Until Overcast For Mac Comes Out

10 April, 2020 08:15AM ยท 2 minute read

I listen to podcasts a lot. Though less since I’ve been working from home full time. I want everything to channel through my desktop when I’m in front of it, so the best option for me is an integrated Podcast player that works on all iOS platforms, including the iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch and macOS. The Apple Podcasts app meets this requirement but I don’t like the missing smart speed, nor the way it handles playlists, podcast specific settings and so on that Overcast handles just the way I like it. (I’m a creature of habit too, I suppose)

Of course Marco has toyed with spending time developing a macOS port of Overcast but until that happens I needed a work-around. The requirements for my use case:

I tried Undercast and a few other web-wrappers but to be honest, they were all terrible. The Web player is a bare-minimum passable option that gets you by in a pinch but that’s all. Then I remembered you can turn your Mac into an AirPlay receiver by using an app from Rogue Amoeba. AirFoil Satellite can be trialled free but a licence costs $29 USD (plus applicable taxes). I had a copy laying around from years ago and I always just install it (just in case) on every new machine.

Open AirFoil Satellite and set a Play/Pause shortcut that makes sense for you (I chose Command-Shift-P) and then write an AppleScript to activate and then send the keyboard shortcut and give that a keyboard shortcut via FastScripts. I chose F17 (I love my extended keyboard).

  on run
    if application "Airfoil Satellite" is running then
      tell application "Airfoil Satellite" to activate
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "Airfoil Satellite" to keystroke "P" using {command down, shift down}
      return
    end if
  end run

It’s not perfect but meets my criteria. There are other applications out there that do similar things and I’ve had trouble with Automator since the Catalina update restricting what can be executed as a global shortcut from ANYWHERE, which is why I’ve switched to FastScripts.

Hopefully that’s useful to someone, until native macOS app is released in the future. You can just load up your playlist, pipe it through your desktop speakers, sync position is kept, smart speed is your best friend, and away you go :)