I’m Marco Arment, creator of Overcast, technology podcaster and writer, and coffee enthusiast.
I have ADHD. Probably. 1 My entire adolescence was defined by forgetting to do my homework, disappointing everyone around me, and being told by every adult that I was lazy, just needed to try harder, and wasn t living up to my potential. I ll be working on the resulting shame and anxiety for the rest of my life. 2 If someone tells me, Remember to pick up the dry cleaning tomorrow, I definitely won…
As Apple celebrates its fiftieth birthday, we celebrate the spirit of its formation, when people who loved computers started making great computers to inspire more people to love computers. That spirit is difficult to find in the tech business today. Immense scale, soulless optimization, and an insatiable thirst for growth dominate its behavior and discourse, leaving little room for the spirit and…
Ten years ago, Apple s Phil Schiller surprised Apple enthusiasts and developers by walking out on stage at John Gruber s The Talk Show Live WWDC event and giving an open, human, honest interview to a somewhat jaded community. I wrote this in response : Both Apple and Phil Schiller himself took a huge risk in doing this. That they agreed at all is a noteworthy gift to this community of long-time…
Today, on the tenth anniversary of Overcast 1.0 , I m happy to launch a complete rewrite and redesign of most of the iOS app, built to carry Overcast into the next decade — and hopefully beyond. Like podcasts better than blog posts? Listen to ATP #596 for more! What s new Much faster, more responsive, more reliable, and more accessible. Modern design, optimized for easily-reached controls on today…
Overcast s latest update (2022.2) brings the largest redesign in its nearly-eight-year history, plus many of the most frequently requested features and lots of under-the-hood improvements. I m pretty proud of this one. For this first and largest phase of the redesign, I focused on the home screen, playlist screen, typography, and spacing. (I plan to revamp the now-playing and individual-podcast…
Losing Steve affected me more than it probably should have, given that I never met him or had any correspondence with him. But losing him was devastating — not just to my world, but the world. He was a sort of virtual father figure: I was always hoping that maybe Steve would notice something I did. We all wanted his attention and approval, and that drove us to do better work — even those of us who…
After the dust settles from the developer class-action settlement , the South Korean law , the JFTC announcement , and the Apple v. Epic decision , I think the most likely long-term outcome isn t very different from the status quo — and that s a good thing. Allowing external purchases Here s what I think we ll end up with: Apple will still require apps to use their IAP system for any qualifying…
Apple’s leaders continue to deny developers of two obvious truths: That our apps provide substantial value to iOS beyond the purchase commissions collected by Apple. That any portion of our customers came to our apps from our own marketing or reputation, rather than the App Store. For Apple to continue to deny these is dishonest, factually wrong, and extremely insulting — not only to our efforts,…
A summary of today’s changes to 3.1.3 Other Purchase Methods : Your app must use Apple’s in-app-purchase (IAP) system for all purchases made in the app. Unless they’re purchases for goods or services that are consumed outside the app, in which case you are prohibited from using IAP. Unless those goods or services consumed outside the app are magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, or video, in…
The latest update to Overcast includes a feature that I m especially proud of that took over a year to build. Voice Boost 2 is an all-new audio engine that includes professional-grade, mastering-quality loudness normalization. When I first introduced Overcast in 2014 , Voice Boost was one of its headlining features: Voice Boost is a combination of dynamic compression and equalization that can make…
In light of today s rumor that a Pro Mode may be coming that seems to offer benefits in the opposite direction, 1 I wanted to re-make the case for a Low Power Mode on macOS — and explain why now is the time. Modern hardware constantly pushes thermal and power limits, trying to strike a balance that minimizes noise and heat while maximizing performance and battery life. Software also plays a role,…
After my first day with the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, I m very optimistic about it. 🎧 Hear more on today s Accidental Tech Podcast! Two years ago, I wrote a wishlist to fix the MacBook Pro , and the 16-inch doesn t actually deliver most of it. But time and technological progress are slowly getting Apple off the hook: The ports are unchanged. We ll still need dongles. But USB-C is gradually…
Today s Overcast update (2019.6) brings some great new features. But first, I need to set low expectations for iOS 13, watchOS 6, and macOS Catalina updates this fall. Halfway through the summer, I ve made much less progress than expected, having been overwhelmed by the required OS changes, my own technical and design debts, and unusually rough betas. Rather than shipping a big iOS update, a…
Something big changed at Apple around the beginning of 2017. They had encountered significant turbulence in the product line over the preceding years, especially Macs. It was a rough time to be a pro Mac user. The “trash can” 2013 Mac Pro addressed only a fraction of the needs solved by the previous “cheese grater” towers, aged quickly without critical upgrade paths, and suffered from high…
Sharing podcasts has never been easy, but I ve always tried to lead the way with Overcast , with publicly shareable episode links and optional recommendations from your Twitter friends since version 1.0 in 2014. 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…
▶️ The first thing someone does in a podcast app is add some podcasts, and most active Overcast users add at least two new podcasts each month. Over 80% of podcasts are added to Overcast by searching, with the vast majority as searches for a specific podcast by name (rather than searching for generic keywords, such as business ). Good search is a critical, differentiating feature of any podcast…
Watch my video review of the new iPad Pro in both sizes. Rather than try to be comprehensive, I focused on what matters most to me: size choice between the 11 and 12.9 , the Smart Keyboard Folio from my perspective as a frequent 10.5 Smart Keyboard user, the new Pencil, and why “getting work done” isn’t important to me.
Watch the video review I hardly ever think about my Mac Mini, but it serves a vital role for my family as our home-theater mixer , Plex server, ScanSnap server, Apple Photos backup, and Backblaze host for our NAS . 1 Almost every port on the back is in use, and it runs 24/7, reliably, in total silence. Until last week, I thought it would be the last Mac Mini that Apple ever made. And when rumors…
Quick, what time is it? If that took you a bit longer than usual to tell the time on the Apple Watch s new default Infograph face, you re not alone: John Gruber finds it far too busy Jason Snell finds it pretty and packed with features , but misses hour numerals Zac Hall removes almost everything to improve legibility David Smith wrote his own complications (!) to improve contrast I ve configured…
I apologize for the low battery level. Busy day. It all started with the watchOS volume widget. You see, Overcast s previous Apple Watch app really sucked. I did my best with the capabilities of watchOS 1–4, but I couldn t give people what they really wanted: Standalone podcast playback on the Apple Watch without an iPhone. I briefly offered it through some bad hacks, but had to remove it . Volume…