Reach Podcast Player

If you enjoy listening to podcasts and wish to catch up on the latest episodes while working or studying, you might be interested in a simple, no-fuss desktop client. Reach Podcast Player is an Electron-based app with a straightforward interface that eliminates any unnecessary graphical elements to help you focus on your typical tasks.

There is no kind of installation required to be able to use this tool. However, the downloaded package is fairly large. After unwrapping the archive, you can reach the main app window right away and get started by typing or pasting the URL of a podcast RSS feed.

Its contents are quickly loaded in Reach. What's more, it makes it possible to create a playlist of multiple podcasts. If these contain multiple episodes, you can also check out names and duration.

As soon as the podcast playback begins, you can minimize Reach to the main window to carry on with your regular desktop activity, as well as return to this window whenever you wish to use the navigation buttons for playing the next or previous episode, pausing and resuming playback, or adjusting the volume level.

Filters are also available for showing only specific podcasts (presumably). Unfortunately, both the navigation controls and filters failed to work properly in our tests (nothing happened when clicking their buttons). It seems that Reach Podcast Player has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to becoming a reliable application, with no compatibility issues.

Nevertheless, the project was only recently released so there's plenty of room for improvement in upcoming versions. Besides, the developer seems to have many plans for this software. The fact of the matter remains that Reach Podcast Player offers a simple solution for listing to podcasts using a desktop client instead of a web browser. It had minimal impact on system performance in our evaluation.