App Review — Overcast
Overview
Overcast is the third app released by Marco Arment. Arment is the former CTO of Tumblr, the popular microblogging site. He helped develop the first versions of Tumblr but eventually left the company to focus on his next project Instapaper. After he sold Instapaper he went on to start The Magazine, which he once again sold when started to get popular. During the 2013 XOXO Festival Arment took the stage to unviel and talk about his newest venture, Overcast. And after all delays, and build-up, Overcast was finally released on July 16th.
Design and UI
Overcast offers a fresh new(ish) take on the standard podcast app. It offers a fresh design, and a layout that strays a bit from the standard in podcast players. Instead of a set of tabs at the bottom of the screen, all of the navigation buttons reside at the top. Then, you get a nice list view of all of your playlists, podcasts you’ve subscribed to, and podcasts that you have already completed. At the bottom of the screen you get a mini player with play/pause, and forward/backward controls. At the top you have easy access to your Settings, Active Downloads, Playlist Management, and Podcast Directories.
Flagship Features
Overcast has most of the features that any other podcast app has, along with a few others.
Smart Speed
Smart Speed is a new feature that analyzes the audio and automatically takes out unnecissarily long gaps of audio. It works quite well too. I found that there were definitely fewer gaps in the audio that would normally make me wonder if the podcast had stopped playing.
Voice Boost
Voice Boost strategically raises the levels of only certain sound waves that mostly carry the sound of the person talking. This is a handy feature because it doesn’t just raise the overall volume, which means less background noise and less static.
Smarter Playlists
The playlist options are quite robust. You are able to add priorities and sorting options to playlists of you’re choosing. So you can either have one big list of all of the episodes in the playlist, or you can sort and filter them however you want. You’re also able to exclude certain episodes, and new episodes will automatically have the settings applied to them and will fit right in to the rest of the playlist.
Better Discovery
You’re able to link your overcast account with Twitter and able to get and share recommendations with other friends who are using the app. And Overcast will never post anything to your twitter account and you don’t have to post anything to your twitter account in order to share. It just pushes the recommendations right to your friends’ phones.
Pros
- Overcast offers a fresh and clean design that won’t leave you confused.
- It does a good job of managing all of your podcasts, and the extra sorting options make playlists so much more useful.
- Twitter Recommendations work well and offer a cool new way to see what your friends are currently digging.
- The UI isn’t cluttered and does a good job of managing all of the content being displayed on a current screen.
Cons
— Unfortunately the Smart Speed and Voice Boost feautres are a part of a $5 in-app purchase that unlocks every feature that the app has to offer. — It is still v1.0, so it can be buggy at times, and may not work properly all of the time. — It’s still missing some key features, most notably the ability to stream episodes, and watch videos. Marco has tweeted saying that these are features that will be implemented very soon, but weren’t ready for round 1. — It might not be worth all the hype. I mean it’s still a great little app that is quite powerful, but until some major issues are hammered out, there are better working apps on the app store (but the app has links to other notable podcast apps in case Overcast just isn’t the one for you).
Final Thoughts
Overcast shows a lot of promise, and is in good hands. This isn’t Arment’s first time developing a major app like this, so all he needs is time. The $5 fee to unlock everything is definitely worth it if you’re a seasoned listener who has been searching for features like theses; but might not be necessary for someone who’s just entering the podcast world.
While apps like Downcast, and Instacast run a bit smoother at this point, Overcast has become my main tool for listening to podcasts. It does everything I need, along with a few other things. Overall, I’m very pleased with the way this app turned out,a nd am eager to see what new features get implemented in the future.