How to Use Torrents on Apple Mobile Devices: Torrents on Apple iPhone sound like an oxymoron. iOS is known for its flawless security compared to other mobile operating systems and therefore can’t accept torrent files as a potential breeding grounds for viruses. Torrent apps are banned from the iTunes store due to piracy issues as well.

Some users refrain from buying gadgets from Apple because of these and other restrictions. But what should you do if you already have an iPhone or iPad and need to download a torrent file to your device? The way out still exists, although it’s not obvious from the outset. That’s exactly why we’ve created this brief guide on how to use torrents on Apple. Give it a read and find out.

Why Use Torrents on iPhone?

Note: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Ning Interactive Inc.

Contents

  • Why Use Torrents on iPhone?
  • Method #1: iDownloader/iTransmission
  • Method #2: Web-Based Services + Documents by Readdle
  • Conclusion

Torrent technology is known for its much better speed of file download as the content distribution happens on a peer-to-peer basis. Small information chunks are shared between all users who previously downloaded the file, and they all transmit these bits of data to users who are downloading this file simultaneously. Rather than sending a request to a centralized hub where the file is stored, your computer gets data through multiple sources at the same time.

That is the reason why you can download a 10GB file relatively quickly by using torrents like Lime Torrents like Lime Torrents. It comes in handy if a user needs to fill their iPhone with movies, games, music, and software.

For example, you want to play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on your iPhone. The game’s size is around 1.5GB, and it doesn’t come for free. You can’t try it as a demo. You’ll need to pay for it upfront. Of course, we all know how GTA looks like on PC, but you never know whether you’ll be comfortable with the controls and graphics on mobile.

Thus, mobile torrenting is the most relevant issue for gamers, who like to play mobile versions of AAA projects initially made for PC and consoles. Torrents are usually found on specialized websites, but they also can be distributed through local gaming communities. If you know how to create your own clan website (which is quite simple nowadays thanks to some awesome technologies that do it for you), you can share virus-free, reliable torrent files with your followers and fellow gamers.

But is it necessary to resort to jailbreaking to be able to use torrents on Apple devices? Indeed, jailbreaking was likely the simplest solution five years ago, but now its popularity is gradually declining. For a reason: users don’t want to lose the ability to update their iOS system and the security it provides.

Don’t worry: we’re not encouraging you to jailbreak your iPhone. There are two other solutions that are considered legal. Well, at least formally.

Method #1: iDownloader/iTransmission

As we have learned before, the Apple Store doesn’t feature any torrent clients, so services such as iDownloader or iTransmission are unavailable there. However, there is a paid service that allows you to download apps that were not approved by Apple officials and stuck in the middle of nowhere. It is BuildStore.

BuildStore comes at as low as $14.99/year, which is paid right after completing the registration. Go to the BuildStore’s official website using Safari and find the iTransmission or iDownloader app. You’ll have to download one of these to your device.

Eventually, you’ll need to download a torrent file itself. You can find a required file link on the web by using a mobile browser or by pasting the link you already have as a Magnet Torrent or a direct URL.

Well done. The app will download the required files to your Apple device. You can select the desired location to save the downloaded data as well.

Method #2: Web-Based Services + Documents by Readdle

You can avoid using app-like torrent clients and simply download torrent files using your Safari browser. But this involves some third-party services. One of the most popular websites often used for such purposes is Zbigs.com.

Zbigs is a cloud- and web-based anonymous torrent client which generally comes for free, but has a premium version for those who want to enjoy additional features. For example, you’ll be able to save files on Google Drive and download files larger than 1GB. The premium version comes at $9.90 per month.

Either way, you’ll need a file manager app for Windows to download torrents to your iPhone. Probably, the best app of this kind is Documents by Readdle, which is still on AppStore despite its ability to store torrent files. We actually recommend you to install it even if you’re not much into torrents. It allows you to download files of almost all popular formats directly to your phone, including ZIP, MS Office, MP3, and more. What a fantastic upgrade for your Apple device!

After installing Documents by Readdle, open the torrent site using the app. Don’t try to download the file you need straight away, just copy the magnet link. Then go to Zbigs and paste the link in the appropriate field. Let Zbigs upload the file to its servers and wait until it generates another link for you. Once completed, use it to download the file via Documents by Readdle. Voila, the job is done.

Conclusion

Torrenting on iPhone will never be as easy as on Android or Windows, but as you see, nothing is impossible. Regardless of the method you choose, you might want to use a VPN when downloading data through torrents. VPN allows you to browse the web anonymously and protects from corporate torrenting surveillance.

However, some free VPN services have such poor loading speed that you can barely scroll through the Instagram feed, let alone downloading large files. To ensure the optimal performance, you need to know for sure that your VPN client won’t let you down and will provide a decent download speed.