Overcast

Overcast is a podcast player on iOS by independant developer Maro Arment. - What the client asked for: Nothing. This is purely unsollicited redesign. Overcast is a good app that I use very frequently, mostly on an iPhone, sometimes on desktop via the simpler web app. It's also made by a single independant developer. No in-house designers working all year long to shape it. Enough reasons to ask myself:
What would I do to make it better ? - The answer: I would design an iPad version that would take advantage of the additional screen space, and by extension a new desktop web version. Overcast's audience is now mostly on the iPhone though, making the iPhone version is a de facto cannonical version. So to create larger screens versions that match the experience of the iPhone version, but with the liberty to break out of the existing iPhone version, it makes sense to redesign the iPhone version as well. - How: In a few words: make it a tab-bar based app. Tabs give the ability to switch back and forth between contexts (like browsing a library, controlling media playback, searching, adjusting settings etc. ) without losing the state of each context and having to take it from the start every time. - Thoughts: How to display content that does not fit in the tab-bar ? What content needs to be on screen for each context ? How to make quick actions available to the user ? Beware of bar overload. In addition to the tab-bar, there may be a nav-bar for the current context. Do we want to allow a third bar on-screen ? This is a prototype I made to test the layout and tab-bar interaction on device. It can be viewed at:
http://overcast.ajgm.xyz/?version=iphone