Relay FM is home to a lot of my favourite podcasts. Myke Hurley and Stephen Hackett founded Relay FM over a year ago and it has come so far in such a short time. Even though I’ve been a loyal Pocket Casts user, I was super excited to use the official Relay FM app that hit the App Store a few days ago. Unfortunately, the new app leaves me really disappointed.
If you look at the screenshots on the App Store alone, the Relay FM app looks pretty great. However, it is let down in performance and navigation. I understand that this isn’t meant to be a full fledged podcast client, but it feels and performs like a poorly coded web app. The app has some really nice interface elements, like the actual design of each podcasts’ episode card and the beautiful animations for the show artwork. Tapping the name of an episode will animate the show art and play the said episode. You can navigate to other sections to view the latest episodes, notifications, and more by swiping from left to right. I love the typography and the colors used throughout the app, but just cannot get over how poor the performance is, even on an iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6. Everything stutters, except the actual podcast playback. The iPad version supports split view, but I would have liked to see support for things like actionable notifications and native Share Sheet support.
Overall, there’s more bad than good here for me unfortunately. I hope Relay FM will be a native app in a future version that actually performs as good as it looks. It is a step down in quality from what I’ve come to expect from the network. If you want to check out the podcasts on Relay FM, and you definitely should, visit the website or search for Relay FM in your podcast client of choice. My recommendations are Analog(ue), Inquisitive, and Material. Relay FM is available for Free on the App Store.