How to automatically play new podcast episodes on iPhone when you connect headphones or CarPlay

ANDplication Abbreviations have many interesting uses. For example, it can automatically play new podcast episodes when you connect headphones or a car multimedia kit to your iPhone. From now on, you will not miss any episode of your favorite broadcast.

Using the shortcut Play Latest Podcasts you will be able to automatically start listening to the latest episode of podcast or podcasts each time an event of your choice occurs. This event can be anything, such as plugging your iPhone into CarPlay, plugging in headphones, touching an NFC tag, or turning on Do Not Disturb. You depend entirely on your fantasy.

What You Need To Know Before Installing The Shortcut

Make sure you’re using iOS 13 or later. You must also have enabled the ability to add untrusted shortcuts to the Shortcuts application, and enabled access of the Shortcuts application to iCloud. You must also have the Apple Podcast app installed

Before you go on to the next part of this text, make sure you have a good understanding of what abbreviations are and what the consequences of using them may be. Everything about untrusted shortcuts can be found in the entry How to enable the download of untrusted shortcuts on the iPhone. The author of the text or the BestyGame.pl editors do not take responsibility for the consequences and potential damage to the iPhone user using untrusted shortcuts. The user does so entirely at his own risk.

Add the Play Latest Podcasts shortcut to your iPhone

You can find the Play Latest Podcasts shortcut in the RoutineHub repository. To download it to your phone, scan the code below with your iPhone.

When the Camera app recognizes the code, a notification banner will appear at the top of the screen. Move upon notification finger down. In the Website QR code window, click the button Download the shortcut. Will be displayed Add shortcut tab. Scroll it all the way to the bottom and click the button Add an untrusted shortcut. The shortcut you added will be visible on the My Shortcuts tab of the Shortcuts app.

Play Latest Podcasts shortcut configuration

For the shortcut to work properly, you need to configure it by entering the ID of the podcast or podcasts you want to listen to automatically. Thanks to the IDs, the shortcut finds your favorite podcasts and plays the latest episodes. To do this, go to the Apple Podcasts app, find the podcast (not a podcast episode), and then copy the link to it using one of the following methods: in list or grid view press and hold the podcast coverthen select Copy link or in the podcast details, tap ellipsis (•••), and then select an option Copy link.

Now open the Notes app, create a new note and paste the link to the podcast. At the end of the URL, you should see a nine or ten digit string preceded by “id” – this is the show’s store ID. Copy the ID podcast (we are only interested in numbers, without “id”).

Now go to the Shortcuts app and on the tab My shortcuts find a shortcut Play Latest Podcasts. On its tile, tap ellipsis (•••), to open the editor. After the two Comment fields you will see List actionwhich already contains fallback store IDs. Here you paste the IDs of the podcasts you want to automatically listen to. Paste the IDs of the two podcasts in the pre-populated places to overwrite the examples. To add another podcast, tap fields with a green plus (+), and then paste the podcast ID. Repeat this step until you have added all the podcasts.

Give the shortcut the appropriate permissions

Before creating an automation to automatically play new podcast episodes, you must first run a shortcut to give it the permissions it needs to run properly. To do this, tap tile Play Latest Podcasts in My Shortcuts to run it. On first launch, the shortcut will ask you to access iCloud Drive and the Podcasts app that plays podcasts. In each popup, tap OK to grant access to the shortcut.

Create an automation for the shortcut

The final step is to create an automation that will run the shortcut in the right situation. In the app Shortcutsgo to Automation tab. Then tap the plus icon (+) in the upper right corner, then Create a personal automation. If you don’t see the plus (+) icon because this is your first automation, just tap Create a personal automation.

Now select the triggerwhich will automatically run a shortcut and play the last episode of the podcast. You have several options:
– leaving the house
– connection to CarPlay
– connection with headphones
– touching the NFC tag

Attention: for the purposes of this shortcut, our trigger will be to connect the iPhone to the car multimedia system with CarPlay.

choose CarPlay and then It connects and tap Next, to continue.

Then tap Add an action or type in the search bar at the bottom Run the shortcut and tap the action when it appears. This will add an action to the automation.

After adding an action, tap the blue Shortcut button, then find and select a shortcut from the list Play Latest Podcasts.

Your automation is now practically ready. Tap on Next in the upper right corner and turn it off Ask before runningfor the automation to run without confirming that it was started. Click here OKAYto exit and close the editor.

From now on, every time you connect your iPhone to CarPlay, an automation will run that will search and play automatically the latest episode of the podcast on the list and it will automatically play on your iPhone. After the most recent episode has finished playing, the next unplayed episode will continue to play. If there are no new or unheard episodes at the moment, the shortcut will end without playing.

How to automatically play new podcast episodes on iPhone when you connect headphones or CarPlay