Hello,
Recently I realized that Calibre, an ebook library manager/reader, offers a content server within the app that can optionally be turned on. This is nice because as long as you have the app running on a device that Calibre is supported on, you can access the library from, say, your phone and read books remotely as long as your devices are on the same network.
https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/server.html
I know it would be working from the opposite direction…phone → PC but I was wondering if it would be possible to add a server such as this to AntennaPod. I frequently see requests for a desktop version of AntennaPod or a website similar to how Google Podcasts used to work. I used to use that all the time and it made keeping the listening progress in sync really, really simple. And while I completely understand why a web version of AntennaPod is way outside the scope of this app, maybe a server like what Calibre has would be a happy medium.
I know right up front that it would probably be for more advanced users since there are some security risks involved with such a feature and while I find the way Calibre does it to be very simple, I understand not everyone has a similar technical understanding and depending on the network just tapping on a checkbox to turn the feature on might not “just work”.
Right now, I use AntennaPod on my phone. I exported the OPML file from there and imported it into gPodder for Windows and I mainly listen on my phone but when I’m at work I update my feeds in gPodder and stream the episode and just scroll to the timestamp I left off at on my phone. I realize there are syncing options to take care of exactly what I’m doing the long way but I find them all to be lacking and the most popular option, gpodder.net syncing, is highly unreliable. Now I understand they are going to be performing some long overdue database maintenance at the end of this month (March 2025) according to their mailing list so this may help the service to work more reliably, but I figure why have to rely on this long term if in a couple years or so the same thing ends up happening.
If a content server were to be integrated into AntennaPod, the episode progress and all listening stats could always be in sync since the app on the phone itself would be handling all the media playback and accessing the server from a PC could just be a simple interface. If you try this in Calibre you’ll see how the plethora of options available in the main app are really completely pared down for the content server version since the library itself is still designed to be managed from the main app and the “phone version” is just for reading books on the couch from a handier device like a phone or tablet.
I’m not trying to say any of this would be easy because to me it sounds like a serious undertaking and somehow I feel it would add a lot to the size of the app. But it’s my suggestion and I’m not sure if it’s feasible or not but I think it would be a great addition to the app. I guess I thought about the recent news that Pocketcasts went completely free, giving access to the desktop player now for all users and for a minute I thought about switching because it would be easier for my use case, but then I remember how dependent I became on Google Podcasts and how it sucked when it went away. Since AntennaPod can’t really ever go away in that same way, there’s no way I’d switch back to something that could, but I still yearn for some features and I think this could be a nice way to meet in the middle.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully this isn’t a bad idea but I get if it’s not possible to implement.