The end of Google Podcasts is in June if you're not in the US
notes.ghed.in
notes.ghed.in
The author could make the process of adding a YouTube RSS address easier. For example, www.youtube.com could be added as a search option alongside itunes.apple.com and api.ffyd.de.
Add Podcast | Add Podcast by RSS address
https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCwWhs_6...
For me it's faster and more flexible to automate all RSS and download tasks on the commandline using custom utilities. Then upload the MP3 files to a folder on the phone so can listen offline using the app.
Add Podcast | Add local folder
If going to be online then just use direct URLs to MP3s. More flexible.
It's the best full-featured F-droid app in my opinion. I might even rank it second after NewPipe as a top-tier "killer app" on F-Droid.
But it does play the audio.
It's even available on F-Droid.
Google keeps fumbling the opportunity to own large swathes of the web experience while cutting into competitors. Although Google Podcasts probably looked like a minor loss on the quarterly balance sheet, the intangible brand benefits and especially the analytics that could be garnered from having a large population using your product are hard to overstate.
Even apple realized this when they relaunched their podcast app.
To help others you know DeGoogle their life is a public service.
Half of the recommended alternatives are not even alternatives, like recommending TeX/LaTeX as a Docs recplacement. It's just a no go.
I know the intentions are good but that's not gonna work for the regular userbase outside of the HN and adjacent circles.
>It's an open-source (and offline) document processor using TeX/LaTeX. It's different than Docs or Word but amazing, once you get used to it.
Did you know it takes 6 clicks with a dropdown menu and a window involved to set a piece of text selection bold in Lyx?
Tells a lot, and not in a good way, that some people totally think and believe that this is comparable to Docs, Word, LibreOffice etc.
Apple with iCloud also has some basic collaboration features for pages.
Yes, Google docs has become dominant and people use it because it's there. But we'd definitely get along fine without it too.
There’s no scenario under which I can recommend a new (or existing, outside maybe Google Maps, Search and a handful of well established money makers) Google product anymore.
Even consider something like messaging and calling on Android. That is something you would expect Google to support no matter what. And they have. But even in that very simple situation they’ve made people jump through hoops killing and releasing new versions of the same app or renaming apps or shifting people from 1 app to another. You have GChat, Messages, Duo, Allo, GTalk, Hangouts, Meet, new Hangouts all doing 1 of 2 things.
Saying "well on the inside it's more like a bunch of little businesses" is missing the point. It has Google's reach, Google's user base, and integration with the Gmail accounts that billions of people use every day. It's a Google product, after all, and those have a long and illustrious history of being really good until they get gunned down for no stated reason.
On a related note, I found my Daydream VR headset the other day. It does, in fact, say "Google" on the box, not "Jim Smith, Manager at Google."
I used to LOVE Google products, but I have been burned sooo many times now I am just inclined to not even trying anything Google puts out because they are but a sand mandala in the wind.
About a year ago I had a friend convince me to try Google Domains, despite my better judgement. It was a wonderful experience and within just a couple months, true to form, Google pulled the rug out from me once again, presumably yelling “Gotcha!” while they did so.
That is no doubt on purpose as to keep the regulators at bay. Small potatoes aren't worth risking the cash cow over.
Anyway, https://overcast.fm have been here for 9 years and no reasons to go anytime soon.
Antennapod and pocket casts implementations of those features aren't good enough.
For those unaware, you set the speed to something like 1.75x. It analyzes the audio and shortens the time within dead space (e.g., the natural pause between sentences, words, etc)
You can see this happen in real time as the smart speed display updates and you see the rate you’re listening to the podcast goes up to like 2.5x, 3x and even 4x. All because of reducing dead space. It’s insane.
Discussed previously on HN [1].
1) If the product is successful, they will likely have continued growth and support (via an acquisition or other exit). If the product sucks I don't really want it anyway. With Google, the success of the product doesn't seem aligned to their strategy on when to keep products. There are perfectly viable products with plausibly profitable, high margins, if they were operating a stand-a-lone business that get shut down. The bet is not just on the success of the product, but also google's overall business strategy, which is much more contingent - especially at this point given their track record.
2) Established companies other than google usually do a better job providing an off-ramp to other services, or sell their customer-base to a competitor, rather than shutting down. Google, to their credit, is very good about providing the data so "someone" can manage a migration - they just don't make set up the continuity themselves. Early-stage companies are often bad at this too though.
It's hard to believe it's been more than 10 years since google Reader was shut down.
I’m grandfathered in from paying for it when it was a paid app.
But that's even more of a fun thing from them!
No idea why anyone would pay for this, but damn do I dislike all this subscription stuff.
But I'm still salty about Google reader!! >:(
You're not alone. I just came here to participate in this candlelight vigil for Google Reader myself.
I liked Beyond Pod, but haven't used it in a long time. The ability to schedule automatic downloads was great when I was more aggressive in reducing cell data usage.
Docker (or podman in my case) makes this extremely easy. I can even manage my VMs using virt-manager on my main computer. I solve remote access by having wireguard running on my phone. It uses minimal amounts of data and battery, and I don't have to expose more than one port to the Russians (although lately I have had a bunch of logon attempts from Australia...)
Youtube Music is filled with dark patterns. I use it only because of the music I had already uploaded before and I'm lazy to switch, but it would be a cold day in hell if I used it for podcasts. I switched to antennapod.
Although arguably speaking I wanted that since 2008/09. Although it took 15 years for the mainstream to gain enough traction on it.
Light footprint, easy to use -- and no reliance on Google or anyone else.
How times have changed. I used to get excited about all Google products but now I generally see them all as toxic.
Alternative take: Those who trust any Google app or service to do anything should reconsider or at the very least keep a permanent and up-to-date contingency plan for when Google inevitably discontinues it.
Fooled you once, shame on Google. Fooled you 294 times, shame on you.
I've got an alternate take -- don't depend on _any_ other company's service without a contingency plan for if/when it disappears. Attend to possible lock-in regardless of the source, unless you have direct control over its existence. Nothing is permanent.
At the risk of sounding like a Google apologist, I'll even suggest that I'd rather a company be willing to retire products and move around resources. Especially if the application has limited available growth and there are several alternatives. Holding on to every product like it's precious is how you acquire some very insidious technical debt.
I'm sure there are more than a few of those 294 applications whose time had come for them to go. Were some gone too soon? Perhaps. Some were definitely loved. Does killing off loved products threaten the positive sentiment of users? Of course. But so does stagnation. It's a trade-off decision that neither of us had any ability to alter.
People go on about Google Reader but 1.) There are still RSS readers out there and 2.) It's easier to blame Google than to blame the 99%+ of the population who wouldn't have known what RSS was if it ran over them on the street. It's just not how the mainstream wanted to consume information after social media came along.
Do I think Google could have possibly done a better job with something like Google+ if its DNA were different? Possibly.
Do I think its product strategy around chat and video meetings was hilariously bad? Absolutely, even if Meet and Gchat seem perfectly adequate integrated tools today.
But I also think something like Wave had some innovative ideas that just didn't grab people. I'm not sure they should have kept it around on life support for years.
Agreed. But some companies are higher risk than others. There are apps that I use that I would never have installed or looked at twice if they were made by Google, because the risk of discontinuation is through the roof.
> I'll even suggest that I'd rather a company be willing to retire products and move around resources. (…) Holding on to every product like it's precious is how you acquire some very insidious technical debt.
Again, agreed. But if they’re so lenient with the axe, they should be more selective regarding what goes out in the first place.
> Some were definitely loved. Does killing off loved products threaten the positive sentiment of users? Of course.
And that is exactly why. Soon “everyone” stops trusting your apps and you enter a vicious cycle where nothing ever gets off the ground.
> But so does stagnation.
I never heard anyone complain of Google Reader being stagnant. Or if they did, their voices were drowned by all the ones complaining for the discontinuation. Anecdotally, I’ve felt the same thing with every moderately liked product Google has discontinued.
The service I'm sort of amazed is still around is Blogger which is actually a decent option for free blogging.
The even more nuanced take is that that’s a self-perpetuating cycle of Google’s own fault. It‘s constantly killing off stuff, so whatever users any app has feel burned and they are less likely to try Google’s next thing. Which means fewer users, which means the new thing doesn’t take off, so it’s killed. Rinse and repeat.
> I didn't even know Google had a podcast app.
Neither did I. Because I already know it’s not worth investing any time trying any of Google’s stuff and as a consequence pay no attention to their releases, thus I’m never a user. Thus the cycle continues. I’m far from alone in that.
> I'm not sure that keeping apps/services around in some half-dead state maintained by one developer who pissed someone off supporting it is necessarily a better alternative.
Maybe not. Or maybe they need to bite the bullet for a while to regain trust.