Case study • 2026

HearHere

A calm podcast player for Apple platforms.

Role: Research, design, engineering Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, CarPlay
Problem
Long-time listeners were leaving the best indie podcast apps over broken trust: lost progress, and ads after paying.
What I did
Studied why they left, then designed and built a player around the three places listeners spend their time: Home, the Inbox and the Queue.
Outcome
Home went from 1 episode per screen to everything new at a glance, the Inbox caps each show at 10 episodes, and 3 of the most-requested fixes shipped.

In 2024–25 the two best-loved indie podcast apps broke trust: Overcast’s rewrite lost people’s playback positions, and Pocket Casts showed ads to people who had already paid. Long-time listeners went looking for something calmer and more reliable. I was one of them, so I built it.

More on this
  1. Overcast was the favourite: 43% of TidBITS readers chose it, ahead of Apple Podcasts at 25% and Pocket Casts at 6%. TidBITS ↗
  2. Overcast shipped an 18-month rewrite. It launched download-only, without Shortcuts, storage management or OPML, and listeners reported lag, freezes and episodes jumping back to 0:00. Michael Tsai ↗
  3. Overcast Premium went from $9.99 to $14.99 a year, its first increase in eight years. Michael Tsai ↗
  4. Pocket Casts showed banner ads to Lifetime members. Staff said removing them meant the $40-a-year Plus plan; Automattic’s CEO called it a bug. 9to5Mac ↗

What it told me: neither crisis was about audio quality. One broke the thing you rely on daily, where you left off. The other broke the deal. Both are trust, which is why HearHere leads with reliability and has no ads at all.

I started with what switchers wrote publicly, not interviews: it’s unprompted, specific, and written at the moment of leaving.

  • 2 switcher deep-divesWhy people left Overcast and Pocket Casts, in their own posts and reviews.
  • 13 apps tracked weeklyReleases, ratings and review themes, gathered by a research agent I direct.
  • 15 feedback threadsEvery email in the first 7 weeks, tagged and prioritised.
More on this
  1. In every post I looked for three things: what broke, what they missed, and where they went next. Where they went was the clearest signal: people chasing reliability, and people who wanted an inbox to triage new episodes. Source: my switcher notes from Reddit, Mastodon, Bluesky, forums and App Store reviews
  2. A research agent pulls releases, ratings, pricing and US App Store review themes for 13 apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts and Castro. I read each report and decide what, if anything, it changes. Source: HearHere competitor reports
  3. Every feedback email is logged with its area and priority; urgent ones automatically become tasks, so nothing important waits for a weekly review. Source: HearHere feedback log, May–Jul 2026

The limit: people who write public posts are mostly power users. That’s why interviews with everyday listeners are the next step.

  1. Reliability is the featurePeople left over lost positions and broken sync, not missing features.Led to: fixes before features
  2. New episodes overwhelmThe one workflow reviewers praised for handling it was an inbox for triaging new episodes.Led to: Home and the Inbox
  3. The queue is the core8 of my first 15 feedback threads were about what plays next.Led to: the Queue
More on this
  1. Reliability. After Overcast’s rewrite, listeners reported freezes and episodes jumping back to 0:00. Michael Tsai ↗ Pocket Casts users report episodes ending early and played episodes reappearing in Up Next. Pocket Casts forums ↗
  2. Overwhelm. The app praised for handling it was Castro, whose inbox lets you triage new episodes before they reach your queue. MacStories called it “an elegant solution to the problem of podcast overload”. MacStories ↗ Castro has since changed hands again, in October 2026, and indie apps’ share of UK downloads fell from 38% to 31% in two years. Podnews ↗
  3. The queue. My own feedback said it four ways: not prominent enough, laggy, “let me bump it, not remove it”, and “download the whole queue”. Elsewhere, Pocket Casts users describe auto-add re-adding episodes they’d already played. Pocket Casts forums ↗ Source: HearHere feedback log
Problem statement
How might I build a podcast player that is reliable first, quiet by default, and private without having to say so?
Key decisions

Three anchors: Home, Inbox and Queue

The three places listeners spend their time, and where calm matters most.

After: the new Home with a row of shows, New Episodes with a count of 4, and Queue as the first playlist Before: the old Home, called Latest, showing one huge episode at a time
BeforeAfter

Home

Home used to be “Latest”: one giant episode at a time, swiping through everything new. Beautiful, but with no overview and no end. Now it takes one look instead of a swipe per episode: your shows, how many episodes are new, and your playlists, with the Queue first.

What I gave up
  1. The immersive, artwork-first browse. “Latest” felt like flipping through records, and some people enjoy discovering that way.
  2. A podcast app gets opened with a job in mind: what’s new, what’s next. Answering that in one look beats a beautiful swipe through everything.
  3. Artwork still leads: shows are a row of covers, and new episodes are large, artwork-led cards.
  4. Listeners asking for a way to browse back through everything new. That would mean the Inbox isn’t enough of a place to explore.

Inbox

Where new episodes land, without the flood. In the app it’s “New Episodes”: each show adds only its newest few, and finished, stale and very short episodes drop out on their own. Chips for Today, Yesterday and This Week narrow it in one tap, and Play Next or Play Last sends an episode straight to the Queue.

ReframingThe problem wasn’t showing new episodes better. It was showing fewer.

What I gave up
  1. Completeness. Older, finished and very short episodes, and anything past a show’s cap, never reach the Inbox. Someone could miss an episode they wanted.
  2. A list that’s always complete is a list that’s always too long. Calm has to come from what the app leaves out by default.
  3. Each show’s page still lists every episode, and the cap can be changed per show for the ones you never want to miss.
  4. “Where did that episode go?” in feedback, or people raising the cap on most of their shows.
More on this
  1. Each show adds only its newest episodes, ten by default and adjustable per show, so one daily show can’t bury a monthly one.
  2. Finished, older-than-a-limit and very short episodes drop out on their own.
  3. Chips for Today, Yesterday and This Week cut the list down in one tap, instead of scrolling an endless one.
  4. Home shows a count, “New Episodes 4”, not the list itself. Tapping it opens the Inbox.

Why not copy Castro: Castro asks you to triage every new episode by hand. HearHere filters first, so there’s far less left to triage, and nothing piles up if you skip a week.

Queue

Listeners said the queue felt buried, so now it’s always one pull away. “Up next” sits at the bottom of the player; pull it up and the queue opens over it, with what’s playing pinned on top and every episode a drag away from a new spot. It’s also the first playlist on Home.

What I gave up
  1. A destination. Without its own tab, the queue is less obvious to someone scanning the tab bar for it.
  2. You edit the queue while listening, so it belongs next to what’s playing. A separate tab means leaving the player to change what’s next.
  3. “Up next” is always visible at the bottom of the player, and Queue is the first playlist on Home.
  4. Feedback still saying the queue feels buried after this change.
More on this
  1. The queue came up as not prominent enough, laggy, and as “let me bump an episode, not remove it”. Source: HearHere feedback log
  2. In other apps the queue fills itself through auto-add rules, and users report it re-adding episodes they’d already played. Pocket Casts forums ↗
  3. Keep the queue visible where listening happens: “Up next” under what’s playing, and Queue first on Home. Automatic filling stays in the Inbox and smart playlists, where it can’t surprise you.
  • No recommendationsOnly the shows you chose.
  • No ads or trackingNo account needed to listen.
  • Transcripts held backUntil they’re good enough.
  • “The queue is buried”Queue moved into the player and onto Home.
  • “I’d switch for stats”Logbook: listening stats and history.
  • “The sleep timer misfires”“End of episode” now always means the end.
Reflection

Looking back

Reading people who were leaving told me what broke, not how they listen day to day. Interviews and usability tests on the queue are next, and should have come sooner.

The main lesson: calm is a set of decisions, not a style.

Thanks for reading

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