Introducing MiniCast

Listen To Podcasts On Your Apple Watch

I am using an iPod Shuffle. Yes, an iPod Shuffle that I’ve bought in the year 2010 as a replacement for my even older iPod Shuffle. It fulfills an essential task in my life: Playing podcasts while I’m out running. It’s sad, but this is currently the _best_ solution for me as I don’t want to carry my Phone with me when I’m running, and there is no good podcast player on Apple Watch. So I regularly connect the iPod to my Mac, start iTunes (😭) and sync my podcast episodes.

On the iPhone, I use Overcast for listening to podcasts, and there was a proper Watch app a few months ago. Although it had its issues and sometimes the episodes wouldn’t transfer, this was the first time in years where I could leave my iPod at home. And it felt good. Really good. Unfortunately, the developer of Overcast, Marco Arment, decided to discontinue the Watch app because of API limitations and changes, which prevented him from making a reliable Watch app.

So back to my iPod Shuffle. 😐

The step back to my iPod Shuffle was hard. It’s still working, but it isn’t satisfying anymore. So we decided to take matters into our own hands and made it our quest to build the best possible podcast app for Apple Watch. “Possible” because of the limitations Apple enforces via its provided APIs and existing bugs in watchOS we can’t work around.

We see this project as an intermediary step to a better podcast support on watchOS. We don’t want to replace Overcast or Apple’s Podcasts app. Our app should be a lightweight companion to these existing apps. A companion that just focuses on one task: achieving the best possible podcast listening experience on your wrist — given the platform’s limitations. If Apple suddenly decides to release a podcast app for the Watch and/or Marco Arment releases a superior Overcast Watch app, our app can slowly be phased out.

In the meantime, we will build and maintain our app and adapt to all watchOS changes that will come out in the future.

We Decided Not to Build a Separate Podcast Ecosystem. 🙅‍♂️

After many many many hours of prototyping, building proof-of-concepts and experimenting with watchOS’ (and iOS’) limitations, we found a way to achieve a “companion-ness” that felt right. On iOS, all features of MiniCast are contained in a single Action Extension. If we could have shipped an Action Extension without a container app, we probably would have. But that’s not possible on the App Store. So there is a container app which guides you through the first steps, how to enable the extension and how to transfer the first test episode. The primary interaction happens directly in the Action Extension in your favorite podcast app.

We currently support Overcast, Apple Podcasts and Pocket Casts. In these apps, press the “Share” button of the episode, open the MiniCast Action and with one tap, it will be sent to your Apple Watch.

Three steps, it’s easy.

The episode information syncs via CloudKit. We use CloudKit because it provides a good user experience and we don’t have to use a separate infrastructure. Also, there is an essential benefit concerning Apple Watch models with LTE. With CloudKit, Apple Watches can receive information even when they are away from the connected iPhone. We figured that syncing via CloudKit is the only viable way to get a great experience moving forward.

MiniCast on Apple Watch

The main task of MiniCast happens intentionally on the Apple Watch. It should be the companion to whichever podcast app you’re using on your iPhone.

After the episode data has synced to your Watch via CloudKit, you’re able to download the audio file and play it via Bluetooth.