Martin Hering on the state of syncing for Instacast:
> I thought about this problem very hard for a long time. I would like to have a reliable syncing solution that works instantanously, is fast and doesn’t suffer from erratic glitches. I’ve come to the conclusion that these goals are not achievable with iCloud at the moment and may not be for the forseeable future.
Based on my [experimentation with various podcast apps](https://johnkiv.us/2012/07/20/making-the-best-of-the-current-ios-podcast-player-options/), I agree with Mr. Hering. It seems that iCloud is just not the right solution for this type of podcast syncing. Mr. Hering goes on to discuss alternatives to using iCloud. My favorite is:
> The other alternative would be to find another server provider specialized in data syncing across devices. The advantage would be that I don’t need to maintain server reliability and security and that I don’t need to reinvent the syncing wheel. The disadvantage of course is to give up control. Luckily I found a service provider that looks very promising. First tests have shown that their sync works amazingly well and is very fast and quite reliable. I am talking about Simperium, the guys behind Simplenode. They took their syncing experience and created an awesome service. I am very impressed and at the same time very disappointed by Apple that they are not able to achieve what a small team of four guys did. The service is powered by Google App Engine, so the servers are really reliable and the transfer speed is awesome.
I have used [SimpleNote](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fsimplenote%252Fid289429962%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30) for quite awhile and their syncing has proven to be extremely reliable. I think this would be a great option for [Instacast](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=httpMonday061061itunes.apple.com061us061app061instacast061id420368235061mt?8?o?4PMartnerId?30). I would be willing to pay a subscription fee for that.