By Jason Snell
November 29, 2023 4:38 PM PT
Last updated February 1, 2024
In a sign of the times, podcast app Castro may be dying
[February 2024 Update: Castro has new owners who say they’re committed to keeping Castro up and running.]
Castro has been a popular iOS podcast app for many years, but right now things look grim.
The cloud database that backs the service is broken and needs to be replaced. As a result, the app has broken. (You can’t even export subscriptions out of it, because even that function apparently relies on the cloud database.) “The team is in the progress of setting up a database replacement, which might take some time. We aim to have this completed ASAP,” said an Xtweet from @CastroPodcasts.
What’s worse, according to former Castro team member Mohit Mamoria, “Castro is being shut down over the next two months.”
Castro owner Tiny and the Castro team aren’t addressing Mamoria’s comments or responding to my emails. When I asked around, a couple of knowledgeable people told me that they’d heard Castro had been put on life support a few months ago and was unlikely to get any technical attention going forward. I can’t independently verify those secondhand comments, but they don’t contradict Mamoria’s statement. Podnews on Wednesday provided a bagful of evidence pointing to Castro’s imminent demise. (Update: Castro owner Tiny says they’re trying to find a new home for the app.)
The truth is, between Apple’s solid upgrades to the Podcast app and the rise of Spotify as a podcast-playing competitor, the squeeze has really been put on most podcast apps. Original Castro developers Supertop sold the app in 2018. Pocket Casts got acquired in 2018 and again in 2021. Stitcher shut down entirely.
It’s not that users don’t want better podcast apps. Clearly, the users of Castro and Pocket Casts and Overcast get features out of those apps that the two big apps just can’t match. But it can take a lot to drive users out of the arms of a default and into a quest to replace that default. The default app doesn’t have to be best in class—it just has to be good enough.
There’s power in being one of the incumbents, too. If you’re a Spotify customer, you don’t even need to change apps. If you’re in Apple’s ecosystem, using Podcasts adds integration with HomePods and Apple TV that other apps just can’t match.
I’m still an Overcast user, and it would take a lot for Apple’s Podcasts app to get me back. But I once had a list of must-have podcast app features that Apple failed to support that was as long as my arm; these days, I can probably count it on my fingers, and I might not need the second hand.
Which is to say, if Castro really is not long for this world, I fully expect that most of its users won’t go to Overcast or Pocket Casts, but will retreat to Apple or Spotify, companies that are unlikely to fail them, even if the cost is a little less customization or functionality. And a little more of the unique, open podcast ecosystem will be lost forever.
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