Wednesday 16 July 2014

Instapaper Founder Launches Overcast, an App for Smarter Podcasts

Instapaper Founder Launches Overcast, an App for Smarter Podcasts
Developer Marco Arment is best known for his read-it-later app Instapaper, and for his former role as Tumblr's lead developer.
Arment's latest project, however, tackles an entirely different medium: podcasts. The developer just rolled out the first version of Overcast, a deceptively simple, yet powerful, podcast player.
The app was inspired by the simplicity of iOS 7, according to Arment.
"iOS 7 shook up the market, and by pure luck, shifted high-end iOS design away from fashions I could never compete in — heavy use of textures and complex graphical widgets — into what I could actually do: simplicity, space and typography," he wrote in a blog post.
But it's two of Overcast's premium features (both of which are available for a single $4.99 in-app purchase) that really set it apart from other players: Smart Speed and Voice Boost.
Smart Speed enables you to listen to their podcasts faster by speeding up the silences within the recordings. Arment said the feature makes listening faster, but adds no detectable changes to a podcast's audio. Voice Boost is a feature that essentially equalizes a podcast's volume, so listeners won't have to constantly turn it up or down at different points while listening— an issue that crops up more frequently with amateur podcasts.
Overcast is free, but the one in-app purchase buys you all of its premium features, including a sleep timer and the ability to download podcasts over cellular data, along with Smart Speed and Voice Boost.
For those who don't care to pay for the bonus features, the app has a very simple interface that makes it easy to find, listen and subscribe to podcasts. In addition to browsing titles by name, you can also link the app to your Twitter account to see recommendations from people you follow. The app also has a dedicated web player that allows you to pause a podcast from your iPhone, and resume listening on the web.
Overcast was in development for a long time; Arment first announced the app last September during the XOXO festival, and it spent more than two months in beta before its official release Wednesday.
Overcast is currently iPhone-only. Arment said he is working on an iPad app, but has no plans to create an Android version.
Posted by : Gizmeon

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