Weekly Rec: Overcast

Weekly Recs are made possible by my Patreon supporters! Come join us for exclusive content and more.

Several years ago I used to listen to lots of podcasts, and then I just kinda... stopped? For some reason? I'm honestly not sure at this point, but that's neither here nor there. I periodically tried to start up again but was extremely frustrated by the iPhone Podcasts app - it kept deciding to no longer download things because I hadn't listened in a while, or downloading hundreds of things for no apparent reason, and I just gave up.

But then! A few weeks ago it struck me that there exist other podcast apps so maybe I should try them instead. I did a very scientific survey of people I know on Facebook and Twitter and decided to try Overcast. I planned to try others if necessary and pick the best, but I'm happy with Overcast so far so I haven't even bothered to do that. One funny thing: when I started asking for recommendations people immediately started talking about sound quality, which is so low on my list of podcast app priorities that it hadn't even occurred to me as a criterion.

Guys. It's me. All I care about is how I can organize and manipulate the data.

And Overcast pretty much lets me do most of what I want! The interface is simple and functional, search works well, and it's easy to subscribe (or go to a specific episode) via URL if you have that. I can tell what I've heard and easily switch between ordering by newest or oldest depending on whether I'm listening to a show methodically from the beginning or dipping in and out of newer episodes. I haven't done a ton with the playlist functionality yet but it seems pretty user-friendly too. The app downloads what I want it to download, which doesn't sound like a rare feature but apparently is. (There's one feature I want it to have that apparently NO podcast app has so I GUESS I will let it go. [It's showing a list of only unplayed episodes, downloaded or not. Why does no one have this??])

Confession: I also really like the name, because obviously I hate sunshine and happiness.

(Yes, this also means you can recommend podcasts in the comments if you want, since I'm FINALLY paying attention to such things.)