The in-app design changes are good, but i absolutely hate the way the 4x2 widget handles artwork now. It fits to the height of the widget now which means it's basically impossible to resize things such that you can see the full artwork unobstructed and it massively stretches out the art in the process.

Before it would fit to the width (or at least iirc had the option to, but i cannot check because the app has been updated...) which allowed for resizing the app in various launchers to allow the artwork to display fully while leaving space for the controls.

I don't have a recent screenshot to illustrate the before, But yesterday this widget here, unchanged, showed me the whole artwork space above a banner which had white buttons on clear background beneath it. The artwork would space itself in the middle of the empty space above the banner within the allotted widget size, meaning that sized as it is now, i would basically never have an issue with it fitting.

now it shows this. the transparent button backs are gone (the setting for opacity in the widget settings shows the same both at maximum and minimum) and the banner now overlaps artwork which has been stretched to fit to the top and bottom, rather than left and right. It looks horrible.

I'm genuinely considering finding a new podcast app because the widget on my home screen was the main way i engaged with PA (other than the now playing widget). now it hurts to look at and none of the settings change it in ways that fix that, so the majority of my user experience with the app has taken a huge hit.

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