Playapod vs Azimuth
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Playapod
Listen to podcasts with advanced features like cross-platform syncing, precise episode tracking, and offline playback. Bookmark favorite moments, enjoy video and text-to-speech content, and organize your listening with custom playlists and filters. It's a free, ad-free experience designed for dedicated podcast enthusiasts.
- Cross-platform device syncing
- Second-by-second episode tracking
- Time-coded bookmarking
- Video and text-to-speech playback
- Offline listening
- Custom playlists and filters
- CarPlay integration
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Playapod is the best way to listen to your favorite podcasts and features cross-platform device syncing, episode tracking down to the second, remote media controls, offline listening, new episode notifications, bulk imports, fast performance, no ads, and more! • Multi-Device Sync Sync all your podcast subscriptions and episode progress between multiple devices and across all platforms! Just sign-in with your favorite social network or with e-mail. • Episode Tracking Tracks exactly the portions of episodes that you have listened down to the second. You'll never forget where you left off or what you skipped over! • Bookmarking Bookmark your favorite parts of any episode so you can quickly go back and listen again. Bookmarks are time-coded and synced across all your devices. • Video Playback (NEW v2 Feature) Video playback supported. Tapping on the video will toggle full-screen mode. • Text to Speech (NEW v2 Feature) Turn any text-based feed into an audio podcast with full progress bar support including scrubbing and bookmarking. Great for keeping up with the latest news and blogs. • Media Bar (NEW v2 Feature) Quickly access whatever is currently playing by tapping on the media bar at the bottom of the screen. It’s always on with quick access to play/pause. Tap the bar to bring up the full media player view. • Recommendations (NEW v2 Feature) Our recommendation engine will suggest new subscriptions you might enjoy. • Groups & Filters (NEW v2 Feature) Filter content by favorites, category, media flags, content type, and time. Save filters into Groups for quick one-touch access. • Media Files (NEW v2 Feature) Add media files such as audio, video, and text files to Playapod using iTunes File Sharing for local playback. • Car Play Driving with your iPhone puts your Playapod Now Playing queue right on your car's built-in display. • Custom Playlist Create a custom playlist of your podcast episodes. Drag and drop reordering makes it easy to listen to your favorite shows all day without device interaction. • Media Controls Toggle playback and skip forward and backwards quickly using lockscreen and bluetooth controls. • Listen Offline Download entire podcasts and listen on the go without a network connection or cellular data charges. • Free & No Ads Free download with no advertising! There are no bulky 3rd party ad networks that are known to kill battery life, slow performance, and consume network bandwidth. • Push Notifications Get new episode notifications so you stay on top of your favorite shows. Toggle notifications in the app settings. • Import Podcasts Quickly bulk import a list of podcasts with OPML files (Outline Processor Markup Language XML Files). • Advanced Configuration Lots of settings to customize and tweak the behavior of the Playapod app. Custom settings available for each subscription too! • Customer Support Our developers listen to your feedback and quickly fix all reported issues. Join our Facebook Page and start a discussion! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playapod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/playapod Website: https://playapod.com/
Azimuth
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Azimuth sends your iPhone's location to your own HTTPS endpoint, on a schedule you control. If you've ever wanted your phone to quietly report where it is to a server you run — for a self-hosted dashboard, a home automation trigger, a custom logbook, or anything else — this is a small utility for that, and nothing else. No third-party servers, no analytics, no accounts. Your data goes from your phone straight to the URL you set. WHAT IT DOES • Posts your current location to your endpoint as a GeoJSON Feature • Runs on a schedule: every hour, every 6 hours, every 12 hours, daily at a chosen time, or weekly on a chosen day and time • Keeps working when your phone is locked or the app is in the background • Optionally includes battery level/state and current speed • Adds a stable per-install device ID so your server can tell devices apart • Supports Bearer token authentication (token stored in the iOS Keychain) • Recent tab shows the last 50 sends with HTTP status and any error message • Notifies you if a send fails, so you can fix your endpoint WHAT IT DOESN'T DO • No tracking, no advertising, no telemetry. The app talks to one host: yours. • No cloud account, nothing to sign up for. • No data leaves your phone except the request to your URL. PAYLOAD Each send is a single HTTPS POST with a JSON body containing a GeoJSON Feature. Properties include timestamp (ISO 8601), horizontal_accuracy, vertical_accuracy, altitude, device_id, and optionally speed, battery_level, and battery_state. WHY "ALWAYS" LOCATION? Azimuth needs the "Always" location permission so it can fire on schedule even with your phone locked — that's the whole point of the app. iOS uses Significant Location Changes to wake Azimuth for delivery. The app never streams continuous location and only reads your position at the moments it sends. GOOD FITS • Self-hosted location dashboards • Home automation users (Home Assistant, n8n, Node-RED, and similar) who want a periodic geo-ping • Developers prototyping location-aware services without paying for a tracking SaaS • Anyone who wants a simple, predictable device-to-server location pipe PRIVACY Your endpoint URL, schedule, and bearer token are stored locally on your device. Locations are not stored on Apple servers, our servers, or anywhere except your endpoint. We don't have servers. Setup: paste your URL in Settings, pick a schedule, tap Start.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Azimuth at every 3 weeks against Playapod's every 3 months. Playapod's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Playapod ships an update every 3 months, Azimuth every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and September 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Playapod | Azimuth |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (622 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 79.2% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 622 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 25 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | TMSOFT | Gabriele Scotto di Vettimo |
Bugs and requests
Playapod
Reported bugs
5 issues- Podcast downloads failing or timing out
- Playlist issues (not playing next episode, losing queue)
- Episodes marked as played before finishing
- Inconsistent behavior on different devices and platforms
- Data loss when device is turned off
Requested features
6 requests- Volume boost and normalization
- Silence skip feature
- Ability to reorder individual playlists
- Video podcast playback support
- Diagnostics and troubleshooting tools
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Azimuth
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Playapod
No in-app purchases
Azimuth
No in-app purchases









