When I wrote about the end of The Prompt and Directional last month, I noted that I was “thrilled about the future”. Today, Relay FM has officially launched, featuring the first episodes of our new podcasts: Connected and Virtual.
Posts tagged with "podcasts"
Introducing Connected and Virtual on Relay FM
Core Intuition on Indie Development→
I particularly enjoyed this episode of Core Intuition about the App Store, being an indie developer, and building customer expectations over time.
Manton and Daniel have been building software, iterating, and experimenting for years, and they understand that, like any other business, instant success is welcome but rare, while stable growth takes time, constant effort, and hard work.
Highly recommended episode.
Overcast Review
When I received the first beta of Marco Arment’s new app, Overcast, back in May, I didn’t think I could use an iPhone-only podcast client with no iPad version and no streaming support as my daily podcast listening solution. Overcast, available today on the App Store, is launching to high expectations and hype for what Arment, best known for creating Instapaper, founding The Magazine, and co-hosting the Accidental Tech Podcast, has been working on since his reveal in September 2013.
Two months after putting Overcast on my Home screen as a vote of confidence and using it to listen to podcasts every day, I don’t want to go back to any other podcast app I’ve tried before. In spite of lacking iPad and OS X versions and some features from popular podcast apps, the listening experience in Overcast and its approach to podcast discovery have been so thoughtfully implemented and cleverly engineered, I find it to be a superior choice for my listening habits.
The End of Our Podcasts and A New Challenge
Today, my friend and co-host Myke Hurley announced that he’s leaving 5by5 to pursue new goals and be independent again. From his blog post:
Today I am announcing that I will be departing 5by5 on July 16th 2014.
The last 18 months have been a tremendous experience, but it is time for me to move on to new things. I have new goals that I want to tackle, and to be able to do this I need to be independent again.
unSherlocked→
Great follow-up by Dr. Drang on our episode about Sherlocking:
In the fall of 2005, Apple added direct podcast support to iTunes. To normal people, this was what put podcasting on the map. Instead of fiddling around with RSS URLs, third-party apps, and special playlists, users could now find and subscribe to podcasts very easily from within iTunes itself. There’s been a lot of criticism of how Apple has allowed iTunes to grow into an unwieldy behemoth of an app, but I don’t think anyone complained about the addition of podcasts. It was both useful and well implemented.
The Apple ecosystem has changed a lot since 2005, but the essence of Sherlocking is the same: sometimes Apple’s solutions cover the basics, leaving room for third-party developers to thrive; other times, they really sherlock a third-party product with a much better integrated solution. As Drang notes, though, Apple’s podcast Sherlocking in 2005 didn’t have the same result with the Podcasts app in 2012, which has left plenty of opportunities for developers of third-party podcast clients.
iTunes 11.2 Released with Podcast Improvements
Alongside OS X 10.9.3, Apple also released iTunes 11.2 today, bringing a variety of new features to enhance the browsing and listening experience for podcasts in the app. Read more
Castro 1.1 Brings UI Tweaks, Sleep Timer
We first talked about Supertop’s Castro, a podcast client for iPhone, when it came out in December, noting how the app fit well with iOS 7’s aesthetic and implemented cool features such as fast search and a peculiar scrubber. Today, Supertop has released Castro 1.1, a major update that further refines the app’s design and introduces new functionalities for playback controls.
Pocket Casts 4.5→
My favorite podcast client for iOS 7, Pocket Casts by Shifty Jelly, was updated over the weekend to version 4.5, which added Chromecast support and some welcome additions to the app’s built-in Charts view.
When browsing podcasts in the app’s directory, you can now see Trending shows and change countries for Top Charts. Pocket Casts still has a general worldwide view, but now you can also filter charts by country; for me, this means I can easily find other Italian shows besides the excellent ones provided by the EasyPodcast network (pictured above; EasyApple is the best Italian podcast about Apple, hands down).
Pocket Casts continues to be a solid client that I particularly enjoy because it’s also available on the iPad. It’s $3.99 on the App Store.
Introducing Directional Podcast
Thanks to Jory Raphael for the awesome artwork.
In recording The Prompt every week, my friend Myke Hurley and I realized that we love talking about games. We love games and the community of game makers and players behind them. We’ve been playing games since we were kids, and whenever we touched upon the topic of mobile gaming, Nintendo’s history and current games, Sony and Microsoft, indie games, and everything in between on The Prompt, we felt that we could go on for hours with our discussions. Eventually, we knew that we needed a separate venue to properly dedicate ourselves to the topic.
Which brings us to today: Myke and I are announcing Directional, a podcast about games, gamers, game makers, and surrounding culture. Here’s how we like to describe Directional’s focus:
We reflect about past trajectories and current directions, old games and new hits. Directional focuses on the games that are paving the way, the games that laid the foundations and just how dedicated games consoles exist in the smartphone age.
I’m extremely excited and grateful for this opportunity, and I look forward to beginning this second podcasting adventure with Myke next week. The Prompt has been an amazing and rewarding success for us, and, again, I hope that Directional will distinguish itself for quality and opinion, not just what’s trending.
Directional will be a weekly show on 5by5, with the first episode airing next week. We have some great stuff planned, and I can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on. I think you’ll also like our music.
We don’t have a webpage or RSS feed yet, but you can follow @DirectionalShow on Twitter for updates.