The Podcasts app is just the latest product to go through a process I’ve come to call The Google Cycle. It always goes the same way: the company launches a new service with grandiose language about how this fits its mission of organizing and making accessible the world’s information, quickly updates it with a couple of neat features, immediately seems to forget it exists, eventually launches a competitor out of some other part of the company, obviously begins to deprecate it and shift focus to the new competitor, and then, years later, finally shuts it down for real. The Google Graveyard is full of apps like Reader, Duo, Inbox, Allo, Wallet, and countless others that have been through The Google Cycle, and it feels just as bad every time.
As long as Google keeps making Pixel phones that support the installation of GrapheneOS, I’ll still be using at least one Google product. Ironically, to specifically get away from the rest of Google.
Wish there was another platform for graphene. Can’t stand the lackluster modem reception on the pixels. But yes!
You could try postmarketOS
Interesting, looks like their phone support is a bit limited, but something to keep an eye on.