Overcast Update Adds Major New Features For Podcast Enthusiasts

Overcast, the podcast app that was introduced in 2014, has been updated with some major new features that'll appeal to people who regularly listen to podcasts. In addition to making the entire listening experience more pleasant by normalizing audio, Overcast now also makes it easier to get directly to the meat of each episode, scrubbing the obnoxious parts of the audio track.

Overcast is only available on Apple devices; its developer Marco Arment announced a major update to the app on January 31, stating that in addition to its new Voice Boost 2 audio engine, the app also now offers some features that'll appeal to people who frequently, and quite passionately, enjoy podcasts.

Perhaps chief among those features is the ability to automatically skip the introduction and the outro in podcast episodes. This is made possible by allowing the user to choose the specific duration of seconds to skip on episodes; the setting is available per podcast, enabling the user to tailor the duration skipped to each specific show.

In addition, the Overcast update brings 'professional-grade' loudness normalization that uses 'dramatically more sophisticated methods' over the original Voice Boost feature to normalize the volume across an entire show. This feature is particularly useful for interesting podcast shows that don't have the best production quality, resulting in some parts that are too loud or too quiet.

Other features added in Overcast's latest update include support for AirPlay 2, meaning users can now send their audio to HomePods and similar devices. As well, the update lifts the clip-sharing restriction and restores support for Apple devices still running iOS 12.