Sounds interesting. So, is it automatically adapting to your heart rate, or do you need to set it manually?

Hi! Michael here, one of the makers of Shift.  Thanks for the hunt @percival 🙏 We built Shift because we really love working out to podcasts. There's so much resting time during a workout, which makes it great for podcast listening, but it's difficult to focus when the intensity gets high. Shift solves this by changing to music, just when you need it. For this to actually work in practice, the app needs to work magically in the background, changing automatically between podcasts and music in a way that fits your workout. I'll try to paint a picture of how that could work for you, based on your workout style, using two examples: For strength training 🏋🏾‍♀️ Strength training with Shift means you'll hear your podcast while resting between workout sets, and music when you lift. So, imagine you are at the gym, lifting weights: 1. Let's say you like to rest 2 minutes between sets. In Shift, you would set the podcast timer to 2 minutes. While you're resting the app plays your podcast for two minutes, and when the two minutes are up, it Shifts back to music and you'll jump on the weights. 2. Over to the lift. You'll crush it to music, and when finished with the set, you simply tap pause on your headphones to shift back to the podcast and the timer starts again. For running/cardio 🏃‍♂️ Let's say you're going out for a run. You put on your running shoes, open up Shift, and set the podcast timer to 3 minutes, and music to 4 minutes. You'll crush a 4x4 interval workout, where you hear music during the intervals, and podcasts during the 3-minute rest. The app shifts back and forth automatically in the background.  Funnily enough, common feedback from many of our users is that they initially thought it sounded like a horrible idea 😬 It must be annoying that it pauses the podcast right in the middle of a dialog! But once people actually try it out for a workout, they are often quite blown away by how great it actually feels.  Personally, I'd say the main benefits of using Shift are: * It's super productive -  Get your fitness in and it makes working out more entertaining *, it's actually effortless - you configure it once to fit your workout, then it automatically shifts in the background. * It gives a unique focus during heavy work - this is hard to explain but it's something many of our users say. The moment the app shifts from podcast to music, you'll get a little extra kick just when the music starts. Why change the default pause behavior on headphones? For strength workouts this was crucial. Our goal is that once you start a workout with Shift, you shouldn't have to interact with the app again. Without it, you would have to manually press a button in the app to shift between pods and music. With it, you simply tap pause on your headphones after the workout set. It's really effortless.  @trulsskeie will tell you more about our motivation and how we got where we are today, down below 👇

Thanks @michaelgunnulf Sooo, do you wish you could just magically get more time for podcasts? 👋. Then we have the same problem. I really love podcasts, it's my go-to source for entertainment and growth. Because of that, I wanted to find more time for podcasts. One of the things I tried was to listen to podcasts at the gym. It worked okay-ish, it was perfect for my rest time, but not my lift time. One time I was listening to a comedy podcast and at the bottom of the squat, I burst out in laughter and almost injured myself 🙈. Even after this incident, I knew it was possible to create a seamless experience where I could listen to music when I lift and podcast when I rest. In order to get there, I had to go through 3 different experiments. Experiment #1 We all know, start with an MVP right? So the first experience was to combine two apps, my podcast app and Spotify for music. It worked 🎉, but it was not a smooth experience. Experiment #2 I realized the problem couldn't be solved by existing solutions, so I decided to try and build something myself. I ended up with a prototype where music and podcast were combined into one app. This was a huge improvement from experiment #2. All I had to now was to push a button on the app to Shift between podcast and music. Experiment #3 After testing the app from experiment #2 a couple of times, I figured it was still missing something. For starters, it was quite cumbersome to always locate my phone to press a button to Shift and I still had to use my watch as the timer. So time for a new iteration. Same app, but now with configured timers and a way to shift between podcast and music without touching my phone, now I was using my headphones. It was perfect! 🤩. I have to say, I really loved this app, but there was a problem. It looked horrible and it was built only for me. At the same time I realized this, @michaelgunnulf told me he was working on something cool he wanted to show me, and who would have guessed it? He had solved the same problem with his own app 😍. We teamed up and created Shift. We have perfected the app through trial and error and here we are today. We're proud to launch Shift on Product hunt, the only app that mixes Podcasts & Music seamlessly into your workout. TL:DR - Podcasts & Music, mixed perfectly into your workouts - Built to work without touching your phone. For instance use headphones to shift if you don't use timers - Built-in timers to fit your workouts. When the timer runs out, it automatically shifts - Works seamlessly with Spotify, Apple Music, and our free workout mixtapes from Tiësto, David Guetta and more

The idea is good. I used to listen to audiobooks while working out. Perhaps, podcasts would be a good content too.

Congrats on the launch! Can you tell us what was the inspiration for creating this app?