It took me a while to get the hang of the many, many options within Podcast Republic so that I could get it to work the way I wanted - automatically downloading episodes on WiFi. Unlike Doggcatcher, but more like other modern pod catchers, you can stream a podcast instead of always having to download it. The option is nice, but it does introduce complexity. As usual, it was annoying at first to have the pod catcher think it needed to download every single episode from the podcasts you subscribed to.

I’ve been using Doggcatcher for YEARS - ever since I first got a smartphone something like 8 or so years ago. I started using Doggcatcher on Dan’s recommendation. One of the best features it’s had is the ability to speed up podcasts without chipmunking the voice. (I think that came a year or so after I started using it). Recently I’ve been a bit annoyed at Doggcatcher, particularly with podcasts from the EarWolf network (although there may be other networks with the same behavior). Every time Doggcatcher checks for updates, all the episodes from EarWolf will disappear and redownload. Until it is done, I can’t listen to the episode.
Neil deGrasse Tyson’s podcast is also annoying in that if a new episode comes out before I’ve finished the previous one, it’ll overwrite it so that I now have two copies of the same file. This makes it more stressful than it needs to be when I’m trying to choose the next podcast to listen to. So I started asking folks for recommendations. Dan recommended Podcast Republic to me. I don’t know if it’ll fix things for me because Dan was using it because Doggcatcher wasn’t working well for him for authenticated feeds, but I’m hopeful.

It’s been a little over a year, so I wanted to make a new, updated list of the podcasts I’m currently listening to.  For shows I covered before, I’m just going to copy the description over, verbatim.

Science

The Naked Scientists - This has nothing to do with nudity.  It’s a British thing, like The Naked Chef.  This great British radio show covers science topics equivalent to what you’d read in Discover Magazine in the USA.  It’s informative while being entertaining, and I learn a lot every week.  (Approx 1 hour long)