Downpour.com

The customer service here is outstanding. My original review is below but I have to say that the customer service has really blown me away. I am now a subscriber and stand by the company. The app gives me lots of issues and force closes a lot but the service and support are great. I would rate the app a 3 until they can fix it but customer service a 5. So I’ll rate in the middle of a 4 stars The service isn’t bad but misleading. I assumed which is a fault of mine to think it was just like audible. I instantly purchased 6 credits and a membership to find out that the books that I wanted are more than 1 credit. I’m on the fence of just going back to audible because I am leaving such a large library. Also some of the books listed here that I’m interested in aren’t available in digital form. So I want to not be so quick to pull the trigger as I have because you’ll lose money as I have.

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While I like that the new app updates my library almost immediately. Since I'm not a subscriber I can't purchase books through the app as it only seems to want to use credits. I'm not fond of the new interface, you've shrunken my sorting options to title and most recent and replaced everything with a Hyde icon. Really it doesn't need to be flashy it just data and columns I just be able to list it in text and sort by author/title or author/series, date purchased, whatever. I'm also not liking the management. I don't like the idea of having to mark something as finished. Really what's the point in that. I want to be able to delete a book whether it's finished or not. I'm not sure that it is actually deleting the book locally even when I mark it as finished. Downloading seems to be funkier and less reliable with the new app. It says that it's downloaded things completely but there are way too many times I've received an invalid file error, and had to re download the next 10 tracks. It's really annoying when this happens and I'm driving. Also the addition of DRM books is disturbing. I would prefer it that you keep downpour DRM free.

Prior to the last update, I would have given this app a 3 star rating because you couldn’t purchase or rent any books from it...you still had to do those things through the website and then log into your app and refresh it to see the purchase/rentals on your bookshelf. Now that that functionality is available in the app, I’m upping my rating to 4 stars. However, I will not give it 5 stars until there is a compatible iWatch app. I want to be able to seamlessly transition from my phone to my watch without losing my place in my book...but right now I have to download the audio files to my music app in order to listen to my books while exercising...and then remember where I left off so that I can adjust the playback setting on the Downpour app when I get back to my phone. I will gladly update my review to 5 stars once an iWatch app has been developed.

I had updated my original review with negative comments based on one glaring bug, but it’s time to retract that. The developer has responded and I’m satisfied. What follows is the balance of my original review, which gives my overall impression of the product. ....For some reason I always find myself rooting for the underdog. In the audiobook world, Downpour comes in second behind Audible. But for me, that's all the more reason to support it: I get nervous when one company has such a dominating presence in the marketplace. Downpour has most of the standard features: access to your online library, a monthly subscription, the ability to buy additional credits, the ability to speed up playback, to sleep after a specified time, and to apply bookmarks. As others have noted, one advantage of Downpour is that the audiobooks are DRM-free. It gives a little extra peace of mind - if the service goes away, you won't lose your investment. In the latest version, the app has added in-app purchasing, which could make expanding your library easier than ever; but my use of this is too limited at present to comment on it.

So I wanted to update my review and give some bonus points to their support for getting back to me. They have now put in a feature request for audio equalizing books whose volume is all over the place and they are checking the original audio to make sure there wasn’t a problem. They also gave me credits for the books I bought that are having the issues so major kudos to their support. ———original review——— This app doesn’t even have basic features. If you purchase a book series there is no way to put them in one playlist, no repeat or loop, and no spoken word enhancement or equalization. I purchased my first series of books that have to be played in the downpour app and I’m so disappointed. The book frequently goes from very quiet to very loud. There is no happy medium. I can’t even listen in my car because I have to keep one hand on the volume control to keep adjusting it. I opened a ticket with support as I have no idea if it is an App problem or book option or if there was some solution. The answer I got was that there was no equalizer feature and I have no other options due to copyright restrictions. They didn’t even offer to put in a feature request.