Podcasts arrive on Google Play, is it time to ditch your podcast player?

Google's working hard on updating its app ecosystem lately, and the latest service to get a revamp is Google Play Music. After weeks of rumors, podcasts were finally confirmed as an addition to Play Music in an official statement:

"Starting today on the web and rolling out on Android in the U.S. and Canada, we’ll connect you with podcasts based on what you’re doing, how you’re feeling and what you’re interested in. Similar to our contextual playlists for music, we want to make it easy to find the right podcast—whether you’re a podcast aficionado or listening for the first time."

Just a small sidenote here: between Maps and Earth you'd think Google knows by now that there are other countries out there.If you're in the US or Canada, just go to the Podcasts page and search for your favorite podcasts, or discover new ones. If you're a history buff, I cannot recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History enough.If podcasts are available in your country, that is.The podcasts on Google Play Music work pretty much like songs do on the platform, plus, you can subscribe to all your favorites and get notified when a new episode is up.But is it worth making the change from your current podcast player?Ever since rumors first started to fly about the new feature in Google's music service I've been taking a close look at PocketCasts, the player I've been using for years, trying to figure out if it's time to make a change.And it's really not - dedicated podcast players have been doing this one task for years, and they're pretty damn good at it. PocketCasts gets frequent updates whose changelogs are worth a laugh. Here's the latest one:Apart from the upcoming Android N support, PocketCasts does a lot of things great, like:

• custom episode support
• playback speed control
• marking episodes as "Played"
• skipping/fast-forwarding just a couple of seconds.

And all of this just isn't on Google's service.So, thanks Google, but for now no thanks. I'm sticking with my player for now.Image source: nexusupdate.com