What is a podcast?
A podcast is a digital medium that consists of an episodic series of audio or video files that are distributed through the Internet. These podcasts are available online, and are usually free for you to capture, consume, and delete. To capture and listen to these podcasts, you can either listen to these episodes on your mobile device, tablet, or online. I prefer to download the podcasts to my phone, and then listen to the episodes as I have time. I drive a lot. I download the podcasts that I want to my phone using my wifi at home/work. I then plug it in to my car stereo and listen on my commute.
How do I download and listen to a podcast?
I use Pocket Casts by Shifty Jelly as my primary podcasting app. It is a pay app ($3.99) for Android and iOs. I love Pocket Casts because they constantly update and improve the app. There is a syncing function that will save your apps and sync them across devices if you change over from one device to another. The interface for Pocket Casts makes it easy to find new podcasts that you’d like to listen to. You can find, save, and view audio or video podcasts. You can also set up the app to stream episodes, download the episodes to your device ahead of time, back up podcasts, and delete when you’re finished. For those of you that like to micromanage…there are tons of options.
The only thing that I wish Pocket Casts would add is a sync feature to a Chrome extension. Pocket Casts will work with your Chromecast (this rocks!!!), but I wish I could listen to a podcast on the way to work, and then finish up on Chrome when I get to my office. Right now I need to plug my phone into desktop speakers.
Another good option is TuneIn Radio. I’ve been using TuneIn to listen to sports radio from Philly on my phone for years. TuneIn is free (Android – iOs), but they offer a pro version for $3.99. TuneIn just launched the ability to locate, save, and listen to audio podcasts on the apps, and the website. This is something to watch…but I’ll stick with Pocket Casts for now.
What should I listen to?
I have a couple of podcasts that I listen to every week.
What podcasts do you watch/listen to?
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