What's New in Podtastic — May 16, 2026

This week we shipped Podtastic 2.2.4 across iOS and Android. The headline change is the trial: we've extended the free trial from seven days to fourteen, so there's more time to see whether the smart features actually fit how you listen. We also added inline episode search on the podcast detail page, a per-podcast auto-mark-played setting, and a cleaner share/report flow in the maxi player.

Two weeks to try Podtastic, not one

The free trial is now fourteen days instead of seven across iOS, Android, and the website. Seven days was always tight. By the time you'd subscribed to half a dozen shows and let a few episodes process for Smart Topics and Smart Summaries, you were already a week in. Fourteen gives you enough listening time for the smart features to actually have data to work from.

If you're already on a trial, you'll see the extra week land automatically, no action needed.

Inline episode search on the podcast detail page

Open any podcast in Podtastic and you can now search across that show's episodes directly from the detail page. Title, description, transcript phrases; all matched inline. No more scrolling through 400 episodes of a daily show to find the one about a specific guest.

This works on iOS, Android, and the web admin tools we use internally. The search is fast because it runs against the podcast's local index rather than reaching the server for each keystroke. Type three characters, hit return, results appear in well under a second on most shows.

Per-podcast auto-mark played

A small one a lot of you have asked for: you can now set each podcast individually to auto-mark episodes as played after they finish. Previously this was a global setting. Either every podcast did it, or none did. Now you can mark daily news shows as played automatically while keeping long-form interview shows manual, so the unwatched-episode count stays accurate to your actual listening behaviour.

The setting lives in each podcast's settings page, under playback options. iOS and Android both have it.

Maxi player: share and report, no menu

The three-dot menu on the maxi player was hiding two things people actually wanted to use: share and report. We've pulled both out into a pill button directly on the player surface. Tap share to send the current episode and timestamp to whoever, tap report to flag a bad segment. Fewer taps, less guessing.

We also fixed a small visual on the skip-to-next-show button, it was tinted the brand lilac, which made it stand out more than it needed to. Now it matches the rest of the maxi player controls.

Smaller fixes

• Search results no longer show duplicate entries for the same podcast. Apple's iTunes search index sometimes returns imposters with slightly different titles, and we now collapse those by title + author
• The Android library "Recent" sort now correctly uses the most-recent-unplayed-episode date rather than a stale value
• The Android Report Content "Thank You!" confirmation dialog now appears above the bottom sheet instead of being hidden behind it
• The website footer now shows the current iOS, Android, and web build versions consistently, so support requests can include exact build numbers

What's coming next

We're working on bringing Smart Topics quality up across shows that have unusual chapter structures, plus an iOS-side companion for the Android failed-episode recovery we shipped last week so the experience matches across both platforms.

For more detail on the share-and-report flow you can now use from the maxi player, our guide to sharing podcasts with friends covers the broader sharing patterns. And if you're new to the auto-mark-played pattern, our post on decluttering your podcast feed explains how this kind of automation can keep your library actually usable.

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, a set of AI features that helps you get more out of every show:

• 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
• Jump Ahead — automatically tightens gaps and pacing so episodes flow naturally

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