iPad: Listening to podcasts
Use your iPad to listen to your favourite radio programs and more.
Learn how to use a podcast app to find and listen to pre-recorded radio programs, called podcasts.
Before you begin
The demonstrations in this course use an iPad without a physical Home button. If your tablet is different, some of the steps might vary a little, but you can still follow along.
Before you start, make sure the iPad is switched on, fully charged, and showing the Home screen. Your operating software should also be up to date.
While there are many different podcast apps, this course uses the ABC Listen app to download and listen to podcasts.
How to download an app from the App Store
Open the App Store from the Home screen, and tap the Search icon in the bottom right of the screen.
- Search for ABC Listen.
- On the page of search results, find ABC Listen. It should be the second search result.
- Tap the Get button, and in the pop-up box, tap Install.
- You might have to enter your Apple ID password and tap Sign in to start the install process.
- The installation is complete when an Open button appears.
Using the ABC Listen app to explore and stream podcasts
Open the ABC Listen app from the Home screen. The top of the main panel shows radio stations you can tune into. Podcasts are shown below, organised by category.
- Latest and Best can be scrolled to show more podcasts that are available.
- The whole page can be scrolled to show more categories.
- Tap a podcast to listen to it.
- Tap Search in the left-hand menu to show a Search bar and some browsing options.
- Look under the Browse by topic option to see podcasts organised in categories.
- Scroll the list to see more topics, such as News & Analysis
- Use the Search bar to find a podcast you already know the name of.
- For example, search for The Health Report, then tap on the top result. The Health Report podcast screen appears.
- Tap Play to listen to the latest episode or scroll down to see list of previous episodes you can also play.
- When you tap Play, the podcast will stream to your tablet as it plays. If you aren’t connected to Wi-Fi, this will use some of your mobile data allowance.
Using the ABC Listen app to download and subscribe to podcasts
Tap the Download Podcast icon next to a podcast episode, to download it over your home Wi-Fi to save data and make the podcast available for you to listen to later. When a small tick appears, the download is complete.
- To find downloaded podcasts, tap Favourites in the left-hand menu of the ABC Listen app screen, and then in the main panel choose Downloads.
- Tap any podcast in the Downloads list to play it.
- There are also controls to Pause the podcast, and skip 15 seconds ahead and 15 seconds back.
- Tap the sleep timer in the top right of the screen to make the podcast turn off automatically after 10-90 minutes.
- To get new episodes of a podcast automatically, you can Follow it (also called Subscribe in other podcast apps).
- On a podcast’s main page, tap the Follow icon, which looks like a heart. If the app asks if the podcast should Save to an account, choose Not Now.
- On the right under the show notes, tap the Auto download new episodes switch to turn it on.
- To stop automatically downloading new episodes, turn off the pink Auto download new episodes switch.
- Find the podcasts you Follow on the Favourites screen.
- To delete episodes once you’ve finished listening to them, tap the Settings icon in the top left of the screen, and find the Downloads option under Listen Later.
- Tap to open the Downloads Settings screen, and then turn on the Delete 24 hrs after listening switch.