Steadcast – Free Mac podcast player for learning, not background noise

Hey HN — I'm Aaron, and I built Steadcast because I was frustrated that I listen to 15+ hours of podcasts a week and retain almost none of it.

Steadcast is a native macOS podcast player (Swift, SwiftUI, AVFoundation — no Electron) designed around one idea: podcasts are how a lot of us learn now, but no podcast app actually treats them that way.

What makes it different:

• Learning domains, not genres. The app is organized around 10 knowledge domains (AI, science, history, philosophy, psychology, etc.) with 90+ editorially curated shows. No true crime, no celebrity gossip.

* On-device transcription. Every episode gets transcribed locally using the macOS 26 Speech framework. Every word becomes searchable. No cloud processing, nothing leaves your Mac.

•AI summaries. Apple Intelligence generates summaries that capture the key ideas from each episode.

• Memories. Press Ctrl+Cmd+K while listening and Steadcast saves a timestamped bookmark with the full transcript context around that moment. So when you hear something worth remembering, you can actually find it later.

• Smart Speed. Intelligent silence trimming with a live counter showing exactly how much time you've saved.

• Keyboard-first. Global hotkeys, full keyboard navigation — built for people who work at their Macs all day.

It's free on the Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/steadcast/id6760033638

Requires macOS 26. Built as a solo project. I'd love feedback on the curation approach especially — is a podcast app that has opinions about what you should listen to a feature or a bug?