Podcini

An open source podcast instrument, attuned to Puccini , adorned with pasticcini and aromatized with porcini , invites your harmonious heartbeats.

Or download the latest APK from the Releases Section.

Announcement

Podcini.R version 6 is released. It's not compatible with prior versions. The major overhaul is the replacement of SQLite DB with the object-based Realm DB. With a different application Id, it is installed afresh and in parallel with a previous version. You can migrate certain assets from an earlier version, see Podcini 6 migrations instructions

This project is based on a fork of AntennaPod as of Feb 5 2024.

Compared to AntennaPod this project:

1. Migrated all media routines to androidx.media3, with AudioOffloadMode enabled, nicer to device battery,
2. Is purely Kotlin based and mono-modular, and targets Android 14,
3. Iron-age celebrity SQLite is replaced with modern object-base Realm DB (Podcini.R),
4. Outfits with Viewbinding, Coil replacing Glide, coroutines replacing RxJava and threads, SharedFlow replacing EventBus, and jetifier removed,
5. Boasts new UI's including streamlined drawer, subscriptions view and player controller,
6. Supports multiple and circular play queues
7. Auto-download is governed by policy and limit settings of individual feed
8. Accepts podcast as well as plain RSS and YouTube feeds,
9. Offers Readability and Text-to-Speech for RSS contents,
10. Features instant sync across devices without a server.

The project aims to profit from modern frameworks, improve efficiency and provide more useful and user-friendly features.

While podcast subscriptions' OPML files (from AntennaPod or any other sources) can be easily imported, Podcini can not import DB from AntennaPod.

Notable new features & enhancements

Player

• More convenient player control displayed on all pages
• Revamped and more efficient expanded player view showing episode description on the front
• External player class is merged into the player
• Playback speed setting has been straightened up, three speed can be set separately or combined: current audio, podcast, and global
• Added preference "Fast Forward Speed" under "Playback" in settings with default value of 0.0, dialog allows setting a number between 0.0 and 10.0
• The "Skip to next episode" button on the player
  • long-press moves to the next episode
  • by default, single tap does nothing
  • if the user customize "Fast Forward Speed" to a value greater than 0.1, it behaves in the following way:
    • single tap during play, the set speed is used to play the current audio
    • single tap again, the original play speed resumes
    • single tap not during play has no effect
• Added preference "Fallback Speed" under "Playback" in settings with default value of 0.0, dialog allows setting a float number (capped between 0.0 and 1.5)
• if the user customizes "Fallback speed" to a value greater than 0.1, long-press the Play button during play enters the fallback mode and plays at the set fallback speed, single tap exits the fallback mode
• Various efficiency improvements, including removal of:
  • redundant media loadings and ui updates
  • frequent list search during audio play
• streamed media somewhat equivalent to downloaded media
  • enabled episode description on player detailed view
  • enabled intro- and end- skipping
  • mark as played when finished
  • streamed media is added to queue and is resumed after restart
• new video episode view, with video player on top and episode descriptions in portrait mode
• easy switches on video player to other video mode or audio only
• default video player mode setting in preferences
• when video mode is set to audio only, click on image on audio player on a video episode brings up the normal player detailed view

Podcast/Episode list

• A whole new interface of the Subscriptions page showing only the feeds with tags as filters, no longer having tags as folders in the page,
• Subscriptions page by default has a list layout and can be opted for a grid layout
• New and efficient ways of click and long-click operations on lists:
  • click on title area opens the podcast/episode
  • long-press on title area automatically enters in selection mode
  • options to select all above or below are shown action bar together with Select All
  • operations are only on the selected (single or multiple)
• List info is shown in Queue and Downloads views
• Left and right swipe actions on lists now have telltales and can be configured on the spot
• Played or new episodes have clearer markings
• Sort dialog no longer dims the main view
• download date can be used to sort both feeds and episodes
• Subscriptions sorting is now bi-directional based on various explicit measures
• in episode list view, if episode has no media, TTS button is shown for fetching transcript (if not exist) and then generating audio file from the transcript. TTS audio files are playable in the same way as local media (with speed setting, pause and rewind/forward)
• Long-press filter button in FeedEpisode view enables/disables filters without changing filter settings
• in Subscriptions view, click on cover image of a feed opens the FeedInfo view (not FeedEpisodes view)
• History view shows time of last play, and allows filters and sorts
• Multiple queues can be used: 5 queues are provided by default: Default queue, and Queues 1-4
  • all queue operations are on the curQueue, which can be set in all episodes list views
  • on app startup, the most recently updated queue is set to curQueue
• queue is circular: if the final item in queue finished, the first item in queue (if exists) will get played
• on action bar of FeedEpisodes view there is a direct access to Queue

Podcast/Episode

• New share notes menu option on various episode views
• Feed info view offers a link for direct search of feeds related to author
• FeedInfo view has button showing number of episodes to open the FeedEpisodes view
• in EpisodeInfo view, "mark played/unplayed", "add to/remove from queue", and "favoraite/unfovorite" are at the action bar
• New episode home view with two display modes: webpage or reader
• In episode, in addition to "description" there is a new "transcript" field to save text (if any) fetched from the episode's website
• RSS feeds with no playable media can be subscribed and read/listened (via TTS)
• deleting feeds is performed promptly

Online feed

• More info about feeds are shown in the online search view
• Ability to open podcast from webpage address
• Online feed info display is handled in similar ways as any local feed, and offers options to subscribe or view episodes
• Online feed episodes can be freely played (streamed) without a subscription
• externally shared feed opens in the new online feed view fragment
• OnlineFeedView` activity is stripped down to only receive externally shared feeds
• Youtube channels are accepted from external share or paste of address in podcast search view, and can be subscribed as a normal podcast, though video play is handled externally

Instant (or Wifi) sync

• Ability to sync between devices on the same wifi network without a server (experimental feature)
• It syncs the play states (position and played) of episodes that exist in both devices (ensure to refresh first) and that have been played (completed or not)
• So far, every sync is a full sync, no sync for subscriptions and media files

Automation

• auto download algorithm is changed to individual feed based.
  • When auto download is enabled in the Settings, feeds to be auto-downloaded need to be separately enabled in the feed settings.
  • Each feed also has its own download policy (only new episodes, newest episodes, and oldest episodes. "newest episodes" meaning most recent episodes, new or old)
  • Each feed has its own limit (Episode cache) for number of episodes downloaded, this limit rules in combination of the overall limit for the app.
  • After auto download run, episodes with New status is changed to Unplayed.
  • auto download feed setting dialog is also changed:
    • there are now separate dialogs for inclusive and exclusive filters where filter tokens can be specified independently
    • on exclusive dialog, there are optional check boxes "Exclude episodes shorter than" and "Mark excluded episodes played"

Security and reliability

• Disabled usesCleartextTraffic, so that all content transmission is more private and secure
• Settings/Preferences can now be exported and imported
• Play history/progress can be separately exported/imported as Json files
• downloaded media files can be exported/imported
• There is a setting to disable/enable auto backup OPML files to Google

For more details of the changes, see the Changelog

Screenshots

Links

• Changelog
• Privacy Policy
• Contributing
• Translation (Transifex)

License

Podcini, same as the project it was forked from, is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL-3.0). You can find the license text in the LICENSE file.

Copyright

New files and contents in the project are copyrighted in 2024 by Xilin Jia and related contributors.

Original contents from the forked project maintain copyrights of the AntennaPod team.

Licenses and permissions

Licenses and permissions