I realize that this is about Mac podcast apps (hopefully you won't mind a quick diversion), but I'd like to quickly plug my favorite iOS podcast app: Castro (no relation, just a happy user)
I tried Overcast and really loved the features (smart speed, etc.) but I didn't love the queue handling. It's not that there was anything wrong with Overcast in that regard. It certainly works fine (it's a great app), but it didn't map to the way I listen to podcasts.
Castro is ideal if you only have a few hours a week to listen to the occasional podcast and you don't always listen to every episode of every podcast. All other podcast apps (disclaimer: that I know of) have an on/off relationship with podcasts. You are either subscribed or you are not. If you are, you can specify how many of the podcast episodes to automatically download and put in your queue. So if you like to listen to occasional episodes of, say, a hundred podcasts, you will use a TON of storage.
Castro has a triage model. When you subscribe to a podcast, you can have the app automatically either queue it up immediately (like the traditional method) or have it appear in your inbox (along with a notification), which is a kind of temporary time-based view of recent arrived episodes, or you can have it put in the archive, which is where all of the older episodes eventually go. You can always queue up an episode from any of these locations.
The best part is that only things that you put (or specify to automatically add, which I never do) in the "listening to now" queue are actually downloaded. So if you keep that list at 5 podcasts, then only those 5 are downloaded. Very nice and a perfect match for my use.
I tried Overcast and really loved the features (smart speed, etc.) but I didn't love the queue handling. It's not that there was anything wrong with Overcast in that regard. It certainly works fine (it's a great app), but it didn't map to the way I listen to podcasts.
Castro is ideal if you only have a few hours a week to listen to the occasional podcast and you don't always listen to every episode of every podcast. All other podcast apps (disclaimer: that I know of) have an on/off relationship with podcasts. You are either subscribed or you are not. If you are, you can specify how many of the podcast episodes to automatically download and put in your queue. So if you like to listen to occasional episodes of, say, a hundred podcasts, you will use a TON of storage.
Castro has a triage model. When you subscribe to a podcast, you can have the app automatically either queue it up immediately (like the traditional method) or have it appear in your inbox (along with a notification), which is a kind of temporary time-based view of recent arrived episodes, or you can have it put in the archive, which is where all of the older episodes eventually go. You can always queue up an episode from any of these locations.
The best part is that only things that you put (or specify to automatically add, which I never do) in the "listening to now" queue are actually downloaded. So if you keep that list at 5 podcasts, then only those 5 are downloaded. Very nice and a perfect match for my use.