Hello,
to me, gpodder’s service has proven to be quite unreliable, ever since I started using it. Especially when trying to sync more than 2 devices, there have always been discrepancies regarding subscriptions and their status. Now the service has been down completely for days, and who knows when (and if!) it is going to come up again.
I’ve read quite a few articles and discussions about what is necessary to synchronize a podcast app’s data between different devices, and I understand that it takes some API and some data base to store all the information about the subscribed podcasts and their status.
But I still think that there might be a different way to sync this data. To me, a server based solution like gpodder, offers the possibility to sync the data nearly instantly: if I stop listening to a podcast on one device, within seconds the listening position is synchronized and I can pick up any other device and continue listening there.
But what about user, who don’t need this instant synchronization?
I imagine the following scenario:
AP could store all its information in one local data base (sqlite) file, whenever some changes are made, whether it’s a new subscription, a positioning info within a podcast, or whatever. This file could then be synchronized using a simple service like Nextcloud. Any synching software, regardless on which device, will always take care of timestamps and will always see that the most recent version is uploaded to the NC server, so that any device will always download the most recent version.
For example, this is the way I use Osmand (my navigation app) in conjunction with Nextcloud: whenever I save a new favorite location or a pre-calculated route one one device, this new data will be synchronized to all my devices.
Of course, there is one drawback: you can not use this kind of synchronization and expect changes to be available on all devices within seconds or even minutes. But for people who can live with a longer delay, this could be a solution for them. For instance: my Osmand/Nextcloud combination is being synchronized once a day, and that is sufficient enough for me, because I don’t switch from one device to another very often. And even if I suddenly have to use my tablet instead of my phone, I can easily trigger manual synchronization to make the latest changes available to me.
What do the experts think about this idea?