How to Use Dropbox on Your iPhone to Listen to Podcasts
If you’re not into iTunes to help transfer a podcast from your computer to your iPhone, then you should think about moving that file up to the cloud where your phone can find it.
My wife recently invited me to listen to an hour-long podcast that she was interested in discussing with me. “An hour?!” I wondered. Where would I fit that into my busy day? The obvious choice eventually percolated to the top of my narrowly focused brain…
Listen on my way to work on my iPhone!
Whether I was driving or commuting on the train, I could consume this content on the go.
Great!
Now the question was how…
Stream It
The podcast lived on a website… so I could simply stream it directly from there. Sure… that’s the easiest way. But when I travelled through dead zones in cell coverage, I’d be stuck.
iTunes is Always There for You…
The podcast creator, having already thought through this limitation, invited its Apple listeners to download the audio file onto their respective Macs. From your computer, you can move the audio file to iTunes and then manually sync your iPhone/iPad with iTunes to move the file over.
(And no… this particular podcast can’t be automatically accessed and downloaded online from iTunes. That, of course, would make it easier…)
The whole ‘transfer in… then transfer out’ process with iTunes on your computer seemed like an unnecessary amount of work, since I was intending to listen to this podcast only once.
Look to the Cloud
Hmmm…
It all felt so yesterday. I immediately thought that a cloud solution should be able to better handle the challenge….
And of course it can!
Here’s how I did it…
Four Steps to Easy Podcast Prep
Dropbox is my personal cloud-sharing solution.
(There are many others out there.)
Step 1
So I downloaded the audio file from the website to my iMac and then simply dragged the file to a new folder I created in Dropbox.
Step 2
Then, I picked up my iPhone and opened up the Dropbox app…
(Can you believe it… the audio file was magically right there!)
I was already at the finish line in two steps, but the file would only stream when I tapped on it. I wanted to listen locally…
Step 3
There’s a ‘Make Available Offline’ option in the Dropbox app.
I tapped that, and Bam!
Now, I was ready to listen, regardless of cell coverage…
Step 4
I tapped the ‘downloaded’ file, which I could also access in the ‘Offline’ section, and a Dropbox audio player opened up.
My podcast began to play.
Sweet.
Happy Listening
Again, there’s nothing wrong with moving your podcasts into the iTunes ecosystem. I was just too lazy to take the time to get it there.
Dropping the file into Dropbox was so much quicker.
And that’s more time you can put towards your podcast listening!
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