Best Music Player & Downloader 1.5

We don’t make it our job to pick on apps that don’t deliver on their promise, but we can’t let them slide either. In our testing, we sometimes come across pieces of software that are almost unusable, and we make it our job to give users a fair warning.

One such app we’ve recently come across is Downloader for SoundCloud, a fairly popular track downloader and one of the highest recommendations in the iTunes App Store. While the paid version somewhat fits the bill, we can’t say the same about the free version.

Half the UIdoesn't even respond to touch

Developer Tim Trinkies is fair in recommending the official SoundCloud app for download the instant people launch his app. He also notes that Downloader for SoundCloud uses the SoundCloud API of and respects their policy, so only songs available for download can be downloaded.

But there’s no excuse for an interface so messed up you can hardly understand what you’re doing. Half of the buttons don’t work or simply don’t belong there, the Downloads area actually doesn’t list any downloaded tracks (for one reason or another), and it’s much too easy to accidentally skip ahead in a track because of the clutter. Granted, the UI taken as a whole doesn't look too bad.

Downloading isn't easy

Don’t think that its functions are any better. For one reason or another, there’s a big orange Download button at the bottom of each screen which apparently doesn’t work. Tracks can be searched for and played, but downloading requires a bit of skill and determination. Hint: you can only do so from the Browse tab.

Counter-intuitively, your downloaded tracks are not sent to the Downloads tab, but to the Listen tab. You can only download low-quality versions of any track, and if your phone enters sleep mode the playback stops. Talk about a sub-par experience! Even the lamest players in the App Store support background playback without charging customers a dime.

Even $1.99 is too much

Despite doing quite a few things in the free download, we felt very cheated by the marketing of the app, and that means the user will feel the same way. The paid version has no ads, offers high-quality downloads, lets you actually see album artwork (which you can do for free in almost any other SoundCloud app), offers background playback (jeesh), fast forward and rewind functions (no joke), music controls on your lock screen and unlimited playlists. Honestly, what’s the free app for anyway?