I’d say it is important to try Overcast (or any other podcast player) on its own terms, rather than trying to recreate another app.
I remember getting really stuck with Overcast when I first used it (many years and versions ago) but resolved that by really thinking about what podcasts I wanted to see and play most easily and building playlists and setting settings to create lists that worked for me. Most important is a list of podcasts that I almost always listen to, in ascending date order and set to download unplayed episodes. That list is the top of the screen and allows me to work through in the order they arrive. If I want to skip an episode, it’s a quick swipe to delete it. I have other lists where podcasts are set to stream and where I might dip in less often.
I remember having to do quite a lot of setting podcast episode lists as “mark all as played” then marking the episodes I wanted as unplayed. It also took some working through lots of settings, some global, some in playlist settings and some in individual podcast settings until it worked in a way that suits me, but it’s quite sophisticated if you have a little patience. These days, it “just works” because it’s set up the way I want.
Overcast has the best sound around (and I’ve tried them all). For me, these days, sync is rock solid and the app reliable. It’s a single developer (literally) so things sometimes get bogged down and there have been a couple of lengthy periods of frustration, but the re-write from scratch is rolling out gradually and the app is getting better and at least I know I and my data are not being sold as a commodity.
I revisit the default iOS apps from time to time and have been using the Apple Podcast app for about a month. It has improved a lot since the last time I tried it. It definitely seems to work better with Siri than other apps I have used.
Same here. I find triaging to be easy to do in Overcast. Not as easy as with Castro and Pocket Casts, but easy enough.
I have one playlist for every unlistened episode of every podcast I subscribe to. When I’m ready to listen to podcasts, I call up that list and look for the newest episodes. That’s easy enough to do–the list is sorted newest first.
For each new episode, I either:
Move it to the “queue” playlist for immediate listening.
Leave the episode where it is, to listen to someday/maybe.
Or I delete the episode immediately if it seems uninteresting.
Sometimes the queue gets too long and I set up a third playlist (called “Playlist”) for the overflow.
For some podcasts, like Hard Fork, I listen to every episode the day it comes in. For others I only listen to some episodes and delete most. There’s one particular podcast where I only listen to about 5% of the episodes and delete the rest.
Overcast playlists are a little tricky to figure out at first, but once you have them figured out, you can create a new playlist in seconds, without much thought. And you don’t need to bother with playlists at all if you don’t want to.
This is such a bummer. And the terrible communication sure isn’t confidence-inspiring. The inbox model that’s unique to Castro just makes so much sense and I can’t believe nobody else has it.
Since I’m a Feedbin customer anyway, I’m trying out their Airshow app, which is interestingly bare-bones. You can kind of emulate the Inbox by setting shows in your library to not automatically download so you just get a notification there’s a new episode, but you have to actively download it yourself. Perhaps I’ll just give up and have the app download every episode then simply delete episodes I’m not interested in from my queue. It does feel wasteful some weird way, but we’ll see how it goes.
I have switched back to Apple Podcasts about one or two years ago (if I remember correctly). I did so for several reasons:
Apple does quite a good job to curate their directory in Apple Podcasts. There is no alternative that does it as good or at all (reminder: I am talking about a “local” directory for Germany in my case).
While Overcast and others do work in Apple’s ecosystem to some degree (HomePods and so on), Apple Podcasts works way better in comparison when using Siri via my HomePods (not always great like we all know, but in my experience better compared to other options).
There is no perfect podcasts app. Every app has features I would like to have in all of them. And every app is missing stuff I would like to have.
What is making me sad is the overall trend on the internet: the whole podcast system with the underlying architecture (RSS) is (was?) just great because it is an open system. Instead of nurturing this wonderful system, even some podcasters have turned to networks and distribution partners (I get why, no hard feelings!). RSS is getting more and more hidden and to some degree it still is something for the nerds out there. Most users are not even aware of the options - which is a shame. I have to agree with Jason Snell:
(…) I fully expect that most of its users won’t go to Overcast or Pocket Casts, but will retreat to Apple or Spotify, companies that are unlikely to fail them, even if the cost is a little less customization or functionality. And a little more of the unique, open podcast ecosystem will be lost forever.
And that is the viewpoint for the English-speaking world. My experience over here: if you are not tech savvy and want to listen to podcasts in your native language, the ship already has sailed quite a long time ago: it is Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Or even more fragmented: dedicated audio library apps from broadcasters over here (some of them are very good, but not really open).
As of today all of my podcasts are being available via RSS, but I fear that this may not be the case in the long run…
I deliberately tried Apple Podcasts app for a week. It’s workable in my opinion but awkward. I must confess that I am tiring of ads in the podcast (and news app which I use for magazines). I have always returned to OverCast primarily for sound quality and to a lesser degree smart speed/voice boost. I also like that fact of Marco’s view on privacy.
I think when it comes to podcast apps, it boils down to which feature is most important to you. whatever that particular feature is, ends up being one’s favorite podcast app.
Some tentatively good news. It would be wonderful if they found a faithful operator. Bending Spoons, even.
We believe in transparency with our community and want to share with you that we are actively seeking a new home for Castro with new owners. Our goal is to continue providing you with the app you love, but with even better features and improvements.
Even if buying Castro turns out to be dirt cheap, the cost of running it seems likely to be expensive.
Tumblr is a lesson here. Purchased by Yahoo for $1 billion, sold to Automattic for $3 million a few years later. Automattic CEO compared it with getting a free puppy.
For the record and if it helps anyone, I use a combo of pocketcasts and Snipd currently. PC is my main app with queues filters etc and Snipd when I want to dive deep and parse the episode while seamlessly saving my Snips to readwise via their excellent integration.
I hope Snipd can offer all pocketcasts features but I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon. Multiplatform support on pocketcasts is excellent.
Play my queue/up next in Pocketcasts (I have enough subscriptions set to auto-add the latest episode that I’ve usually got 10-30 podcasts to be played)
Whenever I realise an episode is interesting enough to keep detailed clips/notes or requires an AI summary I will open it in Snipd and listen to it there.
If the whole episode is worth saving I will also favorite/star it in Pocketcasts as I go back and relisten to some evergreen episodes this way. I may also favorite it in Snipd though the clips there (that automatically sync to Readwise) usually serve the purpose.
Eventually as Snipd develops () I’m hoping I can move completely to their platform and drop Pocketcasts but I doubt that will happen soon as they’re still small but growing fast. Sorely lacks desktop/web UI but what it does, it does really well.
) I’m hoping I can move completely to their platform and drop Pocketcasts but I doubt that will happen soon as they’re still small but growing fast. Sorely lacks desktop/web UI but what it does, it does really well.