Hello everyone,
With the recent craze of vibe coding, I decided to try my hand and build an app. I built ClearWave Cast Player, an iOS app that is screen reader based with minimal visual elements.
This app will let you:
• Play podcasts imported from an OPML file
• Play radio stations from around the globe
• Play offline MP3 files
I'm totally blind, and I enjoy podcasts and all other forms of audio media. Many of the apps available to the blind and low vision community either have screen reader compatibility issues, don't work well, or are loaded with advertisements. I don't believe you should have to pay a subscription fee for something we can all enjoy.
Please feel free to test out my app on TestFlight and share any feedback there. Thank you so much, and I hope everyone is having a great day! :-)
https://testflight.apple.com/join/RVpsHcMf
By Orlando, 9 August, 2026
Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Comments
My first impressions.
I just downloaded this app a few minutes ago, and this app is very easy to use. However, it does have a few issues.
First, the simplicity: this app is extremely simple to use. I've seen a lot of podcast apps that are not as easy to use, or that are not screen reader compatible. In fact, one app I am testing has so many customization settings that I don't even know half of them. This app is very simple. It's literally just an app to play podcasts and radio stations.
I'm going to give my review of this now. Overall, it is very simple to use, but there can be some improvements.
1. I subscribed to a podcast feed, and a new episode appeared in the inbox. When I used Voiceover and double-tapped on it, it did not play. I'm pretty sure it is supposed to play, but it did not. To get the episode playing, I had to go to the Library tab, find the podcast feed I am subscribed to, and then I can double-tap the episode that I wanted to listen to.
2. I noticed that while listening to the episode, a few things stood out to me on the player controls. I love that there are quick buttons to choose how far you skip by. The skip buttons on most podcast apps can be changed in the settings, but you don't have much control. Maybe if one podcast has a 60-second ad and you want to skip right to the episode, you can do that, but maybe on another episode it is a 30-second skip. This is really awesome that you can choose how far you want to skip.
3. There are a few issues. For setting up things like the sleep timer, you have to use the Voiceover actions rotor on any of the playback controls. This is good. I like this approach, but with Voiceover turned off, I couldn't find a way to get those controls up manually. If a sighted user was using the app without Voiceover enabled, they may not be able to set a sleep timer, set bookmarks, etc.
4. I found that for the playback speeds, there is only one default playback speed for every episode you listen to. There doesn't seem to be a way to set a playback speed for each individual episode, and you cannot set the playback speed directly from the player controls.
5. When I went to the Radio tab, I clicked on one of the radio stations, but it did not start playing. I'm not sure if this is a bug or what it was located, but either way it didn't work.
Overall, this seems like one of my favorite podcast players so far, and if all goes well, I'll probably use this as my main podcast player. Even Apple Podcasts isn't this good, because even though Apple Podcasts is free, this app completely strips down everything and only plays the podcast that
And only plays the podcasts that I want it to play. Thank you for working on such a great app.
@Seamus
First off thank you very much for downloading the app and testing it and giving me your review. I do appreciate the feedback very much! To address the playback issues if you swipe up with one finger, you will have other options such as play at queue, etc., there you double click on that option and it will begin playing the podcast feed. I’m considering changing this approach to the double click with a single finger, but I kind of like the way it is right now, but I’m waiting to get more feedback on this to see if that will change things. Under settings in the library is where you’ll find all of the main settings there you can set your playback speeds and it should have the option under each podcast episode to adjust the playback speed to your liking. That was something that I wanted in the app from the very beginning. This is my first attempt at making an app and putting it out there so I appreciate all of the feedback that I’m given to make this better.
Playback
I really like the app. However, I did run into a problem. After finishing an episode, I wanted to jump back to a specific point to listen to something again, but that isn't possible; nor can you restart the episode from the beginning. Also, a small suggestion: it would be great to be able to skip through the playback in larger increments—that would be particularly useful for longer episodes.
I have pushed a big update through this week. Check out the chai
I would like to thank everybody, who is taking the time to download the app and test it out. This really means a lot to me. This is something that’s totally new for me. The change log for the changes is posted below. Please keep sending feedback and keep testing.
Thank you.
Clear Wave Cast Player — What's New
Clear Wave Cast Player is a podcast, radio, and local audio/video file player built VoiceOver-first for blind and low-vision listeners — sighted and non-sighted users get the exact same app, not a separate accessibility mode. The latest beta build brings a new way to keep up with your favorite shows automatically, along with a batch of fixes reported by real beta testers.
New: Auto-Download and Queue for New Episodes
Until now, every new episode landed in your Inbox for you to review and decide what to do with. For shows you never want to miss, that's one extra step too many. There's now a per-podcast setting — found in each show's Show Settings screen — that changes this: turn it on for a podcast, and any new episode skips the Inbox entirely, downloads automatically, and is added to the top of your Queue, ready to play next.
Fixed
• Episodes that were stuck showing the wrong publish date (some listeners saw entire feeds collapse onto a single date) now repair themselves automatically the next time you refresh.
• Restarting an episode from the Now Playing screen now works even after the episode has finished playing, not just mid-episode.
• Chapter navigation could show duplicate chapters for some podcasts. Fixed.
• Scrolling through a podcast's episode list no longer feels like it's fighting you — a description at the top was interfering with normal scrolling.
• The Play and Pause button on the mini-player is now reachable as its own VoiceOver swipe target, separate from opening the full Now Playing screen.
• Subscribing to a podcast or creating a playlist now tells you clearly if something went wrong, instead of always claiming success even when it hadn't actually saved.
Improved
• Inbox refresh is noticeably faster, especially for larger libraries — the app now skips re-downloading and re-processing feeds that haven't actually changed since the last check.
• Background downloads are more reliable when the app isn't in the foreground.
• A number of smaller reliability improvements under the hood, including better recovery if the app's local data ever gets into a bad state, instead of failing to launch.
Get the Beta
Clear Wave Cast Player is currently in public beta via TestFlight. Install the free TestFlight app from the App Store, then use this link to join:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/RVpsHcMf
Feedback, bug reports, and feature requests are always welcome — screenshots and crash reports from within TestFlight go straight to the developer, or you're welcome to reply here.