Google Podcasts is already more than one and a half years old, but development is excruciatingly slow — not too dissimilar to YouTube Music. The podcast player has always been lacking an easily accessible web interface; it has only been available via Google search workarounds since March last year. Now, the company has finally rolled out a proper web version for a more complete podcast experience on podcasts.google.com, but it's still not on par with the Android app.

When you head to the website, you'll be greeted by a collection of loosely personalized podcast suggestions based on what you've previously listened to, like in the image above. A click on any of the covers takes you to an overview and description of the respective content, complete with a list of available episodes. To get to your favorite podcasts, you can use the new search bar at the top of the interface. Its results list both shows and single episodes, which makes finding podcasts on the web much more intentional than it is via Google Search.

Search results on the new Podcasts interface.

You can't subscribe to any podcasts via the web interface, though. In fact, the website doesn't give you access to your subscriptions at all. An overview of new episodes or those you've started is nowhere to be seen, either. At least your listening progress is synced across devices, indicated visually around the play button, so you have some idea where you stopped your last session. Chromecast support is also still missing here. With almost a year passed since the release of the first Podcasts web version, that's less development than we'd hoped for.

The web interface won't show your subscriptions, but at least your progress is synchronized.

If you don't particularly care about installing yet another app just to listen to podcasts, you can also visit Google Podcasts in your mobile browser to get a scaled-down version of the web interface on your phone.

Via: 9to5Google