General How to get podcasts to automatically download?

[Old Skool Gamer]

I've tried with the stock Podcasts app, and Downcast.

No joy, even though I have background app refresh turned on both both apps.

I have to load (either) app, and only then will the downloads successfully begin.

I've also changed the frequency of checking for new content to hourly, but this makes no difference.

I'm sure if I was to leave the apps suspended in the background, that would work. However, if that's the case then I'd have to leave EVERY app suspended in the background and that's just ridiculous. Especially with the lag/stutter issues with iOS 9.

Anyway, if anyone can help me out here I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance ...

By the way, Downcasts is a great alternative to the stock Podcasts app. Syncing between devices is SPOT ON and as of yesterday's update, it now supports PIP.

 

[GalFieri]

Are you connected to WiFi?

EDIT: Wait, you shouldn't be closing (most) apps anyway unless they're abusing background processes like Facebook or they're acting funky. In iOS, when you open and then kill an app by swiping up in the app switcher, you're killing their ability to run in the background at all. So if you open Downcast and then kill it, you're preventing it from downloading.

 

[Old Skool Gamer]

Are you connected to WiFi?

EDIT: Wait, you shouldn't be closing (most) apps anyway unless they're abusing background processes like Facebook or they're acting funky. In iOS, when you open and then kill an app by swiping up in the app switcher, you're killing their ability to run in the background at all. So if you open Downcast and then kill it, you're preventing it from downloading.

Thanks for the response.

So you're saying I should leave all of my apps open?

I could end up with an endless list of open apps, which could get cumbersome!

Or are you saying I should leave only select apps open?

Do you close apps, or just leave them all open?

Thanks again ...

 

[GalFieri]

Thanks for the response.

So you're saying I should leave all of my apps open?

I could end up with an endless list of open apps, which could get cumbersome!

Or are you saying I should leave only select apps open?

Do you close apps, or just leave them all open?

Thanks again ...

Think of the app switcher as more of a list of recently opened apps rather a list of "open" apps. All those apps in your app switcher are not likely open. iOS will remove the oldest, unused apps from the device's memory automatically (but not from your app switcher).

When you exit an app (simply by switching to another app or hitting the Home button), iOS doesn't keep the app running like a desktop operating system such as Windows does. It "freezes" the app in a sense but allows it to finishing performing certain tasks for a limited time (say you were downloading something and you leave the app: theoretically it would finish downloading even if the app isn't the active one you're looking at) or allows it to do specific things in the background, such as downloading podcasts. It keeps the app in RAM so that when you return to it, you can pick up immediately how you left it. However, it will kill that app if iOS or another app demands that memory (with exceptions).

When you do remove an app manually from the app switcher, you will effectively stop it from being able to do anything in the background at all until you relaunch the app. And technically, by forcing a recently used app (that's still in memory) to relaunch after you killed it, you're making your device's CPU work a bit harder and thus use more of your battery. If you do this on occasion, it won't matter, but it adds up if you do it all the time.

For the most part, I don't manually remove apps from my app switcher. I generally only do it when an app is misbehaving or crashing. Some apps are also known to abuse the background processes that iOS allows and thus drain the battery more than they should (the most infamous being Facebook's main app). You might want to kill those.

Though sometimes those "battery draining" apps allow you to turn off those things that drain battery. Check the location services settings for your apps carefully. Often times, setting them to "While using the app" might be better for your use case than having it set to "Always".

There are situations when killing apps might be beneficial, such as trying to run a RAM-heavy game on older devices that have less RAM. Sometimes iOS doesn't properly kill the other apps in memory when loading a heavy game so instead the game crashes. Things like that. But in most circumstances, you don't want to be killing apps.

 

[Old Skool Gamer]

Think of the app switcher as more of a list of recently opened apps rather a list of "open" apps. All those apps in your app switcher are not likely open. iOS will remove the oldest, unused apps from the device's memory automatically (but not from your app switcher).

When you exit an app (simply by switching to another app or hitting the Home button), iOS doesn't keep the app running like a desktop operating system such as Windows does. It "freezes" the app in a sense but allows it to finishing performing certain tasks for a limited time (say you were downloading something and you leave the app: theoretically it would finish downloading even if the app isn't the active one you're looking at) or allows it to do specific things in the background, such as downloading podcasts. It keeps the app in RAM so that when you return to it, you can pick up immediately how you left it. However, it will kill that app if iOS or another app demands that memory (with exceptions).

When you do remove an app manually from the app switcher, you will effectively stop it from being able to do anything in the background at all until you relaunch the app. And technically, by forcing a recently used app (that's still in memory) to relaunch after you killed it, you're making your device's CPU work a bit harder and thus use more of your battery. If you do this on occasion, it won't matter, but it adds up if you do it all the time.

For the most part, I don't manually remove apps from my app switcher. I generally only do it when an app is misbehaving or crashing. Some apps are also known to abuse the background processes that iOS allows and thus drain the battery more than they should (the most infamous being Facebook's main app). You might want to kill those.

Though sometimes those "battery draining" apps allow you to turn off those things that drain battery. Check the location services settings for your apps carefully. Often times, setting them to "While using the app" might be better for your use case than having it set to "Always".

There are situations when killing apps might be beneficial, such as trying to run a RAM-heavy game on older devices that have less RAM. Sometimes iOS doesn't properly kill the other apps in memory when loading a heavy game so instead the game crashes. Things like that. But in most circumstances, you don't want to be killing apps.

THANK YOU!!

That's an amazing, thorough and in depth explanation and I completely "get it" now!

I really appreciate it, mate.

A lot of iPad users (myself included) experience stutter throughout the operating system, so this may even help with that?

Having said that, installing the latest beta & THEN resetting all settings has worked wonders for my 9.7" iPad Pro.

Is there a limit to the amount of apps that iOS will allow to stay open in the background? I mean, does it start to close the "least used ones" automatically?

Also (roughly/on average) how many apps would you say you have in your App Switcher at any time?

And lastly, if you turn your device off do you think it would be a good idea THEN to manually close all apps? Just to start "afresh"?

Thanks again .

 

[C DM]

THANK YOU!!

That's an amazing, thorough and in depth explanation and I completely "get it" now!

I really appreciate it, mate.

A lot of iPad users (myself included) experience stutter throughout the operating system, so this may even help with that?

Having said that, installing the latest beta & THEN resetting all settings has worked wonders for my 9.7" iPad Pro.

Is there a limit to the amount of apps that iOS will allow to stay open in the background? I mean, does it start to close the "least used ones" automatically?

Also (roughly/on average) how many apps would you say you have in your App Switcher at any time?

And lastly, if you turn your device off do you think it would be a good idea THEN to manually close all apps? Just to start "afresh"?

Thanks again .

App states are stored in memory, and most aren't running and using resources. There really isn't a set number or anything like that, just as memory is needed for something else it gets freed up from those apps, although the app screenshot will remain in the recently used apps list. Restarting stops apps from running anyway so whatever is in the list is simply just recently used apps and not something that is running or is even in memory at that point.

 

[DaveOP]

I would highly suggest using Overcast by Marco Arment for this. It keeps all my podcasts in sync, and ready to go. The UI is the best I have seen, and his battery optimizations and sound improvements are excellent. It's free to boot

 

[GalFieri]

THANK YOU!!

That's an amazing, thorough and in depth explanation and I completely "get it" now!

I really appreciate it, mate.

A lot of iPad users (myself included) experience stutter throughout the operating system, so this may even help with that?

Having said that, installing the latest beta & THEN resetting all settings has worked wonders for my 9.7" iPad Pro.

Is there a limit to the amount of apps that iOS will allow to stay open in the background? I mean, does it start to close the "least used ones" automatically?

Also (roughly/on average) how many apps would you say you have in your App Switcher at any time?

And lastly, if you turn your device off do you think it would be a good idea THEN to manually close all apps? Just to start "afresh"?

Thanks again .

Yeah, C DM basically covered it. It's not by the amount of apps but by the amount of memory usage that each app uses. There's no way to really keep track of it. But I believe iOS keeps the most recently used stuff open as priority. So in your app switcher if you had (from left to right) Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Maps, and Amazon open, if something needed more RAM (whether it's iOS, a background process, or whatever app you're currently using or you open up), it would close Twitter first, then Facebook, etc. But they would not disappear from your app switcher.

And considering that I never really clear my app switcher at all other than the exceptions that I mentioned before, I probably have nearly every app I've ever launched on my phone there, so at least 100.

And like C DM said, when your phone is restarted, NONE of your apps will be in memory, but they will be in your app switcher. So it really is just more of a "recently opened" list of apps more than anything.