When it launched in October with back up for streaming and chapters, Overcast 2's patronage model was positioned as a mode to directly back up the app without the promise of annihilation exclusive in render. With Overcast ii.v, launching today on the App Store, Marco Arment is introducing the offset features available only to Overcast patrons: a night theme, and the ability to upload audio files to Overcast's cloud.

Clouded's dark theme can be enabled in the app's Settings under 'Patron Features', and, as the proper noun suggests, it'll switch Overcast'southward to darker tones – dark greyness and lite bluish toggles.

Similar some of the best dark themes seen in other iOS apps (most notably, Tweetbot, Narwhal, and Drafts), Clouded's new dark option doesn't only switch some of the UI elements to black; instead, Arment has considered every screen and every push, coming up with a tasteful color palette that retains legibility and, especially in low-low-cal situations, makes the app easier to look at.

The side benefit of enabling dark theme is that, in addition to bringing a different color scheme, it changes Overcast's marquee Concourse typeface to Apple's San Francisco font. I was initially skeptical about the decision; Concourse is, after all, ane of Overcast's nearly recognizable traits. After a few weeks of using Clouded 2.5, though, I call up San Francisco is a good match for night backgrounds and popovers. If Apple ever comes up with a dark theme for iOS, I believe Overcast 2.5 would make for a fine template to draw inspiration from.

I'm usually non a fan of dark themes – I'1000 okay with predominantly white interfaces (and iOS 9.3's Night Shift filter makes apps more than comfortable to utilise at night), only I've grown to like Overcast's a lot. The combination of San Francisco with night grayness and light bluish interface elements looks nice, and I oasis't found myself missing Overcast'due south traditional white and orange mix.

The other major improver in Overcast 2.5 are file uploads. If you're a patron, you'll be able to go to overcast.fm/uploads and upload upward to ii GB worth of audio files, with a limit of 250 MB per file. This is useful if you ofttimes come up beyond episodes that you lot'd like to listen to without subscribing to their feed in Clouded, or if y'all take to mind to sound files that aren't available on the web, such every bit pre-production podcasts, interviews, or audiobook files ripped from your computer. These files will show upwardly in a special Uploads section of Overcast; like podcasts, you lot'll exist able to stream them or download them locally on your device.

There's an important distinction to be made between Overcast and another popular solution to listen to private audio files, Huffduffer. Dissimilar Huffduffer, Overcast doesn't create an RSS feed from podcast files saved from the web, nor does Clouded allow yous add together files by pasting URLs to their MP3 versions on the web. Overcast'southward file uploads are exactly what the proper name implies – files uploaded from your device, privately stored under your Overcast account. While I would have liked to run into Arment take on Huffduffer with his own spider web service to salvage podcasts for laterone, it makes sense to limit Overcast to a standalone thespian without the added complexity (and responsibility) of managing a spider web app to mix and friction match podcast RSS feeds.

There are other changes for all users in Overcast 2.v worth pointing out. Vocalism Boost, the app's audio effect to make podcasts audio ameliorate and louder, has a divide, custom-tuned profile for the iPhone's speaker.ii The visualizer has been redesigned: it's at present integrated with the Pause button, it uses less battery, and, in my opinion, information technology's more subtle and elegant than the erstwhile, bigger visualizer.

Bombardment consumption has indeed seen several notable improvements in this release. In a weblog mail service, Marco Arment has shared the details behind the optimized audio engine and revised visualizer:three

Overcast was already pretty efficient, but the EQ-bars visualizer was a significant bombardment drain (and was and so distracting that a very big portion of users had disabled information technology), and then I've replaced the visualizer with a smaller, simpler, far more than efficient one inside the Pause push button:

After many hours of experimentation and optimization, I've highly optimized Overcast'due south sound engine and UI to lucifer or exceed the efficiency of Apple's built-in Podcasts app in normal playback.

There are besides a couple of "finally's" in this release: calculation shows from the directory no longer takes y'all back to the main screen and you can now batch Add or Delete All from a show's page.

With new features for all Overcast users, version 2.v of Marco Arment'due south splendid podcast player continues to offer benefits that can't be found anywhere else. Unique sound effects, now with decreased battery consumption; a rich directory, with highly diversified recommendations; and now, a dark theme and file uploads that bring even more value for patrons.

Overcast is where I desire to heed to podcasts, and version two.5 is bachelor on the App Store.