Overcast Reviews

EDIT - still couldn’t get Apple Podcast to work so I stuck with this awhile. I found out where continuous play is, and you have to add episodes to allow them to play or something? Still believe Overcast is not intuitive, and could really benefit from a touch-screen walkthrough when first installed and opened. It’s kind of ridiculous that this doesn’t already exist, given the amount of features Overcast seems to have. Robust application with some good features, but those features are lost to users without some kind of explainer.

Original: I’m playing catch-up on a podcast I just started listening to that has been around for two years, so there is a lot of content to get through. I used to listen to it on Apple Podcasts, but for whatever reason that app has stopped working on my phone, and after looking at reviews for Overwatch I thought I’d give this a try. If Continuous Play exists, it’s not intuitive, nor does Overcast seem to have a feature where it will automatically pick up where the listener left off in a show. As soon as I downloaded Overcast I went to Settings and toggled ‘Continuous Play’ on, but it isn’t doing anything. I’ve tried playing the podcast from the episodes pages, creating playlists (the Smart Playlist is a joke), nothing works. Overcast just stops after it plays whatever episode your selected. Will be troubleshooting the issues with Apple Podcast and deleting Overcast immediately.

iOS 11 iRuined the podcast app, and I needed a replacement stat. To be honest this is the first app I downloaded, and I haven’t needed to download another.
The good - initial loading of my 20+ subscribed podcasts was quick and easy. Set the first playing in the playlist and it plays through until you hit stop or it runs out. I like having a running playlist of all of the current unplayed or partially played episodes, that I can quickly drag and prioritize my new dailies before my weeklies.
The bad - after the initial load, I can’t seem to browse new podcasts to add. I click a category, and Overcast freezes. It keeps playing what I was listening to, I can double click home to get out, but it’s not loading the search. I can kill it, go back, rinse repeat - same story. I presume it’s a bug from ios11, but it’s the one showstopper for me...
Feature wishes - prioritize new podcasts like the playlist; automatic subscription loading from default podcast app; a new type of discovery service - perhaps curated or within current categories - give me 5 or 10 minute chunks of the top 5 podcasts, or give me the top rated / top streamed pod? episode? from the top 5 channels within a category ... something that gives me enough to preview, but isn’t oppressive - add a subscribe now button to the GUI and I’m set; separate video podcast section to really blow through my gigs.

I appreciate that Overcast is clean but this comes at a cost of discovery. Compare to other apps that are detailed oriented, this app seems to miss little things that make it hard to follow podcasts.

For example: I like to be able to see a separate section where I know I can keep progress of listening experience. I’m would suggest moving the played episodes to a separate section like the unplayed section. I want the option to make episodes clear that I have listened to them and that if I want to replayed the episode, it won’t disrupt the fact that I have listened to the episode previously. I want to mass button pressed episodes to unplayed or played, while not affecting my listening history to show that I made progress. It’s not enough to sort unplayed episodes where I have to trudge to the find the episode to that are new. Also, make it obvious if one episode is part of the show, if it’s a trailer, or some other promo show within the show by use of color fonts or other differential factor.

Make the search easier for podcasts that if I am looking at one episode, there’s a section that shows another podcast or topic matter included in the show notes. So, If I am listing to a an episode from a podcast that has an author, there’s a section that offers recommendations that has the author who appeared on other podcasts.

Edit: The best just got better. Finally added a playlist for favorited/starred episodes. Adding more personalization choices was a bonus.

I have had this app for a while and think it is the best podcast player on the market. The options available for creating custom playlists are what puts this app at the top of the list. The ability to include or exclude podcasts or just episodes of a podcast and being able to set priority podcasts are great options I didn’t know I needed. I definitely recommend this app to friends and family every chance I get. Once in a while I will try other podcasts apps but quickly come right back to this app. Other podcast players either don’t have the same features as this app or don’t do them as as well. this app’s smart speed and speed boost seem to work much better than the same features on other podcast apps. The only complaint I have is the handling of favorited episodes. When you tap the star button on an episode it will mark it but that is it. You still have to search through the entire catalog of a podcast to find that episode. I would like to see a category or playlist that favorited episodes automatically goes to.

This is the first and only podcast app I've seen with compression. At least, that's my interpretation of what "Voice Boost" is doing. My mind is blown by how few entities are even attempting to address this elephant in the room. Some of the best and top podcasters fail to produce listenable audio. It is extremely simple. You need to cut your lows and brick your waveform. To do that right you start with a hot preamp (with low cut enabled) into a limiter or compressor so that you always peak at a consistent level, whether you talk, yell, or whisper into the mic (looking at you, Bobby Lee). If I remember correctly, -0.1 db is the highest you can go without causing it to clip when converting to mp3. That's where you set your overall limiting level when exporting the final master. If you didn't do the first part right, that's how you fix your final product. Just boost your levels into a limiter until the dynamic range is gone, exactly what the audiophiles hate. Ten+ years in, much of the podcast world is still figuring out the basics, but I continue to love you more than a friend. Overcast, iPhone's built-in dynamic range compression, and the analog compressor on my TV signal chain help keep this relationship strong.

I love Overcast. It’s sleek; I appreciate the typeface used on the interface. It looks modern and is a welcome change from the same old font Apple uses for everything. Organization is clean and relatively intuitive once you get used to it. Definitely a WORTHY replacement for the stock Podcasts app, which I used for years before I found this gem.

My only problems with this app pertain to the Apple Watch app. There seems to be more of a delay when hitting pause or start, and sometimes the pause/start button doesn’t work at all, which is horrible when you need to have a conversation with someone, or you’re at a drive-thru, or when you need the sound to stop immediately for whatever reason. That button needs to work reliably. Second, it would be REALLY COOL if the Digital Crown could be used as a volume control, like in Apple’s “Now Playing” app. It’s really convenient, and would be the next best thing to a reliable pause control.

All that said, this app is vastly superior to the stock Podcasts app, and can still be controlled from Now Playing, provided the this app app is deleted from the Watch. One thing the this app Watch app has going for it is it’s MUCH prettier than Now Playing. It can certainly use some improvement, and I’m confident that will happen, because this is a GREAT app!

Overcast is the best podcast app I have used. Way better than the stock iOS podcast app and is incredibly thoughtful in its details. When you pause, it skips back a second or two so your brain can pick up where the conversation was when it resumes, and using the skip ahead buttons will adjust to land between words. It will speed up or cut out intros, and while digging through the settings I couldn’t help but notice the option in there that also informed me they wouldn’t ask for a review with a pop-up (like every other app all the time!) so it inspired me to make this review. I also noticed that with a premium subscription you can upload your own files which is perfect for listening to old radio shows I have archived but playback of a 4 hour show is nearly impossible without an app designed to handle long format talk based files, and this is going to be perfect. I didn’t realize it was an option and thought premium just took away ads. That alone isn’t worth paying for to me, but now that I saw this they are going to have a new customer.

I was very early in getting into podcasts. Actually used Stitcher before iPhone added their default app. Don’t even know how many years I’ve used this app now rather than the standard iPhone podcasts app but just about everything is just a little better here. Also, so many little things that don’t exist on the standard iOS app (as far as I know). Won’t list them all here but by far my favorite feature that comes to mind is the customization you can put in for number of old episodes to hold on to from each individual podcast to keep your feed clean and not eat up too much storage on shows you don’t get to as often and probably won’t anyway!

Can’t tell you how excited I was when they added offline syncing ability for podcasts to the Apple Watch app so I could listen on runs without my phone. Also, I was so pleasantly surprised to see how quickly they fixed some of the early bugs with this feature that were obnoxious. Keep up the great work this app I recommend your product to everyone when it comes up and even tell them how easy it is to transfer over from another app.

What I love about Overcast is how customizable and user friendly it is. You can pick different color schemes for the apps, get super particular about what order to display shows and episodes in your feed, create playlists (the main reason I got Overcast and deleted the regular “Podcasts” Apple app), etc. There are so many options without it becoming overwhelming so kudos to the creators!

My one gripe is that I wish the “Add Podcasts” section of Overcast would be updated more frequently. It seems like the suggested podcasts in the “most recommended” category or “comedy” category, or any of the other categories hardly ever change. It’s always the same list of podcasts with one or two new ones thrown in. This makes it difficult for me to find more podcasts and ultimately spend more time on Overcast . It would also be great to get suggestions for other podcasts that are similar to what I already listen to (ex: “if you liked x podcast, you might also like y podcast”). Overcast does not make easy to discover new podcasts/podcasts that are similar to the ones I already enjoy, and that’s the only way in which the Apple “podcasts” app is superior to this one.

Overcast is great, tho the creeping featurism is getting out of hand. Last one was independent settings for how episodes are displayed for each podcast. Sounds great, you say? No, because the default is the exact opposite of what anyone who is into podcasts would want. I had to go thru every subscription and change the setting manually, because there is now no way to set them all the same. But Overcast packs a lot of features that I really enjoy like Smart Speed which dynamically adjusts the speed of the podcast to eliminate gaps and whatnot, and Voice Boost, which boosts human voices to stand out better. In addition, you can adjust the playback speed in fairly fine increments, all while using Smart Speed and Voice Boost. It makes for a truly customized and excellent listening experience. It looks great too.

But that’s not the reason for the downgrade. No, it’s because the Watch app has gone from woefully inadequate to non-functional. It crashes nonstop, and now won’t work no matter what I do, including restarting the watch, which used to fix it. The developer really needs to hire some help, it’s obvious he doesn’t give a ratsass about the AW app. Even when it was working, it didn’t work right.

I’m so glad I found the this app podcast platform! I’ve tried a couple others but they never did exactly what I wanted. I listen to different styles of podcasts on different days depending on my mood and attention span. Sometimes I need hype and sometimes I just want easy listening. I can organize my saved list to set up my playlist ahead of time so that my preferred order happens without me having to snatch up the phone and change the podcast in the middle of what I am doing. A couple other perks are the vocal boosts and speed of play options.

Only con I am experiencing is no matter what I do, I am not getting new episode notifications consistently. I get sporadic updates for some shows and no notifications for others. I have checked all my notification settings and everything is set like it’s supposed to be. I’m having to bounce over to Apple podcasts and check my recent uploads over there to know what I need to add to my saved list on this app. I hope this gets fixed soon! After that snag is fixed, this platform will be perfect!

I’m on an iPhone 6, using iOS 11.4.1. Overcast used to be at least a 4 star app, but ever since iOS 11, Overcast is more frustration than fun. First, an ongoing issue even before iOS 11, is the amount of space it takes up. I’m finding I’m having to delete and re-download Overcast every month, because I’m finding it taking up nearly ten gigs of space, despite the fact that I have it set to stream podcasts, not download them. There seems to be no intuitive way to get it to stop downloading. Second, now with iOS 11, I’m having to open Overcast several times to get it to stay open. It’ll usually crash a couple of times first. Third, and the issue that frustrated me enough to write this review and look for a new player: I listen to podcasts for hours at a time at work, using headphones. Sometimes I’ll need to pause an episode to do some work or talk to someone, and I’ll pause it using the button on my headphones. When I press the button again to start it... nothing. I’ll try again a few times, nothing. I’ll have to stop what I’m doing, take my phone out of my pocket, unlock it, and restart this app. Sometimes it’ll open and be frozen for fifteen seconds before it’ll start responding, sometimes it’ll just crash and I have to try again. This happens SO OFTEN that Overcast has basically become useless to me.

After upgrading to a new iPhone and having to deal with iCloud back up issues, I was finally good to go. However, the only app that didn’t seem to work was this app. Huge bummer, I thought. I had to run the latest public beta of the current OS (not the upcoming OS) in order to get my iCloud back up to work. I assumed there was a bug between this app and this newer beta version of iOS. I sent the developer a quick email letting him know. Within 12 hours, Marco had responded, apologized for the issue, and let me know a fix had been released in that time. Apparently a recent update to his app introduced a nasty little bug. I’m grateful that he was quick to fix it. This shows the level of commitment and detail he has for Overcast. It’s also why I will continue to be an this app user.

This is an excellent app and deserves all of the praise it gets. During that time, I tried other podcasting apps, but most were embarrassingly confusing and none seemed to just do what a good podcast player should do well: manage and play podcasts. this app is easy to use and understand, and it does its primary job very well!

Edit: The new update added more support for CarPlay and it’s awesome! Now you can see what chapter you are in as well as all of the other chapters, ‘Star’ and episode, etc, all from CarPlay! This is definitely a six star app!
If you listen to a lot of podcasts, you need to try Overcast!! Even if you are just an occasional podcast listener, you will probably find the smart speed option very helpful. I've been listening off and on to podcasts for a few years, but tended to not listen regularly because of the time it takes to get through the backlog of missed episodes. With smart speed, I've already saved almost 90 minutes in just one podcast after 10 episodes. Thank you to Jason Snell and iMyke of the Upgrade podcast for continually mentioning Overcast. I use both the smart speed and voice boost to make it easier and faster to listen to podcasts. I haven't tried tweaking any other settings yet and I'm looking forward to see how much time I can save when I start using this app to listen to other podcasts.

There are so many good podcasts out there, and so many podcast apps to download into your smartphone to listen to your favorite ones.
All these podcast apps, including Apple “iOS” Podcast have in common features that make them somehow similar to each other.
Yet, what makes this app stand above the rest, is it has a technology that I haven’t seen in others, and it's called Smart Speed which shortens the silence in thought long podcast, I know all the apps give you a control to speed up your podcast if you are in a car and don’t have enough time, while you don’t want to miss any of the speech, I know this depends on everyone preference and the type of show you listening to. But we all know speeding up your podcast it take from the enjoyment.l, that’s way this app has the technology that doesn’t trade off the enjoyment yet also save sometime. I recommend it big time. All I wish for is a new feature that allows the podcast rewind a 5 seconds back when ever a notification goes off while you are listening to one.

came here after the last iOS update broke apple podcasts, like so many others. this app is simple and has a nice clean easy to use interface, which is all I want. I love that the sleep timer can be adjusted to whatever time I want. love how easy it is to find and download the podcasts and episodes I want, especially since I’m almost never caught up on podcasts and so usually the most recent episode isn’t relevant to me.

my two complaints are:
- i wish the sleep timer counted down the minutes the podcast is playing, instead of just the real-time minutes that go by
- I wish it was easier to save episodes to come back to, because occasionally there are episodes I want to refer back to for school and such. In apple podcasts there was a “saved episodes” folder, which was handy because it was out of the main feed for that podcast but was easy to find. I’ve tried staring episodes to refer back to on this app, but they stay in the main “unplaced” feed for that podcast and are irritating to have to scroll past to get to the actual unplaced episodes.

I absolutely love the design and aesthetics of Overcast and the sound quality is also top notch. The Smart Speed and Audio Boost features are also quite nifty features that I’ve come to adore. The Smart Speed has been especially useful for speeding past “dead zones” in the audio where nothing is happening and its saved me lots of time to listen to other podcasts and what’s better, the audio does not get distorted when speeding it up, unlike other podcast apps where the audio gets pitched higher or becomes robotized when ou speed it up. Unfortunately though, as of late, Overcast constantly crashes whenever I use it, whether it be on my iPad Pro or my iPhone SE. The this app symbol can be seen in the background but after 10 or so seconds, it crashes back to the home screen and it does this again and again, ad infinitum. I’ve been installing all of the updates and trying everything, from clearing the cache of the device to uninstalling and reinstalling Overcast to little avail. When Overcast works, it’s absolutely amazing. But when it doesn’t then it is unfortunately quite tragic. I hope that Marco can find a way to remedy this so that I can return to my podcasts.

If Overcast worked as intended, it would be excellent, however it appears to have some frustrating quirks and stability issues. First and foremost are the crashes. It crashes when you pause about half the time, it crashes when you select a podcast, sometimes it just seems to crash for really no reason at all. On a typical weekday I use Overcast for about 2-3 hours and will see 1-2 crashes each day. The second issue is that Overcast will always, always try to play the previous unfinished podcast, even if you have a playlist or have a different cast selected as “play next”. For instance, the last minute of most casts is just an outro, an ad, or credits so I will skip to the next cast. If I allow a cast to play to the very end, this app will begin playing the last unfinished minutes of all previous casts even if I have a new cast queued. I’ve used Overcast for about a year and will say it is better than the native Apple app, but only just barely, owing only to this app’s better layout. However its stability issues and infuriating quirks hobble it badly.

Update July 2021: Even worse these days! Crashes about every 3-5 minutes. When I relaunch Overcast , it starts me at the beginning of the podcast, losing my place.

I love the sleek new design, but I can no longer reorder my podcasts or set one to play next, unless I’m misunderstanding where it is in the new design. Also, replacing the play next button with a listened to button is annoying and will take me time to get used to compared to how it was before. I’d like the ability to move multiple episodes simultaneously, I’ve never been able to select and move many at once and it would be nice when I’m ordering my playlist for the day. Used to be 5 stars, with the new redesign issues I’ll have to go 3

Update: after delving more deeply into Overcast I found that any playlists with over 1500 episodes lose the ability to manually reorder that I was seeking above. I think adding a “played” button to where the play next button was will still be a pita but it’s better than I had thought. Back to 5 stars. A bit laggy now when scrolling and moving episodes in a playlist but hopefully that will be fixed in the next few updates

I’ve used this update for a few days now. I’m super happy with it. The button-ification of the playlists, even though I only have one at the moment, is a welcome change. The old style made them kind of just blend into the interface. Now it’s got customizable colors and symbols to customize. Will be playing with that.
Next down, there is a very welcome horizontal row of recently played episodes. Thing I didn’t know I needed 1 of 2. I’ve used that to continue playing several times already.
Below that, is the familiar list of all subscribed podcasts. It used to be subscriptions with unplayed episodes at the top and subscriptions without below. Now, thing I didn’t know I needed 2 of 2, there are 3 buttons that filter the podcasts between those two groups I just mentioned, but also adds a list of inactive podcasts. Now I can easily cull my subscriptions, something I didn’t even consider doing before.
Amazing update! Always exciting to get new look.

With iOS 13 came a change in many apps: a return to a top or higher level. Overcast Store brings me to “Today” after I post a review. Makes no sense. Maybe (probably, likely) I want to review or shop related apps.

You all … why? You all leave me where I’ve put an episode when I’m rearranging my queue. Also, no sense. Say I have my “Fiction ” out of order. Every time I click “play next” the episode goes to the proper place in the queue but so does my view and working cursor. Where are the next 10 episodes of my drama? I don’t know. I have to go look for them. It’s easy to find where everything is going: click ▶️, aka "play". To find what I'm putting in order used to be logical and easy but no more. I inexplicably have to scroll to search for them or remove them from "Fiction" and begin again. Still makes no sense. I can't keep track of what I'm trying to put in order; I'm constantly removed from my reference point of "here's my future list". It's a slow, absurd process that might work for subscribers to a half dozen pods, not folks who have more than 100. Serial was just another podcast to us; good but not the beginning of everything.

At least give me a choice: Nice Old Way or New Cumbersome Method. Please think about it. I'm intensely disgusted by it and actually get angry when using it.

The native iOS podcast app used to be good. Then Apple decided to make it look and function much more like its music app when they released Apple Music, which is to say they dumped all the good interface choices out the nearest window. The native iOS podcast app is atrocious to use, isn’t responsive, can be very finicky, and just overall hates life, particularly yours. My favorite feature was that it knew that even though I was only 10 minutes or so (how would I know how long, my phone was in my pocket?) into a podcast and happened to drive through a dead zone, I definitely wanted it to mark the entire show as complete and wouldn’t want to resume where I left off when I regained signal. It knew I loved scrolling through hundreds of uploaded podcasts in the finished pile looking for the one I wasn’t done with yet, only to try to find what time stamp I was at when it cut me off. Thanks for nothing, Apple podcasts. And thank you, this app, for being a clean, well-designed, completely functional podcast app.

To me listening to podcasts should be quick, easy and done without thought. this app is providing just that. You have all the functions you need in the free version and the adds are not intrusive. For me it was well worth the $10/yr to support the future development.

Even though I consider myself an early adapter and enjoy changes to improve a product, I basically stopped listening to podcasts after the iOS update which changed the podcast app drastically. It is possible I am more forgiving to bumps in the development process when it is a small company or new product, neither of which describes Apple.

With that said this app does have some limitations that to me do not hinder the daily listening experience. The biggest I have noticed is searching for podcasts I am not always able to find what I’m looking for. An easy solution is to copy the url from Apple podcast app, use that in the search and there is no problem finding it. I also haven’t figured out a way to better organize all of my podcasts.

I’ve been a podcast junkie for over a decade. Before the iPhone, I would download them on iTunes, burn them on a CD and play them in my car. So the built-in podcast app on iPhone was a revelation. I feel like that all over again with this app. First, I was blown away by its ability to speed up pauses to make podcasts play quicker without sounding sped up. I don’t mind a little sped up, so I also liked the wide range of speeds to choose from. The real winner was the smart playlist though. THE SMART PLAYLIST IS AWESOME. I tell it which show I want to hear first, which second, etc., and it automatically keeps the playlist up to date, adding new top-priority shows to the front of the line ahead of older lower-priority shows. (I used to make “up next” playlists each day in the old app. No more!) Finally, just today I discovered custom settings for each show. My news podcasts can rip through at 1.8x speed. My narrative ones I can set for 1.2x speed. Overcast remembers. I don’t ever have to mess with it again. I LOVE Overcast!

This morning I paid for premium subscription. Later the same day when checking for my daily dose of recently downloaded podcasts, there were none?! When checking podcast history or trying to leave feedback within app, I kept getting the message “No Internet Connection - the Internet connection connection appears to be offline.” My phones other apps (social media, safari, mail, etc.) are using WiFi just fine. I checked to make sure both WiFi and cellular data are checked. I cancelled my subscription to see if that was the problem. Doesn’t seem to have made a difference. I turned phone off and then on - that didn’t solve the problem. I hate to have to shop around for a different podcast player. Can anyone help me?
UPDATE: Upgraded rating from one star because my podcasts started downloading again! I am happy about that. Thanks fixer! I had preferred this player to others I have tried (I like to create multiple playlists.) and am glad I don’t need to change. However, I am waiting to see if the download issue arises again before re-paying for my cancelled premium subscription.

I love Overcast! It has features I wished were in the built in podcast app like set a custom playback speed for each individual podcast and an actual smart play list that automatically adds my priority podcasts first! So that show that I just have to listen to as soon as it comes out gets placed to the top of the list.

One feature, if it’s there I couldn’t find it, I really wanted was a shuffle option so when I add a new podcast and all the past episodes I can just shuffle them in to the playlist. Right now I have to do this manually and who wants to do that?

Features that I didn’t even think of, the smart speed. Some podcasters speak really slow with long silences between words and 2xs speed isn’t quite right and anything faster you can’t understand the words. Having Overcast shorten the silences is GENIUS! The Voice boost has allowed me to turn down the volume! I don’t struggle to hear what some of the soft spoken hosts are saying.

Thank you this app, you just took my blood pressure down a couple of points. I have watched Apple experiment and destroy whatever attempts they have made to create an easy to use and understand podcast player. If you want gray hair go try and figure out the crap that Apple has produced for a podcast player. Complicated and difficult to use. I had reached a point in trying to find and play podcasts on Apple’s mess that I was about to hurdle my poor iPad out of extreme frustration. The this app app was so simple to setup and use. I didn’t even create an this app account and I was up and running with ease in no time. Easy to find podcasts and easy to play them. Apple’s use to be this way until I think they got too much money and decided to hire shoemakers to create a player app. Thank you again this app! And Apple, I hope you stub your big toe, for shame for creating such junk.

Excellent podcast player, appreciate the way displays work & having all the nitpicky detail options available! It does sometimes crash or have problems loading but it’s always resolvable by restarting Overcast /phone, updating Overcast , or just giving it some time.

I think it would be nice if there were more detailed ways to search podcasts (by tag / topic), but the number of lists on the explore page (and potentially the number of podcasts on each list?) has recently increased, and there’s a new “recommended for you” section. So it seems like Overcast is already headed towards having more podcast-finding options anyway!

Overall, very great podcast app, been using it for a couple years now at least, and it’s really great! It’s only gotten better, and it’s impressive how few issues it has, given there’s one person doing the whole thing. Thanks, man!