Podcast Zeitgeist: February 2013

I don't watch a lot of TV, but I do listen to about 10 to 15 hours of podcasts a week, while walking around, doing chores, working out or dozing off.  I use the Downcast app on my iPhone now that Apple has crippled podcast functionality in iTunes and released a buggy app. Here are the latest ones holding my interest, in alphabetical order; it's heavy on Mac stuff and comedy. Downcast has a good search, auto downloads in background and a simple playlist function that can serve you up the latest episodes one after another.

Generally speaking, the best talk podcasts produced these days come from several networks: Leo Laporte's Twit, Dan Benjamin's 5by5, Jesse Thorn's Maximum Fun and Mike Monteiro's Mule Radio.  Public radio outlets also offer most of their shows as podcasts (This American Life, Planet Money), and I listen to some of them but have not listed any here. Many also offer video versions, but I generally stick to audio, both to conserve storage on my phone and to avoid sitting around so much. Schedules, links and other details listed here were current as of February 2013.

Back to Work: Merlin Mann ostensibly discusses productivity and working life with Dan Benjamin, but often they just riff about comics, music and tech. Nearly every Tuesday. About 1.5 hours.

Boars, Gore and Swords: A humorous discussion of the HBO series "Game of Thrones" and the books on which they are based. Weekly, Sun. or Mon.; 1.5 hours+. 

Buddhist Geeks: Discussions of and interviews about modern Buddhism with a technological bent. Weekly; day varies. 20 to 35 minutes.

Bullseye: Jesse Thorn's followup to "Sound of Young America," the public radio pop culture program. Usually Mondays. About an hour.

Generational: Living with technology, with interviews by Gabe Weatherhead. Usually Saturdays. Up to 2 hours.

Ihnatko Almanac: Andy Ihnatko, the tech writer and mutton-chopped ubernerd for The Chicago Sun-Times, talking about films, movies, comics and whatever else catches his attention, with Dan Benjamin. Thursdays. About an hour.

iPad Today: Leo Laporte and Sarah Lane with the latest news about iPads and iOS apps. Thursdays. About an hour.

Jordan, Jesse, GO!: Extremely vulgar comedy discussions from Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris, with regular guests from the worlds of standup comedy and podcasting. Mondays or Tuesday. About an hour to an hour and 45 minutes.

Let's Make Mistakes: Design and tech discussions from @mike_ftw and company. Mondays. About 45 minutes.

MacBreak Weekly: Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko and assorted guests talk about Macs, Apple and iOS. Tuesdays, about 2 hours.

My Brother, My Brother and Me: The three McElroy  brothers are humorous advice experts. Mondays. About an hour. 

Quit!: Dan Benjamin wants you to quit your corporate stooge job. Takes live calls. Fridays. About 1.5 to 2 hours.

Risk!: Dramatic and humorous real-life stories by comedians, celebrities and ordinary people, often told before a live audience, hosted by Kevin Allison. Variable schedule. About 30 minutes to an hour.

Roderick on the Line: John Roderick, of the Long Winters band, and -- yet again -- Merlin Mann talk about arcane history, music and life in general. Erratic schedule. About an hour.

Savage Lovecast: The sex columnist Dan Savage gives advice to people from all types of orientations. Ear-opening. Tuesdays. About 45 minutes to an hour.

The Talk Show with John Gruber: The blogger behind Daring Fireball talks with guests from the world of tech about Apple, movies, books, coffee and gadgets. Erratic schedule. One to two hours.

This Week in Tech: Laporte and assorted guests talk about general technology news. Released late Sunday, early Monday. About 2 hours.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour: Comedy in the style of old time radio broadcasts. Thursdays. Vary from 30 minutes to an hour.

Uhh Yeah Dude: Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette with a weekly audio news of the weird roundup. Thursdays. About an hour.

You Look Nice Today: Surreal conversations with Merlin Mann, Scott Simpson, and Adam Lisagor. Erratic schedule. About 30 minutes. 

First Week With the Apple iPad

Updated April 21, 2010.

The world probably doesn't really need another iPad review, does it?

There's a glut out of them out there.

And I'm not a tech reviewer. I'm a gadget nut, so feel free to discount my enthusiasm by the appropriate percentage. After all, I did pre-order this thing sight unseen so it could be delivered on Day One.

So this post will be impressionistic, just some notes on my first week with the device.

First: It's fast. Snappy. It makes the iPhone and the iPod Touch seem slow. It makes a Macbook seem slow.

Second: The battery life is amazing. You don't even think about the battery. I plug it it in every night, and have used it heavily many days. It has never dropped below 50 percent.

Remarkable for an Apple product: It doesn't get hot -- unlike my Macbook Air, or my iPhone, which can get uncomfortable to the touch and sluggish with heavy use. I have often thought that Steve Jobs was trying to brand me with his products. No more. A negative: At a pound a half, it's kind of heavy. Not as heavy as a MacBook Air or a Thomas Pynchon hardback, but heavier than a Kindle. The answer to this problem is the Apple case. I like it. It's simple and functional. You can hold it like a book. You can prop it at an angle. You can stand it up like a little TV, a far better experience than watching movies on a laptop or a desktop computer.

Another negative: In bright daylight, reflections can be distracting if you're trying to read or watch something. And it shows every fingerprint. I don't imagine using it in sunlight all that much.

Something I didn't expect: The photo frame function is great. I put thousands of pictures on the iPad. Then I just prop it up on the mantle and let it shuffle through them. I've never enjoyed having everyone crowd around the computer to look at pictures, and showing them on the TV involves too much rigmarole. This is more akin to paging through hard-copy photo albums.

Not entirely Apple's fault: Some apps are crashy or lack obvious features. You can't turn off Twitterrific's bird noises. Tweetdeck's beta won't let you click on links in tweets. What! (Update: This may have been fixed in recent days.) The ABC app crashed, but seems better after an update. That one has a touch of evil. You can pause and fast-forward/rewind programs, but not the commercials. I flash back to pre-TiVo days, plan my bathroom trips around them. Still, it's not as crashy as the original iPhone was after third-party apps started showing up.

Public use: I remember when I first got an iPhone, and a Kindle. I felt self-conscious taking them out on the subway. For one thing, while crime is down, you have to be a little nervous riding underground with a $700 piece of hardware. It's a bit nerve-racking to think about taking it out, feeling eyes on me. That's not my thing. I like to be left alone in public. I can't wait until everyone has one of these things, or something like it. And they will.

Mostly I expect to use this at home and on long trips. For that reason, I didn't really need the 3G version, and the lack of connectivity outside WiFi-enabled locations has not been a problem. In New York, WiFi is rarely far away.

Something else I didn't expect: I didn't think I would listen to music on the iPad, but I've surprised myself. First of all, the speaker is great, so it makes a nice little radio. I can play things for my wife without using the computer or the stereo or the Apple TV, and I'm not isolated by my headphones. So it's a great way to share NPR or Pandora or whatever I have on the device. I also listen to music or podcasts on the headphones while web surfing. It's a lot easier than juggling a second device, an iPod or an iPhone, for the music. But the lack of multitasking is a negative here: I'd like to be able to see what's playing at a glance, or pause it, without exiting my app.

About some apps: My employer's app, Editor's Choice [iTunes link], is beautiful, but it should allow link sharing through Facebook or Twitter and have more content. But reading the paper on Safari for iPad is great, so it doesn't really matter, I guess. And I do give credit to Apple for having the Amazon Kindle app on the iPad from day one. All my Kindle books, many of them untouched since my Kindle died, are there. I keep it next to the iBooks app. Amazon has the better selection and prices, and you can make notes in the app. The iBooks app and store has some cooler flourishes and feels better designed (the page-turning illusion is cool). E-book reading was my main reason for getting the iPad now as opposed to waiting for a future model.

The good news is that many iPhone apps, like iChess, work and look just fine with the pixel-doubling function.

Money grab?: It's annoying that some developers have decided to charge a second time for the iPad versions of apps I own for the iPhone. If you make a good one, I'll buy your other apps. Or give me a free trial version at least. And Time magazine -- $4.99 for a single issue, in an app that only works once? Give me a break. Another magazine app, Zinio, has a free selection, but it's a bit awkward to navigate.

An annoyance: I don't know if it's a bug or not, but I get tired of entering my iTunes password every time I open the iBooks app or the iTunes store. Other people don't report this problem, so maybe it's just me. The whole iTunes tethering business has been criticized in many reviews. Why do you need to hook the iPad up to a computer to get it started? Seems like a ploy to get iTunes downloaded onto PCs or to sell Macs. And why can't I just move documents and other user files directly from my computer or network without ramping up iTunes? (Yes, I know, there are apps for that -- I like Readdledocs, which just released an iPad version.)

A third thing I didn't expect: YouTube is back in my life. I was never one to surf around the site. I usually only go there with a link. The iPhone app was cool, but it crashed a lot, and the video was too small. The iPad is the perfect device for YouTube. The videos are just the right size. It's not as crashy as the phone. I spent an evening lost in the site. In general, it's a great device for video.

I've spent a lot of time streaming Netflix and watching TV. I've watched three shows on the ABC app, and skimmed comics on several of the comic applications. It's a cool experience, but I don't think I'll buy many comics this way. It's not the same as owning the art.

Bottom line: Is this a laptop replacement? Definitely not. Even if I get the keyboard stand or the bluetooth keyboard, it is hard to imagine writing long memos, blog posts or articles on this, or editing them. Perhaps I might get used to it, but from what I hear I expect it will be odd to have to use the screen as a touch-mouse while editing with an external keyboard. I still prefer the visibility of a larger screen for actual work.

I also like the ability to switch between a photo app, files and the document I'm writing. Even when multitasking is added in the fall with the new operating system, it is hard to imagine that being satisfactory except when I'm on the run. Having to sync Keynote or text documents through iTunes also seems like a hassle. Yes, I know there are ways to do some wireless document sharing, printing and storage on the cloud. But it seems complicated for big projects and day to day use.

Is this a phone replacement? No, it's too big, and I didn't get the 3G. There are apps that will let you make calls over the Internet, and I could imagine this as a Skype device, but there's no camera, front-facing or otherwise.

Is this a Kindle replacement? Yes. Reading on it is superior, and you don't need a booklight.

What I'm finding is that I am migrating certain functions to the iPad. Some things are simply not all that comfortable on a laptop -- watching video, playing casual games. My daughter loves the Phineas and Ferb game for the iPad, above.

It's fun to curl up on a couch or in bed with this thing. I've done that with a laptop, which is a bit awkward, and with my phone, which is a squinting experience much of the time.

I wish my laptop did email the way the mail app on the iPad does it. It's a better interface, and I don't see why it wouldn't work on a computer.

The iPad is better for using Twitter than either a laptop or a phone -- the touch interface and the size of the screen makes it an immersed experience.

The third-party developers just need to fix their apps; once Tweetdeck has links, this will be my main device for using Twitter. The large, touch-based experience is superior to the computer and the iPhone.

Ultimately, though, it's a toy, not a work device, at least for me. Do you need one? That's a bit like asking, do you need a flat-screen TV? No, you don't need a flat-screen TV, or any TV. Do you need to buy books? No, not really. You don't have to read newspapers or surf the Internet, either. And there are plenty of ways to do all of those things without owning an iPad.

But sooner or later, I suspect, you will see an iPad (or a device like it) doing something you love in a better way than you are doing it now. And it will be cheaper than it is now.

Aeroccino Brings On the Foam (Soy, Too)

I have a new device. No, not that device. Or that one. No, this is a Nespresso Aerocinno. I saw one at a friend's house on a trip to Los Angeles last winter. This thing is amazing. Usually I'm content to take my espresso or coffee straight, but every once in a while I want some foam and froth.

I have managed to steam and froth milk with various steam-shooting attachments on espresso machines over the years, but it was usually a big mess, and the results were mixed. And try as I might, I could never get soy milk to froth at all, which was sad for my wife, who doesn't use dairy but likes a decaf cappucino every now and then.

So my family gave me one of these for my birthday last month.

It's a revelation. It purrs quietly. It whisks up some hot (or cold) foam in a matter of seconds. It is easy to clean up. And it works fine with soy milk.

I'm drinking a fine soy cap right now, listening to a Pandora station on my new iToy and writing this post.

Mmm, creamy and foamy.

The iPad can't do that!

But I have another problem. I've run out of coffee. And that takes me to this week's selection -- the last drop is going down the hatch.

Coffee Monserrate, Huila, Columbia

Roasted March 14 by Café Grumpy in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Purchased March 16 at Grumpy's Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description "Hazelnut aroma, butterscotch sweetness, smooth body and ripe red apple brightness. Caturra & Typica. Washed, sun-dried. Producer: Grupo Asociativo Productores del Nuevo Milenio"

In the cup This is a perfectly fine but ultimately undistinguished coffee in my mind, but I'll admit to being a little distracted this week. I've had it at home in the Jura and at work in the Aeropress (it is better than the previous selection for that). I've never been a big Hazelnut fan, associating it with the worst sort of break-room or gas-station coffee. This is nothing like that flavored stuff. It is just a hint. The butterscotch sweetness and smooth mouthfeel saves the whole thing. And of course, much of the time I have been drowning it in foam and milk, so I can't really be trusted to give it a fair assessment. I do love the Aerocinno.

One note: A small amount of milk is enough to make foam for a few drinks, so it's good to have company when you use it. I will have to experiment before I learn to draw little pictures in the cup the way pro baristas do.

So I just made this cappuccino and a decaf latte for my wife (using the Novo decaf -- sure, we have plenty of that left). We're listening to Pandora's iPad app play a Phish song ("Contact") while I blog this (on my MacBook Air -- I don't see the tablet working for my workflow even on this simple blog, which still requires simple picture uploads and easy typing, but I'll discuss the iPad's limitations in a future post).

I guess I'll have to tear myself away from my new toy(s) and ride my bike to get some more beans today.

First Minutes With the Apple iPad

It's still syncing. While I prepare myself for the inevitable post-purchase depression and "why can't I do that, Mr. Jobs" revelations, here are some unboxing pictures and a video from my Posterous page.

At some point I'll list the pros and cons. But I'm done with the posting and tweeting today. I doubt there's much new that I could say about it.

Technology isn't my beat, so I'll leave the iPad news and reviews to my colleagues at Bits. (Here's an earlier post about how I made the purchase decision.)

For me, the iPad is first and foremost a book and media reader. My Kindle died a while back. I expect to make heavy use of not only the native iBooks reader but the Kindle for iPad reader [iTunes download], and a variety of customized apps from newspapers, magazines and comic companies, including this new app from The New York Times [free iTunes download].

I also expect this device to be good for casual gaming and for watching movies and TV, as well as casual Web surfing. It doesn't seem like a work device to me. It's more of a toy.

And if you wonder why I need a book reader, just look at this picture below. I have six more like that in our tiny Manhattan apartment. I do not want to be a latter-day Collyer brother.

Considering the iPad as a Kindle Replacement

You've seen the new toy. You've seen the experts debate: Will the Apple iPad "save" newspapers, journalism, book publishing? Will it kill the Amazon Kindle? Is this the death of the laptop, and the PC as we know it? Has Apple just signaled the death of the ultraportable MacBook Air? Will it replace smartphones like the iPhone or Nexus One? Has Apple just pwned another media marketplace -- sorry Amazon, Google, Microsoft? Goodbye, netbooks? Farewell, computers? Blah, blah, blah. Nobody knows the future, so such pronouncements are justifiably viewed as so much hype. I'm not a tech or media critic, though I work for a newspaper (and yes, full disclosure, that paper does seem to have a working relationship with the iPad developers, but I had no role in that or the news coverage of the tablet).

I'm approaching this as a gadget lover and a reader. And to this consumer, the iPad vs. Kindle question is the most important one. To my surprise, I find myself leaning toward the cheapest, $499 iPad without 3G or a lot of storage.

Back in August, my Amazon Kindle's e-ink display melted down. A tragedy.

I had some frustrations with the Kindle. The hardware of the first model in particular always felt a little cheap and poorly designed. I was constantly turning pages by mistake.

While e-ink did seem to reduce eyestrain, I went through a series of booklights that didn't quite fit the device and had to be positioned just-so to avoid creating glare on the screen.

I actually found the backlit Kindle app on the iPhone to be easier for reading in bed and on planes.

The Kindle did a poor job rendering newspapers and magazines. The user interface was awkward, requiring you to page through endless menus. The device didn't have enough storage. And the crippled experimental browser was so bad that some users are apparently willing to pay Amazon for blog posts. And I actually paid Amazon for the privilege to email PDFs to myself.

But I forgave all that. I loved my Kindle. Its always-on, free Internet connection made downloading free first chapters and shopping for books anywhere a dream. The eBook prices (and first chapter previews) were easy on my wallet. The selection was Amazonian. I no longer had to lug around so many heavy books on vacation trips. So I really missed it when it died. And I lusted for the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX. The Nook and Sony Reader didn't measure up. But I held off, because everyone suspected the Apple tablet was coming soon.

Now that I've seen the iPad, I think it's my Kindle replacement. I'll have to hold one and read on it to be sure.

Do I need another way to watch movies and video? Not really, but it's cool the iPad does that. Do I need another way to get my email or surf the Web? Not really, but any device that can't do those things easily loses points. Do I need another way to write or do other computer work on the run? Not necessarily, but it's great that the iPad has some solutions for that. Do I need another music player? Not one this big. Do I need another mobile GPS device? Again, not one this big. Do I need another way to display digital photos? (Well, actually, that is kind of cool).

But as a book reader, it seems like a winner. This may not be the greatest news for Apple's bottom line or its dreams of a media revolution.

Consider the iPad's reading features: The ability to turn pages via touchscreen. Books with color charts and photography. Books with video embedded. Everything in Amazon's proprietary format via the Kindle app. Everything else that comes in the (relatively open) ePub format, including many Google Books and everything else available on the Stanza reader. (The Kindle limits you to the Amazon library.)

With customized apps, the iPad will render magazines, newspapers and other print items far better than anything out there, including standard Web browsers on computers.

And yes, that will allow some content providers to charge for the enhanced reading experience. That won't "save" journalism or book publishing. Journalism doesn't really need saving, but devices like this will be another force working to transform how it is distributed and financially supported. That will be good news for bloggers and small news shops looking for income, not just the big corporate media.

Sure, the Kindle hardware and software will catch up -- but it's still wedded to the proprietary Amazon format. Sure, there will other devices, running Google Chrome or Android, netbook-type devices from the Windows world, and proprietary gadgets from some content providers (which will probably fail). All that competition will be good for consumers and content providers everywhere.

But one other thing tips the balance toward the iPad for me that might not apply to everyone: I am among the minority that live in a Mac world, and there's a justifiable expectation that the iPad will work seamlessly within that world, from iPhone apps to the iTunes store. I'm not an unreasoning fanboy. If the iPad turns out to be as buggy as my Apple TV, or too locked down (what, no Flash?), I'll be annoyed.

Much of the commentary has focused on whether the iPad will replace the laptop or even the desktop computer. It might, for people who don't really need computers for their jobs, who are more consumers of content than creators. It might appeal to casual touch-gamers, but not hard-core PC gamers.

I don't think an iPad would completely replace my MacBook Air (which I got after flirting with a cheaper, smaller Acer Windows netbook; too awkward to use routinely, and I remembered why I hated Windows).

For work, I need to use Microsoft Word, and I need to run the newsroom's publishing software, which is a bit of a system hog. I want to be able to run the Firefox browser, with some special plugins for work, and I bet the iPad will be a Safari world. I rely heavily on Bento 3, and the iPhone version of that program is pretty much useful only as a read-only app for me. I need to be able to view my paper's video players and other Flash content, which the iPad doesn't do (although it appears that the customized Times app for the iPad does play video, based on the keynote demo). And with a keyboard stand, the iPad looks a bit awkward for day to day office or home use on a lap. I don't enjoy writing anything longer than a Tweet with a touchscreen keyboard. And the iPad's maximum 64 gigabytes of storage is not enough.

This would be a third device after the laptop and the iPhone, and I probably wouldn't carry it every day. I imagine it would mostly be for home use, or trips. It's for pleasure, a toy, not a necessity.

So that leaves the cost question. The gadget freak in me lusts for the high-end $829 iPad with 64 gigabytes and 3G connectivity. That's an awful lot for an e-book reader, and might not pass the spouse's-raised-eyebrow test. At that price, I might not feel comfortable flashing it around on the New York subway, either.

But do I really need 3G and an always-on connection? Looking back on my Kindle usage, I mainly downloaded things at home or the airport, both places where WiFi is not a problem. More and more free WiFi hot spots are popping up, and more friends have wireless in their apartments. It's becoming customary to give your WiFi password (if you lock it down) to friends and other guests. No device can give me Internet in most of the subway. And with AT&T's network still overloaded in Manhattan, browsing the Internet via 3G is not all that fun, though it's great to have a 3G phone in an emergency.

Those factors make the non-3G $499 to $699 models more attractive than the tech pundits realize, as I posted to Twitter earlier this week. Many hard-core geeks can't imagine not having maximum connectivity everywhere, whereas I can't imagine paying another $30 to AT&T for yet more slow Internet. I'd rather spend the money on books and other content. So the main trade-off when it comes to cost will be the gigs of storage versus price. I already spend a lot of time managing audio and video files on my maxed-out 32G iPhone. When I travel, I keep extra content on an old 60G video iPod. Books don't take up much space, but a few movies and TV series will fill this up quickly.

There's another factor, too -- the life of the device. Early adopters might be salivating to have the first generation, but we know that the next one in a year or two will probably be better. It might have a camera, more storage, software improvements, subsidized deals with content providers, and so on. An early adopter with a smaller budget is probably better off with the cheapest model this time around.

That's where I'm heading. What am I missing?

(One more thing: If this device melts down, Pee Wee Herman points out it could have other uses. Also, it turns out the iPad is better than this primitive tool.)

March 2010 Update: Yes, I did order the non-3G iPad today, but I opted for the one with the biggest storage, 64G at $699. I figure I'll load it up with media, so I wanted the extra capacity, but I still don't see a need for 3G. I've never needed it for my laptop.

April 2010 Update: I wrote about my experience with the Apple iPad here.)