iOS 14.6 podcast app draining battery

I add to this list for apple podcast app:

• the app sometimes hangs for no obvious reason.
• for longer episodes (>1hour) it sometimes will repeat it over and over, even if I say “mark as played” or actively select next episode. It takes some minutes for the app to recalibrate before it works correctly again.
• sometimes forgets that I already played an episode.
• it sometimes means, that I never heard any episode of an podcast with over 200 episodes.

This app is obviously programmed not having in mind, that there could be 100 podcasts with >200 or much more episodes each.

Apple Discussions is a user-to-use your knowledge sharing forum and, as you can see, we are all sharing some of the pain with the Podcasts app upgrade. The best bet is for all to submit problems and suggestions to Apple at Apple Feedback, https://www.apple.com/feedback/apple-podcasts/

The iOS 14.5 & 14.6 Apple Podcasts app upgrades are still bug-ridden. I’m sorry podcast users have had to serve as guinea pigs for such flawed versions, it doesn’t make sense to invest time trying to answer questions about such an unpredictable piece of software.

On the Apple Podcasts Server side new episodes for some Shows are listed three days after they are available on TuneIn, Stitcher, SoundCloud, etc.

On the Apple Podcasts app side:

• the app gets stuck and remain in loading mode with some users when first opened,

• Episodes sometimes mark themselves as played after just a few seconds,

• some Shows do not list the most recent unplayed episodes even when the Show settings are chosen to do so.

• Station lists sometimes do not list unplayed episodes available in Show lists, even though the Station settings do not limit episodes,

• some users experience difficulty deleting episodes from lists,

• some episodes download once in Show lists, others simply do not, even the toggle for Automatic Downloads in Show settings is On,

• the app causes a heating problem and excessive battery draining, particularly when select other apps are open in the background or foreground,

• a change in key default settings in the iOS 14.5 Podcasts app upgrade caused numerous unwanted automatic downloads in Shows with tens or hundreds of episodes.

Hopefully, some heads have rolled for those responsible, clearer thinking people have replaced them and the bugs will be straightened out soon. Apple is an excellent company which has made this experience frustrate us more.

I am having the exact same issue. I’ve been considering moving away from iPhone after having had one since the iPhone 2. I have all things apple and have been an apple user since the year 2000. However, my iPhone 12 Pro has not made me happy. The podcast app draining my battery has all but sealed the deal in me moving away from my iPhone. I hope Apple fixes this quickly. My phone gets hot when listening to podcasts which is most of what I do on my phone. The battery is draining so quickly that if I use a slower charger while listening, battery still regreses while connected. This is unacceptable. I understand bugs and know it will likely be fixed, nonetheless; it may be time to move away from my smartphone and explore different alternatives.

This solution is not a solution. My settings were exactly as you recommended to change when the update occurred- I STILL have significant battery drain with a new phone and 99% battery health. I’ve also got the rest of the applications closed on my phone during use of my podcast app and continue to lose my entire battery charge in aprox an hour. This is a HUGE problem and costing Apple money as folks flock away to Spotify or other apps.

rhe time it takes to load all of your preferred casts to an alternate player is now worth it due to this AWFUL OVERSIGHT by Apple on the latest update. Honestly, the apple podcast player is generally the worst out there but we’ve stuck out of convenience. Whomever is in charge of podcast app- you need a new role, friend.

bye bye apple podcast - hope you get your $hit together

Agree. Since update to iOS 14.6 Podcast App is sucking battery power. My iPhone is heating up when The App is engaged.

I really dislike the functionality ( or lack thereof ) of the latest version of the Podcast App. However that’s a separate issue from its power hunger.

Overall a huge step backwards.

It takes like 5-10 minutes to load a podcast or search, or resume playing — everything freezes for 5-10 minutes before it starts working. One would think progress means improvement, right?

I also have been experiencing rapid battery drain whenever Apple Podcast App is refreshing. I loose 10-20% battery in less than a minute, every time the app refreshes. I spent time today screen sharing with apple support and deleted and re-downloaded the app and the battery stabilized. But a few hours later the app is ravaging my battery again.

I have got iPhone 11 Pro. After installing iOS 14.6 my iPhone gets very hot after using Podcast app for 5-20 minutes. The only problem solution is to terminate the Podcast app and disable the background activity of Podcast app. I can see that the Podcast app uses 80-90% of the battery during this short time! As a workaround I have subscribed to my podcasts in Spotify. I can listen to them in Spotify for hours without any problems.

I found a solution to iOS 14.6 Podcast app draining my battery and overheating my phone.

Exit Podcasts.

Select Settings.

Scroll down to Podcasts and click on it.

Scroll down to Automatic Downloads.

Turn off "Enable When Following".

(You might also consider turning off Cellular Data" if you don't want Podcasts to use megabytes you pay for.)

(Consider turning on "Block Downloads Over Cellular").

Exit Settings.

Open the Podcast app.

Select Library.

Select Shows.

Choose the first Show.

Click on ... (three dots at upper right).

Choose Settings.

Turn off "Automatic Downloads".

Click Done at upper right.

Click the back arrow at upper left.

Choose the next show, click ..., turn off automatic downloads, click Done, click the back arrow.

Repeat for all your shows.

This will stop the automatic downloads of unwanted shows that are overheating your phone. In addition to turning off automatic downloads, I also turned off notifications to avoid being notified about every new episode for every show.

If any Apple people are reading this, I suggest that you communicate to internal app developers that they should choose default settings that do not overheat the phone, or drain the battery, or overfill the memory, or overuse data.

1) Automatic Downloads should default to off.

2) Background Downloads should default to off.

3) Notifications should default to off.

4) When I go to Settings, Podcasts, and turn off Automatic Downloads, this should turn it off for all shows. I should not have to go to each show individually and turn off Automatic Downloads.

For me it's not a workaround at all. I like to subscribe to podcasts and let them download all new episodes automatically using my WLAN (no cellular updates). This allows me usually to listen to my podcast everywhere without downloading them manually.

At the moment my only real workaround is to re-subscribe to all my podcasts in Spotify. This way I get the same automatic downloads again. It works very well for me.

I hope somebody from Apple would read this and accelerate the bug fix of the podcast app. Soon I am done with all my podcasts movement to Spotify and will not use Apple Podcast app at all. I really disappointed, that Apple does not fix issue. I have been using Apple Podcast app for a very long time. But now I have to replace it, if I don't want to spent my money for battery replacement next time. The summer time and hot battery are looking for the trouble. ;-)

Agree. I too have been an Apple Podcast App user for a very long time. The latest refresh is a big step backward in functional simplicity and has the added battery drain issue. I'm experimenting with the app Pocket Casts , the free version seems to work well for me, and no battery issue.

I do hope that someone of influence from Apple is reading these posts and paying attention

Another reason why this isn’t a viable solution— despite having the same problems others have mentioned (rapid battery drain/heating, laggy interface, sometimes crashing on load, etc.) on my iPhone XS, automatic downloads were already disabled on all of my subscriptions.

This wasn’t a problem at all until iOS 14.6. On every previous version, the Podcasts app was zippy, efficient, and something I used to specifically recommend to others as a great iOS feature.

That’s no longer the case.

Spent 78 minutes with tech support chat box on this issue. Phone gets so hot while using podcast app and battery just drains. They ran a bunch of diagnostics and said everything looks good🤷‍♀️. Hopefully they fix this soon

Sheeesh! Why isn't there a global setting for this?

Thank you for your work-around but I follow quite a few podcasts and whatever I do in the podcast app is like swimming in molasses -- it's so slow to respond that I've decided just to delete the podcast app and listen to them on Spotify or elsewhere as previously suggested.

Here's another faster solution --

Go to SETTINGS: Podcast

Turn off: Notifications

Turn off: Background App Refresh

Turn off: Cellular Data (unless you have unlimited cellular plan)

Turn on: Block Downloads over cellular

Turn off: Continuous playback (until iOS update improves podcast app functionality)

Turn off: Automatic Downloads - Enable When Following

This is just an experimental work-around to address the heating up and draining of your battery and the damage that's already shortened your battery's life and length of operation between charges.

Good luck to all.