Overcast, the podcast app of choice for lovers of good design, powerful-yet-straightforward features, and the color orange, just added a brand-new recommendations feature.
Previously, Overcast used a Twitter-based recommendation engine. But developer Marco Arment says almost nobody used it. Now, he’s replaced it with recommendations based on users’ personal listening habits, and the result is amazing. I already added a few new podcast subscriptions based on its suggestions.
Internet privacy activist and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has come out in favor of Tim Cook’s decision to deny a federal court judge’s request that Apple help the FBI hack the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone 5c.
Snowden is calling Apple’s battle over security the most important tech case in a decade, and has called out Google for not coming to the public’s side on the issue. In a series of tweets expounding on the issues, Snowden said the FBI’s efforts to force Apple to give them a key bypasses citizen’s ability to defend their rights.
Without a doubt, the oldest Mac Apple still sells is the 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro, model number MD101LL/A. Launched in 2012, it’s still on sale from Apple for just $1,099 … $200 more expensive than Apple’s entry-level MacBook Air, which is just as powerful.
What’s the deal? Why does Apple still sell it? The 2012 MacBook Pro is still a surprisingly big seller for Cupertino. Here’s why.
The best podcast app for iOS — Overcast — got a huge update today, and best of all, its creator has decided to drop the in-app purchases and make it completely free for everyone.
The popular Overcast 2.0 app now includes streaming, chapters, storage management smart speed and tons of other optimizations. Even though there aren’t any in-app purchases, creator Marco Arment has included a patronage option where customers can support the app with a small monthly donation.
With all the free new features, there’s really no reason not to use Overcast over Apple’s Podcast. One of the app’s best features is that it makes listening to podcasts a bit more social by allowing users to recommend podcast episodes to followers.
Here’s how to get the most out of Overcast recommendations:
Developer Marco Arment pulled his iOS 9 content blocker from the App Store two days after launching it. He says it “just doesn’t feel good” to be profiting from his app Peace while taking money away from advertisers and publishers. He’s even offering refunds to anyone who already bought Peace expecting updates and support down the line, which they now won’t be getting.
Figuring out which content-blocking apps you want is going to be tough with so many of them vying for your attention. Which one should you choose?
A day after iOS 9 made content blockers possible, we’ve got Purify, Peace, Crystal, Silentium, Blockr, Freedom, Blockr and 1Blocker, just to name a few.
These apps are garnering a ton of attention and reaching the top of the paid app charts. With so many content blockers out there, what’s the difference? Why choose one over the other? It’s so confusing, so we did a little digging. Here’s what we’ve found out.
Of the many podcasting apps available for iOS, Overcast on iOS is one of our favorites. Programmed by Instapaper and The Magazine founder Marco Arment, it’s a slick podcasting app with some unique tricks up its sleeves, like smart speed, voice boost, and variable playback speed. We love it. There’s only one problem. It’s been iPhone-only. At least until now.
When The Magazine ceases publication this December, owner Glenn Fleishman will be closing shop on an ambitious two-year experiment in digital publishing.
It’s not a total surprise — subscriptions were already on a downward trend when Fleishman transitioned from editor to owner of The Magazine after purchasing the publication from Marco Arment last year — and it’s not a total bummer, either.
In fact, Fleishman says he’s feeling pretty good about stopping here: he’s met his obligation to provide Kickstarter backers with their one-year subscriptions, and he’s ending this fascinating experiment while it’s still profitable.
“I’m even able to pay myself an ever-declining hourly rate for my time,” said Fleishman, who spoke with Cult of Mac about what went right, what went wrong, and his feelings about pulling the plug on a project that was his full-time job for the last year and a half.
The Magazine, one of the best original technology-focused Newsstand magazines out there, is closing up shop as of December of this year.
The Magazine raised the bar for a digital-only publication, providing well-written and edited short and long non-fiction that ranged topically from Apple to personal stories with true warmth and impact. We’ll miss the twice monthly title and wish the team the best.
When asked on Twitter why the publication was ending, The Magazine’s official account cited money issues.
About a month ago, I said on Twitter that I was looking for a new podcast app to try. I’ve been a user of Instacast on iOS and OS X for a long time, but recently the app’s cloud sync has become too unreliable and glitchy.
I got a lot of suggestions, but ended up settling with Apple’s own Podcasts app. It didn’t address several things I wanted out of a podcast client, but it was the most reliable and easy to use option from what I came across.
And now, lo and behold, the most highly-anticipated new podcast app in a long time has come out. Today Marco Arment released Overcast, a simple and yet powerful podcast app for the iPhone. I’ve given it a test run, and although there is plenty of room for improvement, I’m pretty impressed.
Remember how simple Skitch used to be before Evernote bought it and ran it through its UI-mangling machine? So does Instapaper’s Marco Arment, which is why he made Bugshot, an app whose “sole purpose is dealing with screenshots better.”
WWDC tickets sold out unbelievably quickly this year. We knew it was highly unlikely they’d be available for as long as the two hours it took them to sell out last year, but we also weren’t expecting them all to disappear in under two minutes.
But did Apple really sell out of WWDC tickets that fast?
The Cupertino company has since been calling developers to offer them a place at its event this June, and that’s led some to question whether all tickets were really sold or whether Apple’s too embarrassed to admit that its servers couldn’t cope with the demand they received when tickets went on sale.
Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a brand new Newsstand publication that’s “loosely about technology,” from Instapaper developer Marco Arment. We also have an awesome new email client that turns items in your inbox into tasks and to-dos, a great little iPhone app for remembering recommendations, the ultimate unarchiver, and more.
Instapaper developer Marco Arment has announced The Magazine for Newsstand, a new publication that’s “loosely about technology, but also gives tech writers a venue to explore other topics that like-minded geeks might find interesting.” The Magazine will get four articles every two weeks, and it costs $1.99 per month to subscribe with a 7-day free trial.
iOS developer Marco Arment has discovered two new iPads — believed to be two iterations of the upcoming iPad mini — in his Instapaper developer logs. The devices have the “iPad2,5” and “iPad2,6” model numbers, according to their operating system, which haven’t been seen before, and could point to Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + cellular versions of the device.
It appears that Apple has finally acknowledged the app crashing issue that has been plaguing many apps on the iOS App Store in the last day or so. Originally highlighted by Instapaper creator Marco Arment here, apparently some newly updated apps were crashing on launch. The issues stem from corrupted app binaries that were being distributed on the App Store, and may be related to Apple’s FairPlay DRM.
An issue with Apple’s App Store and Mac App Store is causing newly-updated Mac and iOS apps to become nonfunctional. Users are reporting that after updating certain apps, they no longer load, but simply crash at the startup screen. It is advised that users avoid updating any of their software until the issue is fixed.
The new Retina MacBook Pro is the most pixel-loaded Apple device yet, with more than five million of the little blighters spread over 220 pixels per inch. That’s a lot of tiny dots, but believe it or not, it only translates to a mere five megapixels. And since the iPhone has had a 5 megapixel camera since 2010, pictures taken on an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S should be able to take full advantage of the Retina MacBook Pro’s 2880 x 1800 resolution display.
So why is it that photos taken with an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S look so crappy on a Retina MacBook Pro? That’s what Instapaper developer Marco Arment wants to know, and so do we. We have a theory though.
Rumors about a possible Retina display iMac have been floating around almost as long as the Retina display itself. From the time the iPhone 4 was introduced, people began speculating that Apple’s Mac line would eventually receive a display upgrade as well. Now that this rumor has come to fruition in the case of the new MacBook Pro, it would only make sense for these new displays to trickle down to all of Apple’s other computers.
Word is now spreading that this might not be the case, though. We may have to wait a little while longer for an iMac with a Retina display.
Instapaper just got yet another update (developer Marco Arment seems to be on roll these last couple of months) and it brings a very neat new feature – when you arrive at any chosen location, Instapaper will automatically update your articles in the background. This should mean that never again will you be without your latest saved articles when you rush of to catch a bus.
In yesterday’s minor bugfix update, Instapaper developer Marco Arment posted this fantastic personal note, thanking users for allowing him to work from home and spend time with his wife and newborn baby. Could there be a better reason to subscribe to Instapaper, or for that matter, support your favorite app developers?
Instapaper 4.2 has just hit the App Store, and it’s a pretty big update. The headline feature is a new iBooks-style page-turn animation, but there is a lot more in there besides.
On Tuesday, the FBI seized a number of servers from DigitalOne, a Swiss hosting company that leases blade servers from a Virginia datacenter. The FBI had a warrant for only one particular server, used by a fraudulent “scareware” distributor, but the FBI ended up taking a lot more servers than the one they were actually looking for, knocking several web sites offline in the process… and making off with nearly all of popular offline reading platform Instapaper‘s user data, some of its codebase and some password encryption keys in the process.
Readability is an excellent bit of Javascript that strips online content down to its barest and most readable elements, and was borrowed wholesale last year by Apple for the new Safari Reader option in Safari 5.
Late last month, it became even more excellent by relaunching itself as a reading platform in its own right. Launching aside a native iOS app powered by Marco Arment’s excellent Instapaper, Readability is now more than a snip of Javascript code but instead a monthly subscription service that pays 70% of its collected fees directly to the writers and publishers being read.
We reached out to Arc90’s Richard Ziade for a quick chat about what Readability’s new change in scope would mean not just for existing users, but for publishers of web content looking to get paid.
