{"id":421858,"date":"2026-01-20T17:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/421858\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T17:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:45:10","slug":"pocket-casts-for-wear-os-update-adds-watch-speaker-playback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/421858\/","title":{"rendered":"Pocket Casts for Wear OS update adds watch speaker playback"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t<img width=\"1600\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Pixel-Watch-4-charger-connection.jpg\" class=\"skip-lazy wp-post-image\" alt=\"\"  decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Google introduced watch speaker playback with <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2025\/03\/19\/wear-os-5-1-new-features\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wear OS 5.1<\/a>, and the latest update to Pocket Casts adds support.<\/p>\n<p>Version 8.3 of Pocket Casts is a sizable update for the Wear OS client. You can now listen to podcasts without Bluetooth headphones or speakers. Just start playing, while you can quickly switch to a paired device from the volume page. YouTube Music also offers podcast \u2014 but not music \u2014 playback via the speaker.<\/p>\n<p>The watch app\u2019s homepage now lets you see what has been \u201cStarred\u201d from your phone, with archived and played episodes grayed out. In other views, like on podcast pages, archived\/played episodes are now hidden.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pocket Casts has also updated the Downloads screen on Wear OS with a loading spinner.<\/p>\n<p>\tAdvertisement &#8211; scroll for more content<\/p>\n<p>You must be a Pocket Casts Plus subscriber ($3.99 per month or $39.99 per year) to use the Wear OS app. Pocket Casts 8.3 is rolling out now <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">via the Play Store<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Winter drop for Wear OS: your watch can finally talk back with playback through the speaker, plus a brand-new Starred Episodes screen. Downloads learned patience with a loading spinner, starred shows now sort properly and include episodes from podcasts you ditched, and smaller images load faster. Played or archived episodes fade out or disappear. Volume boost now knows when it\u2019s on, images stopped crashing the party, and Help &amp; Feedback found its padding. Cozy.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Pocket Casts <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.pocketcasts.com\/2026\/01\/20\/radioactive-decay\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shared today<\/a> that the next update (version 8.4) will remove the green Radioactivity theme: \u201cThis theme has not seen much use for a while, and it has also been responsible for a disproportionate number of UI glitches and edge case issues\u2026 Removing Radioactivity helps us simplify the app, reduce bugs, and spend more time improving features that more listeners use and love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/9to5google.com\" aria-label=\"Add 9to5Google as a preferred source on Google\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"google-preferred-source-badge-dark\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764374954_669_google-preferred-source-badge-dark.png\" alt=\"Add 9to5Google as a preferred source on Google\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"google-preferred-source-badge-light\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764374954_276_google-preferred-source-badge-light.png\" alt=\"Add 9to5Google as a preferred source on Google\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"disclaimer-affiliate\">FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/about\/#affiliate\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">More.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/43RjEnY\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-701536\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768931110_328_iMazing_-WWDC25_9to5mac_750x150@2x-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"140\"\/><\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google introduced watch speaker playback with Wear OS 5.1, and the latest update to Pocket Casts adds support.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[49,48,195,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-421858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-gadgets","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}