Podcast app broken

[DJ88]

I hate having to create a thread here, but I’m really starting to lose it with this dumb app, and not having any luck finding anyone else with similar problems.

I got my S4 yesterday and updated to iOS12.

I’ve been trying to get the podcast app on the watch to display my shows correctly all day. I’ve tried setting the “Custom” and “Listen Now” settings. But no matter what, the stupid app decides to add these random episodes that are years old and don’t match the episodes listed on the phone app at all.

Is anyone else having this maddening problem with their podcast app?

 

[mk313]

I haven’t had that issues but. I did have an issue originally with it not loading a couple of podcasts. I forget the exact name, but it only downloads (at least in my case) my subscribed podcasts, so if you have some podcasts that you subscribed to years ago and then just deleted episodes when you didn’t want to hear them, Rather than actually playing them through to the end where they get marked as played, that could cause those to show up on the watch. Similarly, if you added episodes to the watch and didn’t include them in your subscribed shows, they won’t transfer to the watch at least that’s been my experience).

 

[flehman]

Just my own 2c: I had been eagerly awaiting better podcast support in WatchOS 5 so I could just take my watch to the gym. I had been using Outcast and actually wasn't too displeased with its performance on my watch (a S3), but was frustrated that I was using the Podcast app on my phone and Outcast just for my watch, and basically managing my podcasts in duplicate.

I really wanted Apple's Podcast app for the watch to be great, but the app kept taking forever to load on my S3, bugginess with syncing and transfers, etc. When Overcast announced Apple Watch support I downloaded it, ran with it on my phone and watch for a few days, and I just deleted the other 2 apps this morning. I wanted one app to handle both devices and Overcast is just doing it more satisfyingly for me.

I very much appreciate Apple's effort to bring better podcast functionality to the watch, but the official iOS Podcast app has been pretty terrible in UI and advanced features since forever and their official podcast app for the watch wasn't shaping up to be much better. I would be very open to giving their official apps another try in the future if improvements are made, because I do like using the "official" Apple solutions where possible (I used the Podcast app for soooo many years when it wasn't really that good), but for now they are just failing at podcasts apps on both the phone and the watch. I am sticking with Overcast for the time being.

 

[DJ88]

So I was able to go in and get a bunch of episodes that had been stuck in some weird limbo of not being finished. Also got it to transfer over the one episode in my “Listen Now”.

But after finishing that one and adding a new episode to my “Listen Now” queue, it won’t transfer to the watch even when connected to power.

I just hate how inconsistent it is at initiating that transfer. If I go to “Custom” and turn off/on the show I want. It shows “Pending” very briefly at the top of the screen, then does nothing.

Why is it so hard to have a manual “sync podcasts” option or something?

And thanks man, I also just discovered Overcast has offline listening from the watch so I’m definitely going to give that a try.

I don’t know how Apple can continue to screw up its Podcast app so bad.