PLAYAPOD 2 HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY RELEASED! After months of beta testing we have finally released Playapod 2 for Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Thank you for all your feedback on how to make Playapod better! Check out all the features we added to Playapod 2 below:

Playapod 2 Now Playing Media Bar (Bottom)



Now Playing Media Bar – 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.

Playapod 2 News & Blogs

News & Blogs – Add news and blog feeds into Playapod 2 which will be played using text-to-speech. Playapod 2 turns text-based feeds into podcasts allowing for progress bar access, current position, history, and bookmarking. We think this is a pretty unique feature!

Playapod 2 Video Playback

Video Playback – Video playback is now supported. Tapping on the video will toggle full-screen video. Media title, description, and date are now displayed with improved landscape layout.

Playapod 2 Content Details

Content Details – Scrolling list of media items displays the description in addition to name, flags, date, size, and duration. Length of description can be configured in settings globally or per subscription. Works across Audio, Video, and Text feeds.

And Much More…

Recommendations – We’ve created a recommendation engine that lets you pick a subscription to get back personal recommendations of other shows that are similar. It’s a little bit experimental but seems to be working pretty good. The recommendation engine will continue to get better over time as more and more users use it.

– We’ve created a recommendation engine that lets you pick a subscription to get back personal recommendations of other shows that are similar. It’s a little bit experimental but seems to be working pretty good. The recommendation engine will continue to get better over time as more and more users use it. Custom Groups & Filters – Filter content by Subscription (Favorites, Category), Media Flags (New, Listened, Downloaded, Bookmarked, Favorited), Media Type (Audio, Video, Text), and Order (Ascending, Descending). Save filters into Groups for quicker access. For example, you can create a filter for the “New” Media in the “News & Politics” Category and then save it as a group called “New News.”

– Filter content by Subscription (Favorites, Category), Media Flags (New, Listened, Downloaded, Bookmarked, Favorited), Media Type (Audio, Video, Text), and Order (Ascending, Descending). Save filters into Groups for quicker access. For example, you can create a filter for the “New” Media in the “News & Politics” Category and then save it as a group called “New News.” Now Playing Queue – Playapod 2 will set an active queue for whatever content you start playback on. That active queue could be your playlist or it could be another list. For example, tapping on an individual show in your subscriptions and starting playback will continue playback for only that show. Tapping on ‘Now Playing’ from the menu opens up the active queue. Car Play and Android Auto will display whatever is in your Now Playing Queue.

– Playapod 2 will set an active queue for whatever content you start playback on. That active queue could be your playlist or it could be another list. For example, tapping on an individual show in your subscriptions and starting playback will continue playback for only that show. Tapping on ‘Now Playing’ from the menu opens up the active queue. Car Play and Android Auto will display whatever is in your Now Playing Queue. External Media Files – Add media files such as audio, video, and text files for playback into Playapod. For example, you could copy home videos and a text file of jokes into Playapod and a new group called “Media Files” will appear in your ‘My Subscriptions’ view that allow for playback of your videos and the reading of your jokes! iOS: Plug device into computer using the USB cable and open iTunes, Select Device, and use File Sharing to copy media files to Playapod. You can also use Apple Configurator 2 or Xcode to transfer media files to Playapod. Android: Open Playapod settings and set the ‘External Media Location’ to a device folder to monitor for media files. Any media files placed directly in this folder will become available for playback. Note: This is not the same setting as the ‘Download Location’ which is where Playapod downloads media files from your subscription feeds.

– Add media files such as audio, video, and text files for playback into Playapod. For example, you could copy home videos and a text file of jokes into Playapod and a new group called “Media Files” will appear in your ‘My Subscriptions’ view that allow for playback of your videos and the reading of your jokes! Quick Sort – Any list can be sorted by ascending or descending time including your active queue and your playlist.

– Any list can be sorted by ascending or descending time including your active queue and your playlist. Updated Feed Parser – Playapod 1 supported RSS 2.0 Media Feeds. Playapod 2 adds RSS 1.0 (RDF) and Atom Feeds that contain audio, video, and text. You can subscribe to anything! The Playapod 2 Feed Parser is very flexible and does it’s best to pull in the content along with the best photo possible. We’ve tested it with major News organizations, WordPress blogs, Reddit channels, and lots of other syndicated feeds.

UPDATED 5/23/2019 : Playapod 2 is officially available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

UPDATED 6/16/2019 : Added additional details for playback of external media files.