Overcast Podcast Player Gains Audio and Video Clip-Sharing Feature

[MacRumors]

Overcast has been updated with support for sharing video and audio clips of podcasts, streamlining the process for both podcast creators and listeners.

In a blog post on his website, Overcast developer Marco Arment explains why he created the clip-sharing feature:

Podcast sharing has been limited to audio and links, but today's social networks are more reliant on images and video, especially Instagram. Podcasts need video clips to be shared more easily today.

I've seen some video clips from tools specific to certain podcast networks or hosts, but they were never available to everyone, or for every show. So people mostly just haven't shared podcast clips, understandably, because it has been too hard.

Not anymore.

The new clip-sharing feature can be found in the Share menu, accessed by tapping the share icon in the top-right corner of the player interface.

Image via Marco.org​

Tapping Share Clip... brings up options to generate an audio clip, or portrait, landscape, or square video, up to a minute long using the current Overcast theme setting. Adding a "Shared with Overcast" badge is optional.

Overcast 2019.4 is available as a free ad-supported app for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Overcast Podcast Player Gains Audio and Video Clip-Sharing Feature

 

[haruhiko]

My Twitter feed has been filled with these clips. Great success for overcast app.

 

[BWhaler]

This is an amazing feature. I see it all over Twitter already.

 

[macduke]

All I want is an option to automatically delete all of my podcasts with a minute or two left on them (usually when they say thanks again to our sponsor, make sure to share and rate the podcast) and I skip to the next one. It stores all of these huge audio files that take up many gigabytes of storage because it never marks them as finished and removes them. It should do this automatically.

It would also be nice to have an option to just remove any podcast older than a certain amount of time. Chances are, at least for what I listen to (mainly news relating to politics, tech, movies, etc), it becomes stale and I'm not likely to finish my half-listened to podcast a month later.

So some kind of customizable auto clean feature is all I really want out of Overcast at this point. The only options currently are to delete manually, delete when completed, or delete 24 hours after completed. Maybe I don't want to complete an episode of the Tech Meme Ride Home that started playing one time from February, Marco Arment! There are also settings to limit to a certain number of unlistened episodes, but often it will start another episode and even though I only listened to 10 seconds of it before skipping, it marks it as listening in progress and never deletes it. Then every month I have to go through and delete many gigabytes worth of content.

Maybe it's my fault for having so much content I don't listen to, but I actually don't subscribe to many podcasts. I just subscribe to podcasts that put out frequent content (some 7 days a week), and the ones that are weekly content are usually several hours long, so there are lots of things that are half listened to and never go away.

 

[JTravers]

All I want is an option to automatically delete all of my podcasts with a minute or two left on them (usually when they say thanks again to our sponsor, make sure to share and rate the podcast) and I skip to the next one. It stores all of these huge audio files that take up many gigabytes of storage because it never marks them as finished and removes them. It should do this automatically.

It would also be nice to have an option to just remove any podcast older than a certain amount of time. Chances are, at least for what I listen to (mainly news relating to politics, tech, movies, etc), it becomes stale and I'm not likely to finish my half-listened to podcast a month later.

So some kind of customizable auto clean feature is all I really want out of Overcast at this point. The only options currently are to delete manually, delete when completed, or delete 24 hours after completed. Maybe I don't want to complete an episode of the Tech Meme Ride Home that started playing one time from February, Marco Arment! There are also settings to limit to a certain number of unlistened episodes, but often it will start another episode and even though I only listened to 10 seconds of it before skipping, it marks it as listening in progress and never deletes it. Then every month I have to go through and delete many gigabytes worth of content.

Maybe it's my fault for having so much content I don't listen to, but I actually don't subscribe to many podcasts. I just subscribe to podcasts that put out frequent content (some 7 days a week), and the ones that are weekly content are usually several hours long, so there are lots of things that are half listened to and never go away.

Marco has admitted that the current cleanup algorithm is a mess, but he hasn't committed to fixing it, yet. Hopefully, it gets taken care of relatively soon.

Using Pocket Casts or Castro would solve these problems for you…but introduce different ones, of course.

 

[macduke]

Marco has admitted that the current cleanup algorithm is a mess, but he hasn't committed to fixing it, yet. Hopefully, it gets taken care of relatively soon.

Using Pocket Casts or Castro would solve these problems for you…but introduce different ones, of course.

Yeah, I might try some others sometime. I just like the overall Overcast UI/UX, the Apple Watch app, the controls to speed up individual pods, the ability to shorten pauses and non-vocal content (which is especially great for news pods where they're just recapping things), some of the nitpicky controls such as adjusting forward/backward skip length, Siri integration, and the true black dark mode.

 

[tom5304]

After PocketCasts blew itself up with its disastrous version 7 “upgrade”, I settled on Castro podcast app and never looked back.

I paid for an annual subscription to both Overcast and Castro, but Castro won out on features and UX. Also, the Castro devs seem like nice people. The developer of Overcast seems like a... not so nice person.

 

[whyamihere]

Overcast used to be audio-only podcasts right? Since when did they update to allow video podcasts?

 

[JTravers]

Yeah, I might try some others sometime. I just like the overall Overcast UI/UX, the Apple Watch app, the controls to speed up individual pods, the ability to shorten pauses and non-vocal content (which is especially great for news pods where they're just recapping things), some of the nitpicky controls such as adjusting forward/backward skip length, Siri integration, and the true black dark mode.

Pocket Casts has all those things except for Watch playback without the phone (PC watch app requires the phone for playback). Not trying to push you one way or the other. OC is great and has great audio quality. Personally, I prefer Castro and PC’s UI/UX far more than OC.

 

[JTravers]

After PocketCasts blew itself up with its disastrous version 7 “upgrade”, I settled on Castro podcast app and never looked back.

I paid for an annual subscription to both Overcast and Castro, but Castro won out on features and UX. Also, the Castro devs seem like nice people. The developer of Overcast seems like a... not so nice person.

It's funny that so many people don't like PC v7. I think it's far better than v6. Love Castro as well. OC is good, just doesn't seem as polished as the others, though.

 

[JTravers]

Overcast used to be audio-only podcasts right? Since when did they update to allow video podcasts?

Still audio-only. When you share an audio clip, it can create a video showing show art, episode title, progress bar, etc. along with the audio clip so you can share the video clip instead of just audio without any visuals (or linking to a website). It’s a pretty cool feature.

 

[petvas]

Overcast used to be audio-only podcasts right? Since when did they update to allow video podcasts?

It still is..

 

[Juiceboy]

I've never even bothered to look at any other podcast player other then apple's own podcast app, and itunes back when i had an ipod. I've never even wanted to "discover" new podcasts as i already have way too much to listen to. Seriously how much free time to people have to actively listen to so many?

what do these other podcasts players even have that would make people pay for them when the free option is already so good? Sharing a clip is a nice idea, but i find podcasts such a soloist activity. Asking my friends to also join in sounds so weird.

 

[tom5304]

I've never even bothered to look at any other podcast player other then apple's own podcast app, and itunes back when i had an ipod. I've never even wanted to "discover" new podcasts as i already have way too much to listen to. Seriously how much free time to people have to actively listen to so many?

what do these other podcasts players even have that would make people pay for them when the free option is already so good? Sharing a clip is a nice idea, but i find podcasts such a soloist activity. Asking my friends to also join in sounds so weird.

The best reason to pay for a podcast app is that most of the good ones now have a “trim silence” feature, which sometimes cuts 10 minutes of dead air from an hour-long podcast.

Creating and maintaining playlists is also much easier on both Overcast and Castro. Not so much on Pocket Casts anymore.

Maybe you really have to listen to a lot of podcasts to appreciate the advantages of the paid apps. I subscribe to 29 podcasts at present. That’s a lot of competition for my Audible audiobook listening.

The Apple podcast app isn’t bad, but I’m glad to pay $10 a year to an independent developer to make my podcasting listening a better experience. Castro and Overcast are neck and neck for first place.

 

[Juiceboy]

The best reason to pay for a podcast app is that most of the good ones now have a “trim silence” feature, which sometimes cuts 10 minutes of dead air from an hour-long podcast.

Creating and maintaining playlists is also much easier on both Overcast and Castro. Not so much on Pocket Casts anymore.

Maybe you really have to listen to a lot of podcasts to appreciate the advantages of the paid apps. I subscribe to 29 podcasts at present. That’s a lot of competition for my Audible audiobook listening.
.

I've never listened to a podcast with that much "dead air" time. Normally if there's an intro / outro song or music or talk, the skip 15 second buttons is more then enough to quickly skip it

i listen to maybe 2-5 podcasts a week. Subscribing to 29 sounds like overkills. I feel like it would be overwelming to try and keep up with that many. Do you let some slip, or you try and listen to everything?

 

[User008]

The developer of Overcast seems like a... not so nice person.

Shots fired!

 

[RoobyRoobyRoo]

The developer of Overcast seems like a... not so nice person.

What are you basing that judgement on? I've listened to Marco on podcasts since he was doing Build & Analyze in 2011 and I think he's a good guy. He can be strong-headed and opinionated, but I've noticed that over the years he seems to be doing better and better about recognizing that he doesn't always have all the answers.

He also seems to genuinely care about the medium of podcasts and the podcasting community, and he has put his money where his mouth is many times in regards to that.

 

[tom5304]

I've never listened to a podcast with that much "dead air" time. Normally if there's an intro / outro song or music or talk, the skip 15 second buttons is more then enough to quickly skip it

i listen to maybe 2-5 podcasts a week. Subscribing to 29 sounds like overkills. I feel like it would be overwelming to try and keep up with that many. Do you let some slip, or you try and listen to everything?

There is probably a lot more dead air in your podcasts than you might realize.

Once you get above about ten podcasts, that’s where the independent apps start to shine. The good ones make managing things much easier.

And I probably listen to 80% of the episodes that arrive in my feed.

My reason for commenting on the developer of Overcast is that the app was buggy as hell for me for the better part of a year, and then when I canceled my subscription, he came out with an update that fixed it, at least for me. Not one response from the developer about him having taken my $10 in exchange for a buggy app.

I don’t think I’m the only one to find the Overcast developer to be arrogant and rude. I’m not a big fan of giving money to people I don’t like, but his app is very competitive now that it’s been fixed. Sometimes you grit your teeth and pay your money.
[doublepost=1556606222][/doublepost]Pocket Casts version 6 was the best of them all. Very nearly flawless. Simple and powerful. Then the set it on fire and rolled it out into the street with version 7. From sublime to ridiculous overnight.

 

[petvas]

I am between the Apple Podcasts app and Overcast. While I enjoy the UI and the features that Overcast offers, I miss the support for Video podcasts and that is one of the reasons to go back to the Apple Podcasts app.
Smart Speed (trim silences) is a great feature and at least on Overcast it works great. Sometimes I have the feeling though that the podcast playback is not how it meant to be, but 90% of the time I appreciate the time I get back from trimming silence in podcasts.
Another thing that bothers me with the standard app is that it has issues with sync (sometimes). Using Overcast works flawlessly.

 

[JTravers]

Pocket Casts version 6 was the best of them all. Very nearly flawless. Simple and powerful. Then the set it on fire and rolled it out into the street with version 7. From sublime to ridiculous overnight.

To each his own. I thought there were a lot of annoying things in v6, and they've all been resolved in v7. It's so, so powerful now.

 

[Johnhimm]

What are you basing that judgement on? I've listened to Marco on podcasts since he was doing Build & Analyze in 2011 and I think he's a good guy. He can be strong-headed and opinionated, but I've noticed that over the years he seems to be doing better and better about recognizing that he doesn't always have all the answers.

He also seems to genuinely care about the medium of podcasts and the podcasting community, and he has put his money where his mouth is many times in regards to that.

He can come across as an entitled liberal douche at times