I bought a HomePod for the kitchen where my husband and I listen to music and podcasts while we work and eat. I use Overcast on the iPhone for podcasts that I listen to walking and running that interest only me. I love Overcast.
From the beginning I found summoning podcasts on the HomePod a little awkward. I never knew when a new episode was available and I got tired of managing the downloaded podcasts, which I never really played (I don’t like streaming podcasts from other devices to the HomePod.) My stopgap solution was to unsubscribe from all the podcasts and make a folder of podcasts (their RSS feeds) in Feedly. Now I can see which episodes are available and ask Siri to play one without actually downloading it. Feedly also shows the podcasts notes which is very useful.
I’m satisfied with this workflow but wonder if someone has found a better solution. Any ideas? Better RSS reader? Tricks?
If you subscribe to podcasts in the Apple podcast app or iTunes you can ask Siri on the HomePod to “Play me newest podcasts” to play anything you’ve not listened to yet. MacRumors had an article on which Siri commands you can used with the HomePod to control podcasts.
Obviously this doesn’t help let you know if you have any podcasts you haven’t listened too, and I have found it does play the most recently published podcast first and then plays them through in reverse chronological order, which could be a problem if you have a few episodes of the same podcasts to listen to and the order is important.
I love my two HomePods. I am a podcast listener. (Probably not a surprise when being a user of this forums…)
With the advent of Siri Shortcuts, a dream came true. Finally, I was able to control my HomePod using Overcast for listening to Podcasts. It did not work well in the beginning. Then, it started working. And I was in heaven. Then it stopped working occasionally. And since yesterday’s update, my Siri Shortcuts do not work at all with Overcast. Siri always answers with: “You do not have the latest Podcasts app installed” (translated from German).
So, I once again switched from Overcast back to Apple’s Podcast App. Now, controlling Podcasts on the HomePod sort of works ok again.
Then, I wanted to put the Podcasts complication on my Infograph Watch Face. But, guess what? There IS NO Podcasts complication for the Infograph Watch Face. And this is with the new WatchOS 5 Podcasts App. Unbelievable!
Apple, you have amazing products but I really do not get how you keep making things worse after you already had everything up and running…
I don’t use the Apple Podcasts app, but I have no problem telling Siri to play a specific podcast and get the latest one.
But I usually just use my podcasts app of choice, Pocket Casts, to AirPlay to the HomePod. So simple. (This is also something I’ve done for several years with powered studio monitors that have an Airport Express with audio-out connected to them.)
