Newsletter
Google’s much rumored Podcasts app has finally launched on Android today. The app has all of your favorite podcasts available, and also has Google Assistant support, so you can play these podcasts anywhere you want – even on your Google Home smart speaker. Google is also promising smarter recommendations with Google Podcasts. But this isn’t Google’s first attempt at a podcast app. It had Google Listen quite a few years ago that it eventually killed off and then a few years later it implemented podcasts into Google Play Music. And now Google Podcasts is here to break podcasts out of the Google Play Music app.
As with any podcast catcher app out there, you can easily subscribe and listen to just about any podcast out there. This is because podcasts are listed on RSS feeds (essentially), and any app is able to pull those podcasts in and allow its user to listen to them. However, Google Podcasts uses artificial intelligence so that it can recommend other podcasts to listen too. And these recommendations are made off of your listening habits, which include what type of podcasts you listen to and what networks you listen to the most. Of course, Google has baked in Google Assistant here, so you can listen to your podcast on virtually any device.
The app itself uses Material Design, as you’d expect from Google, which is going to make browsing through the app pretty simple. The app is available to download now from Google Play, of course, it is completely free. Google has also made it very simple to search Google for a podcast and subscribe to that podcast in the Google Podcasts app from search results. Which is to be expected from Google here. The search giant is also making it easier for podcasters to optimize for Google Podcasts so that new podcast episodes are added quickly, as well as making it easier for listeners to find the podcast and start listening to it.
