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Using 5fish without the Internet

James Thomas - Monday 14 September 2015

You might be aware of GRN’s 5fish for Android^TM app for listening to GRN’s recordings on your mobile phone. What you may not be aware of is that the 5fish app can work without being connected to the Internet. GRN knows that not everyone we are trying to reach has a mobile phone with mobile data enabled. Mobile data is still relatively expensive in many parts of the globe and the availability of high-speed mobile broadband can be very patchy in remote communities. That is why we have worked hard to make 5fish work without the need for an Internet connection.

The recordings still need to make their way onto your device somehow, but that does not need to be via the Internet. Recordings can be transferred using Bluetooth or SD cards.

Bluetooth is very popular in many countries for copying MP3 music from one phone to another. The sharing function of the 5fish app allows you to share recordings via any appropriate technology or apps available on your device, including Bluetooth. Recordings can be shared as individual MP3 files or grouped in a ZIP file. Not only can the recordings be shared, but the actual app can also be shared as an APK installation file. Bluetooth can be good for sharing a few files, however for large numbers of files it might be best to copy the files to an SD card.

Sharing files via this method requires the right kind of device. Your device might have a large primary storage area (emulated external storage) as well as an SD card slot. By default the 5fish app stores all recording and APK files on the primary storage. You can place an SD card from a friend’s phone into your SD card slot and copy the files from the primary storage area. Alternatively there are phones with multiple SD card slots or some devices that allow to you plug in an SD card adaptor.

You still need to get the files onto your device somehow. Free WiFi is increasingly available around the world. You can download content while in range of WiFi for sharing while offline. GRN are increasingly making available SD cards pre-loaded with recordings for free or cost price.

GRN is doing more to help you share content offline. GRN’s compressed video (3GP) files will soon be available on 5fish. We are also introducing features for helping you control your mobile data by allowing you to switch off background data generated by the 5fish app.

For more information please refer to the 5fish for Android^TM support page.