New Overcast app

Software
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I have moved to Apple Podcasts. I am quite happy with it. Its biggest advantage is how it recommends new shows. It has quite a lot of “nitpicky details” that are more than enough for me and that actually work for me. The Siri integration is better and especially with my HomePods Apple Podcasts is working out of the box.

The only thing I am missing is Smart Boost. On the other hand I find those podcasts I am listening to well produced more often so that I am not bothered too much about not having this feature available.

I may give Overcast a try again in the future. But I have cancelled my subscription for now.

I have to agree that there seems to be a disconnect between how the developer sees the situation right now (fueled by a surrounding bubble) and how the app actually is (not) working. The main thing I cannot tolerate any longer is how Overcast is failing to delete stuff that should be deleted.

And to make it clear: I wish the developer all the best and a good future for Overcast.

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145

Moving from Overcast to Pocket Casts was pretty easy. Recreating the playlists that I had based on the subjects and areas of interest took me about half an hour, as it’s not obvious at first that this can be achieved using filters in Pocket Casts. At this point, I have pretty much the same setup in Pocket Casts as I had in Overcast.

I have deleted my Overcast account as I tend to keep only the accounts that I actively use (less maintenance and less worry over security and passwords).

I wish Marco all the best, having used Overcast probably since it became available as much as I can remember, but at this point, it felt too frustrating to continue using, sadly.

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My Overcast app renews in November but as of now, I have it set to expire. In its present state, there has grown too many little friction points. I remembered that I have a lifetime license to PocketCasts so I am presently using that. I will miss two things from Overcast, privacy and sound quality. At this point, I am fine but I will monitor Overcast’s improvement.

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I tried giving Apple Podcasts a spin and it’s not bad, but Overcast’s audio engine is lightyears ahead of Apple’s. Podcasts sound so much better in Overcast, and I really like Marco’s trim silence.

I still get confused in Overcast on what lists and the queue do. For instance, I can tap and then add a podcast to my queue if I’m in the “all episodes” list, but the priority list I made, it takes a tap->add to->queue. It’s weird there is an extra step.

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A new issue for me is some podcasts resetting to the beginning when I hook my phone up to CarPlay. I was two hours into a three hour episode of Bandsplain - which I had only listened to on my phone, so it didn’t need to sync between two devices - and it started the episode from the beginning when I got in my car yesterday. That was frustrating.

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I had similar issue. Also, had issues with CarPlay just spinning when it went to a new episode and it wasn’t initiating the download (I used to only stream, now it had to manually download but it wasn’t working).

I gave up on overcast a week ago and went back to Apple Podcasts full time. I use Apple Podcasts on my watch since overcast never worked right on my ultra 2, and I’ve found Apple Podcasts does all that I need.

Edit: spelling

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I’ve just listened to Marco Arment on this week’s ATP explain that user’s give App’s one star reviews because they feel it’s the only way to get the Developer to listen to them.

I know why he said what he said, and he said that emailing some massive corporation is even less use than emailing him.

BUT the massive irony that Marco, a developer who famously claims not to read emails or (it seems) Mastodon posts at the Overcast Mastodon account has ways to receive feedback, but the only way he will respond is to one star reviews which are (he claimed) hurting his business.

Of course Subscriptions and falls in the number of them are another way for people to get a Developer’s attention, but of course there’s no way with a subscription to explain WHY you cancelled.

If only there was a way for Marco to get private feedback and operate from it without his business being harmed…

Anyone got any ideas?

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Well, it’s one reason they leave one star reviews.

But that feels like a composition fallacy. Kind of like saying that people go to McDonald’s because they want hamburgers. That’s definitely true for a number of people, but there are other reasons people go to McDonald’s, and there are other places to go to get hamburgers.

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I’m using both Overcast and Apple Podcast apps. I used to use streaming all the time in Overcast and this is the thing I miss the most on the rewrite. So I switch to Apple Podcast when I want to stream something. I also use Apple’s app when I want the automatic transcriptions, that is a pretty great feature!

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Yah I think Apple Podcasts has come a long way for sure. And I could learn it’s organization scheme over time, I think. But oof, the audio in Overcast is just so much better (at least to my ears).

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All the “noise” (ads …) in the Apple App drives me crazy. If I was interested in all the other podcasts I would look for them myself.

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Wellllll, I just listened to the most recent ATP bootleg, and I gotta say I’m not loving Marco’s take on things.

I’m currently exploring Castro now that it’s kind of been revived. So far, I’m liking the audio sound and the trim silence features like Overcast has. And its queue system makes a lot of sense for my brain.

I don’t want to kick off attacks on Marco, so please don’t take it that way. I am just a little uncomfortable with how dismissive he seems (which I know is just my perception) with people’s opinions, especially considering how critical he is of things Apple and Sonos have done.

I truly think he’s a good dude, but until I’m more comfortable with his ability to take feedback and fix more Overcast issues, I’m going to put my money with Castro for now.

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I don’t think he’s a bad person or anything; I just find the blind spot that he seems to have regarding this whole situation to be fascinating. It’s educational to observe, in a weird sort of way.

I scrolled through a couple dozen of the 1-stars, just out of curiosity. There are definitely some of them that fit Marco’s characterization (“I hate the new UI!”), but there are a number that are actually reporting bugs (even if the reviewer doesn’t know it :slight_smile: ).

Quite honestly, if I were Marco, I would strongly consider doing four things.

First, I would read a couple hundred reviews to put together a list of the actual, potentially-addressable complaints. Or pay somebody with a tiny bit of tech sense to read them. Or heck, see if it’s possible to get AI to read them and summarize them. Start with the “most critical” and “most recent.” Even support email could probably be auto-funneled to an AI bot to summarize.

Second, I would decide what “negatives” I was never going to address. The people who want streaming, for example, might be a “never going to happen.” Those people are going to be angry, and that’s not likely not even really a problem at Marco’s level.

Third, I would decide what feedback I was going to address. The people who wish you could start playing while the episode downloads might be a “bug to be addressed.”

Fourth, I would use the communication feature that’s now built into the app to communicate the above.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with opinionated design. There’s also nothing inherently wrong with moving in a different direction from where some of your customers wish you’d go.

But your existing customers getting angry because they have no knowledge that you’re even aware of their bugs isn’t fantastic. And telling them that you deleted all of the feedback they sent, but that you feel like you’re being “held hostage” by people leaving 1-star reviews in the App Store, doesn’t help.

I think that a large number of the loyal, paying users would just appreciate some communication.

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Hasn’t he done all that, though?

  1. He already knows the feedback is mostly repeating the same handful of complaints or bug reports. (Reading some of it here/elsewhere, I think that’s a fair assessment.)
  2. He’s said what negatives he won’t be addressing. It’s a short list.
  3. He’s decided to fix other things and has done some already. Plus he has decided to respond to feature requests he couldn’t previously. He has said that it’s going to be a longer series of updates meaning more is planned than has been implemented.
  4. He’s communicated through two big podcasts plus his app patches.

Even if he did steps 1 through 4 in the way that made MPU and Relay chat perfectly happy, he would still have a bunch of random app store reviews.

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Well, as somebody that follows ATP, I have to believe that the answer is “no.” He and the other hosts seem to continually characterize the negative reviews as people who are upset by change, rather than people with legitimate problems. He frames it almost as if he’s being extorted by 1-star reviewers, and talks about how he’ll have to “compromise his design” to make them happy. It just doesn’t feel like he has an accurate sense of what’s actually wrong.

Regarding communication, the Overcast “Announcements” section, in the app, has one thing in it - and it’s the initial announcement. News and such should really go there, otherwise what’s the point of having it? Update release notes in the App Store don’t even show up for anybody who auto-updates, and even the people who update manually frequently just click “update all.”

He has a little bit on Mastodon, but as far as I can tell he’s not even posting the release notes every time he releases.

And talking about it on a half-hour (or two-hour) podcast isn’t an effective way to communicate release notes. It’s pretty obvious that some reviewers don’t even know who he is, so they almost certainly don’t follow his podcasts.

The existing communications strategy doesn’t even seem logical from his point of view. In his framing, users leave 1-star reviews because they think they’re not being heard - and “hearing” them is the one thing that he won’t do, and even brags about not doing.

Would he still have a handful of random 1-star reviews, even if he did everything “correctly”? Definitely. But I think a user-centric communications plan would do wonders to alleviate a number of the negative reviews.

As the earlier poster said, I don’t dislike Marco. I wish him well. I just see some pretty low-hanging fruit here that he could pick.

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That’s definitely part of the frustration I see on forums. He’s working hard on making those people happy with app changes, while complaining about them. What people want is for him to talk super nice to them while making the app changes. But that’s not Marco and Marco is probably right that starting to do that would impede his ability to ship updates at a time when quick updates matter a lot.

It would be nice if he used the announcements feature in Overcast, for sure. I don’t think that would stop angry reviews from people who don’t pay close attention, but it would make the people who pay close attention feel catered to, and they have some influence.

Ultimately, shipping is the most meaningful communication he can do. And becoming a better designer, lolz.

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This is rubbish. Half an hour putting together and sharing some comms would be preventive rather than his reactive aproach.

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I don’t see it quite that way. I agree 100% that he’s working hard to make those people happy with app changes. That’s the one thing he actually does very well.

But I don’t think people are actually needing him to “talk super nice to them.” I think most people would be happy with him pushing his release notes to Mastodon (copy/paste from the App Store), tossing the release notes in “Announcements” in Overcast (in the space he created to communicate with his customers - again, copy/paste from the App Store), and not complaining on podcasts about the unreasonable people leaving him one-star reviews - when he’s the one who deliberately rushed a known-to-be-unfinished app out the door.

Even an acknowledgement that the release timing was potentially a mistake, given the backlash, would be a very useful step in the right direction.

It would also make it possible for an interested party to know what the heck is going on. And then when other less-interested users gripe about Overcast, the interested party could educate them.

I find it ironic that two of his statement in the Overcast launch post on Marco.org are:

  • The business. I’m still a one-person operation, with no funding or external ownership, serving only my customers.
  • My principles. I always want to make the best podcast app, and I’ll never disrespect your time, attention, or privacy.

I think a lot of people feel that the way he launched this update violated the “serving only my customers” part. That’s up for debate. But the “never disrespect your time” would, to many people, at least mean not announcing that you deleted all feedback on the new version, unread. Even if that’s what you did. :slight_smile:

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This is my method too, especially more so now that streaming is no longer an option on Overcast.

Apple Podcasts has been really good the last couple years, I’m hoping they continues to make improvements to it over time.

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You are absolutely right that proactive would have been better. I’m just agreeing with his assessment of himself as having limited ability, and prioritizing fixing bugs if he feels he has to choose.

You know you’re mad at the guy when you won’t even let him criticize himself. :slight_smile: Okay, enjoy the rest of the thread.

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