Almost two months after Castro, the third-party podcast app, introduced it was looking for new possession, the corporate revealed in the present day that it has formally been purchased by Bluck Apps, an impartial app studio that developed Android podcast app Aurelian.
In November, Castro’s future was questioned when a former worker, Mohit Mamoria, posted on X that the app would quickly shut down. Then the web site went down, showing to verify the report. Nonetheless, Castro disputed the declare and defined the rationale behind the app’s downtime in a December weblog publish, saying it was as a result of a posh concern that required “extensive work” to repair.
Dustin Bluck, a former Instagram worker who launched his podcast app Aurelian as a ardour challenge, now runs the present at Castro, and guarantees customers there are not any plans to make any vital modifications to the app.
“We won’t be making any drastic changes, like overhauling the UI to look more like TikTok. We’re not adding an AI chatbot. We’ll just keep running the podcast service you already love, with a few tweaks to modernize and keep things running smoothly,” Bluck wrote in in the present day’s weblog publish, including that the minor tweaks ought to assist new episodes “sync more quickly.”
“Once things are stabilized and the transition is complete, we’ll be turning our attention toward new features, such as syncing across devices,” he defined.
As an indie developer, Bluck needs to verify Castro nonetheless serves devoted podcast listeners. “This is a niche, and we intend to serve that niche. If you have over 100 podcast subscriptions and listen to them all semi-regularly, you are probably one of our people,” Bluck mentioned.
Bluck assured customers that the subscription value is staying the identical in the interim, nonetheless, customers ought to subscribe to “Castro Plus” now to keep away from a future value hike. Castro is free for customers however gives an annual subscription for $29.99, together with playback options and different superior settings like skipping repetitive intros.
In the meantime, Aurelian is being moved beneath the Castro umbrella and can use Castro’s backend for search and different capabilities. Nonetheless, Bluck tells TechCrunch that Aurelian isn’t “necessarily merging with Castro,” however would think about them as siblings.
“It might become Castro, but I wouldn’t want to call it Castro until it actually fits into Castro’s Inbox/Queue workflow. I’m not yet sure if we’ll do that,” Bluck tells us.
Bluck declined to share how a lot he paid for Castro.
Castro’s new proprietor additionally apologized for a way the corporate beforehand failed to speak nicely with customers in latest months. Any longer, all main modifications will likely be introduced to the general public, and the workforce will let customers know in a well timed method if/when a difficulty is being fastened.
Bluck undoubtedly has his work reduce out for him as he factors out the “thousands of messages” from customers that he and his very small workforce should get by. Whereas Bluck has employed a pair freelancers, he’s the one full-time worker as of now, so it would seemingly take a while earlier than he can rent extra individuals to assist.
Castro has been a well-liked iOS podcast app for years, so it’s seemingly a reduction to many who it’s not going anyplace. The app was acquired by Tiny again in 2018.
“I didn’t really expect people to be quite so passionate about the app. There’s a lot of work to do to make those fans happy, but the reception has been very encouraging,” Bluck admitted. “We are very committed to the open podcasting ecosystem, and taking over such a well-designed independent app is very cool for us.”