What are some iOS apps that work well for searching, collecting, and consuming media like video (YouTube, Ted talks, and private hosts) and audio (podcasts, NPR, etc)?
The important feature is that it must be a universal way to parse media from the whole web, similar to how google can search the whole web. In other words, not tied to a particular app store or "ecosystem". This might be hard to do technically but I'm looking for an app that will at least take any URL I give it and try to find some media to play. The whole purpose is to keep my media consumption organized not frustrate me by boring quests to find some way of playing a recording I know exists on the web. And it should allow me to download the media for offline consumption.
Bonus points for something that has cloud storage integration and or a text to speech facility for "reading" ebooks, PDFs, and web pages.
Best Answer
There is an App called Meteoric, which does exactly what you want. You can test the free version, which only supports 2MB downloads. And if you like it, you can buy the full version, which is with $1.99 quite inexpensive.
Here is a nice article with screenshots if you are interested (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-file-ios-device-meteoric/)