Tag: iOS

Lost phones

I went the whole of this weekend without my cell phone, but not on purpose. I lost my phone on Friday and only found it again on Sunday night.

What was interesting for me in this break was the two things that I did miss – Whatsapp and my banking app. Whatsapp groups have become the backbone of my COVID 19 ‘social’ life. Whatsapp is so pervasive that plans are hard to keep up with away from the phone – Zoom meetings came and went. A poker game got away from me. This is all exacerbated by the very busy life I have at the moment – three kids and a pregnant wife keep me busy with or without the phone.

I also needed to pay people on Friday and I couldn’t without the phone.

Philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers argued in ‘The Extended Mind’ (1998) that technology is actually part of us. I have heard many times that losing a phone feels like losing a limb. I didn’t feel much loss except when I realised poker had come and gone on Saturday night!

In fact there was far less distraction and my family life probably benefited from my losing the phone. It makes me think I should put it away on purpose sometimes.

Happy Tuesday chimps.

Fun Friday – Podcasts

One of my goals is to set up my own podcast. To me the podcast as an art form is the perfect mix of audio and the written word. A well produced episode can transport the listener wherever the creator wants to take them.

I recently bit the bullet and paid for pocketcast on the laptop. I already had the free app on my phone, and now i can listen to my favourite episodes on the laptop too. Getting my podcast fix on this app rather than on iTunes is a deliberate strategy. I do not want to get too tied down to the Apple ecosystem. I use Google, I use MSOFFICE, and I use other similar products that are device agnostic. That way I can bounce between iOS and Android, OSX, Windows or Chrome. Anyways, I digress.

My passions for music and audio and writing are distilled in the podcast as an art form. My favourite show from the last few weeks of immersion in pocketcasts app is Lore: http://www.lorepodcast.com/ . This show is so focussed, stylized and deliberate in its execution, I would aim for something similar when I get around to producing a show. Lore is also a valuable asset as a website that sells merchandise and sponsorship. Impressive stuff.

What are your favourite podcasts? Do you have any secrets for finding time to produce a podcast on the side?