Overcast 3.0 — A powerful yet simple podcast player

@chrismessina I think this is probably in the running for the "PH Longest Comment of the Year" award. Thank you for the comparison though! Great to see the evolution.

@kunalslab @chrismessina I would have gave bonus points if it was side by side :P

@vallieres @kunalslab @chrismessina @rrhoover There has to be a better way to display comments like this.

@tomfme @vallieres @chrismessina @rrhoover yep, in a blog post ;) https://marco.org/2017/02/20/ove...

@kunalslab @chrismessina thought i'd never stop scrolling. I was scared (awesome comparison!)

@mattahorton I do agree. It's a decent app, but in no way outstanding. The Chromecast stance has been a long-standing deal killer for me, especially now that Google Home is in the market.

@mattahorton It's purpose-built podcast listener. I haven't found anything comparable. What do you use?

@cancom10 I use Pocket Casts. I think it's better as a matter of preference, but I also think Overcast and Pocket Casts sit above the rest.

@mattahorton I used to be a frequent user of Overcast but it never clicked to me. Then I found Castro, I like it much better than Overcast. It's been my favourite Podcast player for a while now.

@andreasduess Same with me. Chromecast support would make it perfect. Although I discovered an iOS app which lets you cast audio from any app including Overcast.

@kymiller12 FYI Overcast does record listening progress "to sync this information between the website and your devices" (https://overcast.fm/privacy) but overall Marco is very keen to defend consumers' privacy, even if that means withholding useful data from publishers. "By the way, while I often get pitched on garbage podcast-listening-behavioral-data integrations, I’m never adding such tracking to Overcast. Never. The biggest reason I made a free, mass-market podcast app was so I could take stands like this." (https://marco.org/2016/05/07/app...) This is a commendable position on which his principles seem solid and not likely to change soon. I'm the founder at Awesound. We don't have an app, we're one of the RSS/mp3 hosting companies which podcasters can use as a back end. We try to differentiate ourselves by providing the most granular analytics (such as drop-off / listen-through, clicks on links, original source of listener, etc.) to publishers, without infringing on any individual listener's privacy. See https://twitter.com/awesoundapp/.... If you're curious, would be glad to chat (mark@awesound)

@mbym @kymiller12 @awesound Wow, that's disappointing :\. Marco (and other podcast app developers) have a unique and, IMHO, important opportunity to help the podcast community here while protecting individuals' privacy. I see frankly no reason why these developers should NOT share detailed aggregate listening stats. Doing so could provide actionable information for podcasters -- helping them snag sponsorships, understand what segments of their podcasts are most interesting to listeners, and so on. And downsides? Can't think of any. As long as no personally identifying info was sent, I can't imagine how individuals' privacy would be harmed. It'd just be a matter of sending to podcasters info like: - dropoff points - percentage of users listening all the way through - percentage of users listening to podcasts more than once - percentage of users sharing podcasts with others etc.

@gflandre my replacement for that nightmare was Podly (after trying, you name it..). Happy as. Specially because you can connect your Facebook to a profile account and save your subs forever -- a major pain to anybody who decides to switch apps.

@san_picciarelli @gflandre doesn't most apps support a export to xml feature so you can do just that? I agree, switching apps can be a pain, but having a way to export and then import an xml file with your subs makes it a lot less painful.

@thehashrocket Overcast is awesome. I have however turned to Podly because I can do that, natively and w/ friends.

@bernie_j_mitchell what kind of shows do you normally listen to?

@_connerc Marco isn't an Android guy, but Pocket Casts is spectacular.

@juanbuis It's a different approach, but check out Castro if you haven't already. It's not "better" or "worse" but the queue management in Castro works for me.

@mattahorton Only on the main list but not for once you enter into the individual podcast that lists the episodes.

@bluespringstn @mattahorton So you can only swipe to delete podcast series, not individual episodes. For me, I used swipe-to-delete podcast episodes 100x as much. I like the new card UI, and subtle icon update – it feels very polished. But as a daily user for years, the new list UI feels foreign and like more work than what I was used to. Feel the same way about having to swipe on the "now playing" screen to access the sleep timer. Maybe it works better for a new user or is a less cluttered design, but it feels like a downgrade to me.

@bluespringstn Agreed! Although, tapping the episode then the delete button is similar, and it's about the same amount of steps to 3D Touch to Peek and swipe up then delete (if you do it in one almost fluid motion). That said, swipe left was definitely better.