Overcast is the best podcast app for Apple Watch

Looking for a decent podcast app for the Apple Watch? Well, forget the rest, because Overcast — from veteran developer Marco Arment — is the best.

Overcast on the Apple Watch has been rebuilt since its initial release, and you can tell Arment has thought hard about how best to use the hardware and software constraints of the Apple Watch to his advantage. In fact, he talked about some of the changes made back in May, one month after the Apple Watch had launched and around the same time Arment rebuilt Overcast.

I originally designed the Apple Watch app for my podcast player, Overcast, with a scaled-down version of the iPhone app’s structure.

This seemed like a sensible adaptation of my iOS app to the Apple Watch. In practice, it sucked.

The good news is that the subsequent Overcase release was much better. And right now, it’s the best podcast application for Apple Watch available on the App Store.

So, Overcast indeed lets users control audio playback from the Overcast iOS app; you can also rewind or fast-forward 30 seconds using a pair of dedicated buttons in the app’s main UI. There’s a nice progress bar which shows users how far through the current podcast they are, and an “Up Next” icon lets Apple Watch owners check on which podcast episode is set to play next.

This is all great. Even better is the presence of a Force Touch gesture that lets users choose a new episode to listen to. This interface lists all of your podcasts alphabetically, allowing folks to use the Digital Crown to navigate through the selection and choose an episode to begin listening to. You can also configure Overcast’s effects using this same Force Touch gesture (Smart Speed, Voice Boost, and speed levels), which is another nice addition.

All in all, Overcast is the Apple Watch podcast app you should be using. It’s a great piece of software which complements the smart watch perfectly.