[00:00:00] Chad: Hi Chad here coming to you over the digital airwaves on the 1% Better Podcast.

[00:00:11] I’m not sure how all of you are listening to this podcast. Might be on LinkedIn or a podcatcher maybe even Spotify. But by far my favorite podcast app is Overcast. Overcast is developed by Marco Arment and some of you [00:00:30] might have seen him. He loves to write and podcast about everything Apple. But he's also a programmer and developer and has made this app on his own I think for the last five or six years. Which is how long I've been using it.

[00:00:45] It's more than worth the cost to unlock the paid version.  You get so many amazing features, two of my favorites being the Smart Speed function and the [00:01:00] Voice Boost function.  I'm one of those people that likes to listen to podcasts at faster than real-time speed. And one of the things that Marco has done is put in a feature called Smart Speed where it cuts out some of the gaps and silences in shows and so while it's not speeding up the voice, it can actually cut out you know a couple of minutes on some of the longer podcasts. And you wouldn't even know that [00:01:30] it's doing it. There's also some really great controls for listening at half speed and I think all the way up to like 3x speed if you're so inclined.  And the second feature voice boost does a really good job of fixing those few podcasts that maybe don't quite have as high production value where maybe the volume is a bit weird or some of the levels are off.

[00:01:50] Marco has done a really great job of normalizing the voices on those podcasts. And again, it's one of the great features that makes overcast so useful to [00:02:00] me.  There is a paid version which eliminates the ads and I think 10 dollars a year for an amazing podcast app is more than worth it. Marco just revamped the recommendations engine using all of the data from who listens to what on Overcast to recommend episodes and podcasts. I found this feature really great at discovering related podcasts two things that I'm listening to so if I'm listening to a lot of podcasts on a particular [00:02:30] subject then a few float up to the top of the recommendations and it's a really great way for me to discover new podcasts new voices and a diversity of coverage on a particular subject that I'm looking to learn.

[00:02:43] You can choose whether you want to subscribe to episodes automatically download them, delete them. You can create smart playlists that I use to organize podcasts by topic, and it will dynamically update those playlists [00:03:00] as new episodes are released. And you can also export the data. And I love to do this to just understand a bit more about my listening habits,

[00:03:10] how many episodes that I listen to and it also track, what episodes I've favorited as well.

[00:03:16] As the podcasting industry continues to get hotter and hotter, I keep coming back to this wonderful fantastic app created by a single developer, which I think is really cool. Especially when you have [00:03:30] companies like Spotify that are putting hundreds of millions of dollars into this space. You know, I kind of like to root for the little guy.

[00:03:37]For those of you that already have maybe a podcast app of choice and you want to give Overcast a chance, you can also export your .OPML files from your existing apps and import them straight into Overcast for a seamless transition.

[00:03:52] Overcast is an invaluable app that I use all day every day. And I think you should give it a try to [00:04:00] it's a great way to discover and organize and listen to all of your favorite podcasts.

[00:04:06] So I'm curious, what apps do you use to get 1% better. You can share with me at nine one seven nine seven one three seven three seven and as always, thank you so much for sharing.