Downpour
Downpour support
Last updated 25 September 2026.
Downpour plays rain for sleep. The rain is not a recording: it is built live on your iPhone, drop by drop, for as long as it plays, so it never repeats and there is no loop to notice in the night.
Choosing a surface
Most of what you hear in rain is what it lands on, so Downpour offers five surfaces, each modelled separately.
- Window: rain on glass heard from a dry room. Bright, glassy ticks over a thin sheet.
- Tent: a taut nylon fly over an enclosed space. Each drop is a damped thud with real low end.
- Tin roof: corrugated metal. The brightest of the five, and the only one that rings.
- Car roof: a sealed cabin. The most low end, with a thin tick of glass on top.
- Umbrella: the same nylon as the tent with the opposite sound. Almost no body, as if you were standing outside.
You can change surface while the rain is playing. The new rain takes over without a click or a gap.
Slower and Lower
Slower is lighter rain easing off: fewer drops, and the gusts drift more slowly. It is a different rain, not the same one played at a slower speed.
Lower takes the brightness off the top and brings the body up, so nothing sharp is left to catch your attention. Of the two, it is the better one for sleep.
Use either, both or neither. Five surfaces and four combinations make twenty different rains.
The sleep timer (with the unlock)
Choose 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours, or Off to play until you stop it. While the rain plays, the top of the screen shows how long is left. When the time is up the rain fades out gradually instead of stopping dead, so the ending does not wake you. You can change the timer while the rain is playing and it starts counting again from that moment.
Playing with the screen locked
Downpour is built to keep playing with the screen locked and with the ring and silent switch set to silent. It does not hold the screen on: your phone locks and goes dark as usual, and the rain carries on. If a call or an alarm interrupts it, the screen says Paused, and the rain comes back when iOS allows it, or with one press of Play. It also plays over AirPlay and Bluetooth speakers. If the rain stops when your phone locks, please tell us which iPhone and iOS version you have, using the address below.
Trying it, and the unlock
Before you buy, you can listen to the Tent for ten minutes at a time, as often as you like. At ten minutes the rain fades out. That is long enough to hear that it never loops, which is the point of the app.
A one-time unlock opens everything: all five surfaces, Slower and Lower, the sleep timer, and rain that plays until you stop it. Anything that needs the unlock is marked UNLOCK. Tapping it does not charge you or open a payment sheet: it shows the offer, with the price from the App Store for your country, and only the button there starts a purchase. It is one payment, not a subscription, so there is nothing to renew and nothing to cancel.
Restoring a purchase
On a new phone or after a reinstall, tap Restore a previous purchase at the bottom of the screen. If it finds nothing, check that you are signed in with the same Apple Account that bought it, because that is the cause almost every time.
Refunds
Apple is the merchant of record, so refunds are requested from Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com. We cannot issue one.
No signal needed
Nothing is streamed or downloaded while you listen, so Downpour works in airplane mode, in a tent, or anywhere else without a connection.
Your data
There is no account, no sign in and no server. Downpour asks for no permissions. It keeps three small notes on your phone: whether the unlock was bought, the settings you last used (surface, treatments, volume and timer, so it opens the way you left it), and when it last asked for a rating. None of them leaves the phone, and deleting the app deletes them.
Contact
One person reads that, so a reply may take a few days.
Downpour is published by Jeffrey L Carrier.