Mac and iOS Developer Podcasts
About the time I got into iOS development I also started listening to podcasts. There are many great podcasts out there but for an Apple developer there are some really exception ones.
For general tech news:
The Accidental Tech Podcast is a tech podcast accidentally created while Marco Arment, Casey Liss, and John Siracusa were attempting to to do a car show called Neutral I discovered Marco and John while listening to there respective podcasts on the 5by5 network. I enjoyed their weekly take on tech news and development so much I was genuinely sad when they ended their respective shows. Thankfully they started podcasting again and were joined by Casey who I wasn’t familiar with but I have found adds a great balance to the strong opinions of Marco and John and usually keeps them on topic.
John Gruber’s The Talk Show is probably the most well known of these. He’s been writing for many years on Apple and each weeks brings in interesting guests to discuss that weeks news topics of note.
There are several great interview format podcasts that focus on interesting aspects of software history and current projects around the Apple world:
Debug is a conversational interview show between Guy English and various developers in the community. He is joined by Rene Ritchie from iMore who I believe produces the show and seems to serves as moderator incase Guy and their guest get too off track. It bills as being about developing software and services, primarily for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and gaming. However what I’ve experienced is wonderful conversations with developers about how they got started programming and their journeys through software development. In many cases fascinating historical accounts of the creation process behind many of the apps and tools I know and love.
The Record is a similar show to Debug hosted by Chris Parrish and Brent Simmons. I only recently started listening to it but the episode with Mike Lee was amazing! The journey he took to becoming a developer and helping to ship Delicious Library 2 was truly inspiring. I have a greater appreciation of why they call him the worlds toughest programmer. I look forward to more excellent historical interviews and going through the backlog of this one.
Bitsplitting is another interview podcast from Daniel Jalkut that focuses on the personal backgrounds of each guest. Like Debug and the Record each talk is an interesting walk through history and I always love listening to each persons discovery story of computers and eventually coming around to writing software. He ended season 1 back in August of 2013, while Debug and the Record have filled the gap of interesting historical conversations I certainly hope he picks up again and does more interviews in the future.
Saul Mora’s NSBrief is also an interview based podcast but it focuses more on current projects of note and the people behind them. I have learned about many cool projects from this podcasts as well as enjoyed hearing the developers behind some of my favorite servies like HockeyKit speak about them.
For more general Apple Software topics and developer discussion with occasional interviews:
Core Intuition is a regular conversation between Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software and Manton Reece. They discuss indy Mac development, recent news and occasionally have guests on as well. I admittedly do not listen to this one as much as I used to but I’ve always enjoyed there conversations and insite into various topics.
iDeveloper featured Scotty and Jon Fox (sadly the website is no longer available). This was actually one of the first podcasts I ever listened too and I discovered many of the others through listening to them and their guests. They talk about indy development and have great interview guests as well.
Developing Perspective is a great short podcast about iOS Development that is never longer than 15 minutes. David Smith shares his thoughts on development and some of the processes he goes through in shipping his many apps.
These last two are not about development but I find them both richly rewarding to listen to:
Back to Work is podcast with Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin who ostensibly talk about various issues relating to productivity. However in practice you’ll be entertained with talk about comics, parenting, personal hygiene and deep inside jokes. In the end they eventually come around to discussing aspects of work. All in all a joy to listen to weekly.
Roderick on the Line is a weekly candid Skype call between Merlin Mann and John Roderick of the Long Winters. This show is all over the place, but in a good way. Discussions on Fatherhood, philosophy, music, culture, politics. These two friends have a great dynamic, I actually have laughed so hard during this that I have had to pull over while driving. John’s story telling is sheer joy to listen to.
I’m sure there are many other great developer podcasts out there that I haven’t discovered yet, but these have been some that I regularly enjoy.