Is Overcast broken?

[Christian]

It may sound weird, but I have switched back to Apple Podcasts.

The native integration with Siri and my HomePods was the reason (yes, I know about Shortcuts, but that is not the same) and to be honest: I will not go back.

[cornchip]

I switched from Overcast to Castro last week and it’s been great.

Love the new pocketcast release

I actually just made this move (from Overcast) on Wednesday. I started listening to new episodes from the Castro triage and continued listening to saved older episodes in Overcast, setting the feeds there to not subscribe to new episodes. There was some manual work to walk Castro through my feeds and set individual playback speeds and new episode automatic triage for 30-40 podcasts (the defaults are fine for most, similar to Overcast.) I almost bounced off the move because of that work, but I w…

[anon85228692]

Honestly, first I realised that since I had bought the app ages ago when I was still on Android, I had a lifetime license, so that allowed me to cut a subscription. But I would have stayed with Overcast if it provided a superior experience and paid for it.

It really does not.

Even if I had to choose between the two suscriptions, I would still go with Pocket Casts. Reasons:

• I much prefer the design, more graphical, more beautiful to me. Overcast seems rough by comparison.
• Pocket Casts has silence trimming and volume boost, which were initially the features that drove me to Overcast. Now almost every app has them, they’re not Overcast differentiators anymore.
• I could never figure out the Overcast playlists. I don’t understand why there’s only a “Play Next” easily accessible where Pocket Casts sensibly has “Play Next” and “Last”. Filters on Pocket Casts are immediately easy to figure out. Overcast’s design does not make sense to me, Pocket Casts’ immediately does.
• Sideloading on Overcast is irritatingly clunky. Pocket Casts’ is incredibly easy (and gives you 5x more storage).
• Finally, that’s a very personal matter, but I dislike Marco Arment’s communication style online and in podcasts. As I said, he’s opinionated, and I fully respect this, but you have to be absolutely impeccable in your service if you are opinionated. My personal experience has been 100% negative in this area – never got any kind of support or any answer to anything, to the point where, if something broke, I gave up even asking. (Mark Bernstein is another opinionated developer that comes to mind – but the Tinderbox support, on the other hand, is absolutely stellar.) I find that I am delighted to support Mark Bernstein and the Obsidian developers, for instance, who keep pushing the envelope and delivering more and more quality. I am not happy to pay for Overcast which has stagnated. So Overcast goes.

Hope this can help.

[eternalux]

I think most of the major competitors to Overcast have surpassed. I’m using Castro at the moment because I like the triaging style of the inbox. I agree with the opinions above that Marco is a wildly opinionated developer who quite frankly ignores a lot of the problems Overcast has. His opinions don’t really hold much salt with me anymore as I see more and more what a mess Overcast is compared to the others.

[TudorEynon]

I dropped Overcast in favor or the native podcast app on my iphone. I can’t remember why though, I didn’t think it was that good if I remember in comparison.

[cornchip]

Does Apple Podcasts allow OPML export yet? Not having that available is some pretty rough lock-in. Never mind the other limitations.

[kevin4]

Same here. I reached out for support but never heard back from Overcast/Marco so back to Apple Podcasts with no complaints so far.

[Marcus]

I bounced to Pocket Casts. So far so good.

I’m liking it very much.

[MitchWagner]

Me too, re Pocket Casts.

I was looking for something that combined Overcast’s queueing/inbox method of quickly sorting episodes, alongside Overcast’s ability to have multiple queues. I think I may have found it in Pocket Casts.

[Marcus]

The only thing I’d like to see improved is:

A) The ability to export clips in the same manner as you can on Overcast

B) The ability to sort the filters by podcast, rather than the random vibe that exists at the moment. it’s the one missing measure for me.

I prefer to listen to one podcast at a time (of my choosing) until I’ve gotten through that podcast before moving on to the next.

Still, the fact that pocket casts are removing episodes when they’ve finished is a winner for me right now.

It’s also endearing that the developer is more willing to communicate with his users than the dude from Overcast. I’ve enjoyed a couple of Twitter exchanges which I found most helpful.

[WayneG]

@TudorEynon

I dropped Overcast in favor or the native podcast app on my iphone

Me too. I liked Overcast and used it for several years. But now I listen to podcasts on my iPhone and my iPad. And increasingly I ask Siri to “Play the latest macpowerusers podcast” on my HomePod. Turns out, the Apple Podcast app does everything I need these days and “just works”.

So well, in fact, that it’s the only reason I’m getting a new HomePod mini.

[Ajay]

I hope that yesterday’s update (2021.1), which promises “tons of under-the-hood improvements and bug fixes”, addresses the issues mentioned in this thread. Personally, I’ve found sync between devices to be very buggy. Hoping that is a thing of the past now!

[Marcus]

I’ve moved in and have been using pocketcast ever since. It’s a shame, because I did live overcast but I can’t handle that lack of responsiveness.

Apps need to do what I need them to do otherwise better ones replace them

[Arthur]

In episode 420 of the Accidental Tech Podcast there is a nerdy (but interesting) discussion of the difficulties and tradeoffs in adding improvements to the Overcast app. Begins at time stamp 40:26.
Link: https://atp.fm/420

@Marcus

… A) The ability to export clips in the same manner as you can on Overcast …

In the ATP podcast mentioned above John and Marco go back-and-forth about this. Apparently limitations in IOS make the exporting clips feature difficult to implement in a way that meets Marco’s exacting standards.

[Marcus]

Thanks for this. Very interesting to be fair.

Goes to show that communication IS key. If only Marco had appeared to care by previously communicating either his issues or ambitions I’d certainly have been one to hang in there.

[Robert]

I‘ll write here before starting a new discussion.
My subscription is about to run out and I really wonder if I should switch from Overcast to something else. I tried several Podcast apps the previous month and I came back to Overcast because I have everything organized there in a way that I‘m comfortable with.
BUT: I frequently have the trouble that it just won’t download my new episodes, stating a „download error“ and I frequently have trouble when I want to use search (even though I didn’t experience that lately, so maybe that’s fixed by now). I had contacted support but never got an answer.
Do you have trouble with downloading as well?

[karlnyhus]

Long time Downcast user here. But users of podcatchers, in my observation, are demanding and finicky so recommended apps may not meet their needs. All I can do here is alert someone to the existence of an app that functions well, has been around a long time with a supportive dev, and works for me.

[Cindy]

I don’t have trouble with downloads, but the search feature (for new podcasts) is just bad. It quite often won’t return the correct result even when I know the exact name of the show.

[Robert]

I used to have Downcast a long time ago. Can’t remember why I switched. I will look into it again.

[Robert]

True, that happens to me as well.
Besides I have the experience that only Apples Podcast app is able to find topics within descriptions. All other apps only seem to search episode or podcast names.