Podcasts on Watch Series 2 w/out phone?

I like to run/walk and listen to podcasts instead of music. I see that there is no Apple Podcasts app for the watch. A lot of people have mentioned Overcast - will this allow me to download podcasts to the watch without the phone?

I don't have my Bluetooth headphones yet, so I haven't experimented with anything. I did find out this morning that MapMyRun currently only works with the phone. Luckily I realized this one mile in and switched to tracking my run with the watch's Activity app.

I know there is a work around with a Macbook, but my Macbook is too old to work with iOS 10, and I don't like to put personal stuff on my work laptop.

 

Unfortunately no. Developer of Overcast @marcoarment said he doesn't want to implement it. I have seen many people ask him about it though - it would probably be a good idea to let him know that there are more of us [who want that feature] than he thinks. I do use BT earphones with my watch, and this would be perfect.

 

you can pull podcasts into iTunes, then put them into a playlist, then sync that to the AW.

 

Thanks. I would do that, but my computer is too old to use a new enough iTunes for iOS 10.

--- Post Merged, Sep 29, 2016 ---

Bummer! Thanks for the update. Maybe I'll try to find a spot to submit feedback. I have no interest in the Overcast app without that feature.

Maybe Apple will create a Podcasts app for the Watch....

 

Try this -
Watch Player by Peter Knapp
https://appsto.re/es/kTWXfb.i

 

Awesome. Very simple and needs a bit of work (eg, it really needs a progress bar to show you how long it's taking a podcast to copy to the watch) but otherwise, does the job it needs to well.

 

I recently released an app that does just this, I just made a post in this forum but if you just want the App Store link it's here:
https://appsto.re/us/wH3-hb.i

 

This is the solution I've been waiting for. I honestly cannot believe a local storage podcasting app wasn't baked into the watch on day one.

 

Whaoo, this was just what I was looking for !!
Excellent app so far, just bought the full version to support your excellent work. It's already at a level where it killed off downcast for me. I used to love Downcast, but after getting an apple watch and downcasts refussal to support offline media in their watch app I started looking elsewhere.
Seems I have found my solution

Keep up the good work!

 

This looks great. Is there a way to cap the number of podcasts it automatically transfers? Suppose I'm worried about my Watch filling up with podcasts I don't get round to listening to.

 

Brian,

Please let me know if you do a beta test for the new WatchOS 3.2 beta. I am running the beta 7 and the version that I purchased crashes on iOS 10.3 (14E5277a) WatchOS 3.2 (14V5249a).

 

I have an issue with volume level not being very high. When turned up to highest volume on the watch, it's only just hearable in my airpods.
If connecting the pods to the phone there plenty of volume available.
Any ideas?

 

Check out WatchPlayer

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/watch-player/id1170672458?mt=8

 

I use an app called watchplayer to download podcasts to the watch from my iPhone, this allows me to listen to pods whilst my phone is off. Works well though your battery life will know about it.

 

Thanks for this! I purchased the full version for the functionality of autoupdating Podcasts and autosyncing to the watch.

But there is a bug which led me to deleting the app. If you add and subscribe to podcasts and choose the episodes to sync (the rest is marked as played) and then you refresh the timeline by pulling the list down all podcasts with all episodes in the subscriptions are set to unplayed and are starting to sync. I didn't realize the problem so the iPhone downloaded in the background Gigabytes of Podcasts until the space was full. I couldn't use the Phone any more until i deleted the app. Turned out the app had filled 80 GB of space!!! It took about 2 hours until this space was free again on the iPhone. Please could you fix this bug? It makes it unusable for me.

 

Overcast just released version 3.1. It allows you to upload podcasts directly to your watch from the iPhone app. I'm gonna try this out later tonight.

 

I tried it last night, works for me except the audio quality was a bit off.