Lemonz Dream Blog

Some of you have started to ask already what’s going to happen to Podcast Maker now that iLife ‘06 supports podcasting. The short answer is nothing. We will continue to improve Podcast Maker. It’s our baby and we want it to grow to be even faster, stronger, and sexier. If you want the long answer, read on.

I met Steve Jobs once in a previous life. This was back around the turn of the century. I wasn’t a Mac fanatic back then but a graphic designer wannabe/programmer who switched between Linux, BeOS, Windows and every other OS under the Sun every couple of months. I was continuously looking for the One True System back then. I attended a Seybold conference and it just happened that Mr. Jobs was giving the keynote. I think it was the year when he claimed that G4 processors running at 500 MHz were supercomputers. It’s funny if you think of it now, but he almost had me convinced. The force was strong with him back then too. In any case, after the keynote, I stepped out to the show floor to play with all the new goodies just announced and I spotted Mr. Jobs casually strolling by to gauge the crowd’s reactions. If he tried that today he’ll probably cause a stampede of the kind you get when you sell iBooks at fi’ty dollars a piece, but back then he wasn’t as much a celebrity.

I was more courageous than usual since I had some friends there with me. So I got my nerves together and barked at him a simple question in a very accusatory tone. It was a question about the number one thing that bugged me the most about the Mac.

“Why does the Mac still come with a single button mouse in this day and age?”

I thought he would laugh at me first then call me stupid. It seemed like the sort of the thing he would do because you hear so many stories about him. But he didn’t. He was very nice and gave me a minute of his time and a sincere answer. I don’t remember exactly what he said but basically he said that Apple wanted to keep it easy for the people who use computers for the first time: mostly kids and grandmas. I was unsatisfied with that answer back then because it seemed like the entire focus at Apple was building computers for newbs and/or idiots who can’t understand the concept of the right button. Thus, I ended up switching half a decade later even though I was plenty interested back then.

Speaking of the one button mouse, now that I have switched, I can see that it’s a double edged sword. On the one hand, you force application designers to make simple and elegant apps because they are restricted to only a single action input. But on the other hand, you sacrifice a lot of usability. The one button mouse is extremely learnable, but is not nearly as usable as a more featured mouse. Once a person learns what a scrollwheel and the right button do the whole system is a lot more usable. Throw in two more buttons for back and forward on your web browser and you see what I mean. A person who learns the one button mouse will learn how to use it very fast. But, when you show her the multi-button mouse with the scrollwheel she will never be able to go back to the one button mouse, ever again. Try taking it away; they will clutch it to their hearts with all their might.

So what does this have anything to do with Podcast Maker and iLife ‘06?

Well, you see, iWeb is like the one button mouse. iWeb is very limited. Just like the one button mouse, you are going to want to replace it with something better as soon as you get iLife ‘06 unless you are the most basic of basic podcasters.

GarageBand 3 on the other hand, is wonderful. I recommend it to any podcaster. If you podcast and you don’t have a Mac, go get a Mac because GarageBand comes bundled. But just know that GarageBand will never do everything that Podcast Maker does and Podcast Maker will never do everything GarageBand does either. They were designed for different purposes. Actually, GarageBand, married with Podcast Maker, is the perfect one two punch podcasting solution. Do your audio recording and editing in GarageBand and then bring it into Podcast Maker to have the RSS feed and ID3 tags and everything else done and uploaded. Similarly, if you vlog, make your video in iMovie and publish it using Podcast Maker.

There are many issues with iWeb, being a 1.0 product not the least of which as reported here. With GarageBand and iWeb alone, you are going to encode your podcast in AAC format and publish it to your .Mac account in a blog format. Not only do you need a .Mac account, but your audience will need to have iTunes and iPods. Of course there’s room to deviate from this standard scenario, but, it will be painful.

With Podcast Maker you can publish to any server that supports FTP or SFTP. Even if you want to publish to .Mac it’s a good idea to use Podcast Maker because you will yearn for the advanced features as you podcast more and more. You can do MP3s just as easily as AACs in Podcast Maker. With Podcast Maker you won’t have to figure out which files you need to upload to your server because it’s all managed for you. It’s just drag and drop. In iWeb, because all the exported files are named like machine code and spewed around everywhere, you are going to have a tough time trying to figure out what’s what and what needs uploading. Do you want to drop in the same album art image episode after episode in iTunes or GarageBand? You don’t have to with Podcast Maker. Do you want some of your files to be on one server while some are on another? Podcast Maker makes that seamless too. Do you need separated feeds for your mp3, enhanced podcast, and video? Do you need detailed statistics so that you can prove to businesses when your podcast becomes popular that it is worth advertising there?

Above all else, iWeb, as the name implies, is a webpage authoring application. Podcasting is just one of the tricks it can do. Podcast Maker on the other hand, is built to only do podcasting. It’s designed to save time for the podcaster. Lots of time.

In the end, I think you should get iLife ‘06 because Apple did such a fantastic job with GarageBand and iMovie to support the podcasting community. However, when you are done checking out iWeb, try Podcast Maker.

And as I said at the beginning, we will continue to make Podcast Maker better. iWeb, on the other hand, you will have to wait until 2007 for any major improvements.

If you are not tired of me already, check out episode 3 of Pom Pom Pom Pom. We discuss Macworld SF ‘06 and its impacts.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Podcast Maker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.