Instacast - Podcast App for iOS

Executive summary: I went for Instacast and so far I’m happy about it.

In its grandiose lack of thinking, Apple has decided that when syncing an iOS with iCloud it no longer copies podcast episodes from your iTunes library when you sync up.

They sort of know that a podcast is refreshed regularly so they added a get new episode button that brings you to the iTunes Store on your iOS. You then have to manually remember which episode you have read and which one you want to listen to. On top of that the default is to stream them. To download, you have to press the arrow button for long enough but not too long.

In short, horrible experience!

So I looked around to find an actual podcast application that would fill these needs:

• maintain my list of podcast subscriptions
• import my old list from the iOS Music app
• share my subscriptions via iCloud and allow for export
• download new episodes when available automatically
• can be played in the background

Two seem to be considered better than the others, Instacast and Downcast which are $2 each. I went for Instacast as it is considered the more Apple-ish one in design - I mean the good one. Downcast is more feature rich from what I have read.

So far I like it, most podcasts could be imported, though one by one by clicking the Music icon and selecting the podcasts. 3 or 4 had some URL import error but I could easily find them from their search engine. Podcasts made by yours truly are also listed. That’s a decent clue of a deep catalog.

All in all, don’t hesitate to switch, you won’t regret it. The only sad part is that I now need two different apps to listen to my music, audiobooks and podcasts.