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16 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | DECEMBER 2017 By Steve Benoff Last month I reported how Apple ruined its excellent podcast app. I looked at several alternatives but found them wanting for various reasons so I stuck with Apple Podcast. I tried to adjust. If you use the default page on the new Apple Podcast it can be a real pain to play a podcast episode. With some effort, you can get the new app to act like the old one in some ways. Of course you can create a single playlist, but you can't see it like in the past and you can't edit it. The new Apple app is simply bad. So I searched again for alternatives and found a podcast app called Overcast. It immediately appealed to me. Its default layout prioritizes playlists. But unlike Apple's podcast app, you can create multiple playlists. Like Apple, you create playlists by adding podcast titles. Once created, individual episodes are added automatically. And like the old Apple app, you can change the order of episodes on your playlist. Within the Overcast app there are settings options unlike those found in either the old or new Apple app. You can delete played episodes automatically or manually. With the Apple app you can skip back and ahead by 15 seconds. With Overcast, you can use 15 seconds or choose amongst four alternatives. Apple gives you two options in sorting its single playlist. With Overcast you have four sort options for each playlist. You can also choose priority podcast episodes. Like Apple, Overcast lets you decrease or increase the playing speed of podcasts, but Overcasts allows a wider range of choices and more control within that range. It has features to boost the voice volume, shorten silences, and a four-choice sleep timer. Surely, Apple is better than Overcast in some regard. Well yes. If I'm listening to a podcast and I get a phone call (three quarters of which are junk calls) the podcast stops and restarts automatically. Overcast stops the podcast but I must restart it manually. But that is the only feature the Apple excels in. Overcast matches or beats Apple in every other way. Overcast even appears on my car's screen when I use Apple CarPlay, an advantage not shared by most apps. It turns out Apple did me a favor. With Apple's old podcast app, I was quite happy and blissfully unaware that a better app existed. It's only after Apple ruined its podcast app that I discovered Overcast. It's not only a good substitute for the Apple app, it's even better than the old one. Every month I end this column with a request that you share your favorite apps with me. Alas, I receive very few responses. But I appreciate those I do receive. I still use FlightAware when I travel as an excellent source of flight information. Irene Welker referred me to an app called Vivino which she describes as "pretty useful." I agree. I installed it and found it useful immediately. It's a free wine app (the app is free, not the wine). It makes finding and ordering wines quite easy. It has a fabulous Explorer feature. You select a price range and a minimum rating score between one and five. You can choose one or more amongst six very broad wine types (red, white, sparkling, etc.) But you can narrow your search to regional style (Argentinian Malbec), food pairing, grape, country, and vintage year. I chose merlot with a top price $10 (I can hear the groans, but I'm cheap) and a minimum rating of 2.6. I got 2,000 wines to choose from listed in order of rating. Each choice gives purchase options, highlights, and reviews. The magical part of this app appears when you press the camera icon on the app. Take a picture of a bottle of wine and the app identifies it with the same information provided by a search. There is a pinot noir and a merlot that I really like but can no longer find in local stores. Thanks to Vivino I now have online access to both of them. I'm not sure for whom Vivino is most valuable – the expert, the neophyte, or the cheapskate like me. Why don't you download it and judge for yourself. Do you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! Sometimes Bad is Good

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