The popular podcasting app Castro appears to have ceased functioning, and the website has gone. The latter appears to be because the domain is no more, as emails also bounce.
A former employee predicted back in November of last year that the app would be shut down within two months, a prediction which now appears to be accurate despite the company’s comments at the time …
Castro was a popular podcasting app
Castro once made our list of the best podcasting apps, with particular appeal for anyone who struggles to keep up with all the episodes of their shows.
Castro takes a unique approach to subscription management. You subscribe to shows, but then it uses a queue system to manage the shows. As new episodes come in, you can choose to queue a show or archive it.
This feature is helpful if you listen to shows that have daily episodes. If you have favorite shows, you can set them to auto queue, so you never miss them. I love Castro’s innovative approach to library management. If you are someone who struggles with keeping up with new episodes, Castro will be a great fit.
But hit troubles late last year
All third-party podcast apps have to compete with Apple’s built-in one, but Castro likely suffered from the increasing popularity of Overcast. Features like silence-trimming and Voice Boost made the latter the default choice for many.
In late November, there was an extended outage, leading former employee Mohit Mamoria to tweet that the app was being shut down.
Castro didn’t entirely deny this, saying only that the post was “not official and does not represent Castro’s views.” It did admit that the company was aiming to sell the app.
We believe in transparency with our community and want to share with you that we are actively seeking a new home for Castro with new owners.
App is now non-functional, domain is gone
The Verge reports that the app is no longer able to find new shows, and the domain is dead.
Longtime iOS podcasts app Castro has been down since Friday and its website no longer exists a month after the team behind Castro denied rumors that the app was shutting down. Users started reporting on Friday that they’re unable to download new episodes or access Castro’s website. When The Verge reached out to the contacts that were listed on Castro’s site, all of our emails were returned as undeliverable because the domain could not be found.
A Friday Reddit post is full of replies from people unable to use significant parts of the app, and recent reviews from its listing on the iOS App Store tell the same story. When we downloaded the app to verify, we were unable to connect to Castro’s servers to find shows to listen to.
The apparent closure of the app comes at a time when the podcasting industry has been struggling, with significant cutbacks and show cancellations. iOS 17 reportedly played a role in this, by presenting a more accurate picture of show popularity.
Photo: Israel Palacio/Unsplash
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