{"id":35409,"date":"2022-03-29T13:43:58","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T17:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=35409"},"modified":"2022-03-29T13:45:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T17:45:24","slug":"overcast-2022-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/29\/overcast-2022-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcast 2022.2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marco Arment<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Overcast’s latest update (2022.2) brings the largest redesign in its nearly-eight-year history, plus many of the most frequently requested features and lots of under-the-hood improvements.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Each playlist has a customizable color, and a custom icon can be selected from over 3,000 SF Symbols to match modern iOS design and the other icons within Overcast.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Recently played and newly published episodes can now be displayed on the home screen for quick access, much like the widget and CarPlay experience.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Podcasts can now be pinned to the top of the home-screen list.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I really like this update so far, especially the Recent section, for quickly getting back to what I was just listening to, the In Progress playlist, and the ability to pin podcasts.<\/p>\n

The biggest issue that I have with Overcast right now is that its design doesn’t really match my situation of having some podcasts where I’m a completionist and others where I want to pick and choose certain episodes to listen to.<\/p>\n

The problem with the second group is that it’s a lot more work to delete the episodes I don’t want than to pick the ones that I do. I can either subscribe to everything and do a lot of deletions or not subscribe, but then I need to manually check for new episodes to “pick.” I have been doing the latter because otherwise episodes pile up and I run out of space. The feature to keep the most recent n<\/em> episodes is not that helpful because the ones that I want to keep are probably not the most recent. I can “retain” them by starting to play them, but then they show up as In Progress even though they really aren’t.<\/p>\n

What I’d like to be able to do is look at a playlist and add certain episodes to my queue, then have a button to delete everything in that podcast that’s not queued or in progress. Or simply have episodes that are not “retained” by a (manual) playlist eventually go away (if they were downloaded before the last time I reviewed that podcast).<\/p>\n\n

Overcast<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“+” means you don’t currently follow that podcast, and won’t automatically get any more episodes from it. Tapping it follows the podcast.<\/p>\n

(“Follow” is the new word for “Subscribe” to match Apple’s terminology, since they’re the biggest podcast app, so that’s what people expect.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Tim Hardwick<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Top of the much-requested features category is a new Mark as Played checkmark button on episode rows, which is also a left-side swipe action. There is also now a way to view all starred episodes, with special playlist options for Starred, Downloaded, and In Progress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

John Voorhees<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Overcast uses color to allow users to know if there’s anything in their playlists. If a playlist is empty, it’s gray. If the playlist has at least one episode in it, the playlist’s button turns a bright color.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I also added a Queue playlist because, in recent years, I’ve found that I listen to every episode of fewer shows than I used to. Having a Queue playlist where I can drop episodes that look interesting has been a handy way to organize my listening.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The combination of Recent episodes and my Queue playlist has become the way I manage most of the shows I listen to. If I want to start an episode now, I just tap its artwork in the Recent section. Otherwise, I long-press the artwork and send the episode to my Queue.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Overcast’s inactive list combines shows that haven’t published an episode recently with those that you no longer follow and where you manually deleted all episodes from your library[…]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n