With the release of transcripts for Apple’s Podcasts app, I became curious about what apps people prefer for their podcast listening. Since there are numerous third-party podcast apps, I’m hoping you can share just the names of the apps you use in this thread so I can build a list of the top (up to) 19 to accompany Apple’s Podcasts in the next Do You Use It? poll. No need to say why you like it—we’ll save that for the actual poll thread.
Bonus points for providing a link to the app’s website and the name of the developer that makes it!
If someone has beaten you to suggesting one (and I’ll do this with Overcast below), just hover over the heart button at the bottom of a post and click the Thumbs Up emoji reaction. That will give me an easy way to count the “me too” votes.
For me it’s because of priority podcasts, smart speed and voice boost, plus the ability to upload your own voice files (if you are a subscriber.) And the watch app is pretty good and flexible as well.
I upvoted PocketCasts, but I didn’t read your original message closely enough so I gave it a heart instead of a thumbs-up.
I’m not sure how flexible this is compared to Overcast, but both Mimir and Pocket Casts allow variable-speed playback. I routinely listen to news/talk shows at double-speed with them.
Both also have features to skip silence, to further speed up playback. This feature is included for free with Pocket Casts, but requires a paid-up subscription for Mimir.
Double speed? Impressive. Downcast supports 0.5x through 3x, mostly in 0.25x increments, for free. Double speed is too fast for me. I’ve settled on 1.25x as my default. It sounds natural, but it still saves a little time.
Separately, I haven’t used Apple’s “View Transcript” function yet, but I really like the idea. At the same time, I expect that most podcast production tools will start including automated transcription by default. It will be interesting to see if/how podcast listening software will support “official” transcripts, rather than attempting to generate their own.
There used to be one, and it was in my regular “must listen” rotation. When I saw the announcement article for Listen Later, my first thought was to see if I could use it to resurrect the TidBITS podcast.
There are a number of services that I could now use to generate it automatically, and all the movement in this space has had me considering it. They’re not cheap, but if enough people would be interested, I could do it. I’ll look into what’s involved and how much it would cost.
