Published by Steve Litchfield at 9:05 UTC, January 10th 2017

BringCast's developers have been quiet in terms of updates for the last couple of months (though vocal on our podcast !), but that's because they've been coding like mad in the background. And now, with good timing seeing as I'm currently evaluating all the UWP podcatchers, we have a major update to the BringCast production version. See below for a full changelog and some example screens.

Here's the changelog (for v4.0.18.0) since the last time we featured BringCast here, in a review:

Fix invalid download state shown on feed items for items automatically downloaded via background scanning

Single process feed fresh. This should make feed refreshing more reliable as there is now a single codepath

During feed refreshing, Toasts will now be shown always for feeds configured to show them no matter if app is in background or foreground

OneDrive Import / Export re-implemented using most recent OneDrive SDK: should make database import/export work more reliably and fix import/export being utterly broken for some users

OPML import / Export fixed

Improved reliability of store licensing;

new in-app purchases to reward the developers :-)

Small performance enhancement for initial app launch

If there is no network and you click the manual Sync button, a message will be shown explaining this fact

The situation in the Microsoft Store is a little confusing. There's a 'public beta' which we last linked to, but the one you need now is this one, the catch-all entry for the official production version of BringCast. Except that the Store description has yet to catch up with reality - if you visit this URL on your Windows 10 Mobile-running phone then you should get v4.0.18.0, i.e. the very latest UWP app, never mind what the Store says as I write this 'flow' story!

Here's v4.0.18.0 in action:

Along with the new public UWP and masses of fixes and improvements, comes a new way of paying for/supporting BringCast, effectively £2.29 per three month period. This enables premium features like background scanning and downloading, while enabling 'free' users to still have most of the run of the app.

The settings are comprehensive and include theme support - this is 'Racing Green' (just for a change!)

The registering of downloaded podcasts is now more reliable, letting you see at a glance what's ready to be played offline (i.e. from local storage rather than via streaming); (right) OPML import and export is also now more reliable.

BringCast has perhaps come of age with this release. The most controversial bit is the switch to a 'service' model, but 72p a month is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things and don't we all want to support dedicated Windows developers in 2017? Grab this podcatcher for free here in the Store and then head into the 'Get Pro Features' section on the bottom toolbar.