The app’s design is so attractive, however, that it can be easy to overlook its flaws (which are few, but important). Pocket Casts is a great choice for those new to the world of podcasts, as it boasts an extremely attractive, intuitive interface that simplifies the process of finding, adding, and organizing your podcast subscriptions. If you’re on the fence about paying for an app that performs the same function as a free, Apple-built app, rest assured that Downcast offers far more functionality than iTunes or Podcasts, and is arguably underpriced for its features. Downcast also stands out from the pack for the ease with which it implements features such as viewing show notes without switching apps finding, importing, exporting, or adding podcasts playback control via headphones and marking individual episodes of podcasts for streaming or downloading without subscribing to them. Once they do that, Downcast’s only real flaw will be its lack of a comprehensive tutorial for new users, although information is available on the website. The current version of Downcast can take a long time to open (especially if you have a lot of podcasts), but the developer is reportedly working on fixing this issue. Thus, for no additional cost, you can start listening to a podcast on your iPhone and finish it on your iPad without a hitch (provided you’ve turned on syncing in the settings app). Instead, it's the fact that it is a universal app with iCloud syncing (of subscriptions, episodes, playlists, and settings) that works surprisingly well.
Downcast’s most impressive attribute, however, can’t be found in the settings menu. Once you’ve gotten the basics down (e.g., autodownloading on or off, mark new episodes for streaming or downloading, etc.) you can dive into the more advanced options, such as importing or exporting feeds, sending media files to Dropbox, marking podcasts for “priority play,” playlists, and podcast-specific settings.
While it’s true that Downcast can appear intimidating at first blush, the key to loving it is to focus on the important features (i.e., the features you foresee using regularly) and setting aside the other features for tackling at a later date. Tell us what solution do you use to manage your podcast listening needs? Sound off in the comment section below.Downcast’s impressive feature list and customizability has made it a favorite among podcast aficionados and, conversely, likely scared off some newbies.
In fact, we’ve created two direct subscribe links for Instacast users: one for the Mac and one for iOS.
You probably won’t find the full version for less than $9.99 any time soon, so I think this is a good deal.Īs we mentioned on our how to subscribe to Let’s Talk iOS post, it’s extremely easy to subscribe to our podcast using Instacast.
While I personally use Shifty Jelly’s Pocket Casts for my iOS listening needs, Instacast is probably the best solution for the average podcast listener who wants to keep their podcasts synced between desktop and portable devices. That means that you can now run Instacast without requiring your Mac to switch to the discreet GPU, and therefore save on battery life.
According to its description on the Mac App Store, this deal is slated to end in one day, so you’ll want to be quick if interested.įor users with discreet GPUs, you’ll be happy to know that Instacast was recently updated to no depend on the GPU. Instacast is a great way to keep up with all of the episodes of Let’s Talk iOS. That means that it’s extremely easy to listen on your Mac, and pick up where you left off on your iPhone, and vice versa. The nice thing about Instacast is that you can use it to sync your playlists with its iOS counterpart.
Instacast, the podcasting client from Vemedio is going for $9.99 on the Mac App Store for a limited time. One of the better podcast clients for the Mac is available for 50% off its retail price.