Syncing our mobile devices with our iTunes accounts became a non-issue when companies like Stitcher capitalized on the podcast boom and allowed us to stream our favorite shows. Since then, there have been several apps, or “podcast-catchers” designed to make listening to podcasts easier. This week, we’ll take a look at Downcast.
It’s hard to tell who’s astro-turfing and who’s legitimately reviewing these things. But one thing seems to be pretty consistent. It all comes down to interface. I mean the technology’s pretty standard, right? All of these things get janky when you fill them up with shows. The load time slows to a crawl, and the app becomes intermediately unruly. That’s just how it is.
As you may already know I’m an Instacast guy, but the third generation is not only more expensive now, it seems to be buggier to boot.
At $1.99, Downcast is one of the better applications. Wired and Lifehacker sing its prasises, but again, it really comes down to interface and how it looks. Version 2.8.6 came out August 15, 2013, and in all honesty there don’t seem to be many minuses with this one.
The only real negative I’m seeing thus far with Downcast is its universal app. It’s difficult, maybe impossible, to sync subscriptions between your apple devices (pad and phone). This may not be a legitimate issue though. It could just be my lack of familiarity with the many bells and whistles.
Oh, and there’s the thing these apps do where they download episodes automatically and eat up storage when you’re connected to WI-fi. But that’s probably an easy fix; I’m just to lazy to find it.
There are A LOT of pluses: It’s relatively cheap. Obviously, it has gesture support and advanced playback options, but there are also social media share capabilities. And you can add podcasts to your subscription list either manually of through a search function. It’s a clean interface, and super easy to figure out.
Give it a try. So far, It’s working for me.
