Switching to Overcast
I’ve been using Pocket Casts pretty much since it first launched back in 2011, first on Android but also on iOS after I switched. As you can see from the screenshot above, I've spent nearly two thirds of a year using it over the last decade 😬. I'm fairly confident that, web browsing aside, it's my most used app by a distance.
On Android, Pocket Casts was (and probably still is) the standout third party app. I still love Android, but the reason I switched to (and stay on) iOS is that Android apps generally do either suck, or don't even exist ☹️.
I'm referring to apps just like Pocket Casts here. Big apps like WhatsApp/Instagram/Uber are all much of a muchness across both platforms 🤷♂️. But iOS absolutely shines when it comes to gems like Reeder/Mona/Fighty/Sequel... The list is seemingly endless and ever growing. This obviously isn't some new insight, it's been true since the launch of the App Store and it's just as true as we approach 2026.
I always loved that Shifty Jelly gave a shit about Android. The norm for indie apps was (and mostly still is) for the Android variant to either be second class citizens or to not bother having one at all. I'm not sure if there's a single other indie app where the Android app was consistently better than its iOS counterpoint.
And that's not to say that Pocket Casts on iOS is bad. I've been really happy with it over the ten(ish) years that I've used it. I still adore its queueing system and the way it helps me quickly triage my massive list of new podcasts down to the ones I actually want to listen to. I'm fairly sure that Castro does something similar but I've never had a need to try it out.
But I've always been conscious of the other top tier alternatives available to me. I've messed around with Overcast over the year and frequently use it to post clips to Mastodon. Pocket Casts recently got a simliar feature, but the implementation just feels sloppy compared to how Overcast makes it effortless to cut exactly the clip with it's sound wave UI.
I’ve also been conscious that Pocket Casts development just feels relatively glacial. I guess there is an element of if it ain’t break, but over the last year it’s feels like Castro has been getting some serious love (albeit from a relatively neglected base) and Overcast has had its ground up rewrite and seems to have Ironed out its transition issues.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was listening to Upgrade 595 in Overcast. Jason and Myke did a tier list of Tahoe Mac Icons and being able to glance at the chapter art on my lock screen whilst cooking was a genuine game changer. For some reason Pocket Casts only supports chapter art in app, but reverts to the show art on the lock screen. The same is also true on CarPlay, as I later found when I finished off the episode whilst picking up the kids and got that feeling of delight when I glanced at the dashboard and got to see the icons for Preview.
I've been using Overcast for a few weeks now and I've sort of hacked together a queue system to make it work like a poor man's Pocket Casts. In practice it's fine and on the other hand there are already a few things that really stand out to me.
Fit and finish
The general fit and finish is just top tier and far ahead of Pocket Casts. Even just the animation to go from Now Playing to Chapters is so buttery smooth and invites going back and forth no reason other than the joy
⌚ App
The Watch app works far more reliably than Pocket Casts, which had a serious lag issue. Whenever I would open it on my Watch, the app would start off on an episode I'd listened to days before and then take a while to cycle through my past shows until it got to my currently playing episode. It was always non-responsive during this time, which effectively made it useless.
Stats
I've always loved that Pocket Casts tracked my listening stats (above), but Overcast's implementation is even better. It's like having Spotify wrapped going back through the years available at any time.
Audio Clips
It's nice no longer having to specially go to Overcast to (search for what I was listening to on Pocket Casts and then) share a clip, which so often just put me off doing so.
I'm still keeping an eye on Pocket Casts, but for now I can't see myself switching back.