CastKeeper Updates & Changelog

CastKeeper Public Beta 5 Release

Happy Monday! As CastKeeper continues to get closer to a public release, the focus has shifted now to quality of listener improvements and bugs. Since the last release, a lot of great feedback has been received, and keep them coming!

While the next CastKeeper beta release was scheduled for next week, a new release is being put out earlier to ensure the most quality experience for our testers, and upcoming users.

Improvements in Public Beta 5:

• Enhanced Search. Search results will now include two paths, Podcasts and Episodes. Entering a search term will return the podcasts where that term is found, as well as a new section called "Episodes" where users can find the specific episodes where the search term is found. Looking for just that one episode where something was mentioned, or an interview took place, use the Episodes filter. Episodes found can be quickly added to the "Listen Later" collection.
• Archive View Enhancements. The Archive page has been reworked to make filtering, ordering, and searching archived podcast episodes easier. Users can now filter by storage location, as well as change their sorting mechanism. A dedicated search bar has been added to locate a specific archived episode.
• Silence Trimming Improved. Continued to improve our silence trimming algorithm for better results.
• New Controls for Full Screen Video. You can now favorite, bookmark, or change output audio target for video podcasts when in full screen mode.
• UX Polishes. In the spirit of dyeing Easter eggs, CastKeeper has added some more polish with consistent color schemes and navigation throughout the interface, along with some UX changes to make finding important information easier.
• Speaking of Easter Eggs, there may be a little one hidden in the UX somewhere. Happy hunting!

Bugs fixed in this release:

• Fixed issue where Full Player did not show friendly names of archive locations when using archive button.
• Fixed issue where hitting skip chapter forward on the last chapter would restart last chapter instead of going to the end of the episode.
• Fixed issue where AI-generated chapters without a saved transcript would not show in the Full Player chapters picker.
• Fixed issue with RSS where episodes were not pulling in for podcasts.

That's all for today's release.

CastKeeper Public Beta 4 Release

This past week I've finally nailed the one last feature I was saving to make sure it was done right. With Public Beta 4, CastKeeper now supports Video Podcasts. While the podcast "purist" in me still prefers the audio experience, video podcasts are on the rise. To ensure our video podcasters get the same love as our audio-only feeds, I wanted to personally make sure this worked.

Here's the full breakdown of how video podcasts are now integrated into CastKeeper:

• The iTunes API doesn't allow multiple file types in a single podcast feed. So if you see a podcast titled "Video", that's your best bet.
• Despite being a video podcast, I've retained the ability to go "audio only" for those times watching isn't easy. Simply tap the "camera off" icon in the Full Player to go "audio only". And when you're ready to resume watching, touch the same icon to resume video seamlessly.
• Video podcasts will natively support picture-in-picture, full-screen mode, and when closing the full player you will see a tiny live video in the Mini Player. Tapping the mini player will resume the Full Player with the video.
• Video podcasts support a seamless transition to "audio only" when the phone is locked or display goes to sleep to continue playing the audio in the background. This is very similar to how YouTube TV works and it's a wonderful feature.
• Resuming an In Progress (paused) episode in our now renamed, "Continue Playing" section on the Home tab will automatically open the full player and resume the podcast in the last mode you left it. So if you paused it in video mode, it will bring up the full player and video. If you paused it in audio mode, it will continue in audio mode. Simply head over to the player to resume the video.
• Bookmarking video podcasts for "Save For Later" will now be separated into an automatic "Watch Later" collection. "Listen Later" remains for audio-only podcasts.

This release also includes some key changes and improvements since the previous release, including:

• Sleep Timer UX Improved. The previous build's changes to the sleep timer we're not a responsive as oriignally envisioned. In this release, the UX for sleep timer has been improved from to a one-step screen. The radial dial has returned is much more responsive on drag, as well as quick buttons to add or remove time.
• AI Chapter Improvements. Generation of AI Chapters no longer requires you to permanently store the transcript. The system will generate a temporary transcript to create the AI Chapters, but immediately remove it from memory. Users can generate a transcript for permanent transcription separately. The UX has been reworked to pull the Generate Transcript button to the top of the Episode View.
• AI Chapter Algorithm Improved. This release includes updates to the algorithms to AI Chatper generation for more accurate chapter markers and name, and improved ad detection from transcripts when generating AI Chapters.
• Browse and Manage Archives Within the App. This feature was previously available, however, was in the Storage Usage in the Settings. You can now find this right below Storage Usage on the Settings page. In this view, you can see all of your archived episodes, including transcripts and chapters, and delete them from within the app. A new filter has also been added to filter not only by file type, but also by Storage Location for larger libraries.
• Performance and UX Updates. This release includes performance updates and optimizations, and small UX adjustments.

Bugs fixed in this release:

• OPML imports will now show podcast artwork after imports, and improved matching. A big thank you to beta tester T.E. for reporting this issue.
• Fixed rare crashes occurring with Silence Trimming, speficially when streaming an episode.
• Fixed some minor bugs and issues.

Thanks to everyone who has supported CastKeeper on this incredible journey, and I'm looking forward to bringing it to the world soon. Next week's release will be the last release, and is planned as our Release Candidate version. At this time, no more new features are planned, only bug fixes or quality of listener improvements. If you have any feature requests, I still want to hear them, as after launch the plan is to continue to improve CastKeeper.

Launch plans and information will be included in next week's release notes. In the meantime, please feel free to refer other podcast users to the beta through the website. We still have a few open spots left, but spots are filling up fast!

CastKeeper Public Beta 3 Release 2 Out Now

Thanks to everyone who has given me such awesome feedback, that I've released my next build earlier than expected.

Release 2 of Public Beta 3 is available now, and I will be expiring old builds from testing due to many changes and ensuring testers are on the latest version.

The full changelog is below:

What's New in this Release:

• NEW COLLECTION TEMPLATES: We've revamped collections to add some fun quick-to-add collections that you can use. We've also refined the manual collection creation to allow users to futher refine Smart Collections or Manual Collections. Check it out!
• I've made some significant improvements to our Trim Silences feature to reduce jitter and clipping.
• NEW SLEEP TIMER UX: Revamped the sleep timer process to make it easy to start a timer, and now you will see a live view of the night sky overhead when setting a sleep timer. If one isn't available, a beautiful night view from Apple Maps will appear.
• Added a close buton to the Mini Player that is available when audio is not playing or loading. Thanks to tester Ruben for this suggestion.
• Cleaned up some very minor UX issues and performance tuned for older devices.

Continue with the great feedback! CastKeeper is a better app because of our testing community. I'll be taking a few days to work on other things and await more feedback, but this one I felt needed to get out ASAP. Our next release will include a really good addition that I think you all will definitely like. Just ironing out some of the final code. Stay tuned!

CastKeeper Public Beta 3 Release Notes

I've spent the weekend getting great feedback from our testing community, as well as making some more final preparations before our launch. I want to give a big thank you personally to everyone who has contributed their feedback, and I appreciate everyone so far enjoying CastKeeper.

So let's get down to the good stuff. Public Beta 3 is out now, and in this release, I've added some "Quality of Listener" improvements, along with some minor fixes.

The full changelog is below:

New Features for Beta Testers:

• Multiple S3 Buckets From Same Provider Type Support. Previously, only one bucket for S3 account providers was allowed. Now users can add as many S3 buckets they would like from the same provider, including Custom S3 servers. So whether you happen to have multiple Wasabi buckets and want to separate your archive, or run a homelab with a bunch of S3 buckets, you can now add these to CastKeeper. This does not work for iCloud Drive.
• Normlize Audio for Playback. Go to Settings and enable this feature to boost lower sounds and reduce louder sounds, like ads, to maintain a consistent audio volume at the level you set. A big thank you to my amazing wife for this suggestion!
• Trim Silences has arrived. Enable this in settings to have CastKeeper automatically trim out long pauses and silences during episode playback to save you more time for more podcasts. Thank you to tester "startfragment".
• Listening Stats with Charts. Check out our new listening stats in Settings where you can see just how much time you've saved using our Trim Sliences feature, as well as some other information. All information is stored privately and synced through iCloud and cross-device. Each section includes a little chart for a quick glance.

Improvements in this Release:

• Cleaned up the Settings Page and added information buttons you can tap to see what each toggle does in a popover.

Bugs Squashed in this Release:

• I received some feedback from an English teacher who kindly reminded me that new sentences should not start with a number. So I wrote a small essay of code to fix that in our greetings as my way of saying thank you, and I'm sorry.

We've really started making some great progress towards launch, and I appreciate everyone's feedback. Remember, if you have any feedback, and prefer to send it to me directly, please email me at feedback@castkeeper.app. I will do my best to personally respond to each of you as soon as possible.

CastKeeper Public Beta 2 Release Out Now

CastKeeper Public Beta 2 is out now for continued testing. In this release, I've squashed some bugs, and introduced more new features and improvements to make the CastKeeper experience better in preparation for our launch.

The full changelog is below:

New Features for Beta Testers:

• With the release of iOS and iPadOS 26.4, transcriptions now automatically use Apple Intelligence's latest frameworks for faster transcripts, with less battery usage. Users with devices that support Apple Intelligence will automatically get access to this feature. For older devices, WhisperKit is still available, but it is suggested to run transcripts on battery due to heavier work to preserve battery life.
• Translations now leverage new frameworks to transcribe your transcripts using Apple Intelligence. Watch as your transcripts go from one language to another as they are processed. Older devices will need to continue to download the appropriate language packs and use the older Translation APIs.
• S3 Provider setup has been simplified to allow a faster setup, including pricing links to our preconfigured providers, helping you choose the plan right for you.
• You can now create a new S3 bucket or select an existing bucket on your service after configuration.
• Users who set up a custom S3 server can now set a "friendly" name for the server like "My Homelab S3" and the UI will show that throughout so you know what specific S3 bucket your episodes are in.

Bugs Squashed in this Release:

• Episodes played from Archive with a sleep timer will correctly mark episodes as played when they finish.
• Improved Smart Collections for better results.
• Improved AI Chapter generation engine to better detect advertisements and increase accuracy.
• Transcript View should no longer duplicate "Chapters" and "AI Chapters" with AI-generated chapters.
• Due to Apple's strict guardrails with Apple Intelligence, tweaked the AI Episode Summary generation with fallback handling if running into safeguards. Apple's strict control of Apple Intelligence caused some extra work, but it's on-device and private, just how I like it.

Coming Soon:

I'm currently working on revamping the Hosts feature for a better experience for users, as well as our beloved podcasters. Most of this work will occur outside of the app, but stay tuned here for an update when it's ready.

CastKeeper Now in Public TestFlight!

As of today, CastKeeper is now in public TestFlight. We are excited to show CastKeeper to a larger audience prior to our public launch next month. If you are interested in joining the public beta, you can join directly via TestFlight on our home page while we still have testing spots open.

For those joining us, here is an overview of what CastKeeper is offering beyond your normal podcast app:

• No subscriptions, no ads, no tracking. Your podcasts are your business.
• Archive your favorite podcasts! Our flagship feature, CastKeeper allows you to archive your favorite episodes to iCloud Drive out of the box as well as S3 compatible storage.
• Full support out of the box for the most popular S3 providers, including Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, AWS, and Digital Ocean. You can also set up your own custom S3 server if you have another provider or are a self-hoster.
• Learn more about your favorite podcast hosts with our Hosts feature!
• Full OPML import of your existing library for quick startup.
• Cross-device sync using Apple CloudKit. No logins, no passwords. Your library and playback will sync automatically between devices using Apple's secure CloudKit.

Apple Intelligence takes your podcasts to the next level. CastKeeper includes Apple Intelligence on-device for supported devices to allow features to enhance your podcast experience. No cloud, no additional costs, full privacy. If your device supports Apple Intelligence, you automatically get the following features:

• Episode AI Summaries with sponsor detection. Know before you listen what the episode is about without digging through show notes. Identify sponsors of your favorite podcasts and associated promo codes to support your favorite podcast.
• Dynamic Ad Insertion notification in AI Summaries with opt-out links. Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) providers are identified with links to opt-out where available. While CastKeeper never tracks your listening habits, DAI providers do.
• Full Transcription of episodes on-device. Transcribe your episodes right within CastKeeper and export them to your favorite formats for later. For students, MLA citations are included automatically at the bottom of each transcription.
• On-device translation of transcripts. Translate your transcripts on-device into over 15 languages. You can share you transcripts in another language as well. Great for students for language immersion, or sharing your favorite podcast episode with a friend whose native language is different than yours.
• Smart Collections. Follow or Subscribe to as many podcasts as your want, and create Smart Collections to track anything. Want to know everything about the new MacBook Neo? Simply createa a smart collection and let CastKeeper do the work!

A big shoutout to the close friends who did a lot of internal testing to get CastKeeper into a public beta ready state! I'm looking forward to everyone enjoying using CastKeeper as much as I enjoyed developing it.

- BW