One of the best podcasting apps you know is built by a single person | Hacker News Reader

One of the best podcasting apps you know is built by a single person

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109 pointsCharlesW65 comments

Marco was one of my biggest inspirations to become a software engineer. I worked in the same office as he and David Karp and was there when they launched Tumblr. I spent many lunch breaks picking David and Marco’s brains about the work they were doing. Many years later, I mustered the courage to switch careers and become a web developer. I’m now a full-stack dev at O’Reilly Media. It’s not glamorous but I am very proud of the work I do. Cheers to Marco!

For Android users, I highly recommend Podcast Addict, which also seems to be the work of a single dev. It's incredibly good and constantly getting new features.

Can't reccomend it highly enough, for a long time it was my go to RSS reader too.

What is your RSS reader now?

Is it that better than the official Google Podcast app? I have been using it for years and it's pretty nice.

Yes

The good third party apps are leaps better than the platform official apps. The developers are passionate and the platform apps seem unwilling to risk adding too many features.

It's the biggest thing I miss from Android.

Good lord, thank you for this thread. I stopped listening to podcast because apple's podcast app became insufferable. I had no idea there was an alternative like this. This app is amazing.

Apple's podcast app used to be good a decade ago. It's strange how it's turned into a horrible app as time has gone by.

To be fair, Apple almost certainly has more than one developer working on theirs, so it is probably almost impossible to maintain any kind of real quality over time.

I cannot tell if this is serious or troll?

Now you have me wondering!

saurik is most likely not a troll

That.. and someone or team needs to justify their existence by constantly making changes to the app, whether it needs it or not.

A podcast app... once you perfect it, doesn't need drastic change in its core ux, much like kitchen appliances.

It wasn't good back then either, had to switch to a paid app, so not that strange

It has always been hot garbage. Truly a disgrace to the entire ethos of the brand.

The free default apps on iOs have gone down in relative quality just as more and more paid apps become available. Pure coincidence?

When I started using an iPhone for the very first time, Overcast was the first app that I actually paid for. Marco is a long-time iOS developer/MACOS developer and has been an indie dev since the very early days of the Appstore. He also was one of the very early critique of Apple's draconian App Store rules policies. I liked Overcast and was a difficult decision to switch to Android as I can't seem to find an equally good podcast app. welp. Updated. Thanks zillion for the kind souls who linked to Pocketcasts from Automattic. Downloaded and happy.

Try podcast addict. It’s the only app I’ve been missing since I switched to iphones

Podcast addict is good.

I've started using antenna pod. Fully open source and works with gpodder.net

One of many reasons I'm considering returning to Android.

I flip between that and Pocket Casts.

Been using Overcast pretty much since it launched and I've also be listening to Marco's Accidental Tech Podcast for even longer. A bunch of changes over the years but still love the smart speed and other features. Glad to see indie developers can still make a sustainable living in the App Store!

Marco Arment has been one of my favorite makers to follow over the years. Awesome.

I was lured into trying the Amazon Music app for its podcasts. It is just awful.

Apple Podcasts is less awful but not great.

Overcast is so easy to use, so quick to navigate, with so many custom options - it’s hard to use any other player.

Apple Podcasts is insane. I now am getting pushes for episodes that I can't play because I don't subscribe to THAT podcast.

What happened to Apple not allowing advertisements in their notifications?

I stuck with Apple podcasts for a few years because I wanted to be able to sync progress between my Mac and my phone.

That basically never worked and in fact kept resetting my progress. Eventually I got so fed up I realized I wasn’t listening on the Mac anyway because of it and switched to Overcast.

Pretty quickly I regretted not switching earlier. I’ve been using it very happily ever since.

on M1/2 Macs Overcast can be installed from the app store. No special work by Marco; it's just the ipad UI, but that's more than enough to have your listen status sync across all your devices and make your podcasts available on the mac.

I always forget about that. Excellent point.

Personally I’ve just adapted to using my phone all the time instead of listening to podcasts on my laptop, so I haven’t felt the need.

But it’s a great tip for others.

One of the best? It's the only good one.

AntennaPod (for Android) is also fine. I briefly switched to android, and the lack of a working podcast app for iOS was one of the main things that delayed my switch back.

(I am happily using overcast now, but am bummed that I can’t browse my podcasts via my car’s bluetooth, like I could with android.)

+1 for AntennaPod. FOSS and no ads

It's what I use as well. It's fine, I use it because it has no ads but it doesn't always behave as expected. One example... When you're in a podcast and you swipe back, it closes down the app instead of going to the main screen where you have all your subscribed pods.

Yeah. That’s my main complaint with AntennaPod too. You have to tap the hamburger menu on the top left, when swipe back obviously makes more sense.

Back button and swipe behavior is configurable in Settings.

I've been using Podcast Addict for years and I love it. It was missing one thing that I wanted (sorting podcasts by fewest unlistened-to episodes), so I put in a feature request and it got added after a few weeks!

Same here. I wanted to filter a feed to only get the episodes longer than XX minutes and the developer told me on Twitter that the feature was added pretty recently. That's also the only app I'm a paid subscriber just to support its development.

PocketCasts is pretty great, although I was grandfathered into my "pay-once" plan.

Same. I tried Overcast and liked much about it. I still like PocketCasts better though probably mostly because it’s familiar. If I wasn’t on the lifetime plan, I’d go with Overcast but for me I’m sticking with PocketCasts.

I paid for pocket casts a while back too when it was a one time payment. You are grandfathered in? What benefits did you grandfathered into? I don’t see any acknowledgment of my legacy status.

I should check this myself. I think I was also grandfathered into the pay once plan.

Pocket Casts is not only good, it's better

Castro is more useful once you subscribe to enough feeds, and also looks and feels nice, but it costs twice as much per year.

Castro is also sluggish and crashes constantly, at least once your queue of unplayed episodes grows very long.

I believe you. Small queue/big inbox is a good experience for me and that's how I recommend people use it.

The new 2023 release squashed a number of bugs but had some performance regressions as well; they're in the midst of successive patches right now.

+1 for Castro. I can't believe more podcast apps haven't caught on to how handy the email-like metaphor is for managing episodes.

I want to listen to some, but not all episodes that come in via my various feeds, so having an "inbox" of sorts from which I can either download or discard shows seems like the only reasonable way to handle things IMHO. I don't understand apps that just download everything or, like Overcast, mess around with playlists.

I agree, although a lot of listeners do listen to every episode of every show they subscribe to. It's just a personal choice.

I still use Overcast, though, but mimic the Castro behavior to a certain extent by having a "Latest" playlist and a "Starred" playlist. I look at "Latest" every day, star the ones I want to listen to, then eventually play from Starred.

This works fine for me, but probably skews the shows' stats a bit since I download many more episodes than I ever listen to.

I forget why I didn't stick with Overcast (something I found weird about how it handles of downloads maybe?) but I've been thrilled with RSS Radio.

It's the only player I've tried that still gives the level of control that the early smartphone apps (~2010) did.

To be fair, a lot of apps, many that are much more complex than Overcast, were created and are being maintained by single individuals.

I've been enjoying Overcast for years, and am happy to support Marco.

Same. I've been using Overcast for many years, and it's been the best podcast app I've ever used.

Love the app, and love the ads oddly enough.

I chucked an Overcast ad on for my podcast (now faded, cohost had a kid and now has no time). It exploded and word of mouth kept it going.

It was still seeing healthy downloads 2 years after we stopped. Admittedly that was likely more SEO than the initial ad but I'd have never put that much effort in without an early audience.

We had people talking to us about our thing on Twitter! People who weren't friends and family!! What a buzz.

... I need to create something again haha

Overcast seems to be an iOS-only app.

For those on Android, and feeling like they are missing out, PocketCasts is a great alternative.

Yep, been using PocketCasts and it is pretty good.

Recently they made their apps opensource as well.

https://github.com/Automattic/pocket-casts-android

https://github.com/Automattic/pocket-casts-ios

I use PocketCasts on iOS. The only feature missing from Overcasts that I would like is the clip sharing/export. Clip bookmarking would be useful too.

There's a few other nits with PocketCasts for example, played files don't show up in listening history, but overall it's a solid podcasting app.

https://marco.org/2019/04/27/overcast-clip-sharing

I think PocketCasts is great. I always struggled to customize Overcast to my liking but PocketCasts is basically perfect for me.

i tend (rightly or wrongly) to assume that most phone apps are one-person efforts. is that not the common case?

a lot of the best apps you know are built by a single person

I have been using pocket casts since forever and I am not missing a thing.

Haven't really have the time to compare various podcast apps myself.

What makes Overcast better than AntennaPod?

I don't know AntennaPod but the reason that I use Overcast is that it has three important features:

1) Adjustable playback speed. Probably other apps have this but my default is 1.75X So an hour podcast is cut down to more like 40 minutes.

2) Smart Speed. Takes out silences.

3) Skip intros, outros, etc. on a per-podcast basis.

Another great feature is skipping ahead 30 seconds for two clicks (fast forward) on my AirPods Pro.

I do find that I have to listen on AirPods Pro because the speed of the conversations is too fast for regular speakers, meaning I have to focus a fair amount on the podcast. Maybe other people don't have that problem.

>skipping ahead 30 seconds for two clicks (fast forward) on my AirPods Pro.

Fast forwarding a very specific amount of time is one of the few tasks for which I regularly use Siri.

One great feature is it has server-side crawling, but it is a good internet citizen and isn't trying to abandon the RSS feed podcast standard, and make podcasts proprietary to one particular platform like many other podcast apps.

Back when I listened to a couple podcasts, Podcast Republic was da bomb on Android KitKat/Lollipop.

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