Despite the podcast onslaught from Apple, Spotify, and others, the Overcast app remains one of the most popular places on iOS to gather and listen to all of your favorite content creators.
The functionality is great, and the support for one-man operation is a great way to tie it to the big companies like Spotify that want to monopolize access to the big podcasters.
Unfortunately, the design of Marco Arment’s app has so far resembled an old RSS feed rather than a state-of-the-art listening portal suitable for 2022.
That changes today with a major update to the app that adds some much-needed color and exuberance. There’s a new focus on playlists and podcast graphics within the “radically different” home screen and a more readable font (San Francisco Rounded). You will definitely notice the changes as soon as you open the updated app for the first time.
Functionality has been improved with drag-and-drop playlist reordering. There’s also a new Mark as Played feature, accessible as a tick or left swipe, as well as a way to see all starred episodes. It is also possible to create playlists for starred, downloaded and ongoing episodes.
“Playlists now have strong visual identities for prettier and easier navigation,” Arment writes on his blog. “Each playlist has a customizable color and a custom icon can be selected from over 3,000 SF icons to match the modern iOS theme and the other icons in Overcast.
“Recently played and newly released episodes can now be viewed on the home screen for quick access, similar to the widget and CarPlay experience. Podcasts can now be pinned to the top of the home screen list, and pinned podcasts can also be reordered manually using drag-and-drop.”
Arment says this is the first part of the big redesign he’s working on and next is the Now Playing screen.