Popular podcast player Overcast has reached its long-awaited third iteration on the iOS App Store, with improvements to episode management and a slew of other UI enhancements.
Designed by Instapaper developer Marco Arment, Overcast 3's most obvious change is that it adopts the design language of iOS 10, such as the use of stacked views which Apple introduced in Apple Music, so screens including Now Playing, settings, downloads, and recommendations, now appear as stacks that slide up from the bottom of the interface. There's also a redesigned Now Playing view, in which users swipe right to adjust audio settings, and swipe left to view episode information.
A new episode action tray features in the app, grouping actions that were previously hidden behind swipe gestures or other menus. Tapping an episode in a list now displays buttons to share, star, play, add to queue, and delete the selected podcast episode.
Elsewhere, Peek and Pop 3D Touch gestures are now supported in episode list screens, allowing users to quickly preview episode contents and access play and delete shortcuts by sliding up the Peek card. An Overcast 3 widget for the home screen has also been developed, which allows users to see what's playing, resume playback, and see upcoming episodes in their Up Next queue.
Also included in Overcast 3 is a redesign of its Apple Watch component, with the ability to view upcoming episodes from the wrist.
Overcast 3 is available as a free ad-supported app, while an optional $9.99 in-app purchase gets users a premium ad-free version. Overcast 3 is available for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]
Top Rated Comments
I use the iOS podcast app myself, after trying all the rest, because it finally works reliably and I prefer the design. $10 a year actually gets you very little extra when you look at what the free app does.
I have been an Apple Podcast app user for a long time and EOD it just works. It's simple and does what I need and includes video podcasts as well. Also, because it's Apple's app, it works great with Siri (more important now that I am using AirPods), and CarPlay is rock solid. I'm not holding much hope for Overcast staying on my iDevices for long.
Update: This app is a buggy mess. A couple of crashes so far this morning, Widget doesn't show currently playing podcast. Overcast started out as with clean and simple UI and was FAST. Over time, it has become an unreliable and inconsistent performer and I am not sold on Arment's design choices and beta testing capability.
I would happily pay $10 to unlock the full version even if it meant paying another $10 next year for version 4, but I'm unwilling to be perpetually held hostage with a subscription for certain app categories when there's no guarantee that the developer will do anything with the fees I pay. If the developer doesn't do much with the app over the course of a year, I don't want have substantially the same app in a year but be stuck paying a fee to not see ads.
I suggest everyone check out either Castro or PocketCasts if you're in the market for a non-subscription model podcast app.
Why does it not do this?! Strange