Overcast: My Favorite Podcast App Just Got Better!

The estimated reading time for this post is 6 minutes

If you listen to podcasts, you may do nothing more than stick with the standard Podcast app that comes with your iPhone. But if you’re a fan of podcasts and want an easier and better experience you should check out Overcast, my favorite podcast app.

 

The developer of Overcast, Marco Arment, has a strong track record in tech. He was Tumblr‘s first employee and started Instapaper so he knows about creating successful tech.

He’s also a podcast fan and wasn’t content with the ways in which he could listen to podcasts. So he decided to make an app that would make listening to podcasts a much improved experience.

What Makes Overcast Special?

Overcast is my favorite podcast app because of two reasons:

1. Ease of Use
2. Advanced Tech

While you wouldn’t think an app with advanced tech would be easy to use, you’ll be surprised at how Overcast manages to achieve both in one app.

Ease of Use

Overcast is simple to set up and use.

Set Up

When you first open Overcast you can set up an account (if you don’t already have one). You can fill Overcast with your favorite podcasts from another app so you don’t have to find them all over again or start from scratch if you’ve never use a podcast app.

Adding Podcasts

You can add new podcasts by clicking on the + button at the top right corner of the screen. You can search for podcasts or get recommendations to discover new ones.

Overcast shows you recommendations of top podcasts in categories such as tech, comedy, stories & variety, public radio, movies & TV, business, games and more.

Overcast lets you subscribe to podcasts or just download individual episodes.

If you add your Twitter account you can get recommendations from your Twitter followers.

Listening to Podcasts

Overcast makes listening to podcasts very easy so you really can “set it and forget it.” You can create playlists and add your favorite podcasts. You can rearrange the order of the podcasts and/or individual episodes by tapping Edit in the upper right corner and dragging them into the order you prefer.

Before you leave for work in the morning, drag and drop episodes in the order you want to listen to them. When you depart, tap Play on the first episode and listen to the podcasts in order, uninterrupted. The next podcast plays after you finish the previous one. Or you can adjust the settings so that the app stops playing when you’ve finished listening to a podcast.

Advanced Tech

One of the most charming aspects of podcasts, much like blogs, is that anyone can start one, you don’t have to be a pro. But while podcasters might have fascinating insights, they may not have high quality recording equipment.

Overcast tries to make every podcast easier to listen to by using advanced tech features. Arment himself is a podcaster so he knows what it takes to make a podcast sound better.

Smart Speed

Arment recognized that podcasters need to do things like think and breathe. While bloggers do those things too, you don’t have to wait for bloggers to do these things but sometimes you have to wait for podcasters to do them.

Overcast uses Smart Speed to close the gaps or “dead air” between words. The podcast flows more smoothly and your time isn’t wasted by listening to prolonged periods of silence. You can save a lot of time by using Smart Speed, time that can be used by listening to even more podcasts!

According to Arment’s website, the average time saved listening to a podcast using Smart Speed is 15%. That hour-long podcast may only take you 51 minutes to listen to. What will you do with that extra nine minutes?

Smart Speed has saved a total of 2 years of listening time so far. That’s 17,440 more hours that can be filled with hearing more podcasts.

— Overcast (@OvercastFM) July 27, 2014

You can see how much time Smart Speed has saved you by going to settings and scrolling to the bottom. As of now, Smart Speed has saved me 25 hours of time. Who doesn’t need an extra day?

Voice Boost

Voice Boost helps podcasts to maintain an even volume during the episode. Voices are amplified so you can hear them better, especially in noisy surroundings.

Other Features

Overcast makes listening easier with these other useful features:

• Sleep timer
• Ability to download over Wi-Fi or cellular
• Notifications when new podcasts are available (both iPhone and Watch)
• Sharing podcast with others, either the entire episode or bookmarked at a specific time
• Variable speed for playing episodes
• Customizable time segments for skip forward and backward buttons

You can also swipe up on the cover art of a podcast if you want to see the show notes and recommend the podcast to your Twitter followers.

Why You Wouldn’t Want to Use Overcast

The main reason you wouldn’t want to use Overcast is because you aren’t a fan of orange. That’s the only reason I can think of. There’s a lot of the color orange in this app.

My advice is to get over your dislike of orange. Seriously, this is a podcast app. You’re mostly going to be listening to the app, not looking at it much.

You can push through, I promise.

Apple Watch App

I’ve been using Overcast since it launched in July 2014 and have been meaning to write about it since then. But when Arment added an Overcast Apple Watch app and then updated the Watch app to make it even better, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to write about Overcast.

The Overcast app can be added to Glances so you can swipe up from the clock face screen to control the app. You can play, pause, fast-forward and rewind and see how much time you have left in the podcast.

With a recent update to the Watch app you can see what two podcasts are coming up next and switch to them.

Hard press on the screen to access your playlists and episodes,control playback features and recommend the podcast episode.

Learn more about how Arment redesigned the Watch app when he realized he wasn’t satisfied with the first version: Redesigning Overcast’s Apple Watch app

The Watch app makes controlling your podcasts from your wrist extremely convenient, which comes in handy when you’re exercising, driving or otherwise unable to pull your phone out of your pocket.

Availability

Overcast is available for free in the iTunes App Store. A one-time in-app purchase is available for $4.99 that unlocks advanced features.

You can download the app for free to see if you like it. If you do (and I think you will), skip a Starbucks coffee one day and invest in the advanced features of the app. The time you save by using Smart Speed is worth the upgrade even without all the other features.

Sorry, but an Android version isn’t in the works. If you’re looking for a quality podcast app for your Android device, check out: Podcast Addict and Pocketcast, both free at Google Play.

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Your Thoughts

Do you listen to podcasts? Would you like to save time listening to podcasts using Smart Speed? What would you do with your extra time? Share your thoughts with us in the Comments section below!

 

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Note to readers:

Please check out my guest post at Aha!NOW 14 Top Tips to Get Pinterest to Rock Your Blog Traffic. I was very honored to be a guest author at my dear friend Harleena Singh’s blog yesterday. If you want to know how to make the most of Pinterest for your blog, be sure to check out my article there!