Some of them come with baggage resulting from the vendors' revenue needs: The apps are paid, they nag users to sign up for premium versions or subscription services, or they sell annoying pre-roll ads. Some are older apps that have become bloated with features that aren't very useful now that podcasting has moved from downloads, RSS feeds and PCs to one-touch streaming on mobile devices. Several third-party apps vie for popularity - including Podcast Addict, Stitcher, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Beyond Pod, Podcast Republic, Castbox, radio apps such as TuneIn, and music apps such as Spotify and SoundCloud - but none of these dominate. Instead, the podcast app market for Android is a fragmented mess.

Android devices come with Google Play Music, which has podcast functionality but hardly qualifies as a go-to default podcast player for Android. There is no Android version of Apple Podcasts (as there is for Apple Music, Apple's competitor to Spotify). Smaller podcast producers often don't go to the trouble of distributing their work through even some of the better-known third-party podcast apps.Īn important consequence of Apple's dominance is that no one in podcasting pays much attention to Android devices - which constitute over 75% of the mobile device market, or four times Apple's iOS market share.

In contrast, third-party podcast apps just aren't that valuable to podcasters. In fact, the data is so important that many producers consider it to be a proxy for the industry as a whole. That's why you hear so many podcasters beg listeners to leave ratings on Apple Podcasts and iTunes: High ratings drive discovery, which increases audience, which leads to higher ad revenue as well as more discovery - a virtuous cycle. For listeners, it dominates because it's pre-installed on iPhones and iPads, it offers pretty much every podcast there is, and its user experience is simple and consistent with other Apple iOS apps.įor podcast producers, Apple is important because of the usage and user ratings data that Apple provides. Many people also use Apple's iTunes software on Macs and PCs for podcasts.Īpple Podcasts dominates the mobile podcast market for two sets of reasons. There are many podcast apps available on iOS and Android platforms, but the podcasting market centers on just one of them: Apple Podcasts. In a 2017 Statista survey, 21% of respondents said they used Apple Podcasts the next-most-popular dedicated podcast apps were iCatcher, Podcast Addict, and Overcast with only 7% each.

Which ios did the podcast app come with