Robb. Knight.

Instacast for iPhone has been updated to version 2.0 today and includes a slew of new features including some that are part of an in-app purchase known as Instacast Pro. From the Vemedio blog:

With Instacast Pro you can add playlists and smart playlists, manage bookmarks, configure automatic behaviors on a podcast-by-podcast basis and receive push notifications when new episodes are available. With smart playlists you can choose between Unplayed, Favorites, Downloaded, Partially Downloaded, Recently Played, and Most Recent episodes. You can change the sorting of a smart playlist and opt-in for sorting episodes based on the podcast order. With playlists you can add or remove arbitrary episodes and change their order.

And the cost of upgrading to the pro features? £1.49. Unfortunately, due to the lack of any kind of update model in the App Store, this is the only way for developers to continue to make money from current customers, without making them buy a completely new app. And even though I probably won’t use the features of pro, I bought it anyway. Why? Because I use Instacast every day and I paid a few quid for the app over a year ago. And I could continue to use it for another year without ever paying another penny. Perhaps we’re all part of a group where we actually want to give people money for things we like, because I’m sure before long, the app store reviews will be flooded with idiotic users complaining about being “ripped off”. I don’t feel ripped off in the slightest, I feel like I’ve been given an opportunity to make sure Instacast stays around for a long time.