For the past 9 years, Podcast Addict has been ad-supported.
As such, the app has been FREE and FULL featured. A paid app - now replaced by a one time In-App purchase - allows you to remove the ad banner displayed at the bottom of the screen.
Unfortunately, over the past 4 years, advertising revenues have continued to decrease, even though the number of users has continued to increase during the same period.
In addition, a one-time purchase to remove the ad banner for life isn't a sustainable solution as the app keeps being improved month after month.
So I decided to add an optional paid subscription in the app.
This subscription called 'Podcast Addict PREMIUM' will cost $0.99/month or $9.99/year. Current paid users will have an automatic discount for the first year if they choose to subscribe to Podcast Addict Premium.
The subscription can be canceled at any time.
With this subscription, I hope I can get a more steady income, so I can focus more on improving the app instead of spending more and more time trying to tweak the ad network settings to limit the constant decline in advertising revenue.
If you want to subscribe, then please go to the Settings screen and scroll down. Thanks!!
TLDR: Basically, nothing changes for the users (free and paid). The app remains fully functional and you will keep receiving new features as usual.
However, from time to time, some very minor features will be added for Premium users only
By default, the app refreshes the episode list when you press the update button or according to the time and frequency set in the app. With this new feature, podcasts supporting the open WebSub protocol will automatically notify the app when a new episode is available (Settings/Update/Automatic Update/Real Time).
You can get more information from the Changelog.
By default the app opens on the screen Showing your subscriptions. You can already customize this screen by using a widget called "Opening screen", but this extra feature allows you to select the default screen from Settings/Display.
A new Light theme was recently added to the free app. Premium users have access to extra light themes. New ones will be added in the future (Settings/Display/Theme).
The app can show Sponsored podcasts in screen that allows you to find a new Podcast. You can disable this in Settings/Display.
A new widget called PLAYLIST Widget will show the content of the current playlist on your home screen. You can then scroll and start playing another episode without having to open the app.
Unfortunately artwork files stored on the SD card won't be able to be displayed because of an Android restriction.
You can get more information from the Changelog.
When you share a podcast/episode the app appends the following text 'via @PodcastAddict'. You can go into Settings/Share to disable this.
When a new version is released, the app automatically shows a popup with the changelog. This allows you to know about new features, improvements and bug fixes.
You can disable this in Settings/Share, however I would highly recommend to keep this enabled as you will miss some important informations about new versions in the future.