Offline Use

May apps, in particular multimedia apps have so called "offline mode". Often available in the premium subscription plans. Like YouTube, Spotify but also navigation apps, including Google Maps and my favorite - FATMAP.

I use these offline options very often - either during off-grid trail hikes or for watching movies / listening to books and podcasts during flights. Unfortunately these offline modes are very often broken. They need online Internet to start doing something. A couple of weeks ago I tried playing a movie I purchased and downloaded for offline viewing and it would not work. As the plane was taxing towards takeoff, I managed to turn back my phone, turn the mobile WiFi hotspot on and let the tablet communicate with the Internet to kick off the playback of the downloaded movie.

Similar thing happened to me recently with Spotify - it refused to play a downloaded podcast episode due to the lack of Internet access. The green wheel kept spinning forever. And this happens regardless of the underlying operating system (Android / iOS) and regardless of the app. I wonder if there is some commonality in how the software is written, as it seems to be more of a bug than a feature.

YouTube makes it clear the downloads will continue to work as long as the app has Internet access every x days (don't remember how many but I think x=30). The other apps do not say anything like that but still fail to access the locally stored content when offline. The offline behavior is far from robust and reliable and it is a good practice to check if it works before going truly offline. E.G., by simply disabling WiFi and Cellular and trying if the thing works.  It is somehow disappointing we need to care about this at all. It sounds like a simple feature: keep my unlistened podcasts downloaded for offline listening. This is close to how Spotify calls it. And sometimes it works.