What's New in Podtastic — June 5, 2026

A busy run of changes since the last update. The headline: signing out no longer wipes your library. Everything else is polish on the parts of the app you touch every day.

The headline change: sign-out keeps your library

Signing out used to clear your downloads, queue, playback positions, and settings. People kept telling us that didn't match what they expected — signing out should sign you out, not delete your stuff.

It's now a session action. Sign out, and your library, downloads, queue, and settings all stay. Sign back in with the same account and you pick up exactly where you left off. If you sign in as a different account, the app asks if you want to switch and start fresh — and only wipes if you say yes.

Same change on iOS and Android.

What else is new

• Faster, more reliable AI transcription model downloads. Setting up Pod-telligence on a new device is noticeably quicker, and downloads pick up where they left off if your connection drops. A proper Retry button appears if something does go wrong.
• BBC podcasts download properly again. Radio 4, the World Service, BBC Sounds, and the wider BBC catalogue all download cleanly to your library after a recent change on the BBC's side.
• The library and queue feel smoother. A round of performance work on iOS means large libraries scroll without hitching and updates ripple through the list more cleanly. If you have hundreds of shows, this is the release where it should start feeling fast.
• The queue stops double-skipping. If you ever noticed your queue jumping past an episode you wanted to hear, that's fixed. The queue now advances exactly once at the end of each episode.
• Downloads stay downloaded. A regression where downloads could quietly revert is gone. Episodes complete, stay completed, and play when you tap them.
• Sign-up and email verification feel smoother. Verification codes now arrive automatically when you need them, and the welcome flow stays out of your way while you import subscriptions. The whole first-run experience flows without the rough edges some new users hit.
• Trial banner polish. The free-trial banner now dismisses the moment you upgrade and takes you straight to the upgrade page when you tap it. A handful of related fixes on both iOS and Android mean the trial state is consistent everywhere.
• Clearer onboarding tips. Onboarding tooltips are easier to read against the rest of the UI on first run.

Listen smarter with Podtastic

Want to try these improvements yourself? Podtastic is a fully featured podcast player for iOS and Android, built around Pod-telligence (the AI features) and Audio Enhancements (deterministic DSP tuned for spoken-word audio):

• Smart Summaries — AI summaries of every podcast and episode so you know what's coming before you hit play
• Smart Topics — key topics surfaced across your favourite shows so you can jump straight to what matters
• Smart Playback — your queue fills itself based on what you actually listen to
• Smart Jump Ahead — auto-skips commonly-skipped sections of an episode (intros, recaps, asides), powered by AI topic detection plus aggregated listening data; a single tap on any control surface jumps you to the next Smart Topic on demand
• Skip Silence — auto-removes silences from speech so episodes flow without dragging
• Enhance Voices — a gentle EQ and compression preset that keeps voices clear in any room

Join the waitlist at podtastic.app to get early access.