The best podcast app for the iPhone

The Winner

Overcast

If you’ve got an iPhone, the best podcast app is Overcast. It’s got a clean, straightforward, and tasteful design that’s easy to use and never gets in the way of what’s most important: the listening experience. Even better, it has some really nice features which substantially improve that experience.

Smart Speed gets rid of silent moments and dead air wherever they exist in your podcasts, and this can significantly cut down the overall playing time. It saves you precious minutes and eventually hours; when you check Overcast’s settings menu to see exactly how much time; you’ll definitely be surprised. Another feature, Voice Boost, normalizes the volume on both ends of a conversation so no one is too loud or too quiet. Podcasts aren’t always created equal when it comes to production values, so this can be a big help in sparing your ears. If you’re the type who prefers listening to your shows sped up, Overcast’s audio engine delivers the most natural-sounding results we’ve heard. Whereas some other players can make it all too obvious that you’re manipulating speed, Overcast manages to play shows faster without sacrificing quality.

Power users can build playlists with custom smart filters, configure preferences on a show-by-show basis, or set a sleep timer if you’re listening to a podcast before dozing off at night. And when it comes to discovering new shows, Overcast will pull in recommendations from Twitter, and it also groups new podcasts and established hits into helpful “starter kits” that you can subscribe to with a single tap.

The only real limitation of Overcast is that you can’t stream podcasts on the fly; the entire episode must be downloaded before you hit the play button. This can be frustrating at times, but also guarantees you won’t be bothered with unexpected pauses or buffering. The app is available on iPhone and iPad, and there’s also a barebones web player available for your laptop. Overcast also features one of the best Apple Watch apps we’ve seen yet. With it, you can quickly start playing a new show from your wrist, recommend an episode, and access settings for Smart Speed and Voice Boost. Paired with Apple’s Now Playing glance, it’s a pretty convenient setup.

You might be able to get by with the free version of Overcast, but we wholeheartedly recommend paying $4.99 to unlock its full feature set. It’s been consistently updated since it launched last year, and you can expect support to last long into the future. That’s not something we can say for every podcast app in the App Store.

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