One of my favourite podcasts is The Grey Nato, all about watches, gear and adventure.
In this weeks show Jason and James discuss their experience with the Apple Watch Ultra, give is a listen here.
One of my favourite podcasts is The Grey Nato, all about watches, gear and adventure.
In this weeks show Jason and James discuss their experience with the Apple Watch Ultra, give is a listen here.
I’ve been playing around with podcast apps on Android and my recommendation for the best podcast app on Android is Pocket Casts
It balances speed and design to be a really intuitive choice, been working well.
As I get in podcasting mode I’m left with my familiar question – where do I host it?
In the past I’ve used both a free service like Anchor and a paid one like Libsyn. As someone that’s doing this as a hobby I’m leaning towards something free. This time around I’m not a fan of Spotify particularly (owner of Anchor) and their land grab for all of podcasting.
I’m starting to look at using my existing WordPress as an option and manually do my submission to the podcast directories.
Any advice is welcome.
Thanks to all of those that voted in my poll. I’ve been looking at getting back to podcasting and this’ll be the first project I get into. I don’t have a timescale right now but I’ll start to plan it all out in the next day or so.
Also if you’d like to come on or want to recommend someone please let me know.
Thanks to those that voted on this one, looks like I’m replanning Home Screens – something I was hoping to start up again 😊.
On the Apple focussed one, I’d be up for joining an existing one or starting up a new one if anyone is interested in it?
Star Wars will stay on the blog and newsletter for now.
If you’re wondering what some great developers are thinking about after WWDC’21 check out the Everyday Robots podcast. This was a great listen and I enjoyed hearing the thoughts of developers on the announcements.
I’ve struggled with my use of Anchor for a while for my podcast and whilst it’s obviously a good option for people like me that require a free platform I’m uneasy about the way that they have been running their business.
This post by their co-founder is the final straw for me and I am going to be removing my account from Anchor and thus putting my podcast on hiatus for now. One of the beauties of podcasting is that it’s based on the open RSS standard and this post clearly shows intent to walk away from that and move completely into Spotify. I can see a future where you will only be able to listen to my podcast if you’re a Spotify subscriber and I don’t want to be part of that.
Since RSS only enables a flat audio file to be distributed to consumption platforms, creators gain limited and often inaccurate insight into how the audio is consumed, such as where it is being consumed, how much of the audio is being heard or enjoyed (or not), and whether or not the audio is even being heard at all (and not just automatically “downloaded”).
This is useful for some but for me it’s a step too far for me and my views on tracking across the web being bad enough as it is, this again shows intention. It’s seems to be all about moving away from RSS, bringing you into Spotify and monetising your listeners.
This is kind of clear already within the app and I’m seeing messages all over the place within the app that guides me towards trying to make money from my listeners, this even available in the UK and yet I still get reminded to add sponsors.
So yeah, I’m done with Anchor and will be on a quest to find a new option. I’ll see what WordPress can offer me, that isn’t tied to Anchor.
Thanks to everyone that hung in there and stayed subscribed to my little niche podcast. A year to the day since I originally launched the podcast and I’m back with a solo episode to get back into it.
I know I’ve asked this before and apologies if I didn’t reach back out to you but I’m starting to build a guest list for the podcast.
If you’d like to come on or share someone you think would be great then drop me a message on Twitter or contact me here.
I’m starting to get a handle on my creative endeavours now and will start to look at recording in the coming weeks.
Last year I tried out doing a little niche podcast around people’s setups and looking back I enjoyed the discussion, meeting online friends and had good feedback – so, I’m going to be relaunching it.
I’m sticking with the same feed and hosting so it’s more around getting in gear and recording them.
If you’d like to either guest or suggest someone you’d like to hear from please drop me a note via Twitter or Here.
If you’re already subscribed, thanks. If not here’s the main link or search for “Home Screens” in your podcast player of choice.
It’s funny timing that Andy shared his thoughts on The Tech Podcast Bubble as it sums up something I’ve been meaning to talk about, Andy put it better than I could to be honest. I don’t have the commute but podcast listening at home and walks became a habit and the constant nitpicking from some outlets or “my phone is the best as it’s the biggest, yours is far less superior ” type comments I realised were impacting my mental health.
This became more evident when I was looking to build support for my creative outlets but heard others with an audience talking down to the very people that they are expecting a monthly membership from.
I realised when I stopped listening to most of the shows I used to, I just got on and enjoyed the technology I had and felt like I had more time. I wasn’t really actually listening, it just became a habit of putting in my headphones when I had some downtime.
Now I only listen to music or shows that try to be a positive force on their subject like the guys over at Forcecenter.
Do yourself a favour and unplug from your usual podcasts for a bit and see how you feel.
I don’t normally link to many podcasts but I found this fascinating. I’m a big fan of photography and it’s the only reason I upgrade each year and I especially like the Pixel camera so listening to someone with a big background in mobile photography is a great way to get a little insight.
Link: The Vergecast
After the WWDC 2020 keynote and working through all of the home screen changes I’ve decided to put the podcast on hold for a couple of months. There’s so many great changes to how we can customise the look of our devices now to make them our own I felt that talking about the iOS 13 way to do it wasn’t that interesting given most of us are excited about widgets and app libraries.
Even a day in my home screen is working completely different for me, I want to chat with guests about their iOS 14 setups.
Thanks for subscribing (if you are) and also for listening to the current episodes. I hope you agree that’s it’s better to focus on the future of how iOS 14 will change the look of our home screens.
I may do a few solo episodes talking about the changes, my experience and how to setup – sound interesting?
Another great guest up this week in the form of Matt Birchler and we go through a number of new apps that I am now using just in the short time since recording the show.
Home Screen: