Overcast just released an update to its podcast app. It looks great but it still does not fix a long standing annoying issue.
It still does not remember or sync playback position.
A common use case for me is that I will listen to a podcast on my phone and once I get home, I’ll continue listening on my laptop, or vice versa. On many occasions, I’ll hit play on the new device and notice whatever I was listening to sounds familiar. And it’s because I’d already listened to this portion 20 minutes ago in my car! And then I waste another minute or so trying to figure out where I left off. It is extremely frustrating.
The fix is to remember that when I am switching devices, I need to swipe down to “force refresh” the state of Overcast of my phone to the servers, then do the same on whatever device I plan to listen on, so that the state is now synced on my new device. Isn’t this the point of having servers? I know Apple’s podcast app does this seamlessly but I have used Overcast for so long, I actually like the app, even with this annoying quirk.
Am I using the app wrong? Does no one else come across this?
Given Marco’s popularity as an app developer and podcast host, he has many friends in the Apple sphere and I feel like many of them, even those in the Apple press, give him a free pass. Not one of these PR pieces mention the sync issue. I get these are PR pieces and not reviews.
I’ve long argued that Marco needs to sell the app to a company who can give it the attention that more than one person, who is mainly a podcaster, can give it (forgive the typos, I was so angry I ended up dictating to Siri when left this review).
Even he admits that:
Most of Overcast’s core code was 10 years old, which made it cumbersome or impossible to easily move with the times, adopt new iOS functionality, or add new features, especially as one person.
That’s why there haven’t been many new features or changes in years.
You saw it, and I saw it. I wasn’t able to serve my customers as well as I wanted.
I stopped paying for the in app purchase to unlock all features honestly because I didn’t want to give my money to someone who makes an app that doesn’t have a feature I need.
It looks like I’ll have to keep my money in my wallet until he addresses this or until Castro can get its act together.