I used Overcast for years, but switched to Castro because it has a better sleep timer user interface.
Yes, the sleep timer. It’s important.
I listen to podcasts at night, in bed, as a way to fall asleep. The critical difference between Overcast’s and Castro’s sleep timer UX is, you have to open your eyes to extend the timer in Overcast, but you can do it with your eyes closed (without touching your phone at all) in Castro.
IMHO, the overall interaction design for the sleep timer in Castro is genius. It’s not merely what’s visible on screen, it’s the overall behavior, interaction with headset controls, and so on that make it basically perfect.
They’re inherently inaccessible. Even if there’s a transcript at the website, transcripts are hard to read. Spoken language is different from written language, given even a halfway competent writer.
They’re inefficient. The signal to noise ratio is poor, with repetitive introductions and transitions, and chit chat about subjects unrelated to the actual topic. Unlike text, there’s no random access at all. I can read at least five times faster than I can listen to speech–with greater comprehension and retention.
They lock up information in unfindable silos. This can be mitigated with transcripts at the podcast site, and with luck that will improve in the future, but I doubt that many pre-existing podcasts will be brought up to date that way.
FWIW, I listen to podcasts while I am exercising, driving my car, doing yard work and similar activities, like painting. These are all times when I cannot read. I’d rather listen to podcasts than music most of these times.
[edit] I’ll add that I have tried audiobooks in the past, but they are just not for me. When I read, I need to read, not listen. I don’t process information said to me the same way as I do information I read. Podcasts work for me.
I use Apple Podcasts. I haven’t investigated anything other than Amazon’s, and what made me stick with Apple was the ability to change what speed I listen to the podcasts at. I listen to podcasts at double speed. Any audio books I listen to at 1.5 speed. Maybe I’m impatient, but being able to listen at a faster speed is important. Also, I can sort the unplayed podcasts however I like and they get deleted after I listen to them. I don’t need anything beyond that.
I switched to Overcast because I discovered that I could change playback speed. It seemed easier to choose podcasts I wanted to listen to, I could stack up different numbers of podcasts from different casters.
I use Overcast. When I started listening to podcasts around 5 years ago it was news pods in the Swedish Public Service radio app SR Play, which was a horrible experience.
So I tried Apples app. It was ok, but when Tidbits wrote about problems with the app not deleting old pods (or whatever, getting bloated), I searched an Overcast got good reviews so I switched.
I have a rant about Spotify: Podcasting is traditionally recognized as an open and permissionless platform. However, Spotify restricts the addition of custom URLs to their application, a move that contradicts the foundational principles of podcasting. This behavior positions Spotify unfavorably within the podcasting community, and I recommend considering alternative applications for podcasting purposes. Their stance is particularly disappointing considering Spotify’s vocal criticisms of Apple’s App Store policies, coupled with their advocacy for openness. Yet, they impose restrictions on their own application that prevent users from adding custom podcast feeds. It would be beneficial for Spotify to align their practices with the principles they publicly endorse.
The main reason I use Overcast over Apple’s Podcasts is that the Apple app doesn’t track your listening history the same way in CarPlay as it does in regular standalone mode, even on the same device. So I can’t seem to cue up a queue ( ) of episodes on my phone and then have it play when I get into the car, or pick up where I left off after the drive is done.
(I tend to binge a selection of episodes at arbitrary intervals rather than subscribing and listening in the “correct” order; Apple Podcasts might be fine if I were a more consistent listener.)
Overcast is the same in both CarPlay and handheld mode, which works better for my unusual use case. And I do like the UI a little better, too.
While your criticisms are entirely valid from a structural point of view, I think I’d consider podcasts simply a different type of media. Most television shows suffer from exactly the same problems you outline. And as @ddmiller says, there are times when reading simply isn’t possible.
Of course, the vast majority of podcasts are lousy—see Sturgeon’s Law. Tonya jokingly used to call podcasting “blathering into the Internet.” But there are some that are impressively produced, informative, and enjoyable—shining examples of the genre. I’ve become utterly hooked on the A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs podcast, for instance, which I’ll be listening to and learning from for years.
… which my grandfather used to cite with his own twist:
90% of everything is garbage, including 90% of the other 10%.
Sort of a Zeno’s Dichotomy Paradox applied to the task of identifying something that isn’t garbage.
But WRT the podcasts that I listen to, they are all news/commentary podcasts. Most are recordings of radio shows (or are produced to resemble radio shows). I download them because I rarely have the time to listen to these shows live (including commercials, local news, traffic, etc., the four podcasts I follow would end up consuming about 8 hours a day).
But I can download them, which eliminates the local radio stations’ insertions (still some ads, but not as many, and no other insertions), bringing the total time down to about 5.5 hours a day. Which I then listen to at double-speed. Which brings the content down to a manageable 3 hours a day.
Which I can play while doing other things (driving, household chores, playing games or reading news/blog articles).
I switched to overcast after I saw how much memory the Podcasts app was using. Wasn’t sure what was causing it. Also, I really liked the earlier, simpler-to-use instantiation of the Podcast app.
Someone noted glitchiness of Overcast, and I’ve experienced that too.
Another vote for Overcast: he got me at the inception with Smart Speed. I do think Marco’s UI decision to separate settings out into two different strands is too complicated though: when listening to a podcast, to manage that subscription is in a completely different place: particularly for the intro or outro skip, when (I think! not being a successful developer!) the logical place to set this would be while actually in that episode. And vice-versa: when managing a subscription, you can’t set speed etc.
These are minor annoyances: it tends to be my most-used iPhone app. The Watch integration is very good (that the iPhone “steals” the AirPods connection back is Apple’s problem), and the Catalyst app are great. I probably should check out the competition but what problem would I actually be fixing…? I can answer my own question: as a Tesla owner, Apple Podcasts is now in the car, whereas I use Overcast via Bluetooth. But, as someone who listens to 99% of podcasts in the order downloaded (for me, the essential randomness is a feature), I nearly always press play, and that’s it.
I use Apple Podcasts mainly because I’m lazy, it’s free, it’s already there. The new transcript feature is nice — I won’t use it much, but it beats trying to track a transcript down somewhere else. The biggest thing I don’t like about Apple Podcasts is the limited control I have over the queue. I listen at 1.5x speed, primarily when I run or walk and I prefer to listen to one or two episodes of various podcasts. Apple Podcasts is forever queueing up sequential episodes of a particular podcast and I have yet to figure out how to unqueue those and/or how to stop Apple Podcasts from doing that.
I have been using Overcast for a long time and have always been befuddled by its UI. It originally had a 2D interface where you could swipe horizontally or vertically and occasionally swiping horizontally would turn into a vertical swipe. Newer versions are slightly better, in my opinion.
My criterion for a good UI is whether I could explain it over a phone to someone having trouble. Frankly, I would have no ability to do that with Overcast, though the same could be said about many other iOS apps. The Mac is intrinsically easer to use due to its fairly standard menu bar layout. iOS has no such uniformity.
I like the flexibility of the speed changing screen. Also, for my simple needs, I am used to the UI and it doesn’t get in the way for the most part.
I have frequent hangs on both the Mac implementation and the iOS version when trying to download media. It always requires a force quit to restore its normal behavior.
I do not listen to podcasts except for occasional weekend afternoons when my local public radio station (KNPR) broadcasts some — or perhaps I should say “uses them in lieu of actual original news content to fill its valuable air time.” I can instantly identify these podcasts by the way that they seem to be drawn out rather than getting to the point, and by the presence of background music.
Sorry for the digression.
I’m a longtime paid Overcast user and have been happy with it. Until yesterday—when for no apparent reason I lost most of my data on all devices.
My podcast list is intact but all the undeleted episode history is gone—both played and unplayed episodes that had been present in the interface are now gone. “All Episodes” is empty, as are the contents of all the custom playlists.
If I re-download episodes they appear again in the episodes lists. But with no record of the episodes history left I have no guide to manually reconstruct the longtime history I had intentionally preserved.
I’m not aware of any Overcast backup scheme for situations like this. I wrote to the developer to ask if there’s a way to recover from this and restore the previous state. I have not gotten a reply (also true a few times in the past when I’ve asked for support).
Not sure if I can trust Overcast again after this, so this discussion is timely as I consider other options.
If I hear back from Marco I will update this comment.
I switched from apple to overcast years ago I think mainly because my wife and I shared the same Apple ID and the iCloud sync was clashing my bookmarks with hers. Plus I think overcast had some features I liked but I can’t remember what they were.
Now we have separate Apple IDs, and I switched back recently because Apple’s feature set has improved.
But there’s another reason which is sharing links. I despise that sharing a link to a podcast is app specific. This is a horrible state of the podcast industry. Imagine if you sharing a link to a web page required them to install the browser you use. But that’s what we have for podcasts because each provider has their own copy of the library. So if I wanted to share a link before with my wife, she would have gotten an overcast link. Not helpful. Same with me sharing links on FB.
Apple being more ubiquitous reduces that friction. It also reduces friction by not requiring me to make sure I have a third party app installed everywhere I want to listen.
And a third reason. I started listening to Apple News+ audio news. Those are now available in the Apple podcast app, reducing yet more friction.
The aspect of media that I value most is “dismissability.” I give the media my attention, but I ration my time. You can’t skim podcasts, TikToks, and other attention traps.
Don O’Shea, retired GaTech prof.
) of episodes on my phone and then have it play when I get into the car, or pick up where I left off after the drive is done.