Why should I use Spotify to listen to podcasts ("audios shows") instead of on my podcast app?

[Gee_Arr]

Can someone explain to me why I would want to use the new podcast feature on Spotify? (Instead of just using the Podcasts app on my iPhone?)

Appartently you cannot add podcasts to playlists. (And you can't even get to the podcasts on the desktop app.) So what's the point? Finding podcasts on the Spotify app was confusing. To add an extra level of confusion, Spotify calls them "audio shows". (They were concerned if they called them "podcasts" people may actually find them.)

But now that I found them, what I am suppose to do with them? I listen to a lot of podcasts but it would be too difficult to browse and launch them from Spotify. If you were able to add them into playlists, that would be sometining worthwhile but you can't. Spotify has an "up next" option but its identical to the iPhone Podcast app.

Podcasts are so difficult to get to and browse through on Spotify that its easier for for me to to switch over to Podcast app on my iPhone.

Am I missing something?

[user-removed · Accepted solution]

You might not want to use it on an iPhone.  But Android phones don't have podcast support in their native music apps, so you have to use something else.  I'm happy to have this in Spotify because it avoids the need for another app.

[p5f]

The podcast part of the app is woeful, hopefully it's just a start and will improve over time. I'd love to be able to use spotify for podcasts as well as music because spotify links to my speakers easier and more reliably than any other app. As well as the navigation a lot of work needs to be done on the content, there are far to many missing podcasts and they only seem to have the most recent episodes from the people the have included.

[florismrfart]

I also wish I could use them in a playlist. For some reason all podcast apps hate normal playlists. I really don't understand why.

[mjwmjw]

Google Play Music is the native music app on my phone and it has podcast support but both are actively terrible. When I search in both Play Music and the Android Spotify app for "S Town" for example, spotify pulls up nothing, but play music at least shows me Invisibilia, which is related. I can't for the life of me figure out how to use either to subcribe/download.

[bigunzzz]

Podcasts don't even show up on my ipad. I have to start playing them on my Macbook and then tell Spotify to play it on my iPad.

I can't pause and listen to music for a little while and then come back to the podcast, I have to go back to my computer and start playing the podcast again and tell it to play on my ipad.

[Nelovand]

Also worth mentioning is that the variety of podcasts Spotify has available is downright ridiculous! I can't find more than half of the podcasts I listen to on ios's native podcasts app!

[Ryan2246]

Agreed. I can't believe auto download isn't an option. I gave Spotify a shot, but I'm switching away today. 

[Pos1234]

There are no reasons to use it.  I used to, then moved to the Iphone Podcasts app (which was bad), so moved back to Spotify.  I'm kicking myself.  It's been 2 days and this app is horrible.  A classic case of the developer(s) not eating their own dog food. There's no way you could use this app and be happy with it.