Questions, answered plainly.

No. There is no price, no advertising, no subscription and no in-app purchase. Every feature is available to everyone from the moment you install it. Supporting the app or the shows you listen to is entirely voluntary and unlocks nothing, because there is nothing locked.

Vibral is in final testing ahead of the App Store and Google Play. Join the waitlist on the home page and you will get one email on the day it is downloadable. In the meantime the web player is live and works in any modern browser.

iPhone and iPad, Android phones, home screen and lock screen widgets on both platforms, and any modern browser through the web player. Your position, queue and follows move between all of them when you sign in.

Export an OPML file from your current app — nearly all of them offer this — and import it in Discover. Your whole subscription list arrives at once, with the original feeds intact. You can also paste individual feed URLs.

It shortens the silences between words and sentences without changing the pitch of anyone’s voice, so a show finishes sooner while still sounding natural. It works alongside whatever playback speed you have chosen and is stated as one value in the player — for example "1.5× · Smart".

Yes. Set a default speed for everything, then override it for individual shows. Vibral keeps the exception list short by only showing you the shows that actually differ.

No, and this is deliberate. Podcasts are speech, and a lowered voice under a spoken direction is a sentence you have to seek back for. Vibral pauses instead and resumes when the interruption is over.

Follow a show and you can have new episodes download automatically, over Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and cellular. An episode limit keeps the newest few of each show and removes older played ones first — and tells you when it has, rather than silently deleting things.

Downloaded episodes play with no signal, and the Downloads list in the app and in the car is designed to be the tab that still works. Progress is recorded locally and syncs when you are back online.

Chapters come from the show, not from the app — a podcast publishes a chapters file alongside the episode. When one exists, Vibral shows it as a table of contents, a tappable row in the player, on the lock screen, and on the car dashboard. When one does not, there is nothing to show.

Also from the show. Most modern hosting platforms can generate one automatically. Where a show publishes a timed transcript, Vibral follows it line by line as the audio plays, highlights the current line, and lets you tap any line to jump there.

Shows can announce a scheduled live stream in their own feed, with a start and end time. Vibral puts anything on air at the top of Discover, shows real times for anything upcoming — "Live in 12 min", "Live at 3:00 pm" — and can remind you.

Pull to refresh the show first — Vibral may be holding a cached copy of the feed from before they were added. If they still do not appear, send us the feed address and we will look at it.

It is a straightforward proposition: the show gives you everything up front, with no paywall, and you decide afterwards what it was worth — in time, talent or treasure. The payment part exists so the last of those can happen instantly, in any amount, without a card or a subscription.

If a show has published a payment destination in its feed, a Support option appears on the show, on the episode, and in the player itself. You pick an amount, your own Lightning wallet confirms the send, and the show’s published split routes it to everyone credited. You can attach a message, which hosts often read on air.

No. Vibral never holds a balance for you and takes nothing from what you send. You connect a wallet you already control and every send is confirmed there, not here.

Then nothing changes. No feature is withheld, no prompt is undismissable, and there is no supporter tier. The invitation appears once, in context, and then leaves you alone.

An optional setting that trickles a small amount to the show per minute while you listen, rather than in one lump. Vibral states it as a single rate and tells you what it costs in real terms — roughly 900 sats for a three-hour show. It is off unless you turn it on, and it is an app setting: the browser player sends one-off amounts only.

No. You can follow shows, build a queue, download episodes and listen without ever creating one, and in that case nothing leaves your device. An account exists only so the same library, queue and listening position appear on your phone, your tablet and in the browser.

Four ways, the same in the app and in the browser: Apple, Google, a passkey, or a link sent to your email address. There is no password to choose or forget. Whichever you pick, it is only used to identify your sync account.

No. Vibral does not build an advertising profile, does not sell data about you, and carries no third-party tracking in the playback path. Without an account your history stays on the device; with one it is stored so it can be synced back to you, and nothing more.

Yes, in the app and in the browser. Export your data as a file from your account, and delete your Vibral account permanently from the same place. Deleting signs the device out and leaves your downloads alone — what is stored only on your device or in your browser stays there.

The Podcast Index — an open, independent catalog of millions of feeds, started in 2020 by Adam Curry and Dave Jones to keep podcasting from being narrowed by any single company. Listing is free, cannot be bought, and nothing on the results screen is a paid placement.

Yes. Paste the feed URL in Discover and Vibral will play it. Every podcast is a public address; a directory is a convenience, not a requirement.

Because an open medium is not a zero-sum one. If a show you love is better served somewhere else today, we would rather you heard it than not. The community keeps a list of apps at podcasting2.org/apps.

Check whether downloads are limited to Wi-Fi in settings, then confirm you have space — Vibral tells you what it is using and what your limit is. If the episode still fails, the file may be temporarily unavailable at the source; the show will usually fix it within a day.

Sync needs a connection and a signed-in account on both devices. Open the account panel to see when it last synced. If it says a long time ago, sign out and back in on the device that is behind.

That is another app taking the audio session. Vibral takes it exclusively when you press play — which also means starting Vibral stops whatever else was playing. Pressing play again in Vibral takes it back.

Disconnect and reconnect, and make sure Vibral is the app that started the audio. If the display shows a device name rather than the episode, please tell us the head unit model — that is a bug and we want it.