Chapter skipping, fast forwarding, telling Siri to ‘skip forward five minutes’, etc. Listeners are always going to do a bit of “editing” for all kinds of reasons.
I don’t mind advertisements in podcasts, but I don’t always listen to the ones I’ve already heard several times. I’m more likely to skip forward when hosts veer off into discussions outside (IMO) of their areas of expertise. Or when they become breathless fanboys about some rumor or gadget.
No one bats a thousand. Just because I don’t listen to every word doesn’t mean I don’t like the podcast.
Overcast’s user interface has rough edges, but it’s good enough. I find its audio quality is best of the iPhone podcast apps I’ve tried, particularly when speeding up podcasts to 1.6, 1.8, or 2x.
I listen to podcasts 1.5-1.75 hours/day, and only spend a minute or two looking at the app. Doing the math,that means audio quality is roughly 45x more important to me than the visual user interface.
I almost never listen to podcasts at 1x. Even for well-produced podcasts, I listen to those at 1.2x, which sounds just the same as 1x but goes by a bit faster. For talking-heads podcasts (like our beloved MPU), I usually listen to those at 2x. Particularly true in MPU, where both hosts speak slowly.
@geoffaire How do you skip ahead a chapter from the Play interface in Overcast? I know how to do it from the chapter list, and I use that feature often.
But I don’t think it’s fair to question Marco’s integrity, based on the fact that you can “only” skip chapters two places in the app (Now playing screen, and chapter view) and through a shortcut action.
Yeah, I know that it’s a UI control - but seeing as 15 and 30 can be customised, I thought perhaps there was an API to add something else there.
But I guess it’s probably that Apple won’t let you do something crazy, like having five buttons instead of three. But it should be possible to swap out normal skipping for chapter skipping, if anyone’s crazy enough to want that as an option.
I wasn’t questioning his integrity. I was wondering how he would react when the time comes to make a decision based on his podcast vs his podcast app. Whether that’s chapters or not, using chapters as a pretty mild example since skipping is available already.
Ah, so you weren’t questioning his integrity, just asking questions about whether or not he has integrity?
To answer your original question: No, I don’t think it’s negative that the developer of a podcast app is making a podcast, that takes advantage of all features of podcasts, like chapters, chapter art, and extensive show notes. It makes sense that someone who’s a developer and passionate about podcasts both makes a podcast and a podcast app.
I don’t know why you would consider that a conflict of interest. Where is the conflict? I am constantly skipping among the chapters in Overcast. I just tap the chapter I want to go to in Overcast and I’m there. Why do you say there is no chapter skipping?
He just used that as an example of how it could be an issue - and, I think, honestly didn’t know about all the different ways you could do it, which is fair.
I’m aware of chapter skipping and shortcuts. I just see pre selecting/removing chapters as a far easier way of doing things that involves no interaction with your device during the podcast.
To me, chapter pre selection is far easier and more seamless, but it seems others disagree.
I remove ads and chapters I won’t want to listen to up front with a few check marks when I’m able, then later listening to the show I never think about it again. To me this is far easier, more robust way that relies less on user interaction while listening, making skipping chapters far more likely than with other methods.
And with that ease, I thought hey, maybe Marco would be less likely to add that as a feature. I don’t know. Was wondering, not implying he’s doing something malicious.
But it’s an interesting question. Are there scenarios where owning a podcast app and being the author of a show can come into conflict?
To me, removing ads on one side (more so with my easier and more obvious method of chapter pre selection) while taking ads on the other —— made me think.
To show the other side of this (only as a counterpoint, not to say that @AppleGuy is wrong)
I rarely even think about a podcast until it’s playing. Overcasts’s design lets me be really hands off on managing podcasts. I listen to at least 10 hours a week, often a lot more. The only thing I still hate on Overcast is how many taps it takes to add a Podcast to a Queue, it used to be better.
I have 2 playlists. 1 (called First) for every podcast I know I want to listen to every episode and a 2nd playlist (All) for everything downloaded for all 42 podcasts I’m subscribed to. I download all podcasts, no streaming.
I open Overcast, open First and tap the top podcast to play it. The episodes automatically sort so I don’t need to interact with the playlist much
If my First playlist is looking a little bare, I add a few podcasts from All.
I’ve never minded listening to Ads, sometimes they’re for things I’m interested in and they pay to support the podcast.
If I’m listening to a Podcast and I start to lose interest in the topic being discussed, I’ll skip to the next chapter, TBH the only podcast I’m currently subscribed to that this happens on is ATP when they get into the Development weeds.
It’s possible, but there are many options on how to listen to podcasts, that making choices in favour of the Podcast could harm the app’s functionality.
Given that Marco created Overcast to try and help maintain a healthy podcast ecosystem and avoid monopolies happening, I don’t believe he would take actions which would favour the podcasts he makes over the App he makes to play them.
I like using an app that is made by someone who loves podcasts and podcasting and has built it to serve his own vision of what podcasting should be. That’s much less conflicted, IMHO, than the many podcast apps which are built on extracting value out of personalised ads and upselling subscriptions, and the user data and attention that drives both.
Overcast is far from perfect. The lack of a decent tutorial, or even explanation of its assumptions (basically that it is all about smart playlists and swiping to remove things you don’t want from them, rather than actively curating a “queue”) is tragic. Almost every other app does discovery better (that’s because they make money from sponsored promotion of podcasts). There’s still confusion about what the built-in smart playlists are for - my breakthrough was deciding not to use any of them, but building my own that made sense to me. I wish Overcast was on Mac properly too.
Even so, it “just works”. Sync is reliable and fast. It sounds great. I never have to think about it.
Ads are where I think about the points made in the discussion preceding them. Or alternatively, what I need to add to the grocery list. Perhaps “listening” isn’t the appropriate word in my case.
My mac is where I do the vast majority of my work and I find that I tend to use the mac version of certain apps to manage the content I consume on the mobile version of the app. I find it impossible to listen to spoken word anything while I work, but I would love to be able to manage my Overcast queues on my mac rather than on my phone.
That’s why I’m ride-or-die with Castro.
But it should be possible to swap out normal skipping for chapter skipping, if anyone’s crazy enough to want that as an option. 