This Sunday night at 10 PM EST, Michael Rose, our consumate Talkcast host, will once agin be out of town, so I'll be taking his place. Hopefully, we won't run into any of the technical difficulties we ran into last week.
We'll be taking open calls and discussing the top stories of the week, attempting to answer any of your questions, talking about Apple rumors...oh yeah, and we'll be giving away schwag (including some software) for correct trivia answers.
To join the conversation and try your hand at winning, just log onto TalkShoe, either with or without an account, by using the shiny new browser-only client (no downloading required and no registration needed). Just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. You can also listen in on the Talkshoe page or call in on regular phone or VOIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID: 45077.
Here's a clever concept that I would never have dreamed up myself in a million years: iTunes ringtone podcasts! The idea is this: you subscribe to podcast that delivers ringtones to iTunes and allows you to sync them directly to your iPhone. I gave it a try, downloading one "episode" and sure enough it was immediately available for iPhone syncing. There aren't a lot of ringtones at this point -- just variations on the teen/mosquito high-frequency buzz -- but as a proof of concept, it's very neat indeed. Hopefully others will pick up this idea and run with it. I'm not a big ringtone aficionado personally but I know a lot of people will love this -- especially for well chosen ringtones sampled from real life.
I picked up Awaken with the recent Macheist deal, and with it I planned to do something I've been thinking about doing for a long time with iTunes: try and figure out a way to wake myself up with a short roundup of the daily podcasts I never seem to find a time to listen to during the day itself.
Getting your Mac to play a playlist on demand at a certain time isn't hard at all (Awaken will do it easily, or Alarm Clock 2 will do it as donationware), but the tough part is getting your podcasts rounded up into a playlist so you can hear all the new shows all in one go. What I wanted to do was create a playlist that contained one of each of the daily podcast shows that iTunes had downloaded for me most recently, and to have that playlist update as the podcasts did, so that every day I had a playlist full of new show episodes set to play one after another.
Easier said than done (and it's not even that easy to say). But I got it done, just by manipulating a few iTunes smart playlists. Here's my short tutorial how.
After our week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, the TUAW talkcast crew is back in action tonight. Join Christina Warren, Lisa Hoover, Dave Caolo and yours truly for a rundown of the week's top stories and previews of our upcoming gift guides.
To join in live, visit our Talkshoe page for call-in info. You can also join the show in listen-only mode from any phone by calling (724) 444-7444 at 10 pm ET, entering the show ID (45077) and then pressing 1#. Hope to hear you there!
The iPhone mobile music store doesn't serve up podcasts, so where are you gonna go for a fresh hot bowl of Auntie Beeb? Why, to the BBC itself, silly. The BBC's radio labs blog just announced a new iPhone-savvy webpage that offers simple phone and iPod touch browsing.
If you're on a touch or iPhone, you can just go to bbc.co.uk/podcasts and save yourself some extra typing. The site recognizes when you're visiting from an iPhone and they plan to expand this service to other hand-held devices.
Last week's TUAW Talkcast, recorded live, featured the debut of TUAW's new team members Jason Clarke, Lisa Hoover and Nik Fletcher, and the swan song of our departing colleague David Chartier. It clocks in at 40 minutes and 28 MB. You can pick it up from our RSS & iTunes feeds, via direct download here, or via download and streaming over at Talkshoe.
Since we've got a little Apple event tomorrow, we're going to be doing another Wednesday night talkcast on 9/5; since we want extra time to discuss the new goodies, we're moving it up one half-hour to 9 pm ET. Follow the link to Talkshoe for the schedule.
For the weeks to come, we are thinking about alternate times and dates for the talkcast, either to allow participants from far-flung timezones or to permit everyone to use free nights and weekends on their cellphones when they call in. You can answer the polls below, or comment here to provide your input.
It's that time of the week again folks - the TUAW Talkcast is once again upon us! Our regular host Michael Rose is taking the week off, so I'll be taking the hosting reigns for the night. Join TUAW bloggers Dave Caolo, Erica "iPhone Pwner" Sadun, Mike Schramm and myself for a discussion on the week's big news, hopefully some live Ask TUAW where we field your questions and yet another trivia contest for a TUAW shirt! After the show is done, we'll open up the lines so everyone can chat before calling it a night.
To participate or listen in on our TalkShoe-powered Talkcasts, register (free) at TalkShoe.com. This will give you a pin you can use to call in with a regular or VoIP phone. If you want to text chat with us and other participants, you'll need to download and sign in with their java client as well. If you can't be with us tonight though, don't worry - as usual, we'll provide the recording for download and via our TUAW Podcast feed (RSS and iTunes) within a day or so.
It should be another good show tonight, so we hope to see you all there!
Add ESPN to your list of major media outlets who have designed a portal specifically for the iPhone. While they might have had an easier time customizing their PodCenter with podcasts and downloadable media for the iPhone (after all, they were already halfway there with a PodCenter), they win absolutely zero points for the URL you use to get there:
As far as the iPhone-ified UI, ESPN did a pretty good job. Shows are listed descending by date, and tapping on a specific episode presents a logo, brief description and the ability to stream the episode. ESPN has also launched a few new shows for this rev to the PodCenter, though I can't get a single one to play yet. For now, I'll chalk that up to growing pains, since this iPhone UI more or less just launched today.
Poor Apple TV - the iPhone has been outshining the handy little media hub, and Jobs arguably might not have helped matters by calling it a hobby (though, personally, that makes me optimistic for its future). Fortunately, last100 has compiled a very, very thorough list of Apple TV resources that spans reviews from various industry sites, dedicated books, blogs and wikis, how-to tutorials for converting video, podcasts and, of course, the burgeoning hacking industry that has surfaced. If you're looking for a useful springboard into the world of the Apple TV, this is by far the most comprehensive resource I've seen yet.
MacRadio, the home base for a few Mac-related podcasts, has announced they're going to facelife the entire site, and instead turn it into a hub for all sorts of Mac podcasts-- a "podcast portal for the Mac world," as they say. I sure thought that was the Podcasts tab in iTunes, but maybe that's just me.
Anyway, to kick off the redesign, they're offering a beta, in which you can give feedback and help them build the site the way you want it. There's a FAQ up on what's happening, if you're interested, and they mention that they're looking for people running all OSes and browsers. Oh, and apparently everyone who tests the beta gets a free t-shirt, as well as a chance to win more prizes. Pretty slick. Help MacRadio become better and win stuff!
It's been a while since we've written about Übercaster, the all-in-one tool for recording, editing and publishing podcasts, but that doesn't mean its developer, Eberhard Rensch, hasn't been hard at work on it. Through updates over the last couple of months, Übercaster v1.1.5 has gained a ton of handy new features and polish, such as:
Delete and Close Gap: Instantly re-join two pieces of a track after cutting out a portion of the middle. A big time saver when editing out the false starts and other mistakes.
Reset Playhead on Stop: An option to automatically return the playhead to its original starting point. Another huge timesaver when reviewing a specific clip.
Split All Tracks: Splits every track at the playhead, regardless of which tracks are selection.
New PleasantConnect version: An update to the Mac OS X kernel extension included with Übercaster that allows for pulling off tricks like recording Skype conversations in separate tracks, with you on one and any caller(s) on another.
New progress bar in Dock icon: This is great for a real-time yet unobtrusive display of a podcast's upload progress.
Sparkle integration for automatic updates: Andy Matuschak's popular Sparkle framework has made to Übercaster, providing wonderful automatic software updates that so many apps are enjoying.
This isn't all though; there are far more new features and bug fixes listed in just the last two updates than I can fit in this post, so check out the Übercaster changelog or grab the latest version yourself. If that updated kernel extension can fix my problems and allow me to record multi-track Skype conversations, Rensch will certainly be seeing a $79.95 purchase from me.
Reader Bo Smet sends along (thanks!) two cool new podcasting features in iTunes 7.3.1 that I hadn't noticed yet. First and foremost, podcasts are now browseable with CoverFlow, which is awesome (and probably points to an eventual implementation of CoverFlow on the iPod, if speculation is your thing). However, podcasters aren't sure exactly how art is determined for this-- they can define art by episode, so which episode art is shown in CoverFlow? Also, video podcasts use an image that comes a few frames into the video, which doesn't really help unless the podcast is designed to show a logo or identifier early on.
The other new feature works great, though-- when browsing a specific podcast, you'll notice that a new "Get All" button shows up near the title. When you hit that, iTunes will automatically download all available episodes of that podcast. Depending on how many are available, that might be a pretty big addition to your collection, but if you find a really good podcast that you can't get enough of, it's great to have one-click access to everything out there.
The TUAW podcast is back in effect ladies and gents, though this week we're a tad late due to some technical difficulties. Nevertheless, expect a steady new stream of podcasts and screencasts from here on out, starting with today's entry: TUAW Podcast #23: There and Back Again with the iPhone. Fellow TUAW blogger Michael Rose and I explore the iPhone's past, including how far back speculation about one of Apple's most anticipated devices actually reaches, as well as when Apple first gave away any hints that it was even considering such a device (hint: it's older than the 4.5 years Jobs mentioned at Macworld 07).
We then take a look at the state of the iPhone now, less than a month from its expected release, why the corporate and enterprise worlds are taking an unexpected interest in it, what happened with the 'iPhone/Leopard delay' email hoax Engadget experienced on Wednesday and how powerful that kind of news can really be. Heck, even a tech-savvy dolphin makes it into the show - where else are you going to hear that?
Michael wanted to clear up one specific piece of data we spoke about, however: we were discussing some differences between the iPod and iPhone, and Michael indicated the MP3 player retail market hit $600m in March. Turns out he was a tad high, as these numbers from Bloomberg put the number for MP3 players sold at retail at just under $225m. Just wanted to make sure we're keepin' it real.
Update: It took a couple of days for iTunes to catch up with our podcast feed, but as of Monday the show is appearing on the iTunes store. Sorry for the delay.
For podcasters and clutterbugs alike, there are a number of tools that help you hide your desktop, briefly change its wallpaper and digitally stuff all your icons in the closet to help your screencast shine and impress the boss with your ninja-like file management skills. Desktopple from FoggyNoggin Software (what a name for a software company) is just such a tool, and I'm an inch away from buying a license as it goes above and beyond merely hiding my messy desktop habits. As you can see, Desktopple still gives you easy access to your desktop files while hiding them, and it offers 'Window Cleaning,' the ability to automatically hide certain applications after a specified period of inactivity. It can also be set to hide your desktop when you start certain applications, and even restore it when you quit said apps. Toss in support for separately configuring the hiding of multiple desktops, ignoring Exposé (so your desktop remains hidden) hotkey and Automator support, and you can consider me sold as soon as I can explain yet another software purchase to my wife.
Desktopple costs $17, and a free 15-day trial is available from FoggyNoggin Software.
When your AppleTV arrives, what are you planning to watch? If your iTunes library is cruising at a content-lite state, Apple suggests you check out this showcase of free AppleTV-friendly video podcasts that range from edgy cartoons to comic stand-up routines to wildlife documentaries. If you haven't had a lot of exposure to iTunes' video podcasts, it's a great place to start watching even if you don't plan to purchase AppleTV.
This Sunday night at 10 PM EST, Michael Rose, our consumate Talkcast host, will once agin be out of town, so I'll be taking his place. Hopefully, we won't run into any of the technical difficulties we ran into last week. 
Here's a clever concept that I would never have dreamed up myself in a million years: 
I picked up Awaken with 
After our week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, the TUAW talkcast crew is back in action tonight. Join Christina Warren, Lisa Hoover, Dave Caolo and yours truly for a rundown of the week's top stories and previews of our upcoming gift guides.
Last week's 
Add ESPN to your list of major media outlets who have designed a portal specifically for the iPhone. While they might have had an easier time customizing their PodCenter with podcasts and downloadable media for the iPhone (after all, they were already halfway there with a PodCenter), they win absolutely zero points for the URL you use to get there: 
Poor Apple TV - the iPhone has been outshining the handy little media hub, and Jobs arguably might not have helped matters by 
MacRadio, the 
It's been a while since we've written about 
The TUAW podcast is back in effect ladies and gents, though this week we're a tad late due to some technical difficulties. Nevertheless, expect a steady new stream of podcasts and screencasts from here on out, starting with today's entry: TUAW Podcast #23: There and Back Again with the iPhone. Fellow TUAW blogger 
When your AppleTV arrives, what are you planning to watch? If your iTunes library is cruising at a content-lite state, Apple suggests you check out 
