Agora 2

Agora is one of the most enjoyable podcast apps I’ve used. It makes allowances for an eclectic approach to listening to and archiving podcasts, and it’s abundantly colorful which few apps dare to be. For the time being, I will not continue using it, however. The lack of a full screen player just feels... uncomfortable, for some reason, and it doesn’t have silence trimming or volume adjustment filters like similarly priced podcast apps tout. Moreso, the lack of an Apple CarPlay app makes the decision for me. I don’t know how much of that is a decision on the developer’s part or Apple’s part, so I don’t fault them for not having a CarPlay app. While I won’t be using the app, I’ll keep it on my phone and watch update notes to see how it progresses and ideally I would love to switch to it if it ever receives an update with a CarPlay app. Its beauty outweighs its missing features, and CarPlay is the deciding factor for me.

This is one of the most beautifully designed apps on the store. It takes a little bit to get used to all the shortcuts but it’s definitely worth it in my opinion. There are, however, three minor features missing that I think would make this app perfect. The first is something that I have been looking for in a podcast app for a while- autoplay from the most recent podcast with unlistened episodes when the queue (or playlist as it’s called in this app) is empty. This used to be on the native podcasts app but apple took it out for some reason. The second is a quick option to swipe right on an episode to add it to the playlist. I know you can swipe left and then tap the button, but that’s pretty slow- and it really adds up when you’re scrolling through your podcasts to build a queue to listen to. The last one is the ability to organize your grid of podcasts. By default, it’s done alphabetically, but I would like to drag my most listened to podcasts to the top. Overall though my experience with this app is amazing.

Just a few features from Apple podcasts that I would like. One is that I like how they put recently updated, listened, and subscribed podcasts at the top of the subscription list. And two is that they allow podcasts to be in a state where you are still subscribed but you do not get notified of new episodes and the podcast does not move to the top of the list when it has new releases (this is good for podcasts that I only listen to when all of my primary ones have run out of content). And one additional feature: could we get a toggle for volume boost in the quick settings menu above the playback controls? Or maybe let us change that setting on a per-podcast basis? I don’t like the audio of cinematic podcasts to be messed with, but there are plenty of talk podcasts where the creators still haven’t figured out how to make their voices as loud as professional podcasts.

The app is beautiful, albeit clunky and lacking features. While other podcast apps allow manual refresh, I have to just wait and hope Agora will load in the most recent podcasts. (Update: it turns out I needed to pull to refresh in the library section, not very intuitive in my experience) It also doesn’t allow for changing skip increments from 30s forward and back. Actions feel buried under multiple gestures and it’s easy to loose your sense of space while browsing podcasts in the library. Overall the learning curve is relatively high because Agora does not follow common design pattens in iOS. On top of this, Agora’s on-boarding process only uses text, it’s difficult to just figure out how things work. Otherwise, there is a lot of thoughtful haptic feedback, dark mode based on screen brightness, and a now playing queue which works great. All in all, this is a beautiful app, but it needs attention with regard to user experience. I’m looking forward to seeing how this app progresses.

Just wanna say how much I love this app, speaking overall! It’s been the platform by which I’ve discovered the universe of podcasts and the UI is the most aesthetically attractive and (once you learn the mechanics and gestures) the controls are straight-forward, intuitive, and unique. I keep Castro Plus as an alternative option, but as great as it is, I more often than not find myself using Agora. My only complaint is: I’ve bought coffee for the developer multiple times now, hoping I’d be able to change the app icon as promised, only to feel duped and almost silly for thinking it might finally work. $1 here and there isn’t the end of the world, but I would like to see the app / dev deliver on their word! That aside, keep up the good work!