Apple Podcasts Subscriptions — Not Good

July 5, 2021
3 min read
IMG_3975.jpeg

I wrote just a paragraph regarding Apple Podcasts Subscriptions in my post about April event as there were not many details. After hearing and reading more about the service, I think that in the current form, it is bad both for podcasters and users.

On the good side, premium podcasts will be available world-wide. Apple Podcasts is the biggest player in the world, so you’ll have a big audience. Apple has probably the best chance of charging users because they’ll always have a current card on file.

On the other hand, this is only limited to Apple Podcasts app, which is not available on Android. On iOS, many people are using 3rd party apps, and they won’t be able to listen to those premium shows. The 30% cut is pretty big, I don’t understand why podcasts with the audience will use the system, since they are the ones bringing all the customers so why pay Apple so much.

As a podcast listener, when I choose to support the creator, I want him to have as much money as possible, as most of the time those prices are quite low. I’m currently paying for a couple of podcasts around $5 each, in this scenario $1.5 from monthly transaction will go to Apple. Why? I learned about those podcasts from different means, they themselves created value for me to pay, I’m happy with a current model, so I don’t get what Apple is providing that is worth 30% apart from credit card processing which costs much less.

What’s more, when you subscribe through Apple, you become their customer, not podcasters. So, the creator doesn’t know a thing about you, he just knows how many people subscribed. He can’t communicate with the listeners, offer additional perks — like community in Discord or a coupon code for merchandise drop. Sure, he can give information in the podcast itself, but how would he check if you are paying?

One of the podcasts I’m paying for is Dithering. It was actually the very first podcast I paid for. I had doubts at first, but still subscribed pretty early on and enjoyed it very much. Once the card I used expired, and I got a short podcast episode in Overcast with Ben informing me about that. It was outstanding, I went to the website, updated the information and the episodes kept coming.

I’m not sure what Apple can provide me as a user. I love Overcast audio processing too much to switch or even to use in parallel another app, so I can’t think of a single thing that would force me to install Podcasts app back.

Sunday Endorsement – 24.05.2020

May 24, 2020
4 min read

📚 Samsung Rising: The Inside Story of the South Korean Giant That Set Out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech by Geoffrey Cain

“Fuck Steve. He’s dead and we were right. Samsung was right.” – this quote says quite a lot about Samsung culture. The story told in this book shows what happens when a company becomes too big to fail. When the whole country is depended on Samsung doing well.

If you’ve never been to jail, you’ve probably not worked hard enough – could be the mantra of Samsung management.

There are very interesting anecdotes and stories. But by the middle of the book you realize it’s mostly stories about mistakes, investigations, corruption charges etc. and less so the story of the company. I don’t like Samsung as a company, never owned a Galaxy phone, because I felt like they were just copying Apple, but even for an Apple fanboy, this book is a bit too much.

After finishing it, I was not sure on the history of the company, but I sure as hell knew that the dynasty has fallen.

📺 Drive To Survive – Season 1

“To finish first, first you have to finish”

Great documentary with an outstanding access to the drivers and teams, in the middle of the season, I’ve had a longer review written here, but can’t recommend it enough. And I’m already looking for ways to watch F1 season when it comes back.

📺 The Last Dance

Another great documentary I’ve finished this week. Again, never watched basketball, but enjoyed it so much. It’s about personality, team and most importantly leadership. Very different in style from Drive To Survive. It talks about the history, while Drive To Survive is more similar to the reality TV.

🎙 Dithering Podcast

Two of my favorite people in tech blogging got together and created a podcast. I had a little bit of doubt before subscribing as it is a paid podcast and there is no “demo” or even one free episode, but decided to try it out, I can always unsubscribe if I don’t like it and loose just $5. But of course I liked it. I’ve now listened to all the back catalogue and am listening as the episodes get out – three times a week. If you know John Gruber and Ben Thompson, you probably will have a feeling what a podcast is about and it will probably be correct.

This paid podcast model is very interesting and the first one I’ve tried. Almost all of the podcasts I listen to are ad supported with some help from listeners in form of Patreon or something similar. This though, paid up front subscription with no ability to try it out before is something I didn’t see before. The one time I’ve paid for a podcast was with a No Agenda show, which is totally listener supported (they even call listeners producers), but it is optional. They call it “value for value” model and I like the idea of it.

📰 Halide – Year 3

I started using Halide long time ago, probably as soon as it got released and it was on my home screen ever since. And I love reading their blog. It is interesting and honest. Reading about the struggles that current situation has brought (who would have though that nobody is traveling and using photo capturing app) made me realize that I can’t even fathom the real impact the virus had on all of us.

📸 My Photo From Thailand

This week my photo (at the top), got picked by the editorial team of Unsplash and my stats got crazy for a couple of days. More than 300,000 people saw it and some of them even saved it. An amazing result which gives the motivation to take more photos.

Bringing Order to Life

June 12, 2019
7 min read

As I’ve mentioned before, after listening to Cortex, I thought a lot about yearly themes. It’s an idea when you choose a theme for the year and try to do most of the things considering that theme. Looking at some aspects of my life I’ve decided that The Year Of Less would be a great start. Removing unnecessary things from life will become a great foundation for the future years.

There is just too much happening and I wanted to make sense of it and try to tame it down a bit. There was one day when I came home and just lied down and felt like my head is going to explode. The next day I’ve decided not to consume any content. Podcasts, Tweets, Instagram, blogs, news. I’ve just listened to the music. I felt much better after just a day. So that’s why I wanted to get some order in all of the content I’m consuming on the daily basis.

The biggest problem is, I’m a completionist and have big FOMO. I know this is the problem, but I don’t know how to tackle it right now. So I’m trying to first do everything I can to manage the amount of content I consume. 

TV shows

I’ve started watching a lot of TV shows. Mostly after I’ve had an operation and had to stay in bed for two weeks, I’ve watched a lot of TV shows. So I have to catch up with those. In the time when the greatest TV shows are made it’s hard to stop watching, everything is just too good. I track episodes of TV shows I’ve watched on MyShows. Right now, I’m watching those that are finished, so the amount of shows goes down. I’m trying not to start new ones, but sometimes I fail.

I’ve been able to change my mindset about that, as I think of this as not a backlog, but just a wishlist – I gather episodes I want to watch and just try to make the best of it.

Social

This one was hard. I’ve been feeling that social networks take up a lot of time and after all those Facebook scandals I’ve removed the app from my phone and almost don’t check it. I don’t miss much.

After iOS 12 came out and thanks to Screen Time I saw how much time I was spending on Twitter – I was shocked to say the least. I’ve immediately removed Twitter and Tweetbot from my phone and didn’t use Twitter for almost two months. I didn’t miss anything. I’ve recently installed Tweetbot back and am trying to make my feed a bit more useful and not so hateful. It’s hard. 

Instagram – that’s a mixed bag. I’ve tried to make sense of my follow list. Fortunately there is mute for posts and stories now, so I use it a lot. I’m trying to keep Instagram as my happy place and not make it a Facebook replacement.

I’m also posting one photo every day for almost a year now. This helps with practicing photography, which I’ve recently picked up as a hobby.

Blogs and News

Some time ago, when Google Reader still was a thing, I subscribed to tens of websites. I’ve had more then 500 unread items at any point in time. And, as with Twitter, I was a completionist. I used RSS reader to look through the titles and save everything that seemed interesting to Pocket. Which means the list of unread items also grew there. So I’ve unsubscribed from all the tech news sites (except of MacStories) and now I’m subscribed only to a couple of blogs, where the amount of articles is low (some of them save new items straight to the Pocket, so I don’t have to manage it in two places. I use IFTTT for that). 

The goal here is to read less, but of higher quality. I realized that in order to improve my own writing skills I need to practice and also read a lot. That’s why I’m looking for blogs that are enjoyable to read.

Podcasts

The one thing I think I got a lot better at are podcasts. I’ve had more than 200 unlistened episodes in Overcast and this number didn’t get any lower over time. So I unsubscribed from a couple of shows, started to triangulate more. Fast forwarded the parts that didn’t interest me. Skipped interviews with people I wasn’t interested in. And started to listen at 2x speed. As a not native English speaker, I’m pretty proud of myself. Although as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve went back to the normal listening speed, now that I’m pretty happy with the amount of shows I’m listening to.

I’m also trying to diversify my listening. There are podcasts in three languages in my list – English, Russian and Polish. I’m also trying to find shows other then tech related.

Photography

I’ve been interested in photography for a long time, but I’ve never had a camera. My parents had simple point and shoot that I’ve used sometimes. The first thing that was close to being my camera was iPhone 4. In combination with Instagram it was my first experience of sharing photos to the world (or probably 10 followers who saw them).

That is why starting with iPhone 6S Plus I’ve always bought the latest iPhones as soon as they came out – this was my main and only camera (or at least that’s how I’ve justified it to my budget).

A couple of months ago I’ve bought myself a real camera – Olympus OM-D Mark 3 and now I try to find every moment to use it and improve my skills. As a novice I take a lot of photos and I’m trying to leave only the best ones. At first I was hesitant to delete a lot of photos, but later I’ve realized – it’s much better if you have just a couple of great photos you can open and look at, than thousands of mediocre ones that you never see.

Games

The biggest time sink for me is FIFA and not even the latest one, but the 18. I’m just playing online World Cup over and over again. I’ve started to limit it (the correct move would be to delete it, but sometimes it’s nice to have such a mindless game to distract myself). Lately I’ve been playing more interesting games, like Read Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man and Horizon: Zero Dawn. Games you can enjoy like a great TV show or a movie. Games with the story and with the ending. I’ve finished Spider-Man and got every trophy and I’ve enjoyed it more than a lot of the movies I’ve watched.

Stress

I’m trying to remove stress from my life in a couple of different ways. I’m using to-do and calendar apps more, so I don’t forget something and don’t stress out about remembering all of the time. 

I’m also more mindful, I’m trying to notice when I’m mad or irritated and analyze – what is the reason and what can I do in the future to avoid that. This is very slow process, but it’s enjoyable. Through such thoughts I feel like I’m learning more about myself and already making a change in my temper.

Overall, looking at the year I’m having so far, I’m satisfied how it’s going. I’m reducing the noise all over the place and I’m adding only those things I really care about. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but I have another half a year to work with.

WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions – macOS

June 8, 2019
5 min read

This was a surprisingly powerful part of the keynote. All the talk before the WWDC was about iPad improvements and Mac Pro, so I wasn’t expecting such a strong showing from macOS. First, the name – Catalina, sounds beautiful and I don’t even know where to start, there was so much. 

Screen Time for macOS – logical addition. It helped me to realize how much time I’ve spent on social media, but after that didn’t use it almost at all, hope with some improvements and macOS version will use it more.

The break-up of iTunes, the end of the era. It was arguably the iTunes and the Music Store which helped Apple to reach the position it has right now. Instead there are three new apps and iPhone synchronization moved to the finder. The two apps I probably won’t use – TV and Podcasts. One of them, Podcasts, is made using the new developers tools I’ll mention later, but I will wait for Marco Arment to port Overcast app to the Mac, as his sound engine is superior and synchronization between devices is a key feature.

The one app I intend on using more is Apple Music. Right now, even when I’m working on my MacBook and with ease that you can switch AirPods to the Mac I listen to the music from my iPhone. iTunes for using Apple Music just sucks. It’s so big an clunky. 

The one feature I liked the idea of during the presentation – Sidecar. I’ve also heard only good things about the app after the keynote, but then I’ve found out I won’t be able to run it on my Mac, because it’s too old. So maybe I’ll have to buy Luna Display after all. This actually is very representative of something that everyone calls Sherlocking – Apple copying something that 3rd parties do already. They do some part of it, but not all, so developers can still sell their devices or software to those who need something more powerful or, like in this case, to those who have older computers.

I loved the presentation of Voice Control, fortunately I don’t need it, but the video looked very lovely. It’s nice that Apple tries to provide the way for everyone to use their devices.

Again, one of those things that has been tried before, but probably can only be delivered by the company of Apple scale – MacBook private Bluetooth beacon. When someone steels your laptop it sends Bluetooth signal (very low power, so battery won’t drain) to the nearest Apple devices and this creates mesh network which in the end provides you with the location of the stolen device. Amazing, with the amount of Apple devices in the world, this solution is the one that can definitely work.

As I’ve mentioned before I have an older Mac, which doesn’t have Touch ID, I love how my MacBook unlocks itself when my Apple Watch is near, now it will be possible to do even more, that is the promise of Approve with Apple Watch. Hopefully it will work on my MacBook and Apple Watch and will help me everyday, so I won’t have to type my passwords all the time.

One of the biggest additions this year – Project Catalyst, that is continuation of last year mentioned Sneak Peak, which everyone called Project Marzipan. Let’s not dwell on the name Catalyst in macOS Catalina. I’m sure it will be a bit of a struggle to remember which is which, but the macOS name will change in a year, so the problem won’t stay for long.

The idea behind it is helping iOS developers to port their apps to the macOS. From what Apple showed us it looks good and right at home on the Mac. Again, Podcasts app was written using Project Catalyst and from the looks it’s hard to tell it apart from Apple Music. I love that at least some of my favorite iOS apps will come to the Mac, like Overcast for example. 

The apps Apple decided to show off on stage were a bit odd. Calling Asphalt 9 Legends and Amazing Mac App, was a bit much. Although it’s a developers conference, but Jira is not the most beloved software in the world, but it proved the point, now you could move your iOS app to the Mac.

The last big thing that got mentioned and I will discuss it here was SwiftUI. It’s a new framework which makes making an app so much easier. It will work on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV. And looking at the demo, I wanted to again try to learn coding. 

So as you can see, pretty strong keynote for macOS. I think it shows that Apple is still serious about Mac and there is hope that this OS will have bright future.

Podcast Listening Speed

May 31, 2019
2 min read

Yesterday I’ve wrote about the year of less, one of the last things I’ve changed is the podcast listening speed. Not long after I’ve started listening to the podcasts, I’ve subscribed to a lot of them and in order to even try to keep up, I’ve had to use Smart Speed function of Overcast and also listen at 2x speed. Most of the shows I’ve listened to sounded good, especially with Overcasts sound engine.

But after about 5 years I’ve realized, like with TV shows, it’s just not possible to listen to everything and so it’s better to up the quality of the listening. I also now think it’s much healthier to listen at normal speed. Unfortunately after such a long time listening at 2x speed it’s hard to get back. I tried to listen at 1x from the start, but it’s not possible, so I just reduced a speed bit by bit. Right now, I’m listening at about 1.25 – 1.5x, but podcasts in Polish I listen at 1x. I feel how much easier it is for my brain to process the information. In today’s world we are bombarded with information from every corner and reducing the amount of it when you can feels nice.

The Year of Less

May 30, 2019
3 min read

I’ve had a moment recently when I realized that there is too much stuff going on and I can’t keep up with everything. For example, when I was studying I’ve had a lot more free time, commuting took a lot more, so I’ve started listening to a lot of podcasts, following a lot of people on Twitter and Instagram, reading a lot of news (mostly tech related) and saving a lot of articles to the Pocket, watching all the most popular TV shows. This was fine, until I’ve had full-time job and a serious relationship.

One of the biggest problems was – I’ve always been a completionist, so just cutting everything out was hard. So I’ve started bit by bit, for example, I’ve started with podcast episode curation, not unsubscribing from the podcast, but just deleting the episodes that I wasn’t interested in.

I’m much more likely to unsubscribe from someone on Twitter or Instagram. If someone posts too much or I don’t enjoy photos they take, I will unsubscribe, regardless of our relationship. I also use Mute function on both social media. I’ve muted everything related to Trump on Twitter – it’s just too much negativity, without any upside.

I’ve accepted the fact that I won’t be able to watch every episode of every TV show in a timely manner, so I’ve picked some favorites that I watch when they get out (mostly to avoid spoilers) and I try to watch TV shows that were discontinued first, so the number of shows I watch decrease.

I’m also realizing that I won’t able to read and watch everything that I save for later soon, so I just know, that when I have some free time, I can open Pocket and find something to read or watch, I can even choose something appropriate for the amount of time I have free.

All of this, ironically, was inspired by a podcast – Cortex. On this show I’ve heard about a great idea – yearly themes. So I’ve decided to make this one – The Year of Less. I’m going further now and cleaning up the physical and digital mess I’ve made over the years. I’m going through my password manager and deleting accounts on sites I’ve used ones or don’t even remember exist. I’m going through the apps on my phone and deleting those that I’ve never used and probably will never use. I’m also thinking about places where I put my files, most importantly photos – I’ve deleted them from a couple of services, including Google Photos.

What started as an attempt to leave a more healthy life, psychologically, ended up being a pretty major change in my life and my thinking. I feel like this theme will be the one I’ll focus more in future posts.

What to listen to while running

March 17, 2014
2 min read

In my recent post I’ve wrote about choosing activity tracking app. After that there is even more important and difficult choice – what to listen to. Running without headphones is not an option. I get borred pretty fast and start thinking about how hard it is to run early on. Here are my thoughts about enterntaining yourself while running.

Running with music

About a year ago I completely ditched iTunes and started listening to music only on Spotify. I have Starred playlist with about 700-800 songs, which get cached on my laptop and smartphone. Being lazy person that I am, I didn’t go through this playlist looking for perfect songs for running. Instead I’ve found two playlists [1] and [2], that were a good fit for my tempo.
My first couple of runs were pretty quick. I’ve run a little more than 2km, so listening to music was enjoyable. Then, as my runs got longer, music started to get boring after about 4th song and it does a bad job blocking those “I can’t! I want to stop!” thoughts.

Podcasts

My second choice was – podcasts. I’ve tried many of them, some work, some don’t. They are just too slow and mess up your tempo, but you can find something that will fit you. Looking for a good one in your podcast listening app takes couple of minutes, and then there are ads. If you listen to podcasts, there is a good chance you’ve heard Squarespace ad hundreds of times. Chance are you skip ads and it’s not easy done while running. That means you have to look for a podcast, which doesn’t mess up your tempo, is long enough and doesn’t have ads, easier said than done.

My last choice – audiobooks

As with podcasts, you have to find the right one. Books, though, are much longer than a podcast, which means you can listen to one book for a week or two. This was the last thing I’ve tried and I stuck with it. If it’s an interesting book, you forget about the fact that you are running. Often I get surprised by the distance I’ve run without even noticing.