Google Plans to Shut Down its Podcast Service Globally by June 2024

The American company Google announced that it plans to shut down its podcast service Google Podcasts globally by next June in an expected move. The company recently closed the service in the US, but residents outside the US can still use it. The Google Podcast service is widely popular, especially with its simple applications with an easy interface, and the many improvements that were added to it in recent years before the company decided to close it, including the ability to resume listening to podcast episodes on a different device, adding subscriptions via RSS feed, easy controls, and others. After the expected closure of the podcast service globally in June, users will be forced to move to the YouTube Music service in order to transfer and listen to podcast subscriptions, and Google allows users to export their subscriptions in an OPML file, then transfer them to any other app or service to follow their favorite episodes. Google gives users plenty of time to complete the process of transferring their subscriptions to different applications until 29, July 2024, but users may notice that some podcast programs do not appear if they are not available in YouTube Music. The company seeks to make YouTube Music a comprehensive platform for all the audio services it provides, to enhance its presence and compete with similar services, such as Apple Music and Spotify. The podcast service joins a long list of applications and services that Google has closed in recent years, the most recent of which was the closure of the VPN service integrated into Google One cloud subscriptions. Source: Qatar News Agency