The Best In-Car Podcast App of 2022

No matter if you prefer the typical radio or the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, a quiet cabin no longer makes much sense when sitting in crowded traffic.

While the adoption of music streaming services has skyrocketed in the last few years, with Spotify, YouTube Music, and Apple Music currently having millions of subscribers all over the world, there’s a new category that’s slowly but surely gaining traction.

With the number of podcasts going up at a really fast pace, it was obviously just a matter of time until podcast apps increased their market share as well. And today, even tech giants like Google and Apple are trying to expand on this front, with Spotify also trying to secure more exclusive deals for podcasts.

The best in-car podcast app of 2022, however, has nothing to do with these companies. This is because our podcast app of the year is none other than Pocket Casts.

If you’ve never used Pocket Casts, you should find the application extremely straightforward and easy to use. This is because the app comes with a very intuitive interface that is focused on the content you can subscribe to and then listen to both on the mobile device and in the car.

Needless to say, Pocket Casts has been designed in such a way that it always aligns with the interface of the operating system, so on Android, for instance, it uses the Material design language. Of course, Pocket Casts also comes with support for themes, so you can use it with either a dark mode or light visual styling.

When it comes to features, it’s hard to find something that doesn’t excel.

First and foremost, the podcast library is absolutely insane. Except for the exclusives, which are only available on certain platforms whose owners are paying for the rights to offer these podcasts to subscribers, almost everything is already there in Pocket Casts.

And the way you can start listening has been designed from the very beginning to be straightforward. For instance, you can just search for your favorite podcast, subscribe to it, and then choose the episode you want to listen to. It’s that easy, so you should be able to start listening in just a matter of seconds.

Needless to say, Pocket Casts comes with great options to control your playback. You can jump to a specific chapter, change the play speed, trim the silence, boost the volume by decreasing the background noise, skip intros, and so on. Everything is there, and just as I said earlier, Pocket Casts always puts the focus on listening to podcasts.

Of course, the application also comes with more advanced capabilities, some of which are available with a subscription (though these aren’t critical for the experience with the app, so you can very well continue using it without paying a single cent).

For example, Pocket Casts also integrates sync support, so you can use the power of the cloud to always have your subscription with you, on all your devices. Then, the app also offers automatic downloads, which means that the latest episodes of your favorite podcasts can be automatically downloaded on your device for offline playback whenever you get behind the wheel.

And last but not least, Pocket Casts can also send notifications when new episodes are released, so you can listen to your favorite content exactly when it’s released.

And now, the really good news for drivers.

Pocket Casts was designed from the very beginning to be optimized for in-car use, so the application comes with support for both Android Auto and CarPlay. The interface is very similar to the one you find in other podcast and music apps, but this is mostly because such software must be based on a template enforced by Google and Apple.

The main capabilities are also available on Android Auto and CarPlay, so for instance, you can browse all your podcasts and use filters to find your favorite episodes without even touching the phone. This comes in handy for so many reasons, especially because such an approach helps reduce the distraction behind the wheel, allowing drivers to keep their eyes on the road.

And there’s so much more to find in Pocket Casts. For instance, users can import and export their subscriptions in OPLM format, share episodes, and subscribe to podcasts in iTunes, all thanks to cross-platform support.

At the end of the day, Pocket Casts is by far the best podcast app currently available on Android and iPhone, and for drivers, it checks just the right boxes, including support for Android Auto and CarPlay. And as if this wasn’t enough, most of the features can be used without paying, though getting a subscription might be a good idea if you want access to the entire arsenal of capabilities.