Google Podcasts adds timestamp sharing, tweaks player UI in latest beta

Abner Li | Jan 21 2020 - 8:34 am PT

Google in recent weeks has updated Podcasts with a number of tweaks, including a Material Theme account switcher and dark theme. The latest Google Podcasts beta adds timestamp sharing while cleaning up the player interface.

Podcasts is updated with the Google app, and yesterday’s beta (10.93) starts by cleaning up the buttons that appear underneath the slide-up player. Playback speed and Sleep timer still appear underneath the main controls, but Episode info has been moved into the overflow menu for a less dense, three-button screen.

That info page is tied with the next new feature: timestamp sharing. Last September, we enabled a bookmarking feature that is not yet available and allows sharing links to episodes queued at a certain position. The latter functionality is live (via Android Police) in beta, but is somewhat hidden.

: Previous

: Current

You cannot share a timestamp directly from the player but must go directly to the full Episode page, which also sees some minor visual tweaks. From here, the sharing button presents two options, with the latter appending a modifier to the URL.

Share episode

https://podcasts.google.com/?
feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLmZlZWRidXJuZXIuY29tLzl0bzVnb29nbGVEYWlseQ
&episode=aHR0cHM6Ly85dG81Z29vZ2xlLmNvbS8_cD0zMzM5NDQ

Share from current time

https://podcasts.google.com/?
feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLmZlZWRidXJuZXIuY29tLzl0bzVnb29nbGVEYWlseQ
&episode=aHR0cHM6Ly85dG81Z29vZ2xlLmNvbS8_cD0zMzM5NDQ&pe=1&pep=73475

: Previous

: Previous

: Current

There are more changes to podcast pages with new shortcuts for “Visit website” and “Share” next to the Subscribe/Subscribed button. These actions were previously in the overflow menu, but the former currently seems to be broken with this beta.

Lastly, there’s a small visual tweak to Version info details in the Podcasts settings page, as well as .