There’s something uncomfortable when online discussion about a piece of software gets tangled up with interpreting the motives and personality of its developer.
I understand that Marco has often been the one to open that door, with a long history of discussing his motives, challenges and even state of mind on various podcasts as well as musing on all the things (from Apple’s approach to its operating systems to one-star reviews) that make his life as a single-person developer apparently so hard. If someone “invites” you into their world, especially when his customers and audience share quite a lot of common culture, it’s hard not to respond personally when you feel that they could or should have done something differently or when their perspective does not align with yours.
Objective reality is that Overcast is an app and ecosystem for listening to podcasts whose annual subscription cost is optional and very low. Like every app, it has positives and negatives, and its developer makes decisions about what to prioritise and how to operate as a business, partly in response to customer feedback and partly for their own reasons. If it works for you, or doesn’t, simply pay your money or not and make a choice. If it used to work for you and has changed in a way that means it no longer does, find something that fits better.
On a wider note, I think that there are important issues around online customer engagement that wise people need to solve if we want a software industry that serves all its customers well. Understanding and communicating well with customers is very, very hard. The loudest voices are almost certainly not representative and responding to them, especially being “led” by them, risks your product becoming bloated, contradictory, less well designed and less pleasant to use. Worse still, the loudest online voices tend to be fickle, so having got what they said they wanted, they may not stick around anyway.
Overcast is not as good for me right now in some ways, as it was a month or two ago. Recent updates mean that it’s better than it was when the new version was first released. It’s good enough for me to stick with, and I am pretty sure that the pain of a complete re-write will pay off in the medium term for me, and it’s fine if different folks feel differently.
Really good post and perspective, especially about Marco’s very reasonable pricing/free option for Overcast.
I don’t think it’s just people just interpreting motives and personality. I agree, we should be careful with that. From what I’ve seen, many people are responding to his words and tone on his podcast. That’s a different thing, and people are certainly free to stop supporting a product if the creator’s words put them off.
I don’t think this is a death sentence for Overcast by any means. I think you are right that a lot of people are very happy with the app. My anecdotal evidence is that some things in the app don’t work for me and my wife who uses it doesn’t love the redesign (but she’s still using it). I haven’t sworn off Overcast, and if I had to bet I wouldn’t be surprised if I go back. But right now, I’m enjoying exploring the other options out there that fit my way of listening (building a queue, which Castro makes very easy).
Overcast is a good app and I think, as you pointed out, development on it will pick up now that he’s on the new code base.
I don’t know if I don’t know how to use Overcast anymore, or if I changed a setting, but I feel like I don’t know the difference between “move to queue” and “add to queue,” and even then, I can’t figure out how to play the queue. I think I remember the old app always going to the next item on the list, but that doesn’t seem to do the same thing at all.
I’m not ready to switch, though, because the audio controls on Overcast are just too good.
Also, I’ll point out, looks like Marco released another version today with some bug fixes and design adjustments.
He’s absolutely following through on his intent of returning to more active development on the app now that he’s on the new code base. And it seems like he’s implementing changes based on feedback, which is great to see!
The new version works fine for me. The few glitches I experienced initially have already been fixed. I miss the left/right swipe to access speed controls and episode info — found it a little easier than tapping the new buttons to access these screens — but I also would often forget which way to swipe, so do see some value in the new approach. And anyway, it’s the developer’s decision, and I’ll certainly get used to the changes, at least to some degree. For me, no reason to switch apps.
Mine is a boring opinion, but sometimes those are worth sharing anyway.
Also, I purposefully did not use the developer’s name above, because, do I really know him? No. Not at all.
Marco said on the latest ATP that he is bringing back streaming (apparently concerned by a flood of 1-star reviews after all), but that streaming will work in a way that it will continue playing the episode later on only if the episode has been fully downloaded successfully in the meantime; otherwise, it will need to re-download and restart playing. This is sensible and could have been implemented all along had he only done a proper beta and listened to his users and what they wanted.
However, he also noted that the reintroduction of streaming will now prevent him from revamping and rewriting the audio engine. He sounded a bit hurt here, like users have now prevented him from improving his app further by not understanding the technical side of things, so they’re going to miss out on the improved audio engine now they got streaming.
Whether the audio engine is in fact related to streaming (which is essentially just a download that starts playing as soon as part of the file is available – it does not sound like some exceptional engineering that’s not been done before) or whether that’s just another bit of hubris on his part, that’s hard to judge.
I’m super happy with Pocket Casts, though, which I only recently discovered (I’ve used Overcast since it was available), so I’m not going back.
I’m not sure what he means by “audio engine” in this case, but I know he has some advanced stuff with silence skipping and other things that might be harder to do on a stream. Yes, he already had that code in the previous version, but when you’re rewriting for a new system you’re limited by either (a) what’s available in the new libraries (either built-in or third-party), and (b) what you’re capable of investing, time-wise, to make it happen.
I would bet he’s still going to be looking for a solution to that.
I continue to find it interesting that his website makes a big deal about how his focus is only on his customers, yet on this lasts ATP he went out of his way to explain that re-adding streaming wasn’t actually a response to his customers’ demands, but rather him deciding to re-add the feature because he feels it will make his app more competitive.
If I remember correctly, Marco’s Audio Engine is custom code, i.e. it doesn’t use Apple code or APIs. He said that it’s the only way he could achieve what he needed to (smart speed and voice boosting) when he released the app in the first place.
I’m Surprised because Marco’s always been quite clear in that he builds the product for himself for his own needs, and accommodates customer requirements where this makes sense.
Question - I had a Pre-Apple Silicon MacBook so the Overcast App was not available to me (currently using an iPad until I can save for a nice MacBook Pro) is there a way on Overcast to get access to the MP3 files on the Mac App? In an effort to get distance from my phone I actually have a Sony Walkman MP3 player and would love to port Podcasts in them but Podcatchers are making it increasingly difficult to do so.
But it took like a day or so but I like the redesign. The Watch app is a big draw to stick with overcast.
In this episode Marco admits that he took things too far and made moves that were too bold. Steps he could have taken with a new app, but not with one that is loved and used by many people (besides himself) for many years.
I think the Under the Radar episode was good. Many folks (including me) did not care for the update (and the vibe we were picking up from some of his podcasts). I’ve been back to Overcast for a couple weeks because many of the bugs were fixed and he’s putting features back in that I want (swiping). Also, it’s so clear to me how the new code base is allowing him to iterate quicker than ever before.
I did learn that many of the things that people didn’t like would not have changed even had he delayed the rollout. And many of the bugs weren’t surfacing in his beta test.
What hit me most was a reminder that many people in the App Store reviews and Reddit seem to forget — there is a human being on the other side of that app. The personal attacks were not (and are never) cool, but it was clear to me from this episode how much his users’ disappointment really affected him and his mental health. In this crazy world, I hate to hear that, but I’m glad he seems to have come out the other side of this rollout in a better place.
I emphatically agree with your assessment. This was a good episode. From that episode, it was sad to hear there is a Reddit dedicated to just criticize him on a personal level. It’s a temptation common to many of us, but it’s not productive. That is a two-way street too and I think Marco addressed that well.
I’ve also noticed many bug fixes since the new release. He is definitely iterating quickly.
There’s no subreddit dedicated just to criticising him ‘on a personal level’, and his spin on this is unnecessarily whiny – like this is his first day on the internet.
There’s a dedicated subreddit for his app, which he voluntarily chooses not to participate in, contrary to many popular apps and brands that do have developers and staff frequent their respective subreddits to engage with customers.
