Introducing Sofa’s New Podcast Player

As of today, Sofa comes with a full-featured podcast player that can easily be your primary way of listening to your favorite shows.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you get:

• Add your favorite podcasts
• Easily manage your “Up Next” queue
• Simple controls, chapter selection, show notes, and more
• Create custom playlists
• Plenty of settings to configure things just how you like
• Fine-tune settings for individual podcasts
• Listen while you drive with CarPlay
• Widgets and shortcuts for quick access

All of this works across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. Head over to the Sofa Podcast Player page to learn more.

Why Make a Podcast Player?

This is quite a big addition to Sofa, and one I’ve been working on since the summer of 2024. So why do it?

First, I personally love podcasts and listen to them every day. Podcast listening is such a core part of my daily routine, and I have wanted to build my own podcast player for a long time. While I didn’t know if it would be its own app or integrated with Sofa, I knew I wanted to make one.

Second, integrating the podcast player into Sofa creates a really nice “downtime bundle”. Instead of having to use multiple apps for overlapping “downtime activities”, you can do a lot of it in Sofa (not everything, but a lot of it).

This bundle is a simpler, more integrated experience, and doesn’t require multiple subscriptions. It really is a natural extension to what Sofa already does.

Are You A Podcaster?

If you have your own podcast, and would like to provide your listeners with a “Listen on Sofa” button or link, I built a handy tool for you.

Head over to the Sofa Podcast Button Builder, and make a “Listen on Sofa” button for your show in just a few seconds.

When listeners click the “Listen on Sofa” button, it will automatically open your podcast in Sofa for them to subscribe to. If they don’t have Sofa installed, they will be redirected to Sofa’s website showing details about your podcast.

Here’s an example linking to my “Worklog” podcast:

You can read the full release notes here, and download the update from the App Store.