Wow, what a difference. I only really started listening to podcasts a couple years ago. I heard about the Stitcher app, it was referenced on NPR, so I assumed it was probably one of the best out there, for free at least. So I downloaded it to my Kindle Fire and have been using it exclusively for about a year or more. Before that I had only listened to podcasts online or on my desktop computer so Stitcher was the only podcast app I had ever used. I really love listening to podcasts at night, as I fall asleep. But two big things were making me crazy with Stitcher: One; that it has a glaring white screen, which is bothersome when I'm trying to get into 'sleepy mode' in bed. And two; it had a 'continuous play' feature that I could never manage to find a way to turn off. So I'd choose one podcast episode to play, start to fall asleep, and just when I was asleep it would start playing the next podcast. This was very annoying because I would deliberately choose some subdued, quiet-type podcast to fall asleep to, and then suddenly some other loud obnoxious podcast would wake me up. It got to the point where I rarely listened at bedtime anymore, and started listening to audiobooks instead. Their website shows an option to turn off continuous play, but I could never find the setting options they referred to on my Kindle, I just don't think my version offered a way to disable it.

SO: My point in all that history is to say that I have neither problem with Podcast Addict, Hooray! It has a nice dark interface which is much more soothing on my eyes while in bed. Additionally, it has the option to stop playing once the current podcast is over, which I LOVE. Now I can fall asleep to the chosen episode and only the chosen episode, and as I drift off it eventually shuts up! The option is a little quirky however, there's a box to check "Stop playing after current episode", which in theory should stop at the end of the episode *no matter what*. But under that is a timer to select whether to stop playing after a selected period of time, anything to one minute to many hours. Strangely, the 'stop playing after current episode' box being checked does NOT override the timer IF the timer is set to a time that's shorter than the episode. So in addition to checking the 'stop after current episode' box, I have to also make sure the timer is set for a very long period of time (say three hours for example) in order for a shorter episode (say 30-60 minutes) to stop when it should - without cutting it off too early. So it's a little glitch but not a big deal now that I've figured out that I can just keep the timer set for several hours at all times and then check the 'end after episode' box before bed, since everything I listen to is never more than 3 hours. I would have deducted a star for this flaw but since I figured out how to work around it I'm happy. The bottom line is that I am thrilled to be able to have a sleep option even though it's not perfect.

Another thing I've discovered which surprised me is that when I searched for my regular podcasts, this app pulled up many more available episodes in several cases than were offered on Stitcher. I just assumed the number of available episodes were set by the podcast itself, it never occurred to me that a different app might offer more episodes, so that's very exciting. Additionally, I've also found a few podcasts on Podcast Addict that I searched for on Stitcher but could never find.

There are a lot of settings and options, some a bit confusing, some not, and I'm still learning my way around. I haven't utilized half of the features yet, but already this is a BIG improvement from Stitcher. It's more visually appealing and offers more customization options. I am really enjoying it. There is a banner ad across the bottom of the screen, but I don't really mind it and the overall improvement over Stitcher is totally worth it.

**UPDATE June 2018**
Just happened upon this old review of mine and wanted to mention that the above-mentioned timer issues are no longer a problem. They regularly update and fix issues and I'm not sure when the timer issue was fixed, but it was. Now podcasts simply stop after each episode as they should. I'm still devoted to this app and use no other!

Brand	N/A
Rating	4.1 (5960 ratings)
Price	$N/A
Category	Podcasts