The Festival of Artisanal Software
Mac Power Users is one of my favorite tech podcasts, so when Katie and David asked me if I wanted to do a second episode with them, I immediately accepted.
We talked about iPad workflows, iOS automation, the future of iOS, photo management, and more. There are lots of links to apps and tools I use on a daily basis in the show notes, and I’m glad that the episode turned out well. You can listen here.
Joe Rosensteel:
Many of the things holding podcast-listening back are things that I see podcasters lament on Twitter. There is a lot of consternation over SoundCloud from some people, and a warm embrace from others. Their program is in beta, and appears to have some quirks. People want searchable, legible, text versions of hour-long podcasts to spread links about the really good stuff. Even the ability to jump to a specific moment in playback as part of a URL has been bandied about.
The entire article is great and I agree with Joe’s points. There are several factors at play: iTunes’ stagnation for podcast producers (but, hey, at least it works), the lack of podcast-specific standards for annotations/players/show notes (podcasts themselves are delivered using another technology, RSS), and a fragmentation of independent producers, networks, and large publications that deliver podcast-like content but don’t care about interoperability with “open formats” , “clients”, and other “technologies” that could move the podcast medium forward.
Honestly, when I’m asked about my podcast by friends and family, I just point them to iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app. That’s the easiest way in, and it gives an idea of the power of lock-in, ease of use and access, and discovery (“Just go to iTunes and search for The Prompt, mom”).
RSS helped spark the diffusion of podcasting and, now that it’s still relatively new, I wouldn’t mind seeing more efforts towards a standardization of features like show notes, transcriptions, and episode bookmarks. I don’t know how it could be done, but it needs to happen, it needs to be open for everyone to use, and developers shouldn’t have to hard-code their own custom solutions from scratch.
There’s so much potential in improving the presentation of podcast content, it’s depressing to see how primitive the basic technology is. It works, and it lets us do this stuff on a weekly basis, but it could – should – be better.
Until someone improves the technology behind podcasts, though, I’ll just have to recommend iTunes.
The work that Gabe, Erik, and potatowire have been doing with Technical Difficulties is top-notch: here’s a podcast that’s useful, enjoyable, and innovative in how show notes cleverly complement the audio segment.
The episode about scanning is good. I’ve probably learned more in 22 minutes and through the show notes than I have in over a year of reading blog posts on the Internet.
When I told some friends that I was “podcasting” on iOS, they assumed that all I was doing was recording myself on iOS and doing the post-production later on a Mac. Not so! In fact, we actually do the entire end-to-end audio production purely on iOS.
Fraser Speirs details his workflow for producing episodes of Out of School without a Mac. The fact that several episodes have been created using an iPhone and iPad with a portable podcasting setup is pretty incredible.
Also of note (towards the end): one of the benefits of the A7 processor.
Chris Gonzales on the state of podcast apps on iOS 7:
The point is, I don’t think I would necessarily call any of the current podcast apps the “best one” right now. They’re all going through a phase of change and experimentation, like a kind of adolescence — all the kids are going through it, and there’s no telling what the mature results will be like until the awkward phase is over. A painful analogy? Maybe, but I’m sticking with it.
I agree. Podcasts are more popular than ever, and iOS 7’s new technologies lower the barrier to entry considerably for developers. It’ll be interesting to see what Apple is planning for the Podcasts app.
David and Katie are joined by Federico Viticci of Macstories.net to talk about writing on the iPad and the newest text editor with built in automation functions, Editorial.
Mac Power Users is one of my favorite podcasts. Thanks to David and Katie for letting me talk about Editorial and my book.
With Federico on the beach, Myke and Stephen discuss Larry Ellison, the future of Apple and iPhone rumors.
I was, indeed, at the beach, from where I posted my Editorial review. I finally had time to listen to the episode myself, and there are some good topics that I’ll revisit soon. You also shouldn’t miss Myke’s version of “Ferragosto”.
Apple has today announced that they reached 1 billion podcast subscriptions in iTunes:
From comedy to hard news to sports to innovative educational content and so much more, podcasting has transformed the global media landscape. Podcasts on iTunes launched in the summer of 2005 and since then, we’ve seen countless episodes downloaded and streamed. But the heart of podcasting is finding your favorite voices in this exciting field and subscribing to the best ones. To celebrate 1 billion podcast subscriptions, we’re highlighting some of the most popular podcasts of all times, as well as a collection of captivating new shows.
Apple is celebrating the milestone with a custom iTunes page that features podcasts under Classics, What’s Hot, and New & Noteworthy. The Classics include This Week in Tech, This American Life, and Stuff You Should Know, among others.
Apple also gave additional numbers to Macworld, providing more insight into available episodes and podcast subscriptions.
Back in early May, Vemedio released a first beta of Instacast for Mac. Instacast is my podcast client of choice on the iPhone and iPad, and I was eager to see whether Instacast could fulfill my long-standing wish of a proper podcast app for OS X. Instacast is officially out of beta today, and it’s my new favorite podcast app for Mac.
There isn’t much to say about Instacast for Mac that hasn’t already been explained in our review of Instacast 3.0 for iOS. The Mac version retains the same interface and episode management principles of its iOS counterpart: you can subscribe to podcasts and organize them in lists, sort them by parameters such as Title or Date, or delve deeper into subscription-specific settings for refresh times and automatic download/deletion options. Literally everything that you know about Instacast 3.0 for iOS – including the app’s design style – has been ported to OS X with this first release.
There’s some stuff that has been built exclusively for the Mac. I am particularly fond of Instacast’s rich selection of keyboard shortcuts, which fit well with the Mac’s nature and will help you save time if you’re looking for a specific command or option (there are many of them, so remembering each one of them may require special mnemonic skills).
I like when developers porting popular iOS apps to the Mac don’t simply convert their projects for a desktop window: that was the case with Tweetbot (another app that took advantage of OS X features like keyboard shortcuts and larger displays), and, fortunately, it’s happening with Instacast as well through the aforementioned shortcuts and an iTunes-like MiniPlayer. Available through the Window menu (with the keyboard, it’s ⌥⌘2), the MiniPlayer allows you to check on either the episode you’re listening to (with a widget that’s got a minimal footprint on your desktop) or to the ones that you have queued up for later thanks to – another Mac-only feature – Up Next support. Again, similarly to iTunes 11, Instacast lets you send specific episodes to a list that you can consult and modify while you’re already listening to something else.
Another feature that’s currently exclusive to Instacast for Mac is local text search: if you remember an episode that had a particular keyword in its title or description, you can look for it. This is especially useful for names of apps or services that are mentioned in podcasts, but I wish it was possible to save recurring searches.
Instacast for Mac is Instacast 3.0, responsibly and intelligently ported to OS X. It’s not a simple conversion of the iOS app as it takes advantage of the Mac in obvious, but still welcome ways. Sync with Instacast Cloud, initially spotty in the beta, has been reliable and fast for me in the last builds, making the process of switching between devices and continuing to listening to podcasts seamless.
If you’ve been looking for a solid podcast app for Mac that syncs with iOS, Instacast gets my recommendation. Until May 31, Instacast for Mac will be available at $14.99 instead of $19.99.
