Those are good points, Apple has done all these things! But they can afford to make mistakes. Since Marco makes one app, he lives and dies by the success of it and right now, I’d say it is a jet in a nosedive and I hope he can pull out of it before it crashes into the ground.
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Yes, I am having this exact issue with just two of my many subscribed podcasts and no amount of deleting and re-adding the feed seems to make any difference.
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He said on a recent “Under the Radar” that despite all the vocal criticism in some quarters, his app metrics for usage, subscriptions etc. had not shown any negative change during the transition. He made a number of reversions when the one-star reviews on the app store began to hurt his listings there.
Overcast is mostly working fine for me, and has continued to do so throughout the transition. I get a few strange happenings in CarPlay and elsewhere, but my podcast listening has not been severely affected. I understand people deciding to use other apps, but making a catastrophe out of a problem is not helpful.
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I have switched back to Overcast a few weeks ago when those deletion issues were resolved. So far, I have not experienced the latest bug that some have experienced (sync issues, crashes). While Marco Arment has not mentioned this bug on Mastodon yet, he already has announced the next update.
When I am reading recent Overcast reviews in the German App Store, I realize a disconnect between the Reddit banter and some reactions in communities like this one here on the one hand and those reviews in the App Store on the other hand. There are one star reviews, but for sure there are also many reviews with 5 stars that do appreciate the relaunch. Apparently, the overall experience is quite good out there in the world away from Reddit and other communities. I am happy to say that I am quite pleased with Overcast. While there have been bugs, some of them very severe, there also are constant updates resolving bugs and improving the app further. And yes, I actually do prefer the “new” UI after having used the app some weeks with it. Which of course is a personal view and a matter of personal preferences. I get that.
I do get why he has rewritten the app in Swift. It is the way to go in the future. The Omni Group has proven that it eventually pays off to do this. I think it is absolutely fine to stop using Overcast and to move on. I have done so myself repeatedly in the past. There are a lot of options out there. In the end, the buck stops with the developer. It is his app, he decides what to do with it. The customers’ decision is to use it - or not.
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If it’s not already, I would predict that at some point, it will be. Apple deprecates entire languages and frameworks. And when they do, they wind up moving on as well.
While I appreciate that article from Joel, it is 24 years old. And the software environment that we live in is massively different.
Working as a web developer, PHP releases a new version every year. Their version lifecycle is intended to be about two years. And they are not only adding things, they are removing them as well. Unless you use only the absolute bare minimum, your software literally rots on the tree if you are not moving forward.
Apple’s frameworks are nowhere near that bad, but I think the general principle applies.
It is possible that Marco could’ve been more careful with the rewrite. But a ground up rewrite, either a little bit at a time or all at once, was inevitable in the current software ecosystem.
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Really looking forward to the update that fixes this issue. Moved to PocketCasts for the time being, and I don’t like their audio engine anywhere near as much (I can hear a clear, audible difference with their voice boost and smart speed features).
Marco’s audio engine remains head and shoulders above the rest for me. Looking forward to the rest of the app catching up.
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I don’t think you can use a 24 year old article about someone’s opinion to say someone else made the wrong choice.
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I’ve always had the impression that he is probably very well off. He created and sold Instapaper and The Magazine. And was employee number one and a stockholder at Tumblr.
From what he said at the time I doubt he made much if any money from the sale of the Magazine.
I have no idea. But his Tumblr shares were from the first funding round.
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Oh I’ve no doubt he made money from Tumblr,
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And don’t forget Gimlet, he was an investor there and profited when it was bought by Spotify.
I just love the passion in this community for an app that has generated this many replies and thoughtful comments. I’ve enjoyed reading this thread since it started and come back weekly to see everyone’s opinions. Is this now one of the most popular threads of all time? It has to be in the conversation.
I’ve many times tried to comment here but I’ve been on my own podcast journey the last 3 months. So happy for the open web as I’ve jumped from Overcast, to Airshow, to Apple Podcasts, to Castro, and back to Pocketcasts.
I started the year with Pocketcasts and I plan to end the year with it. So far it’s the best for my workflow and Overcast just had too many bugs. I appreciate Marco’s fast updates but I’m not sure he’ll win me back anytime soon. I might jump back to Airshow at some point if the developer keeps investing and updating the app. But for now it’s Pocketcasts.
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New or altered bug: Episodes don’t quit completely anymore, but skip back a bunch when trying to continue listening. As if the current position isn’t saved.
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If you pause it before the episode really finishes and marked as played it will likely skip back 30 seconds. It’s not a bug.
Yeah, that’s a cool feature. But recently it skips back 30 minutes or so.
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This is a feature so if it was paused mid sentence you get the context when you continue. However I find it annoying in combination with Waze – it can end up repeating the same words several times if Waze is giving lots of instructions.
No no! I am not talking about the feature. I‘m talking about the podcast skipping back half an hour or so. Probably related to the bug where it skipped back completely to the start.
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Hmm. Haven’t seen that happen yet!
Funnily enough I just had this happen to me today. I went into work in the morning listening to a podcast, popped it back on while walking out to my car and it had jumped backward probably 20 minutes!
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