Posts tagged with "podcasts"

Introducing a New MacStories Podcast: Dialog, Where Creativity Meets Technology

Federico and I are excited to announce a new MacStories podcast called Dialog. The show is a seasonal podcast featuring weekly, in-depth conversations with special guests about the impact of technology on creativity, society, and culture.

You can subscribe here and listen to the first episode on Apple Podcasts.

You can also listen to the first episode on the Dialog website here.

Each season will be organized around a central theme and include in-depth discussions with guests with expertise in the season’s topic. To kick things off, season 1 is all about writers and writing. You’ll hear from a combination of familiar and unfamiliar voices, all of whom are accomplished writers with backgrounds in journalism, songwriting, fiction, screenwriting, and more. Since we began recording episodes, it’s been fascinating to hear guests share their unique perspective on writing, the creative process, and the business of writing and discover areas of overlap between very different kinds of writing.

Seasonal Format and Future Guests

Dialog is a sort of spin-off of AppStories, our podcast about the world of apps. The interviews we’ve done on AppStories are some of the most popular episodes we’ve produced. However, over time, we realized that AppStories’ format is too constrained to do justice to many of the interviews we want to do. The self-imposed time limit of that show and its topical focus became a barrier.

That led me to sketch out the contours of what would become Dialog during our annual MacStories winter holiday break. To overcome AppStories’ constraints, I decided we needed to flip that show on its head both structurally and topically.

Structurally, Dialog’s conversations with guests are far more in-depth than we could accomplish in a 30-minute AppStories interview. Dialog’s interviews will run as long as two hours but will be split over two episodes to keep each episode to about one hour long. It’s a format that also provides headroom for Federico and me to participate more fully in each episode; less like a traditional interview and more of a conversation with our guests.

Topically, Dialog’s focus is also broader than any interview we’ve done on AppStories. Of course, you can expect Federico and me to come at each season from a tech angle, but that’s the lens through which each season will be viewed more than it is the subject matter of the seasons themselves.

Although Dialog is different than anything we’ve done before, its roots are also firmly grounded in MacStories’ character. We enjoy the apps and hardware we try every day, but what we love the most is telling the stories of the people who make those things, exploring how they empower creativity, and reflecting on their impact on the world around us. Dialog is a natural extension of our approach to technology.

The first episode of Dialog, which you can listen and subscribe to here, introduces the topics we will cover this season. Federico and I talk about our backgrounds in writing, how we got started, our approach to writing at MacStories, the business of writing online, and a lot more.

Next week, we’ll be joined for a two-part conversation by our first guest, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who will be followed by singer-songwriter Frank Turner, and other guests throughout the summer. At the end of the season, Federico and I will wrap up what we’ve heard and learned from the writers we’ve talked to before taking a break to plan season 2.

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Introducing Adapt, a New iPad Podcast on Relay FM

The iPad has been a key subject at MacStories for years. In fact, it was Federico’s exploration of using the iPad as his primary computer that first led me to become a reader of the site, and subsequently an iPad-first user myself.

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce a new podcast on Relay FM where Federico and I get to talk about the iPad and challenge ourselves to do new things with our favorite device. The show is called Adapt, and the first episode is available now.

Adapt was born out of a love for the iPad, and a desire to continue pushing our own use of it forward. Federico formerly hosted an iPad-focused podcast with Fraser Speirs called Canvas, but since that show ended Federico and I have been dreaming up its spiritual successor, with a similar focus on the iPad but a unique new format.

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Overcast Adds Simple Podcast Video Clip Sharing

Today, Marco Arment released an update to Overcast with a new podcast clip sharing feature. Arment explains why he created the new feature on Marco.org:

Podcast sharing has been limited to audio and links, but today’s social networks are more reliant on images and video, especially Instagram. Podcasts need video clips to be shared more easily today.

I’ve seen some video clips from tools specific to certain podcast networks or hosts, but they were never available to everyone, or for every show. So people mostly just haven’t shared podcast clips, understandably, because it has been too hard.

He’s right. I created a Final Cut Pro template project for making sharable video clips for AppStories, the show I do with Federico. I’ve shared those clips on Instagram and Twitter in the past, but even with a template, the process was more cumbersome and time-consuming than it was worth, so I’ve never shared them as consistently as I’d like.

With its new share feature, Overcast has dramatically simplified the process. When you find a clip you want to share, tap the share button and choose ‘Share Clip…’ – Overcast takes you to a new Share Clip screen that allows you to define the beginning and end of your clip with drag handles. One terrific touch is that as you drag the play head across the start or end of the clip, the double vertical lines that define the termination points of the clip animate, so you know precisely when you’ve lined up the play head properly for previewing your clip’s audio.

Video clips can be shared in portrait, landscape, or square formats.

Video clips can be shared in portrait, landscape, or square formats.

Clips can be shared as portrait, landscape, or square videos and include no badging, Overcast badging, or Overcast and Apple Podcasts badging. Tapping ‘Next’ takes you to a preview of your video where you can see what it looks like before sharing it. When you’re satisfied with your creation, you’ve got two options. First, you can tap the share button and share the video clip to social networks or any other app that will accept an m4v video file. Second, you can tap the link button to share a URL to an overcast.fm page queued to the beginning of your clip, which is a feature that Overcast has had for quite a while.

Overcast's updated clip landing pages include links to Apple Podcasts, Castro, Pocket Casts, and the show's RSS feed.

Overcast’s updated clip landing pages include links to Apple Podcasts, Castro, Pocket Casts, and the show’s RSS feed.

Although the link sharing feature of Overcast isn’t new, Arment has refreshed the landing pages for the links to include badges for Apple Podcasts, Castro, Pocket Casts, and the show’s RSS feed, so users can access the linked show from any of these other popular podcast players or the show’s RSS feed.

Expanding clip sharing to add video support is an excellent addition to Overcast. Whether you’re promoting your own show or want to share a snippet of your favorite show with friends, Overcast has made the process so simple that I expect we’ll begin seeing many more of these clips on Twitter, Instagram, and on other social networks very soon.

Overcast is available on the App Store as a free download.

Castro Launches Top Picks Feature for Intelligent Episode Recommendations

In an update arriving today, Castro is introducing a new Top Picks feature designed to make managing a large number of podcast subscriptions easier than ever.

One of Castro’s most defining traits is its triage system: the app by default stores new episodes of shows you’re subscribed to in a New section, not in your playback queue, and inside New you can send the episodes you care about to your queue, while archiving anything that doesn’t interest you. If you subscribe to a wide array of shows, Castro’s New section is great; however, one drawback is that it previously lacked any sort of priority or hierarchy. Though Castro offers the option of having certain shows go straight to your queue, that requires manual configuration, and it’s really only ideal for shows that you want to listen to every single episode of. In most cases, the majority of shows will land in New, and Castro previously had no way of knowing which of those episodes you were more likely to care about. That’s why Top Picks was created.

Top Picks is an addition to the New tab which highlights episodes from your subscriptions that Castro thinks you’ll want to listen to. You can still access your full subscription roster at any time, but Top Picks will serve as a curated subset of episodes that’s easier to sort through.

Shows are surfaced in Top Picks based on your listening history, which the app analyzes on-device using only local data, so it remains private. If you’re new to Castro, this means it may take a little time to get the best Top Picks suggestions, but the good news is that training the system merely requires listening to the shows you care about. As you make decisions about what to listen to, Castro learns from those choices and uses that data to inform what does and doesn’t get sent to Top Picks.

If you only listen to a handful of podcasts, Top Picks likely isn’t for you because it addresses a problem you don’t have. But for users whose subscriptions can be a lot to keep up with, the feature simplifies the act of triage and, in the process, makes Castro an even better tool for enjoying the ever-growing world of podcasts.

Jason Snell on Podcasting with Only an iPad Pro→

Jason Snell’s podcasting setup is similar to mine – he wants to hear his own voice, record his local audio track, and have a conversation with multiple people on Skype, who also need to hear his voice coming from an external microphone. And he wants to use one computer to do it all. Now he’s figured out how to podcast from an iPad Pro with the help of an additional USB interface:

In the past, I’ve done something similar using the Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB, a microphone that can output a digital signal using USB and an analog signal via an XLR cord simultaneously. The problem is that the last time I tried to use the ATR2100-USB with my iPad Pro, it didn’t return my own voice into my ears, making me unable to judge the sound quality of my own microphone. After years of having my own voice return to me, I strongly prefer not to record unable to hear my own voice. (I use in-ear headphones that largely shut out audio from the outside world, so the experience of speaking while not hearing yourself is even more profoundly weird than it would be with leaky earbuds.)

This time I wanted it all, or at least as close to all as I’m able to get with iOS in the mix: A pristine recording of my own voice, that same high-quality microphone audio also flowing across digitally to my podcast guests via Skype, and the ability to hear both my guests and myself at the same time.

The takeaway from the story isn’t that Snell wanted to prove a point to spite Mac users – it’s that he was able to travel with one computer instead of two (he would have used most of the same audio gear with a Mac too) and that he found an expensive, but real workaround to professional podcast recording on iPad Pro.

I don’t currently have a USB audio interface like Snell’s USBPre 2, but I may have to buy one before the summer so I can record podcasts from our beach house using only the iPad Pro. (That is, assuming the iOS 13 beta I’ll have installed at that point doesn’t have meaningful improvements for audio workflows.)

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Spotify Acquires Podcast Producer Gimlet Media and App Maker Anchor

Rumors have been circulating for several days that Spotify was in talks to acquire podcast producer Gimlet Media. Today, Spotify announced officially that it is not only acquiring Gimlet but also Anchor, the company that makes mobile apps for podcast creation.

Terms of the deals were not disclosed, but Recode’s sources say the Gimlet deal is in the neighborhood of $230 million. Although Recode hasn’t reported on the value of the Anchor deal, it also says that Spotify expects to spend up to $500 million this year on podcast acquisitions.

The two deals are part of a broader strategy by Spotify to offer audio content beyond music and use original content to entice people to sign up for its streaming service. In a blog post today, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek elaborated on the company’s strategy:

With the world focused on trying to reduce screen time, it opens up a massive audio opportunity.

This opportunity starts with the next phase of growth in audio — podcasting. There are endless ways to tell stories that serve to entertain, to educate, to challenge, to inspire, or to bring us together and break down cultural barriers. The format is really evolving and while podcasting is still a relatively small business today, I see incredible growth potential for the space and for Spotify in particular.

In just shy of two years, we have become the second-biggest podcasting platform. And, more importantly, users love having podcasts as a part of their Spotify experience. Our podcast users spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music. We have also seen that by having unique programming, people who previously thought Spotify was not right for them will give it a try.

Although the Gimlet purchase comes as no surprise following days of speculation, it’s fair to say no one saw the Anchor deal coming. Spotify has grown quickly in the two years that it has offered podcasts and now has the second largest podcast platform behind Apple. By purchasing Gimlet and Anchor, Spotify gains a stable of popular, professionally-produced podcasts as well as the means for anyone with a smartphone to record and share a podcast, covering a broad spectrum of the podcasting world with just two acquisitions.

Ek believes Spotify can bring the same value to podcasting that the company has brought to music:

Just as we’ve done with music, our work in podcasting will focus intensively on the curation and customization that users have come to expect from Spotify. We will offer better discovery, data, and monetization to creators. These acquisitions will meaningfully accelerate our path to becoming the world’s leading audio platform, give users around the world access to the best podcast content, and improve the quality of our listening experience while enhancing the Spotify brand.

To be clear, this doesn’t make music any less important at Spotify. Our core business is performing very well. But as we expand deeper into audio, especially with original content, we will scale our entire business, creating leverage in the model through subscriptions and ads. This is why we feel it is prudent to invest now to capture the opportunity ahead. We want Spotify to continue to be at the center of the global audio economy.

Although Ek hints in his blog post that podcasts are just the start of Spotify’s audio ambitions, what remains to be seen is how podcasts fit within Spotify’s business model. Spotify has studied video streaming and could follow suit making Gimlet’s podcasts like Reply All and other original content available only as part of a Spotify subscription. Spotify also says it will offer ‘monetization for creators,’ which could mean many different things including dynamic ad insertion in podcasts offered on its platform. Whatever approach Spotify takes with podcasting, the coming year will certainly be an interesting one for podcast creators and fans alike.

Sofa Review: A Simple Tool for Tracking Movies, TV Shows, Books, and Podcasts

We live in a time when media options are growing at a fast pace. It’s a golden age for television, with great shows debuting all the time; the film industry is being transformed by the infusion of new competition from streaming giants like Netflix; podcasts are becoming more mainstream by the day; and despite books not being in a similar growth phase, new titles are still being written constantly. In this crowded media landscape, it’s hard to keep track of all the great content waiting to be enjoyed.

In the past I’ve kept notes in Apple Notes containing lists of TV shows, movies, podcasts, and books to check out. Lately, however, I’ve been using an app called Sofa.

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Popular iOS Podcast Player Castro Sold to Tiny

Big announcement from Supertop’s blog today:

We have some news to share. Tiny has purchased a majority stake in Castro. We are still shareholders and will continue working on the app full time.

The post goes on to explain the reasons for this transfer of ownership.

Castro has reached a size where the demands of running the business have been pulling us in too many different directions. We haven’t been able to focus as much on the core work of designing and building a product. Selling to Tiny gets Castro access to more resources, contacts and expertise. By growing the team we can specialize our roles to be more focused individually and get more done collectively. We can get back to what we’re good at and what we love doing.

Castro underwent a business model transition earlier this year, moving from paid up front with Castro 2 to free with Castro 3 alongside the launch of the Castro Plus subscription option. It sounds like that shift has led to an increased amount of administrative work for Supertop’s development team, which should be alleviated thanks to this acquisition. The post concludes:

We’ve started work on Castro 4. The plan is to improve the design to bring more listeners into the Castro flow. We’re excited, because for the first time in five years of work on Castro, we’ll have the resources to focus exclusively on it as product designers and developers, without contract work to distract us, and with a team around us to handle the administrative tasks.

Castro is one of the best podcast clients on iOS, so I’m thankful that today’s announcement doesn’t spell its end. On the contrary, it sounds like there’s reason to be hopeful about the app’s future in Tiny’s hands. Only time will tell, of course, so I’ll be curious to watch the app’s update cycle over the coming year.