homepage and not from the library page? That makes no sense. Also, a CarPlay interface would be AMAZING for those of us with long commutes. In short, it’s absolutely worth it for the content, but the user experience can be super frustrating. **Developer response:** Hey @kbtommy! Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We're a small team and read all of them, so we really appreciate you doing that. Totally hear you on the CarPlay front. It's on our Road Map and we hope to get to it soon. On the UI front, it sounds like you might be encountering a bug if the serial stops playing. Would you be willing to go into More --> Report a Problem with an App. Happy to take a look at that and see if it's something we can fix for you. ### 3/5 — App just crashes on launch *2020-09-03* On aug 29, attempts to launch the app fail. I even reinstalled and installed again. I’m on iPhone 8 Plus iOS 13.3.1. I’ve used the app in the past and I was looking forward to grabbing a few new podcasts for a long trip I’m leaving on today. Guess not... Edit - hope the devs read this. I was able to get it working by removing my iCloud backup feature for this app, plus updating to the latest iOS, then deleting the app, restarting the phone and reinstalling the app. No less steps worked. Hope this helps figure the problem out Edit 2 - updating to 3 stars since it is working again per the above instructions and I don’t think 1 Star is fair anymore. **Developer response:** Hi there! Thanks for writing in and so sorry for the inconvenience here. 🤦‍♀️ We're on it. 😀Thanks for alerting us to the problem! Thanks so much for following up and letting us know! If you shoot us a quick email at info@serialbox.com, we would love to offer you a free serial for your trouble! 🎁✨ ### 5/5 — Best audio dramas around! *2020-08-22* I’m a huge audiobook fan but the Serial Box productions take things to a whole new level. It’s a truly immersive experience where I get the soundscape and depth of a tv show or movie while still having the flexibility to be driving, cooking, gardening, etc. And the stories, chef’s kiss of originality and awesome. The writing teams gather some of my favorite from the SciFi and fantasy genres and I’m thrilled to be able to enjoy more of their works. As a horror fan I do wish it offered more of the creepy and horror (season 2 for Silverwood??) but I’m happy to enjoy what they offer and shall keep the dream alive for more horror. **Developer response:** Hey @Litic, thank you for the kind words. 💚 And pardon our delay in writing you back, that's totally my fault. But we wanted to let you know that there's much, much more to come on the Horror front in 2021! 🧛🧛🧛. Can't wait for you to hear it. ## Frequently asked questions about Realm ### What is this app? This app offers immersive audio stories and original podcasts created by award-winning authors and creators. It features cinematic sound design and professional narration, providing a unique listening experience. ### What are the key features of this app? Key features include a curated selection of shows, immersive sound effects, offline listening, autoplay, speed controls, and the ability to seamlessly switch between listening to audio and reading the text. It also offers advanced customization for the reading experience and a gorgeous audio player. ### Is this app free to use? The app allows you to sample everything for free. While the core listening experience is accessible, there may be in-app purchases for full access to certain content or premium features. ### What kind of stories can I find on this app? You can find original audio stories and podcasts from award-winning, diverse, and best-selling authors. Trending shows include 'Orphan Black: The Next Chapter', 'Memory Lane', and 'CTRL-ALT-DESTROY', featuring notable narrators. ### Can I listen to content offline? Yes, you can download audio content to listen offline. This feature allows you to enjoy your favorite stories without an internet connection, making it convenient for commutes or travel. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 4.2.29 — 2023-05-26 In this version: - Improved management of downloaded files - Automatically clean up unused downloaded files - Delete downloaded files when archiving a show ### 4.2.28 — 2023-05-04 In this version: Upgraded package versions to improve performance Added a link to Realm merch in the More menu ### 4.2.27 — 2023-03-21 In this version: - Resolved a bug with logging in new users - Improved rendering of images on iPad and iPod ### 4.2.26 — 2023-03-02 In this version: - Improved Load Times - Smaller App footprint - Other Minor Improvements ### 4.2.25 — 2022-12-14 In this version: - Support Zoomed Display View feature - Support Button Shapes feature - Removed unused libraries - Replace customer support platform ## Apps similar to Realm | App | Rating | Price | Category | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [Hark Audio](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hark-audio/id1540109137) | 4.1 (85) | Free | Entertainment | | [Comic Geeks](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/comic-geeks/id874775221) | 4.9 (3,580) | Free | Entertainment | | [人気アニメ-毎日更新コミック本](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/id1215575640) | 4.8 (4) | Free | Entertainment | | [Comics Elite](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/comics-elite/id1541043200) | 4.7 (131) | Free | Entertainment | | [Apollo Podcasts](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/apollo-podcasts/id1591673992) | 4.0 (65) | Free | Entertainment | | [GraphicAudio Access Audiobooks](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/graphicaudio-access-audiobooks/id791289417) | 4.8 (5,547) | Free | Entertainment | --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*