Metacast v1.21: Follow private and paid RSS feeds (beta)

Follow podcasts by feed URL

Support for private podcasts has been the most requested feature for Metacast.

Now, you can add any podcast by the feed URL. The feature is in beta and has some limitations in this release (more on that later).

To add a private podcast, simply to go the Search tab, tap Add podcast by RSS feed, and paste the URL of the feed.

Metacast will check if this is a valid RSS feed and you'll be able to follow the podcast right there.

After you follow a private podcast, it will behave exactly like any public podcast you follow:

• It'll show up in your Home screen with a small private badge.
• New episodes will show up in the Following playlist.
• You'll see the transcript, chapters and summaries for all episodes that you play or add to Listen Later.

Note: Private podcasts will not show up when you search for them in the Search screen. You can access your private podcasts via the grid of podcasts on Home. If you don't see your private feeds in the 30 recently updated feeds on Home, tap View all to see all podcasts you follow.

Beta limitations

In the beta, you can only follow one private feed. We'll work out all the kinks by v1.22 and will allow both free and premium users to follow more feeds.

The primary reason for the limitation for the initial launch is cost.

We spend real money every time we transcribe an episode, generate chapters, and even refresh the feed. We don't want to accidentally shoot ourselves in the foot, so we're imposing limits in v1.21. We discussed the cost limitation on our podcast in case you want to learn more.

If you try to follow more than one podcast, the app will ask you to unfollow the existing private feed first.

Note: If the feed URL you entered is a public feed available in the Apple Podcasts catalog, it will not count against your quota.

A necessary upgrade to v1.20+

In the v1.20 blog post, we said that we have to make v1.20 the minimum required version for all of our users in order to release the private feeds feature.

Because those feeds belong to individual users, we have to make some changes to the app to make sure feeds stay private and cannot be accessed by unauthorized users. When we release private feeds, v1.20 will become the minimum version and all users will be required to upgrade to v1.20 or above.

Even if you don't use private feeds, you'll have to upgrade to version 1.20+ before you can use the app again.

Other changes

• Bug fix for a UI issue reported on Reddit.

How do I try Metacast?

Metacast is available for free on Apple App Store and Google Play Store.