Apple’s Podcasts app is causing problems for a number of users today, crashing and hanging for many, rendering the app unusable. The issue appears to have reared its ugly head during late morning/early afternoon.
Numerous users on Twitter have reported the problem with the iOS app, and we here at MacTrast experienced similar issues when we tried to use the app. Soon after starting Podcasts, we noticed a message that the app was downloading a podcast, then it immediately crashed, dumping us back out to the home screen, on both an iPhone 5s and an iPad Air.
Crashes appear to occur as soon as the Podcast app attempts to access data on Apple’s servers. No outages are reported on Apple’s Status page.
Some MacRumors readers report they have had success by turning on Airplane Mode and then opening the Podcasts app. The app has stayed open for some users after Airplane Mode is turned off, allowing it to function normally.
We can report that following the above procedure here at MacTrast did allow us to listen to already downloaded podcasts, and even download new podcasts after enabling Wi-Fi once more. However, exiting the Podcasts app, and restarting it while not in Airplane mode once again resulted in a crash of the app.
We’ll keep you posted.
UPDATE – It appears that Apple fixed whatever was wrong sometime late Thursday/Early Friday. All reports, and our personal tests, show that everything is back to normal.
