Fully agree with this. PC is top notch.
I was just thinking about how the ‘new releases’ filter in PC is useful and seems to replicate the ‘inbox’ feature of Castro nicely!
Also the filters in general (defaults and custom) I’m finding quite useful including ‘in progress’.
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This. I want to use Overcast so badly, but ever since I started with Castro, I can’t get my mind around anything else.
Ex-Castro user here. I switched to Overcast and I also find it confusing. Is there a tutorial or a FAQ somewhere? Or are we supposed to guess how it works?
I have switched to Apple Podcasts about 2 years ago. I was a happy Overcast user (I did not have issues with the UI and I have not found it to be confusing), but Apple Podcasts’ native integration in the ecosystem is enough for me not to bother with something else any longer.
Regarding tutorials:
- https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=overcast+podcast+app
- ScreenCastsOnline Search (not the most recent regarding Overcast, but still very helpful)
The developer (Marco Arment) himself does not provide any tutorials or FAQ. You can find his website at Overcast - with the option to contact him (“Technical support is not available, but I welcome your feedback.”). 
The thing with Podcast apps is that we all have so many different opinions and preferences that if you have found your perfect app, you probably will not find anything as “good” anywhere else. 
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I used to use Overcast, but moved to Pocket Casts. I switched because I wanted a player that had an Android app as well. I did find Overcasts UI a bit of a PITA, even once I was used to it. It does do things differently compared to other players. The biggest difference for me, was the concept that you can have podcasts that you don’t subscribe to, but they still show in your feed. It isn’t downloading new episodes of those podcasts, but it makes it easy for you to check on those feeds if you want to listen to then occasionally.
Just sit and play around with it, and it will soon make sense.
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Apple Podcast was so awful a couple of years ago that I switched to Castro. Maybe I’ll switch back.
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When you swipe right on a podcast episode in the downloaded playlist, there’s a purple button. I assumed its function was to add the episode to the queue, but frequently it simply doesn’t work. Not sure why.
Something I realized recently and maybe it’s nothing. Does Marco have a conflict of interest in both hosting a podcast and being the author of a podcast app?
A feature in Castro that I used to love was “chapter skipping”. You could see the chapters of a show if available (don’t get me started), and pre-select which ones you wanted to hear while skipping others.
Pocket Casts (my preferred app) just implemented this feature recently as well. What’s the incentive for Marco to add such a feature if his advertisers find out he’s giving Overcast users the option to skip ads via chapter pre-select.
I’ve always found Overcast to be overrated and used primarily because of who develops it vs how great it actually is. He’s a member of the Apple nerd community to people seem to gravitate towards it but I find it clunky and old fashioned looking. 
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I think the reason it doesn’t have this feature yet is because he is slow to do updates and because he is currently doing a rewrite of the whole app that I think he is aiming to release with the next iOS update in the fall. Personally, so few podcasts support chapters, I don’t feel this is an important feature since it would work with all of about 2 podcasts I listen to. Heck, I would be happy if podcasters would just use show notes.
From what I know of him (from listening to his podcast for 10+ years), he doesn’t seem to care about whether advertisers would be upset or not. He has stated many times that advertising is way down on podcasts and that subscribing to podcasts is probably the best thing people can do to keep their favorite podcasts alive. For ATP he already puts ads in their own chapter so they are easy to skip, he wouldn’t do that if he was trying to please advertisers.
I also think that Overcast is a good app and I like the way it does some things, but I do very much think the last UI update was a step back for it. Having used Pocket Casts for a number of months now, I don’t think it is a better app than Overcast, just different (and PC is lot more expensive and it locks additional features under a Patreon sub on top of the normal sub).
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No more than Apple does when it hypes one of its default apps.
I purchased Overcast before it was a subscription app and have switched between it and Apple Podcasts many times. Overcast is a good app and has been my fallback each time Apple totally screwed up the Podcasts app.
I hope Apple does not do that again because I really like the new transcripts feature.
Overcast has a feature to navigate to the next or previous chapter, both in the list of chapters, but also in the play interface.
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Podcast hosts do resent chapter skipping, not just because of ads but because it insults them that it suggests there’s a better way to produce/cut their shows. So I think there’s something to that Overcast theory. I hope I’m wrong and he releases chapter skipping soon! Pocket Casts just made it available in a cheaper tier so the expectation may be proliferating.
(I’m not blaming hosts/producers for seeing things that way; I just wish they primarily saw skipping as expanding their audience because it lets people enjoy some of their shows who wouldn’t have time otherwise.)
Which might be the case, but if they felt that way why would they implement chapters at all? Of course, most podcasts don’t use them, but ATP does, so I don’t think that holds water in Macro’s case. Also, that just doesn’t sound like a very Marco thing. He knows that not all of their listeners are programers and want to listen to an hour long talk on Python (or on Mac Pros for that matter).
Didn’t this subject come up on ATP recently? Someone (Marco?) was saying the big podcast makers don’t care or know about all the little things they can do in podcast players, like chapters or show notes. And since most listeners don’t know these things exist, there is no demand for them.
As I said in the post right above your post, Overcast already has the ability to jump between chapters in the Chapter List screen or to skip forward to the next chapter on the now playing scroon.
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It did, and that was a good segment. I don’t think they are against navigating to the next chapter if something’s not working for the listener. They just find it dismaying that the whole section would be skipped before it even has a chance.
Marco is definitely an advocate of chapters overall; it shows in his being particular about getting the formats right on his own show, criticizing DAI mangling audio and releasing Forecast to help other podcasts add chapters to their own shows.
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I saw it. It’s not the same feature. Do appreciate his good UI there though.
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I’m talking about chapter pre selection, which isn’t the same thing IMO.
Take for example my long walks with the dog outside in February in Canada. Chapter skipping is not super useful to me because I have to take my phone out, take my gloves off, skip, and proceed. Or fight with my headphones to try and remember what the shortcut is for skipping chapters.
Pre selection lets me choose it all before I leave home and not have to worry about skipping anything. Much easier IMO.
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I just counted. I subscribe to 20 podcasts. 2 support chapters. Both are Apple/Tech centric.
For me, I count 35 with chapters out of roughly 120 active podcasts. The ones with chapters definitely skew tech/media.
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