It doesn't crash but don't expect to be able to do fancy things such as start a live show from the beginning if you jump in late, or jump ahead or back, or pause and resume at all. With live shows it's basically realtime or nothing. But it gets better when you watch archived shows...they put a handy timeline of topics that you can tap and nothing at all will happen. It absolutely looks like it wants to load the video and jump to that point but rest assured, it won't. Then when you decide to manually load the whole show and jump to that point you'll realize that the goddamn timestamp isn't even accurate and they're not even talking about the topic you were looking for and you'll just give up and do something else.
1) For iOS, the app will still play audio if the screen is off. YouTube (basic) doesn't even have this functionality.
2) Archives are easy to search by guest/date. There are also really concise rundowns for every episode of TACS. You can skip to the part you're interested in.
3) There is offline listening.
4) You can favorite episodes and save them for later.
The Bad:
1) Video playback can be choppy.
2) You can't have a "save point." Meaning, you can't listen to the show, pause it, tinker with another app and resume where you left off.
3) Rat was a total dick when it came to having episodes up for download. This problem seems to be resolving itself.
Mine was frustrating as fuck. I only ever used it for audio, but it would never hold the show if I navigated away for more than 10 minutes. Mine crashed all the time, then I'd have to scroll through the timeline and try to find the spot again, which is a joy when you're driving. It also doesn't have a skip ahead 15 secs or behind feature, nor any of the features that make my regular iPhone podcast apps enjoyable. It's a fucking piece of shit.
When I had a subscription I used the Android app on a Galaxy Note 5. You have to tap on a banner on the first screen to view the show when it's live, but about 1/3 of the time it wouldn't show that banner. I'd have to log out, then log back in, just to watch the live show. Downloads were also pretty fucked up. The app would always display audio and video download for each show, but those options wouldn't work consistently. There would be some Gavin shows that could only download audio, some just video, and some both options.
But the biggest issue is that background playback would fuck up the position of the audio I downloaded. I would load the downloaded audio, hit play, and then put my phone to sleep or use another app. The audio would play but when I went back to the TACS app, the audio would lose my place and jump back to the spot it was at before I put it in the background. So I either had to listen to the entire downloaded show in the background, or don't listen in the background at all.
13 comments
13 i_dont_give_a_care 2016-02-07
When you watch it live, don't be alarmed when you have to press 7 different play buttons. That's just how it works.
7 NotRye 2016-02-07
It doesn't crash, it just lags and most features don't work.
6 illydelph 2016-02-07
It doesn't crash but don't expect to be able to do fancy things such as start a live show from the beginning if you jump in late, or jump ahead or back, or pause and resume at all. With live shows it's basically realtime or nothing. But it gets better when you watch archived shows...they put a handy timeline of topics that you can tap and nothing at all will happen. It absolutely looks like it wants to load the video and jump to that point but rest assured, it won't. Then when you decide to manually load the whole show and jump to that point you'll realize that the goddamn timestamp isn't even accurate and they're not even talking about the topic you were looking for and you'll just give up and do something else.
3 arbgeist 2016-02-07
It constantly tells me the video is unavailable, but I can watch it on Chrome without any issues. Most of the functions don't do anything.
2 Patmcpsu 2016-02-07
This happened to me. It was fixed by uninstalling and re-downloading.
3 John_Gulbunny 2016-02-07
You'd be better off using the website honestly
3 _TheConsumer_ 2016-02-07
The Good:
1) For iOS, the app will still play audio if the screen is off. YouTube (basic) doesn't even have this functionality.
2) Archives are easy to search by guest/date. There are also really concise rundowns for every episode of TACS. You can skip to the part you're interested in.
3) There is offline listening.
4) You can favorite episodes and save them for later.
The Bad:
1) Video playback can be choppy.
2) You can't have a "save point." Meaning, you can't listen to the show, pause it, tinker with another app and resume where you left off.
3) Rat was a total dick when it came to having episodes up for download. This problem seems to be resolving itself.
3 thebudgetgamer 2016-02-07
App, more like crap. Am I right or left.
2 Det_Sipowicz 2016-02-07
Mine was frustrating as fuck. I only ever used it for audio, but it would never hold the show if I navigated away for more than 10 minutes. Mine crashed all the time, then I'd have to scroll through the timeline and try to find the spot again, which is a joy when you're driving. It also doesn't have a skip ahead 15 secs or behind feature, nor any of the features that make my regular iPhone podcast apps enjoyable. It's a fucking piece of shit.
2 [deleted] 2016-02-07
When I had a subscription I used the Android app on a Galaxy Note 5. You have to tap on a banner on the first screen to view the show when it's live, but about 1/3 of the time it wouldn't show that banner. I'd have to log out, then log back in, just to watch the live show. Downloads were also pretty fucked up. The app would always display audio and video download for each show, but those options wouldn't work consistently. There would be some Gavin shows that could only download audio, some just video, and some both options.
But the biggest issue is that background playback would fuck up the position of the audio I downloaded. I would load the downloaded audio, hit play, and then put my phone to sleep or use another app. The audio would play but when I went back to the TACS app, the audio would lose my place and jump back to the spot it was at before I put it in the background. So I either had to listen to the entire downloaded show in the background, or don't listen in the background at all.
1 clucker220 2016-02-07
Can you see how many downloads / users / reviews the app has?
5 brickfacecupboard 2016-02-07
Several million behind Scorch's PFG-TV app.
1 [deleted] 2016-02-07
5k downloads on Android, I'm not sure if it's possible to tell on iTunes.