Big news in Apple podcast land. A new version of Overcast, my favorite Podcast app (and one of my most used apps), was released this week. Marco Arment, the app’s developer, wrote more about it this week on his site. It’s a multi-year rewrite to modernize the now 10-year-old platform, and it will allow him to use a lot of new technologies and development practices as a result.

So far, I’m very pleased with the UI updates – it’s familiar but modernized – but there are a lot of rough edges I hope Marco is able to iron out over time. Here are my initial thoughts on what I hope he addresses:

• Relaunching the app after a while doesn’t take you back to the playlist you were on. Instead it takes you to the home screen. This feels like a regression from the previous version.
• I can no longer swipe to the right to play items next. It’s now 3 taps away. I hope this can be re-added in some way.
• When I play podcasts from the new “recent episodes” section, it appears to always stop after the podcast. I’d expect that podcast to be added to whatever your current playlist is so playback could continue.
• I’ve noticed inconsistent playlist behavior – played podcasts are being displayed in playlists for a while before disappearing. Not always, but I’ve seen it many times so far. Sometimes the episode will disappear from the list after being played only to reappear later.
• I wish I could customize what goes in the menu when you tap on a podcast or view an episode’s details. I never share podcasts but I use “go to podcast” very frequently.

One of the big selling points of this multi-year rewrite is that it will enable new features and more rapid iteration. I’m really excited to see what new goodies we’re in store for, and I’m also hopeful that at least a few of the items I called out above get addressed in the coming months.