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Nearly two month after Castro , the third - party podcast app , announcedit was seeking new possession , the companyrevealedtoday that it has officially been bought by Bluck Apps , an independent app studio apartment that developed Android podcast appAurelian .
In November , Castro ’s time to come was questioned when a former employee , Mohit Mamoria , postedon X that the app would soon exclude down . Then thewebsite go down , appearing to confirm the report . However , Castro altercate the title andexplainedthe reason behind the app ’s downtime in a December blog station , say it was due to a complex government issue that want “ all-inclusive work ” to make .
Dustin Bluck , a former Instagram employee who launch his podcast app Aurelian as a passion project , now runs the show at Castro , and promises users there are no architectural plan to make any substantial change to the app .
“ We wo n’t be making any drastic variety , like overhaul the [ exploiter port ] to look more like TikTok . We ’re not add an AI chatbot . We ’ll just keep execute the podcast service you already have sex , with a few pinch to modernize and keep thing consort smoothly , ” Bluck wrote in today ’s blog post , bestow that the minor tweaks should help new episodes “ synchronize more cursorily . ”
“ Once things are stabilized and the transition is complete , we ’ll be turn our attention toward novel features , such as syncing across machine , ” he explained .
As an indie developer , Bluck wants to ensure Castro still answer dedicated podcast listeners . “ This is a niche , and we specify to serve that recess . If you have over 100 podcast subscriptions and listen to them all semi - regularly , you are believably one of our people , ” Bluck tell .
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Meanwhile , Aurelian is being move under the Castro umbrella and will use Castro ’s back end for search and other capableness . However , Bluck tell TechCrunch that Aurelian is n’t “ needfully merging with Castro , ” but would consider them as sib .
“ It might become Castro , but I would n’t need to call it Castro until it in reality go into Castro ’s Inbox / Queue work flow . I ’m not yet sure if we ’ll do that , ” Bluck say us .
Bluck declined to portion out how much he paid for Castro .
Castro ’s novel owner also rationalize for how the company previously failed to intercommunicate well with users in recent months . From now on , all major changes will be harbinger to the public , and the team will let users know in a well timed personal manner if or when an issue is being fixed , he promised .
Bluck has his oeuvre cut out for him as he points out the “ thousand of subject matter ” from drug user that he and his very pocket-size team have to get through . While Bluck has hire a yoke freelance , he ’s the only full - time employee as of now , so it will likely take some time before he can engage more people to help .
Castro has been a popular iOS podcast app for years , so it ’s probable a relief to many that it ’s not become anywhere . The app wasacquiredby Tiny back in 2018 .
“ I did n’t really look people to be quite so passionate about the app . There ’s a lot of work to do to make those fan happy , but the reception has been very encouraging , ” Bluck admit . “ We are very attached to the open podcasting ecosystem , and taking over such a well - designed independent app is very cool for us . ”
RIP ? Third - party podcast app Castro come along to be utter , company go restrained
