Odd Player

Subscribe to podcasts and easily download and listen to them.

Features:

Prominent play/pause button
Left/Right swipe to skip episodes
Downloaded podcasts assembled into a queue for uncomplicated listening
Clean interface where main functionality does not require user to look at the screen
Scheduled downloads
Can automatically skip beginning and end of podcasts
Download old episodes
Free, no ads, no tracking

Open source at https://github.com/jasonwalker/OddPlayer

Reasons for permissions:

WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE - needed so that the app can write large mp3 files to an external memory card if it is available. Note that data that is accessed frequently is placed in normal memory so as not to wear out the external memory card.

ACCESS_WIFI_STATE and ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE - needed to know if the phone is connected so that app can download and subscribe to podcasts. Also the apps default configuration only allows downloading over WIFI (or Ethernet if available). If mobile data is currently being used or if WIFI automatically switches over to mobile data, downloads will be halted.

WAKE_LOCK - downloading and playing are run as Android services. This allows the app to keep the OS from arbitrarily shutting them down while they are running.

READ_PHONE_STATE - needed so that if the phone receives a call while a podcast is playing, the podcast is paused and then resumed when the call is over. When a text arrives that creates an interrupting tone, the app repeats the last 1.5 seconds.

INTERNET - so that the app can access the internet to download podcasts

SET_ALARM - the app can be scheduled to download new podcasts every day at a certain time