Downcast App Reviews

The most recent version has been compltely unusable for me. Crashes without fail 15-30 seconds after opening every time. Have re-installed and still face the same problem. I understand that versions might be buggy, but I submitted support ticket over 3 weeks ago and have not received any replies. Not acceptable for a paid app. The support at Downcast used to be exceptional - sadly it seems like those days are gone. Might actually have to switch to Apple podcasts on my Mac, which is unfortunate, but at least I can open that without it crashing.

Crashes repeatedly. A huge disappointment considering how well the IOS version works.

I first downloaded this in fall 2015 but it repeatedly crashed on loading so I sought and received a refund from the App Store. As several new versions have since been released, I purchased again today. Seems to be stable. Hoping it will play nice with the device I use most of the time, my iPhone.

I deeply regret having bought this app today! It crashes every couple of minutes (I have El Capitain), syncing between Ipad version (iOS 9.1) and Mac version does not work at all; after spending some time subscibing to my podcasts I have found all subscriptions gone and I have to start over. Terribly dissappointed.

Downloaded this and the iPhone app because of the sync option. Unfortunately, sync not only doesnt work, it doesnt download the podcasts that I set to download. Huge waste of time and money.

Needs a refresh. Interface and icon look dated, epecially bad in Yosemite. Maybe they will get around to it in 10.11?

Finally, a podcast app that lets me control everything that I’ve wanted to do. podcast selection, stream or save, the ability to choose where i want to store them, variable playback speed, skip an interval at begining and end of the casts to bypass intro and exit babble, ability to easily replay favorites that were streamed, saving of favorites for non network listening… basically everything Apple didn’t do right corrected and enhanced. a very well written app on both iOS and OS X, with sharing of settings broken down for individual selection, importing and exporting of content and podcasts, playlists and such. Very good help documentation which is rarely needed but to the point and useful. I wish that I could write an app this well. The author should be proud of such a clean, useful, and troublefree app.

This is a good program, I use the iOS version as well. I would like this to have a mini player though, could vote it 5 stars then.

this app is awsome! simple, clean, low resource use, and the best part? it’s not itunes.. I went looking for a podcast app to use because I was tired of Itunes sucking up my poor mac minis resources. I got Downcast and never looked back.

I have a lot of podcast and am very happy with this app. It needed more stability with earlier versions but has since gotten better with updates. Very good buy

If your primary reason for using Downcast is it’s purported ability to sync between OS X and iOS, then you may be disappointed. Downcast will sync your podcast subscriptions and maybe some other nice things like what you’ve listened to and where you are in an episode. However, Downcast will not sync the media files themselves. This means the actually media file for an episode must be pulled down from the internet on each device. This can be a problem for podcasts like This American Life where only the current week’s episode is free. So for example, if you have a bunch of no-longer-free TAL episodes on your laptop that are not on your iPhone they will not sync to your iPhone using this software. In this example, it would be important for both the laptop and the iPhone to remain on and running Downcast in order to properly capture and download all the episodes of TAL as they go through their free week. For me this was a game changer to what I thought would be a very nice OS X application that would let me download and track and create playlists on my laptop that would then sync to my phone for listening. It only sort-of works for this in my case.

I want to like this app, because I have been an avid user of the iOS version for years, however it is so slow it is virtually unusable. I have a recent MacBook Pro with tons of RAM using an 802.11AC network with a 50up/10down ISP, so I know it’s not my current configuration that’s to blame. Perhaps iCloud and iDrive and the culprits. Either way the performance of this application under OS X 10.11 is embarrassing. Most actions result in a spinning beach ball and a 5-15 second wait. Will update my review when the situation changes.

I just updated to this version, and I am still finding Downcast having a difficult time on El Capitan. I can launch it and play one podcast, but I cannot then listen to another. The application hangs, and I have to ultimately shut down my computer. I really like Downcast for being able to sync via iCloud with my phone. But I can’t use it on my Mac until i see there is a resolution to this resource issue.

App crashes whenever I try to select new episodes to download.

The app’s crashed three times since I upgraded to OS 10.11 and when it doesn’t crash the response time for downloading and deleting selected podcasts is worse than if the app were in alpha. Needs to be completely redone before I reinstall it.

Crashes upon launching since the latest version. The worst part is that I contacted support a week ago and no response. Terrible support and I will now look for a replacement application.

Crash, Hanging up, maxing out my CPU. And i have contacted Downcast through email and NOTHING not even a reply. And i paid MONEY FOR THIS LOL

This app is a total piece of crap and it wasn’t that great under Mavericks either. Unfortunately, there aren’t any good Mac podcast apps. I want Instacast back!

Been using it for a couple of years - has been overall very good with OS X & iOS versions. It’s always been buggy software, but unfortunately, it it became literally unusable on OS X (El Capitan 10.11.1) - just crashes within seconds of being opened. What’s really concerning is it’s been over two weeks since last update and there’s been zero status update from the developer, and users are dead in the water on podcasts. They’ve really let me down. However, uninstalling the app (being careful to not delete my podcast episodes folder), and then reinstalling it, seems to have helped for the time being.

Crashes constantly, total waste of money.