WOL Worship

How To Download Files Directly to Your Phone May 21, 2010

I’ve heard a couple of people have had trouble downloading to your phones… some phone operating systems are better than others at it but there are workarounds. Obviously, as with all mobile devices, the best (and fastest) way is to download and store them on the computer then transfer them to your device’s memory card via USB, but with a few programs and geek tweaks it is possible to download directly or at least over wi-fi.

iPhone – iPod Touch & iPad

The best solution by far for the apple devices is Goodreader. There are 3 flavors: Goodreader Lite, Goodreader, and Goodreader iPad. This program is the BOMB! You can download from the web or via wi-fi connection directly to your device. You can also connect to mobile me accounts, email accounts, and Web-DAV servers. Without getting too geeky that means it’s REALLY THE BOMB! The free version is cool but for larger PDFs I recommend the reasonably priced at 99 cents app. They can all be found at the Apps Store.

Android 1.x – 2.0 Devices:

This mobile OS requires a 2 program solution so far as I can tell. The best downloader is a free alternative web browser named Steel. It give you the option to open or save downloads. Steel automatically places the files directly into a download folder on your phone’s memory card. This free app is great!

On 2.0 devices the built-in Gallery program will find the movies and pictures, but the built-in Music program isn’t quite as good. This is where the 2nd free program, Meridian, comes in.  When you download the music file with Steel you will be asked to save or open it. You can then open the file with Meridian, which has ugly icons, but works great for music and even plays movies better than Gallery.

Android 2.1. (and above) Devices

If you’re fortunate enough to have a Droid, Incredible, or other 2.1 or higher Android device, Google has fixed the issues in the player and browser so you can just download and the mp3 will instantly appear in the Music program with album art and all!

Blackberry

By far the hardest to download directly to a device is with the Blackberry. The OS designers have felt the need to limit the wireless file download size. I’ve scoured and googled to little avail, but did find a couple of cool programs. The most promising program is BeFTP. I wouldn’t buy the program without testing it first. I don’t own a Blackberry device so I can’t help you there. The program website is www.beiks.com/rim/BeFTP.asp While our website is HTTP not FTP, it looks like you can browse HTTP sites from the photos on their site.

The other cool program is called WiFi File Transfer for Blackberry. I found this on crackberry.com. You can use your computer to wireless download to your blackberry via a WiFi network. Obviously if you’re not using a wireless router in your home this won’t work, but it eliminates the extras steps of plugging in the USB cable and using the Desktop Media Manager.

If you find or know of any programs please pass the info on. I will keep poking around until I find a complete solution for Blackberry (besides getting a better phone) LOL

Hope this helps a little – tq

*** UPDATE ***

Oooh… just found a Blackberry program that may do it. Podtrapper is made for podcasts but looks like it can be a mp3 download manager and player as well! There is a trial if someone could check it out. You can download the free trial HERE on the developer’s website. The only downside so far is the $9.99 pricetag…  they mention something in the forums about emailing the links to files you want to download to yourself and the pasting them in Podtrapper…..