Name: Overcast
Rating: 4.5 (43823 reviews)

Updating

Overcast

Overcast Radio, LLC

Released: 2014-07-16

Free 0%

Version 2025.6

Free 0%

Version 2025.6

Released: 2014-07-16

-1

#62 in Top Grossing Apps > News

iPhone Screenshots

iPad Screenshots

Description

A powerful, simple, award-winning podcast player. Featured by the App Store as Editor's Choice and critically acclaimed by The Verge, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, AppAdvice, and more.

No big company or VC funding here — Overcast is the only major podcast app written by a single person.

The Verge: “The best podcast app for the iPhone”

9to5Mac: "Overcast is the best podcast app that I’ve ever used”

AppAdvice: "Our favorite podcast client"

Six Colors: "My podcast player of choice"

The Sweet Setup: “Overcast is our favorite”

Cult of Mac: “It’s the best podcast app out there”

TIME: “Overcast lives up to its lofty claims”

iMore: "My personal favorite"

TechCrunch: “There is no reason why you should still be using the Podcasts app over Overcast”

Overcast is a modern, fully featured audio podcast app with many useful features in a simple, intuitive interface:

- Smart Speed saves time without distorting the audio or sounding unnatural.

- Voice Boost makes every podcast the same volume with a broadcast-quality remastering engine.

- Download podcasts for playing anytime, even offline.

- Search and browse for new podcasts, plus get personalized recommendations.

- Create custom Playlists with smart filters and per-podcast priorities, and rearrange the list whenever you want.

- Receive optional notifications when new episodes arrive.

- Subscribe to a podcast, or just add an episode: try new shows without committing.

- Sleep timer automatically stops playback after any time interval you set.

- Apple Watch app with standalone playback and cellular streaming.

- CarPlay support.

And Overcast has world-class privacy, with no third-party analytics, ad services, or tracking code.

Overcast is funded by ads that promote other podcasts. If you choose to purchase Overcast Premium to hide these ads, payment will be charged to your iTunes account, and your account will be charged for renewal 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be turned off at any time by going to your settings in the iTunes Store after purchase.

Proudly made in New York.

What's New in Version 2025.6

- Improved background refresh

- Double Tap support to play/pause in the Apple Watch app

- Minor bug fixes

Seller

Name

Overcast Radio, LLC

URL

https://overcast.fm/

Information

Developer

Overcast Radio, LLC

Version

2025.6

Size

31.9 MB

Game Center

VPP Device Licensing

Yes

Rating

Rated: 4+

Compatibility

iOS 17.0 or later

Devices

iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone SE (2nd generation), iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone SE (3rd generation), iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 16e, iPad (5th Generation) Wi-Fi, iPad (5th Generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad (6th generation) Wi-Fi, iPad (6th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro, iPad Pro (Cellular), iPad Pro (9.7-inch), iPad Pro (9.7-inch) (Cellular), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (10.5-inch), iPad Pro (10.5-inch) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (11-inch), iPad Pro (11-inch) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Air, iPad Air (Cellular), iPad Air 2, iPad Air 2 (Cellular), iPad Air (3rd generation), iPad Air (3rd generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad mini Retina, iPad mini Retina (Cellular), iPad mini 3, iPad mini 3 (Cellular), iPad mini 4, iPad mini 4 (Cellular), iPad mini (5th Generation), iPad mini (5th Generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad (7th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation), iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Air (4th Generation) (Wi-Fi), iPad Air (4th Generation) (Wi-Fi + Cellular), iPad (8th generation) Wi-Fi, iPad (8th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation), iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th Generation), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th Generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad (9th Generation), iPad (9th Generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad mini (6th Generation), iPad mini (6th Generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Air (5th generation), iPad Air (5th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 11-inch (4th generation), iPad Pro 11-inch (4th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (6th generation), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (6th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad (10th generation), iPad (10th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Air 11-inch (M2) Wi-Fi, iPad Air 13-inch (M2) Wi-Fi, iPad Air 13-inch (M2) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 11-inch (M4) Wi-Fi, iPad Pro 11-inch (M4) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro 13-inch (M4) Wi-Fi, iPad Pro 13-inch (M4) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad mini (A17 Pro) Wi-Fi, iPad mini (A17 Pro) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad (A16) Wi-Fi, iPad (A16) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Air 11-inch (M3) Wi-Fi, iPad Air 11-inch (M3) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad Air 13-inch (M3) Wi-Fi, iPad Air 13-inch (M3) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPod touch (6th Generation), iPod touch (7th generation), Apple Watch Series 4

Languages

English

App Store: Customer Ratings

Ratings & Reviews

4.5 of 5 (43,823 Ratings)

App Store: Customer Reviews

2025-07-06

Beware of the memory leak

Once the best written single developer app on the App Store, Overcast was recently rewritten from scratch and the rewrite was botched. It now represents a massive memory leak that will eventually eat all the space on your iPhone's storage. Even if you delete all the downloaded podcasts their memory is never released, eventually amounting to many gigabytes. The only solution is to delete the app. (You can then reinstall it if you like but the same issue will eventually surface again.) All attempts to bring this issue to the developer's attention have been ignored.

2025-07-06

Honestly the best app on the iPhone

What other free app is well-made while also implementing all the newest iOS features ASAP and just works all the time? Plus it's made by a single developer, who is always taking feedback into consideration and adding new features while not subtracting existing ones? It's seriously the perfect app. I pay the Premium subscription just to support the dude, I don't even use it to turn the ads off because I've discovered several great podcasts via the very non-intrusive ads.

2025-07-06

Unfortunately ruined and stale

As of July 6 2025 many issues remain.

- Won’t play next episode via AirPods or remote.

- Frequent playback dropouts.

- Background downloads unreliable.

Unfortunately it was ruined and update releases are glacially slow.

Was a great app with really special features. But the developer hugely underestimated the quality of the rewrite in 2024 and the app has never recovered. There are many obvious bugs.

The developer is pathologically non-responsive. In over 10 years he has never once replied to a bug report or feature request I’ve sent to his support Overcast email.

2025-07-06

Great and simple podcast app

I used to use a different app mainly, but I am far more pleased with this app. It is simple, looks good, has great features, and just in general is a fantastic app. Works great with Apple CarPlay too!

This app is now my preferred podcast app.

2025-07-05

Perfect Player

Love the restaurant. Thanks Marcos.

2025-07-04

The best podcast app

I never write reviews, but I love Overcast so much. I found it after frustration drove me away from Apple Podcasts. It does exactly what I want in a clean and simple layout. As a UX designer myself, this is the podcast app I would have wanted to make.

2025-07-03

Was good

Was good until I heard ads prompting agendas for a fascist. I’m going to switch apps now.

2025-07-03

Worst app in the App Store

Do you like missing episodes of your favorite podcasts?

Do you like driving into a ditch as you frantically try to fix your podcasts while driving?

This app was once good, but has since become maddening and unreliable. Look elsewhere.

2025-07-03

still can’t stream

I don’t know what they did but they nerfed the ability to stream quite awhile ago and it still doesn’t work. You have to download podcasts for this app to work, even on WiFi. Please keep working on this

2025-07-03

Liked it at first, cannot stand it now.

I liked the layout but no matter what settings I mess with it will completely stop everything at the end of each episode. And I don’t mean just stop playing, it will lock you out of pressing “play” on your headset for the next episode.

This app DOES NOT work for me, I don’t want my phone out to choose the next episode.

Tried other apps that tend to force you into paying to use the app. This has been so frustrating I’m redownloading the loathed Apple Podcast app and deleting this one.

I miss Stitcher, it was SUPERIOR to ALL of these apps.

2025-07-02

Watch Compatibility Doesn’t Work

I have always had the Watch version of the app set to download a specific playlist when new podcasts are added to it. That playlist is my primary one of weekly listens, I like to have it downloaded to my Watch as well so I can run without carrying my phone with me. This function has never worked for me. Additionally, when I go to manually download episodes to my watch it doesn’t work either. Just today, about 90 minutes ago, I had the app download 1 specific episode to the Watch that should’ve already been on there. I tapped “download when charging” while the Watch was charging. I came back 90 minutes later and it didn’t download anything. Furthermore, when you try and download episodes while the watch isn’t charging then it forces you to play a bad breakout clone on the watch, with the scroll wheel, in order to keep the screen awake. Sometimes it takes 10-15 minutes for this download to happen and if you stop playing the breakout game for 20 seconds you have to start the download all over again because the screen went to sleep and it decides to stop downloading. This is extremely frustrating and happens to me several times a week.

2025-07-02

Great tech for 10 years.

Overcast was great and ahead of its time when it came out 10 years ago. It regularly gets better and is still one of the main reasons I keep using iPhone instead of Android.

2025-07-01

Still not consistently reliable

Since the rewrite things have largely gotten better. Some of the interactions are still annoying and worse than before (e.g. anything on the now playing screen, but especially changing playback speed).

My big issue now is that the most recent update broke bulk downloads. Only a couple of the episodes download, and I have to keep quitting and restarting the app to download all of them.

This is made worse by streaming being unreliable. Pausing during a stream will completely cancel the stream, which is super annoying. Skipping back or forward also cancels the stream. I'm hoping the author will restore the code he accused of being an overcomplicated mess that was actually his accumulated learnings in building a reliable product.

2025-06-30

Download problem!

Not at all happy with this app,it might be time to change.

2025-06-30

What would I do without this app

I entered the apple world while I was trying to distract myself during a trial that I was doing years ago. I found podcasts. Then, quickly, I learned that all the apple nerds used an app called overcast. They said the developer was super smart, used the most current options apple offered, and was responsive to his users. I started using it on my iPad. The, I got an iPhone. I started using it on that. Then, my wife bought me an Apple Watch to use while running so I didn’t have to carry a phone. It has been wonderful. Recently, I found the timeline was not keeping up on my Apple Watch which created problems for me when I would either try to skip ahead or the workout app would interrupt to tell me how long it was taking me to run a mile. I sent feedback on an app for the first time in my life. This morning, not more than a week later, the timeline issue is fixed. I think the downloading got better too. I am so grateful for this app and the apple nerds who suggested it. Mr. Arment…thank you for making this. I’ve always used the free version. I’m going to find a way to work paying for your app into my budget.

2025-06-30

Streaming is bad

The way network lost during streaming is handled is awful. It just immediately gives up and starts playing the next podcast

2025-06-29

Couldn’t get it to work for Apple Watch

The Apple Watch download features randomly started failing for me. Episodes would get stuck “downloading” even if I left it charging all night. I liked the app but had to stop using it for that reason.

2025-06-29

Has gotten better through the years but still leaves some things to be desired

Everything except for buffering and playing works. Unless the episodes are downloaded just expect your podcasts to fail and the "currently playing" episode to go blank when you want to restart it. This is especially true on longer podcasts where the progress bar will show 3/4 of an episode downloaded but will cut out and fail everything 30 seconds. This is true whether on gigabit internet or 5G UW.

2025-06-27

Great Podcast Player

I’ve used it for years. Customizable.

2025-06-27

Universe’s worst

If you have anything but a perfectly optimal internet connection, this app’s astoundingly poor design and implementation will drive you nuts.

Some months later I’ve come back to add to my review. This is the universe’s worst podcast app if you have less than optimal bandwidth. Instead of downloading podcasts sequentially, it attempts a massive download of all at one time. Worse yet, it doesn’t pause the podcast you are trying to listen to if it needs to buffer as you download it, it just aborts everything, both playing the podcast and it throws away any portion of the file that it did download. When you start to listen again, it starts all over at square one with the download. Often resulting in the exact same scenario repeatedly. I can’t think of any software in the history of time that has been designed worse than this app.

2025-06-27

Moved from android to iPhone, this is the best podcasting app on iPhone, but it’s one of the worst

I came from Android using the podcast addict app, this is the best podcast app on iPhone and it doesn’t even slightly come close to the features of podcast addict

1. The download feature doesn’t work half the time, only if you are completely caught up in a podcast and are only downloading the latest episodes

2. The custom playlist options are horrendous and gives no options besides priority or manual sorting for adding in new episodes as they come around

3. There’s approximately 1/4 of the settings available on podcast addict

I hope one day somebody makes a even slightly good podcast app, as I listen to about 20 in rotation, only 2 of which I am fully caught up on

I have seceral podcasts that refuses to auto download and will not add the oldest episodes into the playlist first

2025-06-27

In the age of podcasts…

How can an app that is meant to play only audio, be this bad. I spend more time closing out and restarting a podcast episode because of glitches or freezes than I do listening. Not only does it often crash, but it resets where you were in the episode and sometimes resets the “played” tag to “unplayed”. truly a troll of an app. I’m going back to a Walkman and burning all my podcasts to a CD.

2025-06-27

The MacOS Version is Badly Broken

I’ve used the iOS version for a long time, but the MacOS version is basically trash. No way to manage store etc. It seems like it’s abandoned. I would avoid.

2025-06-27

Watch app worthless

Episodes not downloading automatically or on-demand. And streaming doesn’t work. Really too bad. I loved this app now I’m looking at a replacement.

2025-06-26

Maddening

If you love listening to podcasts and hate yourself, get this app. Almost nothing it does makes any sense. It limits how many episodes you can see. And if you choose to show all episodes, that setting won’t persist. I’ve found no way of playing a newly discovered podcast from the beginning (think something like “Serial” and most true-crime podcasts). There’s a “play next” option which doesn’t seem to do anything most of the time. There’s a concept of a queue, but its rules are mysterious. If you’re playing from the queue(?) and you select a different podcast episode to play, when that episode ends, it just stops playing. It can’t handle having to download and play an episode— the developer seems to have never heard of buffering. If the download is slow while it’s playing back, it just gives up and plays something else. I’ve never used anything that has me swearing at my phone more than this app.

2025-06-25

Sad

This app went from “can’t recommend enough” to “can’t recommend.” Crashes constantly, especially if an app isn’t fully downloaded, and seems to have trouble fully downloading eps in the background. A sad fate for a once great app.

2025-06-24

Tried others, came back to Overcast

I was lured by the idea of AI in my podcast app, and gave it a go with some other apps that left me unsatisfied, I canceled my subscription there and came back to Overcast for getting all of the basics right that I had taken for granted until I tried an alternative.

2025-06-24

Still broken and buggy

Fundamental features of the app do not work. Podcasts frequently don’t download. Be prepared for very frequent “DOWNLOAD FAILED” errors. You need to manually go into the app and tap the podcast to get it to download again. The app requires nonstop fiddling to make it work.

The base app was great at one time but those days are over. When you try to use any of the additional features, they’re now completely broken. My podcast list keeps changing the order I set, and the High-Priority Podcasts feature does not work. Full stop.

UX glitches are an expectation now. Episodes often stop playing halfway through, or worse, the app plays a totally different episode than what’s displayed.

The post-rewrite version feels much buggier and requires way more fiddling than ever before. I’ll plan ahead and spend a few moments working around the Priority Playlist issues by manually reordering my queue only to discover when I’m out walking that Overcast has reverted my set order. It is incredibly frustrating.

The UX really needs some serious rethinking. The old version wasn’t perfect, but at least it was usable. Now it feels clunky and hard to navigate, especially if you’re out walking or multitasking. I find I have to stop what I’m doing to really contemplate where some of the button or features are hidden. Base navigation is confusing. On top of that, support requests go unanswered, and the developer has openly said they don’t prioritize responding to them.

If I were just starting out with podcast apps, I wouldn’t pick Overcast knowing what I know now. Since I listen to dozens of hours of podcasts a week, I’d likely begin with another app that offers a smoother and more reliable experience. Honestly, I’m considering switching to another podcast app entirely.

2025-06-24

Watch app is broken

No longer downloads episodes to the watch. Insanely frustrating to start a run and see that all downloads have failed. Unfortunately need to leave a 1 star since it has been broken since the new watch app and Marco is too busy running his restaurant to fix it I guess, and now redesigning the main app. As he said before, he notices the bad reviews

2025-06-24

Watch app broken

Since the update, the watch app will not auto sync /download episodes while charging. This ruins the app for runs etc. Sadly I will have to look for another option

2025-06-24

The #1 podcast app out there!

I never write reviews but this app is truly one of the GOATs. There are so many customizations to make your listening experience exactly how you want it. But at the same time all the customizations are clearly organized and super intuitive. The design is excellent. Changing settings within Overcast is fun, like browsing a menu for fun things to try.

It’s not annoying or overly complicated like some apps with a lot customization can be.

I also prefer it for podcasts over Spotify. Thr organization of podcasts and episodes is superior. The ability to automatically jump ahead a pre-timed amount to skip the ad block is great. Spotify still forces their own ads in wherever they want (even on premium which is ridiculous…anyway another topic).

I have used it free for several years and just now upgraded to the premium version. The free version is great, but I’d recommend just going for premium on principle alone! To support a really great developer who truly takes care of their app :)

2025-06-23

Clear, simple

Love how this work. I build playlists for travel , sleep, work, and more. Just wish there was a way to set a standard level volume across different podcasts.

Recent updates have been great!

2025-06-23

Flawless Streamlined Podcast App

I hated Apple’s native podcast app because the settings didn’t work; for example, I’d set it to “dont display recently played” and it would promptly ignore the setting, displaying everything I’d played back to 2019!

I asked AI how to fix this and was informed I couldn’t, Apples’ features just didn’t work, but here were some podcast apps users seemed to love. Overcast was #1. Now I love it too :-)

2025-06-23

Heavily flawed

Episodes keep disappearing from my queue, really annoying especially when I’m trying to set up a queue for a long drive.

2025-06-23

Decent, But Flawed

Two of the podcasts I’ve added result in a “Not Authorized” error when I try and download episodes. The Home Screen is too disorganized.

2025-06-22

Best Podcast App

Unmatched versatility in a podcast app. You can set it to skip all the adds or credits at the beginning and end of a podcast. For me, that puts this app above all the others.

2025-06-22

AirPlay Works Now

My biggest gripe was airplay never working. 5/5

2025-06-22

Yummy

Yummy 😋

2025-06-21

Auto deleting my podcasts

This app used to be fine but for months now it has been deleting my downloaded podcasts randomly and for no apparent reason. Not a phone storage issue. It also has daily issues with download errors, sometimes it takes 3-5 times to finally download a single podcast after I manually click download. Then it will be in the middle of playing and delete the episode and I have to try another handful of times to get it downloaded again. Idk why it’s so highly rated, I curse at this app every day. So glitchy.

2025-06-21

Avoid updating to the new Apple Watch app

The new Apple Watch app is not working at all. It refuses to download my podcasts whether I’m on the charger or on my wrist. I’ve tried Wi-Fi and cellular and neither work. Overcast on the watch used to be my go-to audio listening for running and I haven’t been able to listen to a single podcast on my watch since the update. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the watch app but that didn’t resolve it either.

2025-06-20

What deal has Radiolab made?

I keep moving the same episodes down, then they appear at the top of my prioritized list. This happens every couple weeks.

It’s not even a high priority podcast!

It would be easier to deal with, except you can’t move multiple episodes anymore.

2025-06-20

Big step back for Watch App

The Watch app no longer syncs in the background, overnight, meaning I have to wait for 5-20 min at 5:30 in the morning before going for a run. It used to sync in the background overnight and I’d love it if it would do that again.

2025-06-18

Buggy, abandoned

Everything except for voice boost and smart speed is worse about this podcast app but I still use it for those features. Would pay $50 to get the old version that didn’t have bugs that automatically deleted episodes loading on cellular. Same bugs for 1.5 years now, at lest. Developer seemed to have given up.

2025-06-17

Back to #1

After a six month hiatus, the developer has finally launched a rewrite of the watch app. It is working much great now and downloads never fail anymore.

2025-06-17

Not intuitive

Not bad but the user interface is not intuitive

2025-06-17

Playback fails when seeking while streaming

This issue has plagued the Overcast app for nearly a year and is borderline negligent at this point. Other users are expecting this as well — I am incredulous that the developer has STILL not fixed this fundamental bug.

2025-06-16

Wouldn’t even open

With no explanation, you are asked to login. How? Who knows. Privacy policy…sure. Click on it, app crashes every time.

2025-06-15

I’ll give it 5 stars once they bring back Apple Watch cellular streaming

I’ve been a paid user for years and it’s my favorite podcasting app, but it’s had a long and rocky history with the Apple Watch app. They’ve rewritten the Watch app from scratch at least twice, and in the latest iteration, removed the ability to stream a podcast episode while it’s downloading. This was a great feature that I and many others used often, so you could leave your phone at home and only have to take your Watch with you for outdoor runs, hikes, etc. It’s not easy to download an episode right before you go out, as it’s slow and requires you to keep the Watch screen from going to sleep. The automatic syncing is very inconsistent as well, as I often find that even after several days, podcast episodes in my Apple Watch queue still haven’t downloaded to the Watch. I really love this app, but please fix the Apple Watch features!

2025-06-13

Good app turned bad

This app used to be great, but was ruined by several updates and UI tweaks in the last few years. Now my queue doesn’t work, podcasts don’t download, listened-to episodes aren’t accurately reflected, among other issues. Very disappointing.

2025-06-13

Update broke the watch app

Used to be really good but new update has made the watch app next to unusable. What used to reliably download now is spotty at best, does not sync position back to the phone app, and when reaching the end of the podcast episode-it does not go to the next podcast and the position shows you haven’t even played it-hence the sync issue back to the phone. Why update and break something that was working?

2025-05-26

Love This App—Please Fix Apple Watch Streaming

I’ve been an Overcast user since the very beginning and a proud supporter through the paid subscription for years. It’s truly one of my all-time favorite apps—consistently among my most-used year after year, thanks in large part to Marco’s brilliant implementation of Smart Speed and other thoughtful performance tweaks that set it far above the competition.

That said, the most recent Apple Watch update (May 2025) has unfortunately worsened my experience as an avid runner who relies on a cellular Apple Watch. I run early in the morning and stream podcasts directly from my watch, since there’s never time to pre-sync content. In fact, Overcast’s excellent Apple Watch support was the main reason I chose the cellular model in the first place.

Since the update, this functionality seems to have been lost. I’ve tried manually downloading episodes to the watch before runs, but even when it works, it’s time-consuming and adds friction to the start of my day. I truly hope Marco considers restoring this vital feature. Overcast is still an outstanding app—but this recent change has been a real step backward for those of us who rely on streaming while running untethered.

2025-05-22

Best Got Better

[UPDATE: Small update, big quality of life improvements. I thought the unintended-seek issues were just me, but apparently not because the behavior is changed and OMG I like this better, thank you! Also looking forward to seeing responsiveness improvements in the new Watch app in action.] I’ve been using Overcast for several years, and I’ve been delighted by its features and how well they’re implemented (it was the first to offer smart speed to tighten up podcasters who pause a lot!). I’ve also always liked that it’s true indie, one developer, independent. (And there was some reason I didn’t like how Apple’s own podcast player was behaving with other devices but I can’t even remember why anymore.) When this new version came out I was nervous, because change is scary ;-) but I finally updated and while it looks a little different, a few minutes of patience and looking through it revealed controls for most of the things I wanted to change right away, and overall everything looks more consistent and buttoned down and, dare I say it… slick? It’s an awesome podcast player and I think it just managed to get awesome-er.

2025-02-17

Great! Just missing one IMPORTANT feature

I really do prefer overcast to all my other podcast apps for multiple reasons. The main issue I have regards downloaded content. I have a LOT of downloaded episodes from various podcasts, but I just hate trying to figure out if I have an episode downloaded or not. Normally if it has the cloud icon next to it, it isn’t downloaded. This isn’t always the case. If I then go to the “downloaded” button to look what I have, it’s just one giant list of every episode I’ve downloaded from every podcast. No way to sort or anything. Why not just have all the downloaded episodes organized into their own podcasts? Or have a “downloaded” button when you are looking at the podcast itself, outside of the “downloaded” section. The only options are “current” and “all”. I just wish it was easier. Maybe color an episode a different color if it’s downloaded, streamed, finished, or unfinished maybe. The main thing is better organization of downloaded content. I still really love the app though, and can’t wait to see it get better and better.

2024-11-14

The Best Podcast App

I have been a longtime user of Overcast, and the app continues to be one of my favorite iOS applications. It does exactly what it is supposed to do, in exactly the ways I want to be able to do it. Marco diligently works to surprise and delight. The app provides ample opportunities for customization for every podcast, and enables the user to make changes to those settings and customizations from all of the places you might be thinking about them: both the main app settings and within the individual podcast screens.

Overcast provides a fabulous listening experience, between smart speed, voice boost, extremely granular playback speed controls, and smart resume (plus the new and extremely excellent ability to "go back" when you have scrubbed to a different spot in the playback - something that endlessly frustrates me with other apps given the way playback works on iOS). Managing podcasts and subscriptions is also incredibly simple, even when those subscriptions are private/premium subscriptions.

Frankly, Overcast may be the perfect iOS app, and with the recent app re-write is positioned to continue to refine and improve itself and maintain that position on my personal list of apps indefinitely.

2024-09-21

Still the best player, but…

I hope to see some fixes soon for the recent problems. In fact, I hate to see the review score take such a big hit, only because recent updates have caused a lot of issues. —— For this reason, I truly wish more people would use the feedback option to report and describe problems they are experiencing, as opposed to just leaving a One Star review to complain that the app is broken. —— Unfortunately though, the current issues ARE causing the app to malfunction, which is quite frustrating. This is now beyond merely disliking the changes or new features that came with the large app update. I know the creator works solely on his own. I hope he can work quickly and keep his users; maybe he could get some outside help. There is no denying that he’s made a marvelous app. I’ve used this player for years and years and I absolutely love it. It is better than the rest, and by far. There are so many great features; I especially love the ability and ease of creating and organizing multiple playlists. I very much want to stick with the app, but may have to temporarily use another.

2024-09-20

2 steps forward, 1 step back

My previous review after the big update is below, but I’ve added another star now because several of the key features have been reinstated, albeit in less user-friendly ways than the original version. Unfortunately now new problems are popping up, most notably that the app just randomly crashes and completely closes itself out in the middle of podcasts. When I reopen the app I have to re-find the episode I was on and figure out and fast forward to wherever I was when it crashed. On top of that, this app is suddenly massively draining my phone’s battery incredibly fast, so I can’t even listen to podcasts if I won’t be able to charge my phone right afterwards.

……….

This was my favorite podcast app by far until the update took the features that were most important and useful to me and either removed them or made them significantly harder to use. It’s very clunky and unintuitive now and much harder to navigate. Plus most of the changes just flat out make it less functional — The worst ones are that the link to navigate back to the podcast from the individual episode is gone, and the “play next” feature is gone. Sleep timer is less flexible and harder to navigate. And everything takes more tapping to access, whereas it used to be easy to swipe and access a lot of features.

2024-09-18

Improving!

Longtime user who felt sympathetic to the rewrite but dissatisfied with the shape it shipped in, with bugs, feature cutbacks, and most painfully a simplification to the Now Playing UI that took the charming and convenient horizontal swipe cards away and replaced the info screen access with an out-of-reach button. So happy to see swiping back with an elegant animation, even if it remains less charming, and happy for Marco to have achieved a sustainable path forward. 4 stars because there are still some pretty obvious bugs encountered on a daily basis, like the app showing the pause button instead of the play button when the podcast is already paused. Hoping these are worked out by year end. And this is petty, but the only two apps on my Home Screen that didn’t provide dedicated dark tinted icons to match the new iOS Home Screen option are Callsheet and Overcast… that’s the kind of small thing I’d hope super fan developers would do, because it’s delightful and shows care, and it’s disappointing to see them sticking out.

2024-09-16

UPDATED: for a single dev, very responsive

My issues below have been resolved, thank you! I must say, I am impressed by this devs ability to quickly respond. Great work and great app.

—-

I have a special playlist setup in overcast for news podcasts. These podcasts get multiple updates per day, so, I really only want the latest ones in the playlist and don’t need/want to listen to any that I have missed, as they are now “old news”. I set this up by following the podcast, and then in the podcast settings, I would set the “episode limit” to 1. I created a playlist and added each podcast to the playlist. Worked. After the update, however, only one of the podcasts has been limited to 1, and all the others download everything. I’ve tried removing and re-adding the podcasts, changing the settings again, nothing works. I just have to go through the playlist and delete all of the unwanted episodes, which is getting annoying, especially since some of them release about once an hour! I don’t want to reinstall the full app because I have some other playlists that I have where I do t want to lose where I am in those series. I tried reporting the issue via email as well, but, this is a volunteer app, and free, so, I get it. But, it is still a bug.

2024-09-14

Pretty good rewrite

Overall this is a quality podcast app with a developer who serves his users with a demonstrated commitment, over time, to their interests; a rarity that you can hardly ever find outside indie software.

This review is for the Swift UI rewrite released around July 2024 (as of mid-September). I'm a longtime user of Overcast, running it on an XS Max (released late 2018). My podcast library is about 76 GB (which is a lot). For a long time, Overcast had been nearly unusable on my phone, because my podcast list was so large. It'd often crash or go unresponsive. This rewrite fixes those performance issues.

The past couple months, Marco's fixed a lot of the July release's fiddly UI qualities. I like the extra vertical space for show notes. Swiping left and right to get to them feels natural and convenient. There are a few bugs still remaining: I'm a subscriber, but there's a visual glitch where ads briefly load and then disappear on the now playing screen sometimes. Playlists do not yet seem to reliably play in the background if the episodes haven't all been downloaded ahead of time. I'm sure those issues will also be fixed soon, though.

2024-09-03

Supports Priorities

I gave up on the iOS podcast ecosystem 5+ years ago; at that time I tried 10+ different podcasts apps and none of them had very good support for creating different categories and having podcasts from one category play before podcasts from a different one. I am pleased to report that the situation is greatly improved! This app, Overcast, lets me create one playlist for current events, my favorite shows, and other podcasts that I want to prioritize. Then I have separate playlists for categories such as tech, exmormon, and gaming. Within each playlist I can mark a show as “high priority” or “low priority” in order to have that shows episodes sorted to the top or bottom of that particular list. I can even have one podcast included in multiple playlists.

This very nearly reaches feature parity with the Android-only “Podcast Addict” app. That app would let me assign a priority level to each show (a number from 1-100), then automatically play the highest priority episode from the highest priority show. By creating separate playlists Overcast very nearly lets me do the same thing. The main difference with Overcast is that I have to manually switch between playlists, whereas with Podcast Addict whenever a new episode from a higher priority podcast was released, it would automatically play that episode next.

2024-08-26

New Update is a Major Regression

Appreciate the effort and the love that Dev puts into this. However the recent re-wrote is a huge regression. This used to be a 5-star app (does what I need, simply, cleanly, and just as expected) however after recent changes it’s barely functional as a daily podcast player.

I used to wake up to all of my daily news podcasts downloaded and ready to play when I started my commute. Now, the background downloads are completely unreliable. I have to open the app and the Download screen before I shower to get this thing to start pulling down the queued podcasts. Also I used to be able to easily say “Hey, go head and pull this episode down over cellular. I know you’re waiting for WiFi, let’s just do it now.” but I can’t figure out how to do it anymore.

But the biggest issue right now is that it plays one podcast at a time. I have a playlist called Queue that I throw things on in an order I want (see other reviews for how ordering constantly changes) and I’ve noticed over the last week that instead of playing the playlist it plays one episode, then stops!!!! WTliteralF!?!?! I came to write this review because I’ve had to start the next episode in this playlist 4 times now!!!

2024-08-22

2 column v 3 column

I hate this app now. Everything everyone is writing is true. Three columns is horrible, downloading leaves me in limbo, there's no "delete all" and it won't do continuous play. It also is not working on apple car play and just freezes. My queue is unusable. Please rerelease the former version

For the app overall, I have been very happy and I like a lot of features such as the repeat the last few seconds feature after pausing 🧡🧡🧡. I humbly(because I can't do this programming) write that your new update leaves a lot to b desired. The three column setup is awful, the middle column is usually blank and the info I want is squished into the two, smaller side columns. Please bring back the previous two column option. My queue is now useless. I play one pod and it stops, then I click on my earphones to play next in queue and nothing happens. It used to play next in queue and it won't. I have to turn on the iPad and manually start the next podcast. The downloads are failing and/or not responding (just circling) constantly despite good wifi. The download queue is full of failed downloads and it won't move on to the recent podcasts. It would be awesome if there was a way to delete all older episodes, whether finished or not, in one click. So far, I can only unsubscribe, then resubscribe. I'm going to try this new update and thank you for this app.

2024-08-17

Ruined, try Castamatic

Sorry, but it’s taken a giant leap backwards. Each episode needs to be fully downloaded before it plays and it’s quite buggy so it’ll finish downloading after a pretty long wait but it’s incomplete so you’ll find the roadside Episode is “complete “ at a few minutes when the it should be his hours. Sleep timer is terrible and clunky. Hard to navigate, so much for fluid interaction, you’ll have to practice finger gymnastics. Not a fan of the “next up system” , if you have a lot of podcasts be prepared to scroll for days to find it and not sure why my playlists which should include all new podcasts doesn’t include all of them. Searching for specific episodes takes you to direct matches but then when you select it takes you to top of that podcasts list. Developer decided to rush release this before it was ready to celebrate his 10year releaseanniversary. Castamatic better now, pocket casts is better but more money. Finally, developer drives a rivian as a social justice statement and forced all of us to pay for his 20,000 USD minor dent repair because of his vanity and pride before “conservatives.” Honestly the state of this app is more embarrassing but also speaks to prematurity and vanity.

2024-08-14

Great app - well not as great

I have used this app for years and have been pleased with its progression until now. The latest redesign has not been user friendly and there are bugs introduced that are very annoying. For the us particularly annoying is the Queue is no longer reliable at downloading podcasts. I use to be able to load up a bunch of podcasts and it would play the. One right after the other. That is no longer the case. It will randomly have a podcast that doesn’t download, and these are podcasts that I have listened to for years without any download issues. It’s now broken with the update. Once was what stable is very unstable now. Hopefully this can get fixed soon to restore this valuable feature.

—————

I have used this app for quite a while and it has just gotten better over time. It’s easy to use and is responsive. On most occasions, I’ve never noticed a lag from when I select and episode to play and when it starts playing. Other apps of this type that I’ve used exhibit a noticeable delay. My one feature request is to provide a way to quickly find podcasts that I’ve started but have not yet finished. I have different podcast tiers. When a tier 1 pops up, I stop my tier 2 to listen to the new one. I would like to easily go back to the previous podcast.

2024-08-11

Removing streaming and breaking a great app experience?

it may be because I have many podcasts, but the new app update is awful at downloading (which it forces you to do before listening!). I primarily listen on my phone, but often go to my iPad every so often to continue listening. This functionality is basically broken… Forcing allllllll the podcasts to download upon before listening may seem like a great idea - but if its not broken, why try and “fix” it and then break it? It was very frustrating trying to get podcasts to download and not able to do so in order to listen. I didn’t want to leave, but to still enjoy listening to podcasts I had to do so….

All settings feel like they are 6 clicks deep and feels like it got inspiration from the settings app on the phone. The old Overcast used to have a swipe based UI which was much better on larger devices.

After 10 years this app got a lot of my money - and it really was the best podcast player for a long time. But now that I have looked around at other options, the things that made overcast great (trim silence for example) are elsewhere. I do feel bad leaving, but if you are on the fence about leaving there is green grass elsewhere…

2024-08-09

Episode Limits Broken Still

-Update: I spent 2.5 hours onboarding fresh with a competing app and couldn’t be happier. Was a good 10 years with Overcast but I’m on to greener pastures.

Not giving a 1-star lightly (sorry Marco, I listen to ATP and am still here). I tried to give the updates a bit to land with me and overall I can’t shake the feeling the developer chose to make his life easier at the expense of his users. But the real trigger is that when I went to go try out alternatives I noticed the export option was conveniently removed in the update and is “coming soon”. Can’t shake how junky that feels. I get dev priorities but that’s a low confidence move to make a big change and then throw up a barrier to exit on top (and they’re your priorities to make!) The episode limit setting is something I heavily rely on and is still totally broken after several updates. Removing streaming is a huge QoL downgrade and forces me to not listen to pods I otherwise would because I’m stuck with bad cell service. The UI is so much more plain and boring (even if it is a smidge zippier). The new UI for chapters and show notes is just plain ugly. I’d normally give this 3 stars and move on but pulling the rug out on users trying to evaluate alternatives is not respecting your users and acting like any other big company.

2024-08-09

Still the best one

The recent update brought changes to features, and also a much snappier app. I really like the new placement of audio controls and chapters. I disable one tap play because I often like to look at notes first. The removal of streaming options I miss only a little, but understand that big podcasts (that I don’t listen to) dynamically insert ads, making predictable streaming impossible.

If you love podcasts, this is the one to get. It has great discovery and organization tools, but the audio enhancements are "must-haves" that really set this apart - don’t hesitate to drop the $5. Smart Speed clips out pauses so stealthily, I never notice except that I am shaving 5 to 15 minutes off of each podcast. Voice Boost uses a dynamic compression and EQ scheme that maximizes intelligibility, absolutely perfect for listening in a car or to enhance uneven production. No other app does this, not even close. I thought might miss streaming (Overcast downloads episodes in order to implement the audio enhancements) but the seamless WiFi background sync is even a better solution - whatever I see in Overcast is by definition ready to play, regardless of my cellular connection. Bravo.

2024-08-09

Rework update

I wanted to counter the negative reviews regarding the new update. Overcast has actually been working better for me personally. The app used to crash a lot, and streaming barely worked. I used to have to manually download many episodes because of broken streaming. I approve of the decision to turn streaming into a “download-on-demand” option, and I haven’t had any crashes since the update.

I do think there could be some improvements to the UI. It takes a lot of taps to get to podcast settings. If I’m listening to an episode, and I want to adjust the “skip intro” setting, I have to back all the way out of the episode/playlist, find the podcast in the main list, open it, tap the ellipsis, then finally open podcast settings. It’s not very intuitive, and I hope this gets smoothed out in the future.

This is clearly still a work in progress, but I regret not subscribing sooner to support a sole developer who puts a lot of work into making the best podcast app (IMO), even if it isn’t perfect.

2024-08-08

Still the Best & Still Seeing Updates

Been using it for quite a few years now. Smart speed is great, the design is clean, it’s lightweight and responsive, the price is low for what you are getting, and ads are not intrusive if you go with the free plan (and may actually be relevant since they are only for other podcasts and doesn’t just throw you to the Adsense wolves).

The recent update and transition to Swift UI has changed things to be sure and I’m not the biggest fan of horizontal playlist scrolling or the sleep timer being moved behind a second tap. But the app has seen a half dozen minor tweaks and bug fixes responding to community feedback in the past few weeks and more are certain to come.

5 stars because it’s still the best out there AND actively being worked on by a developer who is monitoring feedback after a transition to make fixes and adjustments quickly based on feedback. This app started out as a reasonably barebones but clean podcast player and added features over the years to become the best. I have no reason to expect that the quality will not continue to increase after the lateral move this update represents.

2024-07-26

Recent update a major step back

There is one major bug in the recent updates that will likely drive me to using another app. My general usage of the app is to add certain episodes to the queue, and then manually order the queue how I want. This has worked for years. In the new version, I am able to manually change the queue order, but at some point later in the day the queue will reorder itself. It won’t even be strictly in the order specified in settings, like oldest to newest. It will just be… not what I set. In the last week I’ve probably reordered the queue 15-20 times and it just won’t stick for more than a couple hours. Since this is how I listen to my podcasts, the fact that it doesn’t work anymore means I’m going to explore other options.

I like the app otherwise. I especially appreciate the granular playback speed options because only moving in .25 increments like Apple Podcasts puts me in the uncanny valley where it no longer sounds like real people. I can’t listen faster than about 1.15 or so. Hopefully there’s another app that can do that.

I’ll gladly come back if/when manual queue sorting works properly again. Until then, I’ll be looking for an app that doesn’t frustrate me multiple times a day.

2024-07-25

Love the update but for one thing

Love the update! The app is fast and responsive and doesn’t lag and crash constantly anymore!!! I’ve been an Overcast user for nearly the 10 years it’s been around. My only complaint about the update is that my list of podcasts still shows “current” podcasts that have no new episodes I haven’t listened to (or deleted) yet. I prefer to only see podcasts on the list that have a new episode I need to listen to. I’m not sure if there’s still a way to do this with the update, but I poked around the settings and I don’t see any way to fix it. I follow tons of podcasts and this means I have to click on every single one to see if there’s actually an episode there I haven’t listened to or of the list is still blank. Please fix this and it will be a 5 star!!!!!

Edit: also think it’s absurd that there’s no longer an option to stream podcasts and you’re forced to download them before listening. I’ve been listening to podcasts for a decade+ and have never downloaded, only streamed, with zero issues. Now I’m having a major lag time to start episodes because they’re downloading first, and I’m worried about phone storage with the number of podcasts I listen to.

It’s also very difficult to find the sleep timer now.

2024-07-23

Baffling

I have been a long time Overcast user - Smart Speed has saved me 1969 hours beyond speed adjustments, for what it’s worth - but this may be the final straw for me. I adjusted to the last major update after several months but I never felt like it got back to being as good as it was before the last major revision. At that point I stopped subscribing, but I kept using it since it was still the best podcast app, even if it was worse than it was before and I had to fundamentally change how I used the app.

This update I’m actively looking at new podcast apps. It’s not just little things at this point - my queue doesn’t drop or delete episodes after they’ve finished or when I’ve clicked the checkmark to mark listened, and it looks like the “unplayed” view is just gone - or maybe it’s buried under six levels of menus and I haven’t found it yet, but in any case it’s lost all ability to tell what shows have a new episode. I can’t easily add episodes into my queues or rearrange them, I’m not sure why, and “play next” seems to be totally broken. Previously played episodes get downloaded and played from the start with no explanation. I simply don’t understand how this is any way an improvement for anyone.

I hope against hope the clumsy UX changes will be fixed, but things are trending in the wrong direction, so you might just want to look at alternatives.

2024-07-18

Congrats on 10 Years!

The update rocks! If every developer cared about their product and their customers the way worker does, the world would be such a better place. That’s not hyperbole.

376 hours. That’s how much time SmartSpeed has saved me. Not 2x. Everyone has that. But no one else has tweaked the audio to remove those empty air microseconds in a way that doesn’t sound like a middle schooler playing with AutoTune. SmartSpeed + Voice Boost works so well that now people sound unnatural when you listen on any other player. Marco obsesses over the details so we don’t have to. Layouts are intuitive, controls are where you expect them to be and then get out of the way. My only complain is that Overcast makes you realize how poorly designed nearly everything else is. It spoils you as a tech consumer, and makes you wish there was an Overcast version of everything. I cannot think of another free alternative to the basic app that ships with your hardware that raises the bar like Overcast does.

2024-02-10

Much better than Apple Podcasts

I used Apple’s podcast app religiously through several updates and switched to Overcast a few years ago. Apple finally got to the point where I could barely find the pods I was subscribed to - due to the entire app being geared around recommendations of what they are promoting. No thanks. I’m sure it’s gotten worse but I haven’t looked back.

Overcast is the app you want in order to curate your own selections and design your own playlists by category or whatever you choose. Very customizable and the whole thing is geared around your subscriptions.

The app has all the nice features for navigating, organizing playlists, searching, customizing your download preferences, playback speeds, sleep timers. There’s nothing else I would need other than possibly the ability to customize notifications per individual podcast. Took me awhile to finally start using the smart playlists feature but once I did - it was a game changer. Highly recommend setting up playlist categories using multiple smart playlists and combined with your episode retention settings - you no longer have to spend any time setting up a queue again. You can still do it for custom listening sessions or one-offs, but if you have a lot of subs or like to bounce around based on your mood, it’s an excellent feature.

2024-01-23

Love it. Happy to pay for subscription.

A friend recommended Outcast and I switched a couple of months ago. It is so much better than the Apple app. I listen to podcasts for about 90 minutes a day on average. The speed up and optimizing features are great. I have no idea who created Outcast, but I know It takes a lot of work to make a highly functional app with an elegant user interface and keep it updated. Implicit in many of the recent reviews is the belief that it should just be free forever - no cost and no ads. That's delusional. Good user reviews and feelings of accomplishment don't pay the bills. If my clients told me they liked my work but didn't want to pay for it, I'd find other clients. So I'm actually glad there is now an option to subscribe so I can support something I enjoy using. $9.95 for a whole year is very reasonable. That's about what I paid for lunch today. Why? Because there's no such thing as a free lunch. On a related note, the banner ads were a little annoying like all ads, but they're so much less intrusive than many print media sites where the content is constantly playing a game of hide and seek. Bottom line: I'm a fan and please keep up the good work.

2024-01-10

Fantastic. No regrets!

I made the switch to Overcast over a year ago after Apple overhauled their native Podcasts app in a way that I absolutely hated. I have never looked back. Overcast is superior in every regard. There are generous global settings you can fine tune, and you can alter any individual podcasts/series to differ from your global defaults. There are numerous ways to sort both shows and episodes. You can pin favorite shows to the top of the main list for quick access. A simple but clear little blue dot lets you know if a show has new/unplayed content. You don’t have to use playlists to listen to consecutive series episodes (either from oldest-to-newest or newest-to-oldest), but if you like making playlists Overcast has got you covered. There’s a basic main queue available as well as the ability to make endless custom playlists. You can also mark specific episodes with a star and then view all starred together in a single list. I use the star to keep track of episodes that are particularly hilarious, moving, shocking, and/or shareworthy. The bottom line from a prolific listener who consumes 3-10 hours of spoken audio daily: I’ve been using Overcast for well over a year now and couldn’t be happier with the experience. If you’re on the fence just stop the nonsense and get down from there before you fall and break something. There’s a better way to podcast, and this is it.

2023-12-19

OVERCAST is the BEST podcast app!’

I got so frustrated with the Apple podcast app (constant changes that only worsened the user experience, increasingly non-intuitive “features” and controls), that I shopped around and found many positive comments about OVERCAST. Sure enough, OVERCAST has made me a happy listener once again, and I now can’t imagine using a different app for podcasts. My feed of podcasts is ridiculously long; some are regular listens, others I visit occasionally. The OVERCAST app helps me organize my pods and track my usage, has great features that no other app has, and sticks to its winning formula. (When it rolls out a new feature, it’s clearly explained and actually makes for an actual improvement.) You’ll note that there are visual ads at the bottom, which I find unobtrusive, and these occasionally suggest a pod worth checking out. (You can also get rid of of those ads for a very modest fee.) This app was clearly developed by someone who thinks about the user/listener experience, and cares about quality and clarity. Sending kudos to OVERCAST from podcast fan in Boston!

2022-07-15

Terrible search, worse navigation

Very disappointed after switching from Apple podcasts and giving this a try for nearly one year. The search simply doesn't work - you'll never find the episode you're looking for. If you are just exploring and type in a name of someone that you know has podcast episodes, they almost never appear unless they are very well known. If you type in an exact or nearly exact match you might get the search result, but when you click on the episode it will direct to the list of all episodes for that podcast rather than the episode you clicked on. Until about two months ago there was a hack where you could then click on "unplayed" and wait a moment and the episode would suddenly appear, but it no longer "works". Worst of all, if you then press the back button to see the original search results, to check another result for example, they're gone! It takes you back to an empty search bar. I can't believe how much time I wasted on this terrible app. I contacted support and also asked the dev via Twitter but received no reply. I'll spend my premium podcast dollars elsewhere.

2022-03-31

The BEST, especially if you care about sound quality.

I listen to podcasts all the time, so love Overcast because it has great tools for managing playlists, makes finding podcasts easy, and seems to be built around what I actually want to do with a podcast app. The latest release has given me features I didn’t even know I wanted, like the “mark as played” which is great. (-edit: I didn’t realize at first the following was a feature already!-) I love that “mark as played” is a toggle, to easily mark things un-played for when I accidentally fall asleep listening and end up with six podcasts marked played that I have no memory of!

As for sound, this is the only podcast player I’ve found that actually sounds good at anything over 1x playback speed, and the smart speed “shortens silence” setting is my favorite tiny detail. This is one of the few apps that I subscribe to, as I want to make sure they’re able to keep revising and making the experience better.

2022-03-27

The Best Podcast Player

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

I have had Overcast for a while and think it is the best podcast player on the market. The options available for creating custom playlists are what puts Overcast 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 Overcast to friends and family every chance I get. Once in a while I will try other podcasts apps but quickly come right back to Overcast. Other podcast players either don’t have the same features as Overcast or don’t do them as as well. Overcast’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.

2022-02-15

Finally A Platform That Let’s Me Organize

I’m so glad I found the Overcast 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 Overcast. I hope this gets fixed soon! After that snag is fixed, this platform will be perfect!

2022-01-29

Volume Issue

This app has excellent features, like Smart Speed, Voice Boost, and Smart Playlists. I generally like it a lot, but there are a couple of issues.

The search function is terrible. It returns illogical results, if any. Often, it just freezes. There are no reviews or feedback, and it’s not easy to browse for new shows other than the few they highlight. Unfortunately, I have to go back to the native app for that. I actually don’t pay for premium because the ads are, sadly, the best way to find new podcasts on Overcast.

Recently, it’s started messing with the volume whenever I disconnect and later reconnect Bluetooth devices. I always listen at a low setting because iPhone doesn’t actually have a low volume option — it goes straight from medium to silent. When I put the headphones back in, the volume is cranked up high every time. I’ve learned to fix it before hitting play (which has to be done on the lock screen), but that’s annoying. It should just work. This is simple. I contacted the developer and never heard back, so I’m warning potential users before they damage their eardrums.

2021-11-26

My Favorite App for Podcast

I really enjoy the simplicity of Overcast, and if you’re particular like me you’ll find all sorts of “Nitpicky” functions to fine tune the app to your liking. Visually Overcast is my favorite as well. You can set several different “themes” and it’ll use “black” when you’re iPhone is in Dark Mode which mine always is. It’s just so much better on your eyes at night when trying to relax. Making playlists is a breeze as well. My only gripe is if you have a really old episode in between two newer episodes it’ll skip the older and the play the newest first. That’s sort of odd because they have a button that you can toggle on/off for that very feature. However mine is turned off but it still plays newer episodes first. As far as grievances go that’s pretty tame. The ads are also super discreet and I hardly notice them. Lastly, I haven’t found a podcast that isn’t on Overcast. Their catalog is quite extensive. Well, what are you waiting for? Install it already!

2021-08-31

simple and clean

came here after the last iOS update broke apple podcasts, like so many others. overcast 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 Overcast, 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.

2021-07-12

Frequent Crashes

If this app 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 this app for about 2-3 hours and will see 1-2 crashes each day. The second issue is that the app 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, Overcast will begin playing the last unfinished minutes of all previous casts even if I have a new cast queued. I’ve used this app for about a year and will say it is better than the native Apple app, but only just barely, owing only to Overcast’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 the app, it starts me at the beginning of the podcast, losing my place.

2021-06-29

Nice alternative to Apple’s.

I’ve been well pleased so far. It isn’t always the most intuitive, but I’ve eventually figured out how to achieve most everything I’ve wanted to. The benefits of adding a show via RSS have become immediately clear. Being a subscriber to a show and getting early access episodes and bonus material right in my podcast manager makes it so easy to stay up with all my shows. The clip function has made it so much more effective to get friends interested in shows than years of recommending downloads ever did.

The one thing that sticks out at me the most: sometimes I want to keep an episode for a while so I can go back and reference it later, however, although the episodes are marked as “played” the show doesn’t drop down to the “Played Podcasts” section. That doesn’t seem to happen until the episodes are deleted out of the library. This makes it difficult to know when a new episode is available; this show doesn’t release episodes according to a schedule, I have to randomly check to see if there’s anything new in the episode list. It feels nitpicky but it’s important to me. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I listen while I’m working. The less amount of time I have to spend poking around in menus, the better.

2020-12-02

Honestly, reviewing because it said in settings they would never interrupt to ask for a review

This app 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.

2020-10-19

Continuous Play? - UPDATED

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 the app 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 this app 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 the app seem to have a feature where it will automatically pick up where the listener left off in a show. As soon as I downloaded the app 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. The app just stops after it plays whatever episode your selected. Will be troubleshooting the issues with Apple Podcast and deleting this app immediately.

2019-10-26

1 Billion Times Better than Apple

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, Overcast, for being a clean, well-designed, completely functional podcast app.

2019-07-22

Excellent

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 Overcast. 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 Overcast 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 this app. It’s also why I will continue to be an Overcast 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. Overcast is easy to use and understand, and it does its primary job very well!

2018-09-16

Pretty great!

What I love about this app 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 this app 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 the app 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 the app. 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”). This app 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.

2018-07-12

Frustrating with iOS 11.

I’m on an iPhone 6, using iOS 11.4.1. This app used to be at least a 4 star app, but ever since iOS 11, the app 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 the app 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 the app 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 overcast. 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 this app has basically become useless to me.

2018-06-09

Smart Speed For The Win

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 Overcast 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 overcast 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.

2018-04-03

So close to perfect!

I love this app. 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 Overcast 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, Overcast is vastly superior to the stock Podcasts app, and can still be controlled from Now Playing, provided the Overcast app is deleted from the Watch. One thing the Overcast 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!

2018-03-05

Love the app but it keeps constantly crashing and is unusable

I absolutely love the design and aesthetics of this app 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, the app constantly crashes whenever I use it, whether it be on my iPad Pro or my iPhone SE. The Overcast 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 the app to little avail. When this app 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.

2018-02-23

Thank you!

To me listening to podcasts should be quick, easy and done without thought. Overcast 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 overcast 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.

2018-02-20

Doesn’t connect to Internet.

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.

2018-01-16

I finally get it!

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 Overcast. 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. The app remembers. I don’t ever have to mess with it again. I LOVE this app!

Overcast

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App Store: Customer Ratings

Ratings & Reviews

Beware of the memory leak

Honestly the best app on the iPhone

Unfortunately ruined and stale

Great and simple podcast app

Perfect Player

The best podcast app

Was good

Worst app in the App Store

still can’t stream

Liked it at first, cannot stand it now.

Watch Compatibility Doesn’t Work

Great tech for 10 years.

Still not consistently reliable

Download problem!

What would I do without this app

Streaming is bad

Couldn’t get it to work for Apple Watch

Has gotten better through the years but still leaves some things to be desired

Great Podcast Player

Universe’s worst

Moved from android to iPhone, this is the best podcasting app on iPhone, but it’s one of the worst

In the age of podcasts…

The MacOS Version is Badly Broken

Watch app worthless

Maddening

Sad

Tried others, came back to Overcast

Still broken and buggy

Watch app is broken

Watch app broken

The #1 podcast app out there!

Clear, simple

Flawless Streamlined Podcast App

Heavily flawed

Decent, But Flawed

Best Podcast App

AirPlay Works Now

Yummy

Auto deleting my podcasts

Avoid updating to the new Apple Watch app

What deal has Radiolab made?

Big step back for Watch App

Buggy, abandoned

Back to #1

Not intuitive

Playback fails when seeking while streaming

Wouldn’t even open

I’ll give it 5 stars once they bring back Apple Watch cellular streaming

Good app turned bad

Update broke the watch app

Love This App—Please Fix Apple Watch Streaming

Best Got Better

Great! Just missing one IMPORTANT feature

The Best Podcast App

Still the best player, but…

2 steps forward, 1 step back

Improving!

UPDATED: for a single dev, very responsive

Pretty good rewrite