Updates

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 and iPadOS 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 on-device and 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 on-device 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 on-device. 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.
• On-device translation of transcripts. Translate your transcripts on-device 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