CastKeeper Updates

2027.3.1 Release: iPhone Duo Readiness, In-Player Companions, Queue Upgrades & Hardening

We are excited to announce the release of CastKeeper 2027.3.1! This major update brings together all the groundbreaking architectural work of 2027.3.0 alongside the performance hardening, queue workflow upgrades, and sync optimizations of 2027.3.1. From foldable device adaptability and side-by-side player companions to instant queue shortcuts and faster CloudKit synchronization, this release takes your podcast listening and learning to the next level.

Built for iPhone Duo

CastKeeper is now fully prepared for the iPhone Duo. With our new adaptive navigation architecture, you can fold, unfold, rotate, and resize without ever losing your context or place in the app:

Queue and Knowledge, Right in the Full Player

You no longer have to navigate away from what you're hearing to check your queue or review your episode study notes. Two dedicated controls inside the full player give you instant access to companion views:

• Side-by-Side Companion Panes (iPad & Unfolded Duo) — Open your Queue or episode Knowledge notebook right beside the player. Scrub through audio, manage your playlist, or study flashcards simultaneously.
• In-Player Queue & Now Playing Bar — Access your full Queue from any screen. A bottom bar lets you quickly add or remove the currently playing episode with a single tap.
• Time-Stamped Note Capture — Tap "Add Note at Current Time" inside Knowledge to capture insights synchronized to exact playback timestamps. If playback advances to the next episode while you're writing, your note editor and draft stay safely anchored to the original episode.
• Unrestricted AI Knowledge Generation — AI Knowledge Kits (Key Facts, Notable Quotes, Flashcards, and Review Questions) can now generate immediately on battery power without waiting for a wall charger.

Queue Enhancements: Faster Navigation, Time Estimates & Undo

Managing your listening queue is now faster, more forgiving, and much more informative:

Live Captions: Dead Air [silence] Detection

Using Apple's enhanced sound classification on iOS 27, Live Captions now detect extended pauses and dead air, surfacing a subtle [silence] cue. Listeners relying on accessibility captions can immediately tell that a quiet audio passage is intentional rather than a speech recognition glitch.

Faster, Safer CloudKit Sync & Background Archiving

Under the hood, we've dramatically overhauled synchronization and background data storage:

• Reduced Disk & Battery Overhead — Eliminated redundant transcript re-uploads and disk-sorting bottlenecks, significantly reducing battery draw and flash storage wear.
• Subscription Safety Guardrails — Unsubscribing now safely archives subscription states instead of deleting show records, preserving per-show settings (notifications, SmartKeep rules, and auto-archive preferences) with automatic safeguards against accidental bulk deletions.
• Background Bulk Re-Archiving — Re-archiving episodes to new storage destinations continues smoothly in the background using iOS Background Processing Tasks, persisting across app relaunches with completion notifications.

Security, Accessibility & Polish

• Custom S3 Unencrypted Warning — When configuring custom S3 storage, CastKeeper now warns if an unencrypted http:// address is entered, requiring explicit confirmation for public network hosts.
• Sensory Haptic Consistency — Taste profile onboarding and Discovery controls now strictly honor the app's Sensory haptic intensity setting.
• Playback State Consistency — Fixed an issue where finished episodes could linger in Resume or the Queue due to older progress stamps arriving from secondary devices.
• Smart Episode Sharing — Shared episode links now include a clean introductory hook and the first sentence of the AI Smart Summary so friends immediately know why an episode is worth hearing.
• On-Device Diagnostics & Feedback — Submit Feedback now allows attaching private, on-device diagnostic summaries directly to support emails without third-party telemetry.

CastKeeper 2027.3.1 is available now as a free update on the App Store. Thank you for your continued support, ideas, and feedback! As always, you can reach out via Settings → Submit Feedback or email us at [email protected].

2027.2.1 Release Now Available

We are excited to release CastKeeper 2027.2.1, bringing official support for Google Drive as a permanent podcast archiving and backup destination for all CastKeeper Unlimited users!

Archive Your Podcast Library to Google Drive

CastKeeper has expanded its cloud archive integrations to include Google Drive. With this release, CastKeeper Unlimited users can link their personal Google account directly from within the app and seamlessly back up their favorite audio and video podcast episodes to their own Google Drive storage.

Knowledge Now Let's You See or Hear the Source

We've improved Knowledge so now you can hear the notable quote with a playback button, or reference the source material for flashcards and review questions.

Your Queue, Front and Center from Home

Queue has been moved to the Home page for quick access. Enjoy the same card view as other podcasts in this tab, with complete drag and drop functionality to reorder your queue.

Shared With You has been moved to Library under Collections, so you'll still be able to find and see all the great podcasts friends share with you. Plus it gives you a chance to tidy up your library or add them straight to your queue!

What Else Is New in 2027.2.1

• Enhanced Storage Manager — Smoother navigation and status indicators when inspecting Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, and external SSD folders.
• SmartKeep Performance Polishing — Improved background archive queue processing and retry handling during network interruptions.
• General Bug Fixes & Stability — Key fixes for playback resume states and metadata sync across devices.

CastKeeper 2027.2.1 is available now on the App Store as a free update for all existing users. If you have any questions, feedback, or cloud provider suggestions, feel free to email us at [email protected].

Introducing CastKeeper for Education & 2027.2.0 Release

We're thrilled to announce the release of CastKeeper 2027.2.0, headlined by CastKeeper Knowledge — designed to bring powerful podcast archiving, study tools, and AI-powered learning tools to every CastKeeper Unlimited user.

Introducing CastKeeper for Education

Podcasts have become an essential medium for lectures, academic discussions, research interviews, and educational series. Our mission with CastKeeper is to make podcasts not only entertainment, but also give students and educators to supplement their learning with the wealth of great episodes about nearly any subject. CastKeeper Knowledge transforms how students and teachers engage with audio-first learning materials.

As our way to support education and the educators across the world, we're making CastKeeper Unlimited only $0.99 USD for verified students and educators as part of our ongoing CastKeeper for Education program. Simply enter your acadmenic email address in the app, or on our homepage, and you'll get access to not only CastKeeper Knowledge, but all of the other CastKeeper Unlimited features. No ongoing subscriptions. A one-time purchase of less than $1 USD unlocks a lifetime of learning.

If your college, univiersity or education system is not in our database, you can request to have it reviewed within the app. CastKeeper currently has over 30,000 schools and education systems in our database, and we're working hard to add more.

What Else Is New in 2027.2.0

• Introducing pCloud for Archive — CastKeeper Unlimited users can now archive their favorite episodes to pCloud. Simply log into your pCloud account and have yet another option for saving podcasts.
• Smart Podcast Sharing — CastKeeper now stores all of the episodes shared with you in a dedicated "Social" tab. If you're friend isn't using CastKeeper yet, you can import links from other podcast apps as well as import them from your clipboard.
• Wind Down - Redesigned — A refreshed sleep timer user experience in the app, and improved Live Activities during wind down.
• Adaptive Dialogue EQ — CastKeeper will now default for new users to our Adaptive Dialogue EQ setting that adapts throughout playback to keep dialogue clear and easy to hear.
• Easier Up Next and Queue Management — iOS 27 users can now drag to reorder Up Next or their Queue.
• CarPlay Updates — CarPlay will now automatically adapt to your current activity making it easier to listen to your favorite episodes on the go.
• Performance & Sync Improvements — Enhanced private CloudKit synchronization speed across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
• General Bug Fixes & Stability Enhancements — Polished playback controls and UI responsiveness.

CastKeeper 2027.2.0 is available now on the App Store. Thank you for your continued support and feedback! We're working on even more exciting features in the coming months, but if you have any ideas, please email us at [email protected].

Welcome to the Next Generation of CastKeeper with iOS 27!

The next generation of CastKeeper is here, launching with the new iOS 27, the best podcast app for iOS 27.

iOS 27 brings a number of new features and improvements to CastKeeper. With the launch of iOS 27, CastKeeper is Siri AI ready, and takes advantage of many of the new features only found with iOS 27. Let's dive into our biggest new features for this release.

CastKeeper Unlimited Is Here!

The most significant addition is CastKeeper Unlimited, a one-time purchase option that unlocks the full potential of the app forever. For new users, CastKeeper is now free to download. Free users can enjoy many of CastKeeper's features, and then purchase CastKeeper Unlimited as a one-time purchase to unlock all features (currently on Launch Sale for $2.49 USD — 50% off through October 31, 2026, reg. $4.99). This removes the need for any subscriptions or recurring payments, aligning with our philosophy of providing premium features without ongoing costs.

CastKeeper Free includes the complete podcast listening experience, while CastKeeper Unlimited adds advanced archiving, automation, and AI features:

🎉 Already purchased CastKeeper before it became free? CastKeeper Unlimited is unlocked automatically — no additional purchase is required.

Siri AI Ready

With iOS 27, CastKeeper is ready to fully integrate Siri AI, including using Apple's new Private Cloud Compute models that allow for an enhanced experience for many of CastKeeper's existing features. With CastKeeper Unlimited, and enabling Siri AI, you will notice considerably improved experiences in serval locations.

• Smart Summaries Are Even Smarter. With the power of Siri AI, Smart Summaries now expand further into the episode, with more insights to not only what the episode is is about, but why it matters.
• Enhanced ad detection accuracy will surface even more ads and promo codes in Smart Summaries.
• Improved AI Chapter detection will surface more accurate shifts in the episodes, ad breaks, and enhanced context.
• Transcripts will go through a second "polish" pass using Siri AI to remove and cleanup silences, "ums", and other filler words. Using a larger model will also ensure names, things, and locations are accurately transcribed.
• Enhanced Discovery Engine. We have updated the discovery allowing not only every user to tune their Discovery recommendatons to their tastes, but with CastKeeper Unlimited, Siri AI is leveraged to improve results as you listen without sacrificing your privacy.
• Siri App Intents support is for everyone. Use Siri to stop, resume, and archive episodes using Siri.

Forgot Where You Left Off? Then Catch Me Up Is Here

Ever paused a podcast, and come back to it later and need to catch up where you left off? Catch Me Up with Recap is now available for CastKeeper Unlimited users. Recap will find where you left off, and catch you up on the conversation before you jump back in. Catch Me Up via Recap can be started from within the app, via Siri, or even in CarPlay.

Other New Features & Improvements

If that wasn't enough, we've added even more great features to this release. Here's just a few more. See how many you can find! There's even more.

• Spatial Audio Support is Here. — you can now listen to your podcasts in spatial audio with compatible devices. To turn on Spatial Audio by default, please enable it in the Settings -> Playback section. If a connected device doesn't support Spatial Audio, CastKeeper will automatically default to Stereo.
• Improved player interface to show spatial audio or audio output type.
• CastKeeper will detect automatically which type of device the audio is outputting to when using external devices. For Apple devices such as AirPods and Beats headphones, the icon will change to match that specific model.
• Added a new optional setting to clear the app badge counter when a new episode is seen in the Home -> New section. By default, the app badge number will match the amount in the "New" section on Home. With this enabled, the badge counter will reset, but will not change the number in the New tab on the Home screen.
• We have added a new Account ID reference in Settings -> Preferences to help you check the same CloudKit database is being used across devices. This is not any personally identifiable information and this is not shared outside of your iCloud account. This is a hash of the CloudKit database ID the sync engine is using for reference only.
• Improvements in CarPlay interface
• Significant under-the-hood improvements to improve reliability and performance.

We're always working on new features and improvements for CastKeeper, and there are some major updates coming later this year there just wasn't enough time to finish. Keep your eyes peeled on this page.

I've already received feedback about support for the upcoming iPhone Duo. I definitely plan to do my best to support this cutting edge device, but as noted in the latest episode of Accidental Tech Podcast, Apple has not released the latest SDK, and as a solo developer, there's only so far I can go with a simulator. I will do my best, but until I have enough to pay for my own, I will be relying on simulators and beta testers. Stay tuned to this page. Since I value podcasts over corporate profits, I don't always have the latest devices available to test on.

CastKeeper 2027.1.0 Public Beta 4 Now Available in TestFlight

With Apple's impending announcement of not only new devices, but also the public release date of iOS 27 coming this week, this will be our last beta before launch of the next generation of CastKeeper.

With the launch of 2027.1.0, CastKeeper will be transitioning to a Free app with a one time in-app purchase to unlock the full feature set of CastKeeper. This strategic move is to allow users to experience CastKeeper prior to purchasing. Our one-time unlock, called CastKeeper Unlimited, still means no subscriptions and includes Family Sharing. Existing users who previously purchased CastKeeper will automatically get CastKeeper Unlimited.

Our focus for 2027.1.0 Beta 4 has been primarily focused on stability, performance, and user experience. Several regressions have been identified and fixed, ensuring a smoother and more reliable user journey.

Beyond our focus on stability and performance, Beta 4 also introduces improvements and a few new features based on feedback received from our awesome beta testers. New features and improvements included in this beta are:

• Spatial Audio Support is Here. — you can now listen to your podcasts in spatial audio with compatible devices. To turn on Spatial Audio by default, please enable it in the Settings -> Playback section. If a connected device doesn't support Spatial Audio, CastKeeper will automatically default to Stereo.
• Improved player interface to show sptial audio or audio output type.
• CastKeeper will detect automatically which type of device the audio is outputting to when using external devices. For Apple devices such as AirPods and Beats headphones, the icon will change to match that specific model.
• Added a new optional setting to clear the app badge counter when a new episode is seen in the Home -> New section. By default, the app badge number will match the amount in the "New" section on Home. With this enabled, the badge counter will reset, but will not change the number in the New tab on the Home screen.
• We have added a new Account ID reference in Settings -> Preferences to help you check the same CloudKit database is being used across devices. This is not any personally identifiable information and this is not shared outside of your iCloud account. This is a hash of the CloudKit database ID the sync engine is using for reference only.
• Improvements in CarPlay interface

CastKeeper 2027.1.0 - Public Beta 2

A big thank you to everyone who has submitted feedback! Please continue to send it in! You are helping create the best podcast experience for everyone.

• NEW: Now Playing Widget — you can now add what's currently playing as a widget on your home screen and play it from your Home Screen.
• Recap Improvements
• Fixed crashes upon first launch
• Improved archiving and downloading experience.
• Improved UX responsiveness and syncing
• Fast Scrolling on a Mac now enabled (2-finger scrolling)
• Overall stability improvements with new features

CastKeeper 2027.1.0 Public Beta 1

Welcome to the public beta of CastKeeper, the world's best privacy-focused, AI-powered podcast listening and archive experience. This first beta is designed for an early preview of the new features coming in our next release with iOS 27, but iOS 26 users are also invited — no iOS 27 beta required. A few items only activate on iOS 27; called out below. iOS 26 or iOS 27 Beta is required for installation.

While iOS 27 is not strictly required, and many features will work on iOS 26, joining the Apple iOS 27 Beta is free and easy. Please note the iOS 27 Beta is not as stable as the public release and you should use caution if you choose to install it on your primary device.

New: Siri AI Integration

Siri AI (Private Cloud Compute) is now on by default — check Settings if you'd rather opt out.

• Siri playback commands: "Play the latest episode of [show] in CastKeeper," "Queue [episode] in CastKeeper," "Skip this episode" — always say "in CastKeeper" for reliable routing
• Natural Language Search: try asking CastKeeper to find a show or episode in plain language
• Smart Summaries and AI Chapters should feel noticeably deeper/more accurate with Siri AI on
• iOS 27 only: name a specific episode for Recap by voice, and ask Siri about "this episode" while the Player is open

Enhanced Discovery

• New/first-time users: try the Taste Profile picker on first visit to Discovery ("What do you love to hear?")
• Existing users: Settings > Retune Taste Profile, or the Upgrade onboarding's Discovery screen
• Confirm your picks actually shape what shows up in Discovery over a few days of listening
• iOS 27 only: AI-powered Discovery shelves based on your listening/taste signals

New: Recap

• Tap the Recap button in the Player or from a Home card — this shows a text/card summary in a sheet, not spoken aloud
• Siri App Intents Support (iOS 27): ask Siri "Recap in CastKeeper" for a spoken recap of what's currently playing, hands-free
• CarPlay: try Recap while driving — this is the one place it's still voice-only via on-device text-to-speech
• New: Recap Voice picker — Settings > Recap > Recap Voice
• Recap works even on episodes that don't have transcripts
• iOS 27 only: name a show by voice — "Recap the latest Daily episode in CastKeeper" — and Siri will offer to keep playing after

Also In This Build

• Archive is now grouped by podcast in a card grid — test browsing, filtering, bulk-select, lock/unlock, delete
• Transcripts: two modes only now (Reading, Follow-Along) — check speaker labels and readable chunking
• New User onboarding now includes a Recap screen and can't be skipped mid-flow — please go through it start to finish; Upgrade onboarding also has new Siri AI / Discovery / Recap screens

CastKeeper 2026.5.3 Available Now With SmartKeep

CastKeeper 2026.5.3 is now available in the App Store as a free update for existing users. In this release, CastKeeper has added it's last new feature for the iOS 26 cycle, as focus will now be on preparing CastKeeper for enhancements and other features made possible in iOS 27.

Introducing SmartKeep - A CastKeeper Exclusive

Users have spoken, and CastKeeper again delivers. SmartKeep is now avaialble for all users to automatically and intelligently automatically backup your subscriptions to your chosen location. Users can choose by each podcast whether to enable SmartKeep, and in which method to archive. SmartKeep takes the work out of ensuring your favorite episodes are saved forever.

There are currently four options to configure SmartKeep for each podcast:

• All Episodes. All new episodes received from your subscribed podcasts will be automatically archived and kept forever.
• Newest Episodes. Keeps only the number of new episodes set by the user. Any new episodes received past this number will be automatically deleted by SmartKeep.
• Only Unplayed. SmartKeep will automatically archive new episodes that are not played. Once played, or marked as played, SmartKeep will automatically delete the episode from archive.
• Only Played. When enabled, SmartKeep will automatically archive episodes when they are played.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• Episode Smart Summaries should load faster in this release.
• Improved AI Chapter Names and Timing.
• Fixed issue where playing archived files and the storage medium is not available would hang.
• Fixed issue where transcriptions and AI chapter generation would queue when device is plugged into iPhone or iPad USB-C port.
• Minor UX improvements.

Release 2026.5.2 Now Available

Version 2026.5.2 is now avaiable in the App Store today. In this release, we've cleaned up some minor bugs and some minor UX improvements to make our podcast archivists experience better.

Fixes in This Release:

• The Search Bar and Select buttons for multiple episode selection will now persist at the top of the list across all screens.
• Fixed an issue where Calendar view in Podcasts would cause issues on smaller devices.
• Bulk actions selection has been tweaked to allow more viewing of your content and selections.

Further, we've paved the way for some future features that I believe our users will love. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I appreciate all of our users' feedback, and am so glad we have a growing community. Please feel free to drop us a line and let us know what you'd like to see in the future, and if you enjoy CastKeeper, I'd be honored if you left a review on the App Store.

Until then ... Your Podcasts. Yours Forever.

2026.5.1 Release Available Now

CastKeeper 2026.5.1 is available today to all users as a free update.

After our biggest release ever, it was time to sit down and iron out some of the small wrinkles to give users a better experience.

Here's What's New in 2026.5.1

• You can now add episodes to your listening queue with dedicated buttons throughout the app. If your queue is empty, CastKeeper will intelligently play the next episode.
• Bulk selection is now available in Archive to manage multiple archived episodes at once.
• Users can now subscribe or follow podcasts from the Discovery page without having to open the podcast.
• CastKeeper has a new Sleep Timer interface that it much easier to use. Winding down with your favorite podcasts is easier than ever.

Self-Hosters Are Welcome

CastKeeper already supported those who self-host their own storage, but now we've taken it a step further.

Now if you self-host your own podcast feed - you can add it directly to your library. This will support feeds available over HTTP or only via LAN IP addresses. Note you will need to be connected to your local network to use LAN-based feeds, get notifications, or archive them.

We'd Love Your Feedback

CastKeeper intentionally ramps down the amount of times you're asked for a review, but it is important. Please remember to leave CastKeeper a review on the App Store to let others know about it, and help spread the word.

Also, a big thank you to user SN for their feedback and helping make the app better for everyone. It's truly our CastKeeper user community that continues to amaze us with their thoughtfulness and insight.

Your podcasts. Yours forever,

CastKeeper

CastKeeper 2026.5 Is Here. We May Have Gotten a Little Carried Away.

You know those updates that say, “Bug fixes and performance improvements”?

This is not one of those updates.

CastKeeper 2026.5 introduces a completely redesigned interface, an entirely rebuilt private sync engine, External Drive archiving, new Tracking Prevention tools, smarter Dynamic Ad Insertion detection, and improvements that make both CastKeeper and your podcast archives smaller.

We originally planned something a little less ambitious.

Then we started moving buttons around.

One thing led to another, and now nearly the entire app is new.

Meet the All-New CastKeeper

CastKeeper has been redesigned from top to bottom with a new graphics-forward interface built around your podcasts, their artwork, and the things you want to do most.

The new experience introduces refreshed navigation, richer layouts, clearer actions, redesigned podcast and episode views, and a more visual Home experience that makes it easier to decide what to play next.

We also redesigned the Full Player to put playback, episode information, transcripts, chapters, notes, accessibility options, and archive controls within easier reach.

The goal was not to make CastKeeper look different simply for the excitement of moving everything you already knew.

The goal was to make the app feel more natural, more useful, and more like the permanent home your podcast library deserves.

We Threw Out the Old Sync Engine

Sometimes the best way to improve something is to carefully refine it.

Other times, you stare at it for a while, take a deep breath, and rebuild the entire thing.

We chose option two.

CastKeeper 2026.5 includes an entirely new private sync engine designed to provide faster, smoother, and more reliable syncing between iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

The new system improves how CastKeeper coordinates your library, subscriptions, playback progress, notes, archive information, preferences, and other supported data across your devices.

It is also designed to recover more gracefully when a device has been offline, has not opened CastKeeper recently, or returns with changes that need to be reconciled.

Ideally, you will rarely think about the new sync engine.

We have thought about it more than enough for everyone.

External Drive Support Is Finally Here

We previously said External Drive support was on our roadmap.

You asked when it was coming.

Then you asked again.

We got the hint.

CastKeeper can now archive public podcast episodes directly to a folder you select through Apple’s Files or Finder apps.

Your archive can live on local device storage, a folder on your Mac, a USB flash drive, portable SSD, external hard drive, SD card, or compatible network storage made available through Files or Finder.

Choose a folder in Settings, and CastKeeper will archive directly to that location whenever it is available.

CastKeeper stores your archive using standard files and folders rather than trapping it inside a proprietary database.

Archived audio, video, transcripts, chapters, artwork, and related assets remain accessible on the storage you selected, allowing you to browse, copy, move, and back up your files outside CastKeeper.

They are your files.

Holding them hostage would be awkward.

For removable storage that you intend to use with Apple devices and Windows PCs, we recommend exFAT for the broadest compatibility. For Apple-only storage, APFS is also supported when the drive is available through Files or Finder.

Your Podcast Player Shouldn’t Have a Side Hustle

You pressed Play because you wanted to hear a podcast.

You probably did not press Play because you wanted to contribute to an exciting new analytics dashboard.

CastKeeper introduces Tracking Prevention, which attempts to reduce known podcast analytics and tracking requests during playback whenever possible.

When CastKeeper performs a privacy check, you can review the result directly from the episode’s detail view. When a provider offers a privacy opt-out page, CastKeeper can also make that information available so you can review your options.

No tool can guarantee that every analytics system will be identified or prevented, but Tracking Prevention gives you more visibility and another layer of control over what happens when an episode begins playing.

Smarter Dynamic Ad Detection

Dynamically inserted advertising creates an unusual problem: two people can download what appears to be the same episode and receive slightly different audio.

CastKeeper 2026.5 expands support for identifying additional Dynamic Ad Insertion providers. This gives CastKeeper better information when processing an episode and helps Smart Summaries distinguish podcast content from advertising.

The result is a cleaner summary focused on the episode itself—and hopefully fewer important insights about mattresses, meal kits, and promotional codes.

Smaller App. Smaller Archives.

This version reduces the app’s overall download size and improves the way archived podcast assets use storage.

That means the app requires less space, archived episodes can consume less storage, and more of your device or drive remains available for the things that matter.

Such as more podcasts.

Additional Improvements & Fixes

Rebuilding nearly the entire interface gave us plenty of opportunities to clean up some things along the way.

• Redesigned navigation and layouts throughout iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
• Redesigned the Home experience with richer artwork and clearer listening actions.
• Redesigned podcast and episode detail views.
• Redesigned the Full Player and its playback, archive, transcript, chapter, note, and accessibility controls.
• Improved responsiveness and performance throughout the new interface.
• Reduced the overall app download size.
• Reduced storage used by archived podcast assets.
• Fixed an issue where Home Screen widgets could occasionally fail to resume playback.
• Improved reliability when reconnecting removable archive storage.
• Fixed assorted visual inconsistencies, performance issues, and bugs discovered while rebuilding almost everything.

Thank You

CastKeeper 2026.5 grew into a much larger release because of the feedback, requests, bug reports, and ideas we received from the people using the app.

Thank you to everyone who tested a build, reported a problem, suggested an improvement, left a review, or told another podcast listener about CastKeeper.

We built CastKeeper because podcasts disappear, listening habits should remain private, and the media you care about should stay under your control.

Version 2026.5 is our biggest step toward that goal yet.

P.S. If you have ever searched for an old podcast episode only to discover that it vanished into the internet abyss, welcome. You are our kind of people.

2026.4.1 Release Available Now With Dropbox Support & More

The newest version of CastKeeper is now available as a free update to our existing users. In this release, CastKeeper has expanded its archiving options to include Dropbox! Further, CastKeeper now supports Shortcuts and App Clips.

Save & Archive Your Favorite Podcasts To Dropbox

CastKeeper has expanded its archive storage options to include Dropbox. When setting up Dropbox, you will be asked to authenticate your account and will then be able to save podcasts to Dropbox. At this time, CastKeeper can only support one Dropbox account. All podcasts archived to Dropbox are accessible in the app, as well as in your Dropbox account outside of the app.

Sharing is Now More Interactive with App Clips

CastKeeper has leveled up the sharing experience by introducing a dedicated App Clip when sharing a podcast to another Apple user. Simply share your favorite podcast or episode with anyone, and if they do not already have CastKeeper, they will be able to instantly launch our CastKeeper App Clip.

The App Clip allows your recipient to preview CastKeeper's intuitive interface, and more. When using the App Clip, users can:

• Play the shared episode using CastKeeper's player.
• See CastKeeper's Smart Summaries in action on the episode shared.
• View full show notes.
• See any chapters included in the podcast natively.

Saving the episode to an archive location, viewing transcripts, generating AI chapter summaries, or exploring other podcasts will require the full CastKeeper app. This is a great way to show your friends the CastKeeper experience firsthand, and let them know that podcasts may disappear, but yours won't.

Create Shortcuts For Quick Actions

CastKeeper now includes, out-of-the-box, support for Shortcuts actions to save a podcast to your archive, or add a note to your CastKeeper Notes. After installing the update, you will find these actions available in the Shortcuts app.

Other New Features

• Podcasts marked by creators as having explicit content will now show an "E" indicator in the podcast and/or episode. If you prefer not to listen to explicit episodes, you can hide them in Settings.
• If Dynamic Ad Insertions are detected in an episode, you will now see a "+Ads" with a clock to indicate that the duration published by the creator does not include the ad times.
• Timestamps in full show notes are now interactive and will skip to that time in the episode.

Improvements & Minor Fixes

Beyond our new features, CastKeeper has also included some improvements from the great feedback of our users, as well as some minor fixes.

• Episodes in CarPlay now match the ordering of the Home screen in the app.
• Long episode titles will now marquee scroll in the Mini Player unless Reduce Motion is enabled in Accessibility settings.
• The skip forward and backward buttons in the Mini Player have been increased in size for easier touch.
• Fixed a rare issue where transcripts for archived episodes were not uploaded to the same location as the archived audio file.
• Reduced overall app size.
• Added support for Apple's Age Verification & Significant Change APIs for regions that require age verification. Users outside of these areas are not affected.
• Improved loading and sync times throughout the app experience.

Thanks to everyone who has consistently given me great feedback and for supporting indepedent developers! I am already working on the next release and hope to have this out soon.

CastKeeper 2026.4.0 Now Available

Here is CastKeeper 2026.4.0 at a glance. Read below for more details on each of these features, as well as what's currently being investigated on the roadmap for future releases.

• Privacy-first Discovery engine
• New Accessibility Features
• New Themes & Custom App Icons
• Improvements
• Minor Bug Fixes

Revamped Search Now Includes Discovery

CastKeeper 2026.4.0 introduces the all-new Discovery Engine—helping you find great new podcasts while keeping your listening habits completely private. Unlike traditional podcast apps that build cloud-based profiles of your interests, CastKeeper generates recommendations using only data stored on your device. Our Search tab has been renamed the "Discovery" tab to better reflect the functionality while still allowing the same powerful search as previous versions.

Finally, podcast discovery without surveillance.

CastKeeper's discovery engine utilizes your data that lives on only your device, and your personal information such as name, email, identifiers, etc. are never sent to someone else's servers. Future updates will continue improving recommendations with additional signals while preserving CastKeeper's privacy-first design. Future updates will continue improving recommendations with additional signals while preserving CastKeeper's privacy-first design.

New Accessibility Features

• AirPods mode accessibility for haptics. When enabled, pressing the player buttons in the MiniPlayer and FullPlayer will mimic AirPods navigation with one haptic tap for play/pause, two haptic taps for forward 30s, and three haptic taps for backwards. For users with vision disabilities, this allows the haptic engine to give a sensory feedback to the button pressed, if haptics are enabled. CastKeeper will still respect your system and app level haptic settings.
• Accessible Player Under the Sensory, Motor & Focus area, users can now enable an accessible Full Player with larger buttons for both video and audio podcasts. Many of the previous secondary controls you can now find in the More button with larger tap targets.

Introducing CastKeeper Themes

CastKeeper now includes built-in themes that allow you to customize your CastKeeper app icon from our new icon to fit your personal style. Show your support for other areas that are important to you from our curated selection of themes for users to show off their cause. Simply head over to Settings, and find Themes under the top Personalization section to find our listing of all the themes available. You will see a preview of the new app icon, along with the changes to the UI colors such as headers, buttons, etc.

The initial set of themes includes general color updates, along with these special themes to show your support for what makes podcasting great.

• VB Strong. From Virginia Beach to listeners everywhere. A tribute to the place CastKeeper proudly calls home.
• Amplify. Celebrating Black creators, storytellers, and voices that continue to shape podcasting and culture.
• Pride. Celebrate diversity, inclusion, and the voices that make podcasting special. Love is love.
• Spectrum. Every mind tunes in differently. This theme celebrates the diverse spectrum of voices, stories, and frequencies that make podcasting richer for everyone.
• Survivor. For everyone fighting to record their next episode, this theme is for you. Hit play proudly - your story isn't over yet, and we're subscribing to it.
• Remember. This theme is to show support for anyone watching a loved one's story fade. Keep the voices. Keep the memories. Keep them close.

Other Improvements & Fixes

• You can now sort your New Episodes on the Home page by Release Date, Episode Length, and Podcast Name
• Fixed flickering when using Closed Captions with transcripts.
• Added haptics in full player to match MiniPlayer for forward / backward seek.
• Fixed issue where audio would experience issues when having Siri read aloud Smart Summaries when using wireless CarPlay.
• The search bar in Discovery now includes a dedicated button to start a search.
• Episodes with Dynamic Ad Insertions that could add additional time than what is published from their feed are clearly marked in the UX.
• Refreshed loading screen to show CastKeeper Icon.
• Various performance improvements.

 

The CastKeeper Roadmap

For our current users, I am committed to enhancing the CastKeeper app and experience for the long term. These are areas I'm actively exploring and are subject to change based on user feedback and platform capabilities.

• Apple Watch App. I am looking to bring an Apple Watch version of CastKeeper to our growing list of supported devices.
• Support for Archive to External Drives. CastKeeper support for archiving to external drives such as USB-C external drives, thumb drives, etc. is on the roadmap.
• App Clips For Sharing. I am working on how to use App Clips for sharing episodes among Apple users using App Clips.
• Smart Collections Improvements. I see a lot questions on social media about getting great new podcasts for road trips, plane rides, and other times when a great story would be great. This is an area I'd like to explore with Smart Collections.
• The X-Factors: iOS 27 and New Devices. I am actively looking into where CastKeeper can leverage the new iOS 27 features to futher enhance CastKeeper.

CastKeeper's 2026.3.5 Release Focuses on Accessibility - Podcasts are for Everyone

After the release 2026.3.0, I've finally been able to sit down and work on something I've always wanted to do: making podcasts accessible for everyone. Despite podcasts being an audio-based format, there are millions of people who should be able to enjoy them, but can't due to disabilities. In this release, my goal was to begin my journey to bring podcasts to these audiences, and today's release is only the beginning of my goal to bring accessibilty to CastKeeper.

However, when most people think of accessibilty, they focus only on vision and hearing. While these are important, I wanted to ensure that I look beyond these two areas, and really focus beyond just vision and hearing. One area I feel is often overlooked is sensory and focus areas, especially for the roughly 60+ million people globally diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and many more who may suffer from other disabilities like ADHD, PTSD, or other disabilities that often go overlooked because they're not as "visible".

To ensure CastKeeper is as inclusive as possible, you will now find a "Sensory & Focus" area in Settings, with specific accessibility settings. While I am no medical professional, I am open to hearing any feedback from anyone on how I can include any future accessibility options. To support this goal, I have set up a new email address specifically for these requests. I cannot guarantee every individual's requests will be met, I do take feedback very seriously, and will do my best to make CastKeeper as inclusive as possible.

If you have any suggestions for future accessibility features, please email us at [email protected].

As for today's release, here is what CastKeeper now includes at no additional cost, as usual, and is ready for everyone to enjoy.

For users with hearing disabilities, CastKeeper now includes:

• Live Captions. Using Apple Intelligence on-device, CastKeeper will now generate live captions during playback, as you would find for television shows. Simply toggle this for always on in Settings, or hit our CC button in the player and watch the captions beghin. This works with both audio and video podcasts on all devices.
• Sound Identification. As part of captions, CastKeeper will put into captions any identified sounds like music, singing, etc. into live captions. Apple's current framework supports about 300 sounds, and all of them are included. Again, all on-device and private.
• Mono Mode. For users hard of hearing in one ear, toggle on mono mode in the Settings area and choose Left or Right. When using earbuds, CastKeeper will ensure all audio is pumped to that ear and downmix stereo into mono so users can hear everything.

For users with vision impairment, CastKeeper now offers the following accessibility features:

• Dyslexia Support with OpenDyslexic Font Enable this in Settings and CastKeeper will replace the system font with the OpenDyslexic font in areas requiring more reading including Smart Summaries, Transcripts, Full Show Notes, and CastKeeper Notes. The OpenDyslexic font is a standard font used to help those with dyslexia to be able to read easier.
• Monochrome Mode. For colorblind users, enabling Monochorme Mode will remove all color from the interface, and render everything in black, white and grayscale, including artwork.
• High Contrast Mode. This setting will make softer colors more bold, and bold text and icons to make them stand out more within the interface. Helps those with fatigue or eye strain.

For Sensory & Focus, we've added the following features:

• Custom Haptics. For users sensitive to haptics, users can now disable haptics altogher, or increase and decrease the haptic feedback throughout the system. This does not override the iOS system level, but rather acts as an additional layer since haptics can differ between apps.
• Remove Animations. For users sensitive to UI animations such as loading bars, spinning indicators, and loadng bars, enabling this accessibility Setting will remove animations where possible from the CastKeeper interface.

This is just the beginning of our journey to make podcasts truly for everyone. I already have some future accessibility plans in the works, but feedback from the community is not only welcomed, but needed. I hope for those who suffer from a disability, this makes your experience better with CastKeeper.

As always, thank you for your continued support and word of mouth about CastKeeper. Our journey has just begun, and this is a long-term commitment for me. I am looking forward to going back into the "lab" and figuring out how to make CastKeeper the best podcast app for everyone.

Our Biggest Release Since Launch! CastKeeper 3.0 Now Available

Over the past month, the feedback from CastKeeper has been overwhelmingly positive, and tons of requests for features! These features are now available on the App Store as a free update for all existing users.

With today's release of CastKeeper 3.0, CastKeeper now supports the biggest requested features. Support for iPad and Mac is here with full private sync across your devices. Start, subscribe, save, collect, or any of CastKeeper's features on one device, and pickup on the other. We've fined tuned our sync engine with CloudKit to provide our users a secure, private, no login requird sync experience.

When starting the journey of bringing CastKeeper to iPad and Mac, the main goal was to ensure that the iPad and Mac experience felt like a native experience. Rather than "porting" our user interface over from the iPhone, CastKeeper for iPad and Mac has been crafted to take advantage of the larger displays of the iPad and Mac, and full support for iPad and Mac experiences.

The CastKeeper iPad and Mac Experience

With the iPad and Mac expansion, users will now enjoy:

• A beautiful two or three column experience to allow users to view more information with less overlays and sheets.
• Full Apple Pencil support for our new CastKeeper Notes.
• A new mini-player experience and full player experience with full screen and picture-in-picture support for video podcasts.
• Keyboard shortcuts for most actions removing the need to mouse or touch for devices with a keyboard.

CastKeeper Notes - Track Your Notes and Thoughts Within the App & Across All Devices

One of the goals CastKeeper set out to achieve was to allow podcasts to become more than entertainment, but a serious way to conduct research, learning, and more. With this release, CastKeeper now includes our first iteration of CastKeeper Notes. Users can now attach notes at an episode level, during playback with time markers, and transcript notes with transcript references. To ensure accuracy, if CastKeeper detects the use of Dynamic Ad Insertions through our great algorithm, users will be prompted to archive the episode to maintain a single source of truth.

What CastKeeper Notes includes:

• Users can add notes at an episode level with no timestamp for overall personal show notes in the Episode Detail view.
• When using an iPad, you can use the Apple Pencil to draw diagrams, or take handwriten notes. These diagrams and hand-written notes can be viewed on other devices.
• Support for Siri and Shortcuts. Want to add a note on the go? Just ask Siri! Simply tell Siri to add a podcast note in CastKeeper, say your note, and Siri will automatically add the note in CastKeeper with the timestamp during playback when you added the note! Great for capturing your thoughts while driving and hands-free.

But The Updates Didn't Stop There!

Besides these two new features, which alone could posture a major release, CastKeeper looks to delight its users, so even more features are packed in!

• Archiving Private Feeds Has Arrived.> Users who subscribe to a private podcast feed via a tokenized URL can now save these episodes to personal and private storage. If CastKeeper detects the location is public or shared with others, you will not be able to save the episodes there. This is to ensure we protect our great podcasters and support their great content.
• UX Updates. >CastKeeper 3.0 includes updates across all devices including seeing the progress on transcriptions and Smart Chapter generation.
• Smart Chapters On Battery. If users allow generation on battery in Settings, you can now generate Smart Chapters while on battery.

Launch Sales Extended

To celebrate this major launch, we've extended our launch sale of $4.99 USD through June 30, 2026. New users who purchase the app now will get all of our previous features plus all of these new enhancements and features. If you love our experience, please leave us a review in the App Store!

We appreciate everyone's feedback, and love the word of mouth from our users. Be sure to tell your family and friends to grab our launch sale price while it's avialable.

Version 2026.2 Release Now Available

Since our launch of CastKeeper, we've received some great feedback about how CastKeeper is providing amazing tools and experiences for users. We really appreciate the feedback.

With the launch of CastKeeper's latest version, we have some major updates to improve the experience. CastKeeper continues to improve the experience for users, and we're expanding our availability. CastKeeper is now available across the world, including the European Union.

As part of our European roadtrip, CastKeeper now supports a native CarPlay experience.

CastKeeper for CarPlay - Listen and Archive On The Go

CastKeeper's CarPlay features include the following:

• You can listen to any episode, including your archived episodes on the go.
• Archiving a podcast is just a tap away. Touch the cloud icon in the Now Playing screen to archive the episode to your default location.
• Episode AI summaries on the go are available. Touch the speech bubble on the Now Playing screen in CarPlay, and your native Siri voice will read back the AI episode summary to you.

Limited Time Launch Sale Reminder! Please remember that our limited time launch sale is only for a limited amount of time. For less than a cup of coffee, you can get CastKeeper, and continue to get new features and improvements.

CastKeeper is Live in the App Store!

CastKeeper has officially launched in the App Store! To celebrate the launch of CastKeeper, there is a LIMITED TIME launch sale.

Right now, you can get CastKeeper for it's lowest price ever at only $4.99 USD! This is a one-time purchase, and you get all of great features CastKeeper offers.

For this initial launch, you'll find CastKeeper has been performance tuned and ready to go. You may find some neat little UX improvements since our last beta version that were saved for this moment.

Thank You...

As an indie developer, I want to first express my everlasting love and thanks to my two biggest supporters - my amazing wife and daughter. Both of them provided me some great feedback, patience during late night coding sprints, and overall have been my biggest cheerleaders to pursue this dream of building CastKeeper. My amazing wife even started getting more into podcasts just to show her support, and thank you honey! For my daughter, you may find her influence in our achievements section (she'll never tell the secret!).

Further, our excellent beta testers deserve a huge thank you for making this happen. They're support, feedback, ideas, and suggestions are everywhere in the app you will use today, and will see in the future. So as you enjoy CastKeeper, remember it took a lot of dedicated supporters to get us here, and continue to help with our journey.

CastKeeper is just getting started...

This initial launch is just the beginning of CastKeeper. In the future, CastKeeper will cotinue to grow its functionality and add more quality of listener features.

As usual, you'll find any future updates on this page, so be sure to subscribe to this page via RSS to get the latest updates.

CastKeeper Release Candidate Now Available!

CastKeeper is now in the release candidate phase. After months of development, weeks of testing, and a lot of help from family and friends of CastKeeper, the app is now ready to enter the final stages for App Store approval.

This past week the focus has been mainly on three things: Speed, Stability, and Engagement. Before release to the App Store soon, ensuring a fast, stable, and engaging experience is the top priority. In this Release Candidate, you'll find some things no longer in the same place you used to find them, a more stable experience, and an all-new way to track your podcast listening on CastKeeper.

Let's dive right into the changes, improvements, and fixes in this release:

• New Streamlined Full Player: The full player in CastKeeper has been streamlined to get you the information you need, or the actions you want to perform, with less buttons. In the Full Player, you can now swipe where the podcast image used to navigate between the episode's artwork, chapters, AI summary, hosts, and transcript. Alternatively, you can tap on the card image below as well to quickly jump between each.
• New Achievements: Check out our brand new Achievements in the Settings screen near your listening stats. Earn achievements by listening to podcasts, and see if you can earn all of our platinum level achievements. Also, you'll find some rare achievements that will unlock when completing specific secret missions. See if you can figure them out!
• Improved Episode Detail View. Increased performance with our Episode Detail screen, and moved the share button to the top right menu. Our previous layout was a little tight for those with smaller devices.
• Improved Overall Speed and UX Responsiveness. CastKeeper will feel more fluid from launch and throughout the interface.
• Improved OPML Imports. CastKeeper's OPML import has been improved significantly for speed and accuracy.
• Improved AI Chapter Generation for more accurate chapters.
• Fixed issue with requesting new Hosts or updating Host information.

What's Next?

The deadline to submit any more feedback will be April 13, 2026. This weekend, we will begin our App Store launch preparations, and address any critical feedback before our final submission to the App Store. If you haven't tried out all of CastKeeper's features yet, or were holding off telling a friend about the app, now's the time to do it.

Once CastKeeper has been submitted for App Store approval, this page will be updated with our launch details.

CastKeeper Public Beta 5 Release

Happy Monday! As CastKeeper continues to get closer to a public release, the focus has shifted now to quality of listener improvements and bugs. Since the last release, a lot of great feedback has been received, and keep them coming!

While the next CastKeeper beta release was scheduled for next week, a new release is being put out earlier to ensure the most quality experience for our testers, and upcoming users.

Improvements in Public Beta 5:

• Enhanced Search. Search results will now include two paths, Podcasts and Episodes. Entering a search term will return the podcasts where that term is found, as well as a new section called "Episodes" where users can find the specific episodes where the search term is found. Looking for just that one episode where something was mentioned, or an interview took place, use the Episodes filter. Episodes found can be quickly added to the "Listen Later" collection.
• Archive View Enhancements. The Archive page has been reworked to make filtering, ordering, and searching archived podcast episodes easier. Users can now filter by storage location, as well as change their sorting mechanism. A dedicated search bar has been added to locate a specific archived episode.
• Silence Trimming Improved. Continued to improve our silence trimming algorithm for better results.
• New Controls for Full Screen Video. You can now favorite, bookmark, or change output audio target for video podcasts when in full screen mode.
• UX Polishes. In the spirit of dyeing Easter eggs, CastKeeper has added some more polish with consistent color schemes and navigation throughout the interface, along with some UX changes to make finding important information easier.
• Speaking of Easter Eggs, there may be a little one hidden in the UX somewhere. Happy hunting!

Bugs fixed in this release:

• Fixed issue where Full Player did not show friendly names of archive locations when using archive button.
• Fixed issue where hitting skip chapter forward on the last chapter would restart last chapter instead of going to the end of the episode.
• Fixed issue where AI-generated chapters without a saved transcript would not show in the Full Player chapters picker.
• Fixed issue with RSS where episodes were not pulling in for podcasts.

That's all for today's release.

CastKeeper Public Beta 4 Release

This past week I've finally nailed the one last feature I was saving to make sure it was done right. With Public Beta 4, CastKeeper now supports Video Podcasts. While the podcast "purist" in me still prefers the audio experience, video podcasts are on the rise. To ensure our video podcasters get the same love as our audio-only feeds, I wanted to personally make sure this worked.

Here's the full breakdown of how video podcasts are now integrated into CastKeeper:

• The iTunes API doesn't allow multiple file types in a single podcast feed. So if you see a podcast titled "Video", that's your best bet.
• Despite being a video podcast, I've retained the ability to go "audio only" for those times watching isn't easy. Simply tap the "camera off" icon in the Full Player to go "audio only". And when you're ready to resume watching, touch the same icon to resume video seamlessly.
• Video podcasts will natively support picture-in-picture, full-screen mode, and when closing the full player you will see a tiny live video in the Mini Player. Tapping the mini player will resume the Full Player with the video.
• Video podcasts support a seamless transition to "audio only" when the phone is locked or display goes to sleep to continue playing the audio in the background. This is very similar to how YouTube TV works and it's a wonderful feature.
• Resuming an In Progress (paused) episode in our now renamed, "Continue Playing" section on the Home tab will automatically open the full player and resume the podcast in the last mode you left it. So if you paused it in video mode, it will bring up the full player and video. If you paused it in audio mode, it will continue in audio mode. Simply head over to the player to resume the video.
• Bookmarking video podcasts for "Save For Later" will now be separated into an automatic "Watch Later" collection. "Listen Later" remains for audio-only podcasts.

This release also includes some key changes and improvements since the previous release, including:

• Sleep Timer UX Improved. The previous build's changes to the sleep timer we're not a responsive as oriignally envisioned. In this release, the UX for sleep timer has been improved from to a one-step screen. The radial dial has returned is much more responsive on drag, as well as quick buttons to add or remove time.
• AI Chapter Improvements. Generation of AI Chapters no longer requires you to permanently store the transcript. The system will generate a temporary transcript to create the AI Chapters, but immediately remove it from memory. Users can generate a transcript for permanent transcription separately. The UX has been reworked to pull the Generate Transcript button to the top of the Episode View.
• AI Chapter Algorithm Improved. This release includes updates to the algorithms to AI Chatper generation for more accurate chapter markers and name, and improved ad detection from transcripts when generating AI Chapters.
• Browse and Manage Archives Within the App. This feature was previously available, however, was in the Storage Usage in the Settings. You can now find this right below Storage Usage on the Settings page. In this view, you can see all of your archived episodes, including transcripts and chapters, and delete them from within the app. A new filter has also been added to filter not only by file type, but also by Storage Location for larger libraries.
• Performance and UX Updates. This release includes performance updates and optimizations, and small UX adjustments.

Bugs fixed in this release:

• OPML imports will now show podcast artwork after imports, and improved matching. A big thank you to beta tester T.E. for reporting this issue.
• Fixed rare crashes occurring with Silence Trimming, speficially when streaming an episode.
• Fixed some minor bugs and issues.

Thanks to everyone who has supported CastKeeper on this incredible journey, and I'm looking forward to bringing it to the world soon. Next week's release will be the last release, and is planned as our Release Candidate version. At this time, no more new features are planned, only bug fixes or quality of listener improvements. If you have any feature requests, I still want to hear them, as after launch the plan is to continue to improve CastKeeper.

Launch plans and information will be included in next week's release notes. In the meantime, please feel free to refer other podcast users to the beta through the website. We still have a few open spots left, but spots are filling up fast!

CastKeeper Public Beta 3 Release 2 Out Now

Thanks to everyone who has given me such awesome feedback, that I've released my next build earlier than expected.

Release 2 of Public Beta 3 is available now, and I will be expiring old builds from testing due to many changes and ensuring testers are on the latest version.

The full changelog is below:

What's New in this Release:

• NEW COLLECTION TEMPLATES: We've revamped collections to add some fun quick-to-add collections that you can use. We've also refined the manual collection creation to allow users to futher refine Smart Collections or Manual Collections. Check it out!
• I've made some significant improvements to our Trim Silences feature to reduce jitter and clipping.
• NEW SLEEP TIMER UX: Revamped the sleep timer process to make it easy to start a timer, and now you will see a live view of the night sky overhead when setting a sleep timer. If one isn't available, a beautiful night view from Apple Maps will appear.
• Added a close buton to the Mini Player that is available when audio is not playing or loading. Thanks to tester Ruben for this suggestion.
• Cleaned up some very minor UX issues and performance tuned for older devices.

Continue with the great feedback! CastKeeper is a better app because of our testing community. I'll be taking a few days to work on other things and await more feedback, but this one I felt needed to get out ASAP. Our next release will include a really good addition that I think you all will definitely like. Just ironing out some of the final code. Stay tuned!

CastKeeper Public Beta 3 Release Notes

I've spent the weekend getting great feedback from our testing community, as well as making some more final preparations before our launch. I want to give a big thank you personally to everyone who has contributed their feedback, and I appreciate everyone so far enjoying CastKeeper.

So let's get down to the good stuff. Public Beta 3 is out now, and in this release, I've added some "Quality of Listener" improvements, along with some minor fixes.

The full changelog is below:

New Features for Beta Testers:

• Multiple S3 Buckets From Same Provider Type Support. Previously, only one bucket for S3 account providers was allowed. Now users can add as many S3 buckets they would like from the same provider, including Custom S3 servers. So whether you happen to have multiple Wasabi buckets and want to separate your archive, or run a homelab with a bunch of S3 buckets, you can now add these to CastKeeper. This does not work for iCloud Drive.
• Normlize Audio for Playback. Go to Settings and enable this feature to boost lower sounds and reduce louder sounds, like ads, to maintain a consistent audio volume at the level you set. A big thank you to my amazing wife for this suggestion!
• Trim Silences has arrived. Enable this in settings to have CastKeeper automatically trim out long pauses and silences during episode playback to save you more time for more podcasts. Thank you to tester "startfragment".
• Listening Stats with Charts. Check out our new listening stats in Settings where you can see just how much time you've saved using our Trim Sliences feature, as well as some other information. All information is stored privately and synced through iCloud and cross-device. Each section includes a little chart for a quick glance.

Improvements in this Release:

• Cleaned up the Settings Page and added information buttons you can tap to see what each toggle does in a popover.

Bugs Squashed in this Release:

• I received some feedback from an English teacher who kindly reminded me that new sentences should not start with a number. So I wrote a small essay of code to fix that in our greetings as my way of saying thank you, and I'm sorry.

We've really started making some great progress towards launch, and I appreciate everyone's feedback. Remember, if you have any feedback, and prefer to send it to me directly, please email me at [email protected]. I will do my best to personally respond to each of you as soon as possible.

CastKeeper Public Beta 2 Release Out Now

CastKeeper Public Beta 2 is out now for continued testing. In this release, I've squashed some bugs, and introduced more new features and improvements to make the CastKeeper experience better in preparation for our launch.

The full changelog is below:

New Features for Beta Testers:

• With the release of iOS 26.4, transcriptions now automatically use Apple Intelligence's latest frameworks for faster transcripts, with less battery usage. Users with devices that support Apple Intelligence will automatically get access to this feature. For older devices, WhisperKit is still available, but it is suggested to run transcripts on battery due to heavier work to preserve battery life.
• Translations now leverage new frameworks to transcribe your transcripts using Apple Intelligence. Watch as your transcripts go from one language to another as they are processed. Older devices will need to continue to download the appropriate language packs and use the older Translation APIs.
• S3 Provider setup has been simplified to allow a faster setup, including pricing links to our preconfigured providers, helping you choose the plan right for you.
• You can now create a new S3 bucket or select an existing bucket on your service after configuration.
• Users who set up a custom S3 server can now set a "friendly" name for the server like "My Homelab S3" and the UI will show that throughout so you know what specific S3 bucket your episodes are in.

Bugs Squashed in this Release:

• Episodes played from Archive with a sleep timer will correctly mark episodes as played when they finish.
• Improved Smart Collections for better results.
• Improved AI Chapter generation engine to better detect advertisements and increase accuracy.
• Transcript View should no longer duplicate "Chapters" and "AI Chapters" with AI-generated chapters.
• Due to Apple's strict guardrails with Apple Intelligence, tweaked the AI Episode Summary generation with fallback handling if running into safeguards. Apple's strict control of Apple Intelligence caused some extra work, but it's private, just how I like it.

Coming Soon:

I'm currently working on revamping the Hosts feature for a better experience for users, as well as our beloved podcasters. Most of this work will occur outside of the app, but stay tuned here for an update when it's ready.

CastKeeper Now in Public TestFlight!

As of today, CastKeeper is now in public TestFlight. We are excited to show CastKeeper to a larger audience prior to our public launch next month. If you are interested in joining the public beta, you can join directly via TestFlight on our home page while we still have testing spots open.

For those joining us, here is an overview of what CastKeeper is offering beyond your normal podcast app:

• No subscriptions, no ads, no tracking. Your podcasts are your business.
• Archive your favorite podcasts! Our flagship feature, CastKeeper allows you to archive your favorite episodes to iCloud Drive out of the box as well as S3 compatible storage.
• Full support out of the box for the most popular S3 providers, including Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, AWS, and Digital Ocean. You can also set up your own custom S3 server if you have another provider or are a self-hoster.
• Learn more about your favorite podcast hosts with our Hosts feature!
• Full OPML import of your existing library for quick startup.
• Cross-device sync using Apple CloudKit. No logins, no passwords. Your library and playback will sync automatically between devices using Apple's secure CloudKit.

Apple Intelligence takes your podcasts to the next level. CastKeeper includes Apple Intelligence for supported devices to allow features to enhance your podcast experience. No cloud, no additional costs, full privacy. If your device supports Apple Intelligence, you automatically get the following features:

• Episode AI Summaries with sponsor detection. Know before you listen what the episode is about without digging through show notes. Identify sponsors of your favorite podcasts and associated promo codes to support your favorite podcast.
• Dynamic Ad Insertion notification in AI Summaries with opt-out links. Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) providers are identified with links to opt-out where available. While CastKeeper never tracks your listening habits, DAI providers do.
• Full Transcription of episodes. Transcribe your episodes right within CastKeeper and export them to your favorite formats for later. For students, MLA citations are included automatically at the bottom of each transcription.
• Translation of transcripts. Translate your transcripts into over 15 languages. You can share you transcripts in another language as well. Great for students for language immersion, or sharing your favorite podcast episode with a friend whose native language is different than yours.
• Smart Collections. Follow or Subscribe to as many podcasts as your want, and create Smart Collections to track anything. Want to know everything about the new MacBook Neo? Simply createa a smart collection and let CastKeeper do the work!

A big shoutout to the close friends who did a lot of internal testing to get CastKeeper into a public beta ready state! I'm looking forward to everyone enjoying using CastKeeper as much as I enjoyed developing it.

- BW