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After Apple ruined the podcasts app in iOS 11, I switched back to my old way of listening to podcasts: download on the computer and listen on a Sansa Clip+ play

After Apple ruined the podcasts app in iOS 11, I switched back to my old way of listening to podcasts: download on the computer and listen on a Sansa Clip+ player (with Rockbox on it). Especially the first few days were pure delight. A player with.. hardware buttons! I can skip tracks, jump back and forth, pause, everything without even looking at the thing! Several years of using touchscreen-smartphones for this had me totally forget how it is to use an MP3 player with physical buttons. Really, I didn't expect at all how much I'd love it. I've now gotten used to it again and going back to anything touchscreen-based is not an option at all anymore. And on top of that the joy of knowing that there's no ad-company tracking how/when/where I'm listening.

icebraining 9y ago
I have nothing against your solution, but for those of us who prefer not to have to carry and sync another device, you can get (wired) headphones with volume + skip buttons for just a few bucks.
orbitur 9y ago
My only experience with the Clip+ was as a runner, but I switched away from my phone because I was terrified of breaking it. But the downsides of the Clip+ drove me back to my phone and a good, hard case for it. - had to hook it up to my Windows computer and download songs instead of just making a playlist on Apple Music or queueing up podcasts in Overcast - if the sun was out, I had to hold the Clip right against my eyeballs to make anything out - no 30 second skips, no chapter selection And honestly, I'm not sure why you'd give up on the phone altogether without researching other podcast apps. Overcast is the best.
- starsinspace 9y ago
  Note that I'm using the Clip+ with the Rockbox [0] replacement firmware, which adds features such as configurable skip lengths, etc. Without Rockbox, the thing isn't nearly as good :-) > And honestly, I'm not sure why you'd give up on the phone altogether without researching other podcast apps. Overcast is the best. I looked at them, didn't find a single trustworthy one. Overcast is a good example of that: it's often recommended, but it wants me to make an account, which is completely superfluous and probably just a way for them to collect data about my podcast habits. No thanks. I only want podcasts, I don't want a cloud service to go with it. [0] https://www.rockbox.org/ https://www.rockbox.org/
  - orbitur 9y ago
    Just FYI, the creator of Overcast is a notorious anti-advertising and pro-privacy curmudgeon, and he even wrote Skeptic's FAQ for people put off by the account thing: https://overcast.fm/skeptics_faq https://overcast.fm/skeptics_faq It's very much worth it.

icebraining 9y ago

I have nothing against your solution, but for those of us who prefer not to have to carry and sync another device, you can get (wired) headphones with volume + skip buttons for just a few bucks.

orbitur 9y ago

My only experience with the Clip+ was as a runner, but I switched away from my phone because I was terrified of breaking it. But the downsides of the Clip+ drove me back to my phone and a good, hard case for it. - had to hook it up to my Windows computer and download songs instead of just making a playlist on Apple Music or queueing up podcasts in Overcast - if the sun was out, I had to hold the Clip right against my eyeballs to make anything out - no 30 second skips, no chapter selection And honestly, I'm not sure why you'd give up on the phone altogether without researching other podcast apps. Overcast is the best.

starsinspace 9y ago
Note that I'm using the Clip+ with the Rockbox [0] replacement firmware, which adds features such as configurable skip lengths, etc. Without Rockbox, the thing isn't nearly as good :-) > And honestly, I'm not sure why you'd give up on the phone altogether without researching other podcast apps. Overcast is the best. I looked at them, didn't find a single trustworthy one. Overcast is a good example of that: it's often recommended, but it wants me to make an account, which is completely superfluous and probably just a way for them to collect data about my podcast habits. No thanks. I only want podcasts, I don't want a cloud service to go with it. [0] https://www.rockbox.org/ https://www.rockbox.org/
- orbitur 9y ago
  Just FYI, the creator of Overcast is a notorious anti-advertising and pro-privacy curmudgeon, and he even wrote Skeptic's FAQ for people put off by the account thing: https://overcast.fm/skeptics_faq https://overcast.fm/skeptics_faq It's very much worth it.