Security through obscurity is no security at all. You've fallen for the marketing if you think apple cares about your privacy any more than any other big tech company.
On desktop I use Tildes. It's fairly minimalistic in terms of features, but very smooth and attractive UI. It does what I need with no headaches and looks great doing it. Like many others here I use AntennaPod on mobile.
I've played a good bit of FTL and never felt like I knew what I was doing.