Has anyone been using this yet? One of the big things for me is to not have to have my phone when I go for walks. Curious how well Overcast works downloading / syncing podcast episodes to the watch.
Due to the way watchOS works syncing podcasts can be a little tricky - but putting your watch on charge and opening Overcast on my iPhone has worked well for me.
I like the function and it does work well for me 
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Thanks. I usually wait til a .1 release on an os but I heard os12 is pretty stable and I desperately want to listen to podcasts on my watch. I may just pull the trigger today.
Marco has done a great job with this version. It does take time to sync because Bluetooth is so slow. But he has it run overnight while charging which almost guarantees you’ll have at least something to listen to.
I wish I could prioritize a certain playlist but that’s alright.
I have used Overcast on my Watch while running. Watch + Overcast + AirPods is amazing.
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That’s a great point. I just went over to Macstories to read their review but it didn’t tell me too many specifics about what you can sync. I have a TON of podcasts and episodes and I’m wondering if there is anyway I can sync only specific eps/playlists. Judging from your comment, it seems I can’t sync just a certain playlist. Is that correct?
If there is a way, I haven’t found it. I asked Marco but never heard back. Wouldn’t be surprised if he adds it in the future, as I know this summer was a busy one for him between the main app and the Watch version.
Bummer. I just updated my phone to ios12. My watch is soon to follow.
Either you can let Overcast decide what to sync, or you can manually add podcasts to your watch.
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Thank you, Rosemary! This is great. I certainly would love it when I can sync a specific playlist but I’m ok with this solution. I can’t possibly let it try to sync all my podcasts. I currently am subscribed to 200 shows!
Choosing what to sync each time is a decent bandaid. But I really need playlist syncing to truly take the Watch app to the next level.
This is a follow up for those that may come across this thread in the future. I know there are a lot of Overcast users here.
After a long process of updating my phone and an insanely long process of updating my watch to the latest IOS, I got Overcast working on my watch. I didn’t even muck around with synching and went straight to putting the watch on the charger and then did a sync of a few individual episodes to the watch based on Rose said above.
A few observations.
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I wish there was a some sort of visual clue that it’s working (and a progress bar). You just have to assume it’s working and I felt like it didn’t sync every ep that I asked for. I only tried to sync about 5 of them.
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When the episodes came over, there seemed to be some oddities. It creates what I’ll call categories (my term, not Overcast’s). It created the following:
a) All Episodes (this included 1 of 2 episodes of Dr. Death only)
b) New Playlist (this included 1 episode of Serial)
c) Topic - Tech (this included 1 episode of MacStories). This category is the name of a playlist I have on my iPhone
d) AppStories (this included 1 episode of Macstores - same as above)
e) Dr. Death (this included at least 1 episode of Dr. Death. I didn’t look at it until I had already played 1 ep of Dr. Death so I don’t know if it deleted it as soon as I finished it)
So I really don’t know the rhyme or reason for some of these to be in iPhone playlists and some to be just in a name of the show. And I’m really baffled by only one thing in the All Episodes category.
I’d be perfectly fine if everything got dumped in the All Episodes category at this point because that would actually make sense.
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The other thing maybe someone can help me with. I’m usually on a walk using the workout app. So when I look at my watch to maybe skip forward or back, it always shows me the workout app and I then have to go find and open the Overcast app.
Is there any way to keep a particular app as the front facing app?
If you swipe to the next screen to the right in the workout app on the watch you’ll get audio controls.
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Thanks, Chris. I never saw that as an option. That helps considerably. I don’t know if it matters but I’m wondering if that audio control is actually Overcast or the Apple Now Playing controls?
It seems to have my Overcast settings for skip forward/back (30/15 secs) so maybe Now Playing controls take on whatever app you are using to play audio.
Check the downloads section and you can see podcasts transferring to your watch there. (Perhaps not the most logical place, but at least it’s right in the user interface!)
Digital Crown for volume control is a really nice feature.
Does anyone know if Overcast syncs progress between a podcast episode downloaded to the watch and the same episode on the phone?
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Thanks. Funny, I rarely look at that Downloads section so I had no immediate clue what you were talking about. That’s helpful. It also shows you how slow it can be.
Yes, progress is synced between them. Over to the Watch, he only sends the remaining but I believe. Back to the phone it syncs position so you can pick up where you left off.
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This morning, I downloaded a new episode to the watch and I tracked it in the Downloads section ion the iPhone app. Unfortunately, it didn’t come through. I think there is some flakiness to the transfers but it everything is pretty new so hopefully, it continues to get better.
Maybe Bluetooth 5 will help. Transfers are so slow because of BT. I wish there was a way for the Watch to use WiFi in these transfers or straight from the servers.
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