Pocket Casts is coming to WearOS with development already ongoing
Pocket Casts were a thing in the Android Wear era and it will be nice to have them on the WearOS app, adding to all the cool features of the software.
Further details on Pocket Casts on WearOS
We can track progress since Pocket Casts released their smartphone clients as open source last October. Today’s Github project issue is titled “First Release of Wear OS Watch App.” Contributors are welcome to the Automattic-owned app, with conversations on the feature for Wear OS beginning late last year.
“For the initial release, we will focus on the watch app functioning independently of the phone. The ability to control Pocket Casts on the phone will be added after the initial release (if we have time, some minimal control of the phone app may be added to the initial release).”
To begin, the software is primarily attempting to emulate the functionality of the Pocket Casts iOS watch app. The Apple Watch client has been available for some time, and downloads are available as a paid “Pocket Casts Plus” feature.
The Wear OS app is trying to provide the same level of freedom. The first functionality appears to consist of a Currently Playing panel, browsing, and downloads.
In the present scene, there are just Spotify and a few smaller clients. After the effort is launched, YouTube Music will most likely upgrade its Wear OS app with podcast features. Now, Wear OS 3 is home to a slew of streaming apps, and podcasts are a natural expansion.
