Popular podcast listening app Overcast received a major update today, adding support for AirPlay 2 and more. This feature, in particular, has been a long time coming, with a lot of work to make it work the way developer Marco Arment wanted it to.
As of AirPlay 2, it’s important to note that the feature works with all of Overcast’s other bells and whistles. This means Smart Speed and Voice Boost both work, which I haven’t seen anywhere else. With AirPlay 2, users can listen to podcasts through HomePods and other speakers without the lag that has plagued AirPlay.
Voice Boost 2 is an enhancement to existing technology that made it easier for podcasters to be heard. And it was already pretty awesome when it launched five years ago.
Voice Boost is a combination of dynamic compression and equalization that can make many shows more listenable and normalize the volume of all shows. This makes amateur-produced podcasts (including many of my favorites) more listenable in noisy environments, like cars, where you’d otherwise need to crank up the volume so loudly to hear the quiet parts you’d blow your ears when the loudest person spoke.
Voice Boost 2 builds on this by offering the same benefits but with “much better sound quality”. You can deepen the weeds with the way it works on Arment’s blog.
There are also other changes here, including the ability to skip podcast intros and outros as well as sharing clips from private streams.
Overall, this is a great update and the one I tested in beta. If you’re an Overcast user, you really need to update ASAP. And if you’re not, maybe you should be!
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