14 DAY TRIAL // No matter what Apple does, with each update released for the Podcasts iOS app, the company can’t seem to make anyone happy. Of the thousands of reviews left on iTunes, most (and by most we mean almost all) reviews for Podcasts are one-star rants about the atrocious functionality of the application.
It doesn’t take a trained eye to notice the huge discrepancy between the high-rating reviews and the low-score reviews posted by Podcasts users in the App Store over the years. What was initially supposed to be a hassle-free tool for podcast listening, a favorite activity among Apple aficionados, has turned out to be a nightmarish experience for most customers.
We’ve covered this topic before. But Apple recently greeted users with two updates, promising not only some great new features, but also a few fixes that would hopefully rid the app of all its annoying bugs.
From the official changelog for Podcasts 2.1.1: “This update also resolves playback issues after syncing with iTunes and improves stability while downloading podcasts. Stability has also been improved when upgrading and when interacting with certain podcast episodes.”
To no avail. Customers who downloaded and applied the update came back more furious than ever, ranting about the app’s overall flaws that have been perpetuated with each release, in addition to some newly-introduced issues. The most common complaint? Crashing, the very thing Apple was supposed to fix first and foremost. Here are some comments from end users:
“The content of the app is great; however, I can’t use it for more than ten minutes without it crashing.” – VanillaFarmer, May 18, 2014
“Crashes every few seconds, doesn’t download podcasts.” – willcuts93, May 18, 2014
“Please fix!!!” – Haley 09, May 19, 2014
“Despite the recent update, Podcasts remains a really, really bad app. - Does not sync played podcasts across devices correctly. I have given up and disabled podcasts on every device other than my iPhone. -Innaccurate [sic] unplayed count, especially if you listen offline [...] - Slow to scroll. The iPhone is meant to scroll smoothly - When downloading, app runs slow [...] - ‘All Podcasts’ has a lower episode count than ‘Unplayed Podcasts.’ It just shows how badly this app has been written and tested.
“Apple have been trying for over a year to get this right and it’s still just an awful app. Shame on Apple for getting to this version and its still being so bad. It’s been a painful journey since 1.0.0 and hjas not got any less frustrating. I have no objection to the design or functionality, but the execution is particularly bad. 1-star, since there is no option for 0-star.” – BadNightSleep, May 18, 2014
A user identified as Destroyer1900 on iTunes points out that uninstalling and reinstalling the Podcasts app fixes the crashes for him.
Note that these are not handpicked reviews, but merely a handful of the dozens of such impressions left by Podcasts users in the past 24 hours. As noted by one of the quoted reviewers, Apple really can’t seem to catch a break with all the flaws in Podcasts for iOS.
Disclaimer
This is a Personal Thoughts piece reflecting the author’s personal opinion on matters relating to Apple and / or the products associated with the Apple brand. This article should not be taken as the official stance of Softpedia on Apple-related matters.