Pocket Casts gets Material Design and a ton of new features in version 5.0 update

Pocket Casts, one of our favorite podcast applications here at Android Authority, is receiving quite the update today. The update to version 5.0 gives the entire app a Material Design overhaul and adds a few notable features to the already advanced podcatcher. There’s a lot to cover here, so let’s get to it.

First and foremost, the app is completely redone with Google’s Material Design guidelines. It now features a full-height navigation drawer, a redone Settings menu, a new look for the podcast discovery screen and much more. Developer Shifty Jelly has also added in new animations for just about everything you touch throughout the app.

A few new features have come to the app as well. Most notably is Up Next, which lets you queue up podcasts easily so you don’t waste a minute of your time trying to find the next one to play. You can also add, remove and jump between podcasts all from the mini player at the bottom of the screen. For more information on all of these changes, check out the attached images below:

Also in the update are new audio effects. These two effects are small, but will greatly enhance your listening experience. “Volume boost” simply increases the playback volume of each episode without changing your device volume. This will let you listen to your podcasts at a greater volume without worrying about super loud notifications blaring in the background. Next up is “Silence removal”, which reduces the length of extended pauses in each episode so you can listen to more podcasts in less time. You can apply both of these new features to all podcasts at once, but you can’t use either of them unless each episode is downloaded to your device.

Another notable feature in the update is the ability to left-swipe on an episode to toggle between played and unplayed status. So, instead of long-pressing an episode and clicking on the “mark as played” button, you can now swipe to the left to complete the action. Shifty Jelly has even added in podcast listening statistics (under the “help” section), that will show you how long you’ve listened overall, and how much time you’ve saved using all of the shortcut features. Oh, and if you have an Android Wear device, you can now launch the app straight from your wrist and begin listening, without ever having to open it on your phone.

This is a huge update, if you couldn’t tell by now. For those interested, here’s the official changelog for version 5.0:

• Material Design! We agonised over jokes/puns using the word ‘material’ for hours, but in the end we spared you. I still have ‘Material Girl’ playing on loop in my head though :(
• Swipe episodes to mark as played/unplayed. Viva la revolución!
• New Audio Effects: Volume Boost and Silence Removal. If you can’t guess what the first one does then you’re beyond help.
• Up Next list now in your mini player, swipe across to see what’s coming up and quickly add more.

The developer explains each feature in much more detail in their most recent blog post, which can be found at the source link below. If you’re a Pocket Casts user, head to the Play Store link below to grab the update.