What is new in this version

  • You can now stream (cast) audio and video episodes to Chromecast devices directly from BeyondPod.
    Please note that due to the way Chromecast devices currently work you can play only episodes that are streamable from the Internet. For example, even if your episode is already downloaded, the Chromecast device will still stream it from the Internet (using its own WiFi connection).

    Chromecast support is gradually rolling out. If you don't see the Chromecast button on BeyondPod's toolbar, make sure that you are running the latest version of BeyondPod from the Play Store (3.2.55 phone or 3.20.55 tablet). Also, your Chromecast device needs to update its list of "newly available" applications. Google has started updating the Chromecast devices, but your Chromecast device may not have yet updated (you can try to force an update by power cycling the Chromecast device).
  • Added an easier way to play the audio portion of video feeds. You can turn it on in: Menu > More > Play Videos as Audio. Once it is on, any videos will be played in the audio player as if they were audio only feeds.
  • Better support for Android 4.4 KitKat
  • Added Portuguese, Brazilian translations
  • On the "Episodes" tab there is now a quick way to open episode's feed. Long press on any episode and select "More Episodes..."
  • Added a more direct way to play latest (or oldest) episodes for a feed or category. In addition to what we had before, you can now also use Menu > Play > Latest/Oldest
  • Added an easier way to share currently playing episode. On the Player screen tap on the episode title to open the show notes and use the "Share" button at the bottom.
  • On the Video player screen, there is now a way to immediately hide the transport controls when video is playing (instead of waiting for them to go out automatically). Press on the "back" key will hide the controls, the second will close the video player (works similar to the on-screen keyboard).
  • We found and fixed a (nasty) issue where occasionally pressing on episode's "Download" button was causing the episode to be played (or streamed) instead.
  • If "Automatic Playlist" setting is enabled, when you tap on an episode, BeyondPod will start a new playlist from the selected episode. This behavior often was causing frustration if you had manually build a playlist and then accidentally tap on an episode - your (carefully build) playlist was replaced without warning. We now track if your playlist was manually modified and will ask you to confirm the replacement first. At this point you can choose to replace it, append the episode you selected or do nothing. The solution is not ideal but at least provides a better balance between different usage scenarios.
  • Fixes for a couple of performance issues affecting feeds with very large episode notes for each episode.
  • Added a way to manually (on demand) refresh the feed image for any feed. To refresh the feed image, open the feed and LONG PRESS on the refresh button . Refreshing the feed image can also help if you have feeds that seem to drastically slow down BeyondPod when dealing with them. Some publishers (probably accidentally) attach huge (5000x5000 px) images as their feed image and many devices have trouble dealing with them. Upon downloading the feed image, we now check and scale it dow to a reasonable size before caching it.
  • We changed the way we handle episode images. On devices running Gingerbread and later we now try to retrieve images directly from downloaded episode files and not rely on Android media database. If your publisher embeds a different image for each episode, you should now see correct image for each episode.
  • Virtual folder can now have custom images. To assign a custom image to a folder, use a PNG or JPG file (200x200 pixels works best), name it ".feedimage" (be careful not to omit the starting ".") and put it as a file in the virtual feed.
  • Based on feedback, we slightly modified the logic of the "Not Played" episode filter. Before, it showed only episodes that were new (never played). Now it shows episodes that are new AND episodes that are partially played (in essence it hides all "completely played" episodes).
  • Fixed a bug in "mobi.beyondpod.command.UPDATE_CATEGORY" remote command - it now correctly supports specifying "All Feeds" as category.
  • Fix (hopefully) for an issue where BeyondPod widget occasionally becomes unresponsive after deice reboot.
  • Improvements to Feedly integration. Feedly automatically marks posts that are older than 31 days as "read". BeyondPod now detects that and disables the "read" button for those posts (so they can't be marked as "unread").
  • While currently Feedly does not support any way of storing episode playback information, you can now mark an episode as "read" in Feedly and, if BeypondPod has this episode downloaded, it will be marked as "played" during the next update. This provides (a very basic) synchronization mechanism to play episodes on your desktop using Feedly's web site and for BeypondPod to mark the appropriate downloaded episodes as played.
  • In the latest public release, we added a feature to automatically publish track metadata (artist/album etc.) to external devices like Car audio receivers, Pebble watch etc. As Android versions at the time did not have any standard way to publish episode metadata, we used a "hack" that worked in most devices. We recently received reports that this hack causes problems with Bluetooth audio playback on some device/car stereo combinations.
    Starting with this version we will automatically publish track metadata only for devices running Android 4.3 and later (where this is now officially supported). For older devices, you can still manually enable the old "metadata publishing hack" in: Menu > More > Settings > Menu (Press menu key again) > Advanced Settings > Publish Current Episode. There are some 3rd party applications that (like Pebble Watch software) that still rely on this "hack" to dosplay episodes played in BeyondPod. Untile they update their software, you may need to turn "Publish Current Episode" setting even if yo uare running Android 4.3 or later.
  • For car radio units that support metadata display – BeyondPod now sends playback position updates. (This currently works only on Nexus devices running Android 4.3 and later)
  • Bug fixes.

If you want to downgrade from this version to the previous market version (3.1.39), please use the following version: BeyondPod 3.1.39 (Google Play RELEASE)

Make sure to visit our BeyondPod Tips and Tricks page for a list of some less-known shortcuts and experimental features in this version of BeyondPod.

Like to live on the cutting edge? Visit our support forum BeyondPod User Forum to find some new BETA features available in this release.

By installing or using this upgrade, You are agreeing electronically to the terms of BeyondPod End User License Agreement