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MacVoices #26245: MacVoices Update 2026-08

By: Chuck
1 September 2026 at 02:27
In the August 2026 MacVoices Update, Chuck outlines how a little time off slowed down some projects, reviews new episode artwork designed to better communicate each show’s subject, discusses why feedback is so important to what you hear and see, and delivers the Support Report form the month.  http://traffic.libsyn.com/maclevelten/MV26245.mp3 Show Notes: Support: Become a MacVoices […]

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Rise of Chicken Shop Date highlights how YouTube turned the tables on TV

Amelia Dimoldenberg says publicists ignored her interview show for years but she can now be picky over A-list guests

Just a decade ago, Amelia Dimoldenberg found it impossible to drum up any mainstream celebrities to come on her mock date YouTube show, in which she chats awkwardly with guests over chicken and chips.

Even persuading a local actor connected with her London youth club to come on took years of prodding. Managers of A-listers with movies or albums to push instead battled to claim a spot on the hallowed cushions of the primetime TV chatshow sofa.

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© Photograph: Chicken Shop Date

© Photograph: Chicken Shop Date

© Photograph: Chicken Shop Date

Indie Podcast Apps Not Growing

28 August 2026 at 19:47

Dustin Bluck:

Independent podcast apps are not growing as a category. This is not a particular secret, but perhaps you haven’t seen it stated explicitly. It’s the sort of thing that has to be inferred, but there’s plenty of available data if you look for it. While the podcasting sector has seen growth, this has occurred almost entirely on platforms like YouTube, and the independent podcast app userbase has mostly just stood still.

[…]

I’m sure somewhere out there a 21-year-old just downloaded Castro or Pocket Casts for the first time and thinks RSS feeds are awesome (if you are this person, please email me). But every number I can see indicates the userbase is both static and aging. Every new customer I talk to has used some combination of Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or Castro for at least the last 5 years if not the last 10.

[…]

Perhaps there are healthy businesses that get very few new users but instead gracefully age with the ones they have. Ferrari maybe? Buddy, smartphone apps are not one of those businesses.

[…]

I would rather work on flashy features to capture new users, but, reality being what it is, I have to think about things in terms of both the health of the ecosystem and what will actually help retain existing podcast app users.

Nick Heer:

Anil Dash wrote, in 2014, that the simple phrase wherever you get your podcasts is a “radical statement”:

[…] Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that’s supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that’s not owned by any one company, that can’t be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.

Video podcasting changes that. In its simplest form, it is just a YouTube channel, which means it is siloed and controlled by Google. Spotify also supports video but only in its app.

Ilya Birman:

So Marco described a problem. What if someone manually asks to download an episode when they already have three downloaded? You can’t just immediately delete it to keep things tidy. So what do you do? Marco added a special hidden “episode downloaded manually” flag to the database, so those episodes would not count towards the limit.

This is one more example of how even the most seemingly trivial features require thinking through and accounting for different cases that may not be obvious at first glance. Every user interface designer and product designer should collect and absorb examples like this.

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Finally, Marco’s wife Tiff suggests a solution to all the problems: just don’t let users download more episodes, she said, and show them a message, roughly: “Your episode limit is three, but this would be the fourth, denied”.

Marco liked the solution. I didn’t. Sure, it solves Marco’s problems, but not the user’s.

Marcin Wichary:

Birman presents this as “Let me click,” but I wanted to offer two alternative/​complementary principles that helped me before:

  • Let me do things in any order. Here’s Google Home app, where I can change the temperature and the time for holding – but if I change the time first, it frustratingly resets when I subsequently change the temperature. It forces one specific order in an interface that suggests any order is okay[…]
  • The current action has the most momentum. The user is right there, active, tapping on things, wanting to get stuff done. If Overcast indeed throws a “your episode limit is three” message, then it forces the user to remember how to get to the settings and change it. The momentum is lost. The decisions of past me should not be as important as the decisions of present me.

Marco Arment:

FWIW, the entire strict-limit feature is gone in the pending update (awaiting App Store review). EVERYONE hated it.

Now I’m just displaying the added-manually status in the UI and allowing it to be toggled manually in the “…” menu.

Marco Arment:

I’ve needed to evolve my expectations for what my role in Overcast is.

After building up a large, passionate userbase over a very long time, it’s not really entirely mine anymore. I can’t just do whatever I want with it.

And the growth era of open/RSS/indie/whatever podcast apps is over. The business is now about serving and retaining my existing customers for as long as possible.

So I can add things here and there, very carefully, but I can’t really change anything significant.

Previously:

MacVoices #26229: Macstock – Using Blockchain to Protect and Preserve Creator Content with Alessandra White

By: Chuck
10 August 2026 at 18:40
At Macstock, Alessandra White explains how blockchain can give creators greater control and permanence over their digital content. She discusses Hive, decentralized publishing, digital sovereignty, and ways creators can preserve posts and videos beyond centralized platforms. The conversation also examines blockchain’s permanence, including the trade-off that published material cannot simply be deleted…ever.  http://traffic.libsyn.com/maclevelten/MV26229.mp3 This MacVoices […]

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MacVoices #26222: MacVoices Update – 2026-07

By: Chuck
31 July 2026 at 13:26
The July MacVoices Update recaps a successful Macstock Conference, and highlights some changes inspired by the experience, including refreshed thumbnails, new streaming software and revised show notes. It also spotlights recent programming and he growing importance of MacVoices Magazine as the new OS versions are delivered. Chuck outlines some August scheduling issues, the new merchandise store, and offers thanks to Patreon supporters for making the shows possible.

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MacVoices #26219: Toby Schmitz, The Youngest Macstock Attendee, On Creativity and Entrepreneurship

By: Chuck
28 July 2026 at 21:25
Toby Schmitz was the youngest attendee at Macstock X, so his perspective on how the conference and the accompanying Ecamm Creator Camp gave him the confidence and practical guidance to begin his own YouTube channel, podcast, and livestream. He reflects on learning from a wide variety of sessions, the influence of his family of creators, […]

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MacVoices #26210: Live! – The MacVoices Live! Panel Wraps Up Macstock

By: Chuck
15 July 2026 at 20:25
The panel is back from Macstock and share highlights and lessons from the conference, including creative experimentation, podcast strategy, video production, accessibility, health, digital legacy planning, and useful Mac tools. Chuck Joiner, David Ginsburg, Marty Jencius, Eric Bolden, Brian Flanigan-Arthurs, Jim Rea, Web Bixby, Jeff Gamet, and Mark Fuccio reflect on the friendships and international […]

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MacVoices #26199: MacVoices Update – 2026-06

By: Chuck
1 July 2026 at 03:26
The June 2026 update, preview Chuck's upcoming trip to MacStock, encouraging attendees to introduce themselves. The also outlines the last of the  NAB interviews, recaps participation in MacPaw’s Flip the Script event during WWDC and announces the launch of the new MacVoices Merch Store. The update wraps by encouraging YouTube subscriptions and thanking Patreon supporters. 

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MacVoices #26189: NAB – Epidemic Sound Talks on Copyright, Creators, and Licensing

By: Chuck
23 June 2026 at 15:39
At NAB in Las Vegas, Alex Mavlios of Epidemic Sound explains how the company licenses music by acquiring full rights from artists, then offering secure usage across podcasts, video, social media, broadcast, and film. He addresses copyright risks, monetized content, artist royalties, pricing from creator plans to enterprise licenses, and why perpetual licensing helps creators avoid future rights disputes. 

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Liberdade de expressão não é liberdade de alcance

10 August 2026 at 19:14

A detenção de Andrew Tate reabre a pergunta errada. O problema nunca foi ele poder falar - foi as plataformas terem transformado o que ele diz num produto, defende Elisa Tarzia.

The post Liberdade de expressão não é liberdade de alcance appeared first on Tek Notícias.

4K Video Downloader Plus 26.2

2 August 2026 at 19:47
4K Video Downloader Plus 26 icon
Brings better file organization and smarter YouTube channel subscriptions to the video downloading utility. (Free with paid license options, free update, 271.6 MB, macOS 12+)

macOS Hidden Treasures: Quick Look

The roaring 20s: how the current decade revolutionised cinema

23 July 2026 at 16:00

Pre-Covid, the movie landscape was dramatically different: YouTubers weren’t dominating the box office, video game spin-offs rarely made an impact and Winnie-the-Pooh wasn’t yet the star of a slasher movie. Why such a flurry of innovation – and what will be next?

Cinema has always been a medium of research and development. At any given point, the industry is searching for yet another breakthrough that can drive it into the future. Synchronised sound in the 1920s. Technicolor in the 1930s. The invention of the modern blockbuster in the 1970s.

Conversely, the consensus is that, if the 2020s has a defining trend, then it is one of decline. The theatrical experience is under attack from all angles: streaming, YouTube, a once-in-a-century health crisis that shut cinemas down entirely. And yet, if you look closer, this has actually been one of the most innovative decades that cinema has ever seen. Whether down to technology or desperation, the film industry has spent these last few years figuring out new ways to make films that simply could not have existed even at the turn of the decade.

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© Photograph: SKLAE/Signature Entertainment

© Photograph: SKLAE/Signature Entertainment

© Photograph: SKLAE/Signature Entertainment

Suno Hack and Audio Scraping

16 July 2026 at 20:42

Jason Koebler (tweet, Reddit):

The AI music generation tool Suno scraped millions of songs and lyrics from YouTube Music, Deezer, and Genius, as well as from the stock music libraries Pond5, Jamendo, Freesound, the International Music Score Library Project, and podcasts via RSS feeds, according to a hacker who breached the company and shared data about Suno’s training libraries with 404 Media. The hacker was also able to access user information for hundreds of thousands of Suno’s customers, as well as Stripe payment information, they said.

[…]

As part of these legal proceedings, Suno previously admitted that it was trained on “essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet,” which included a total of “tens of millions of recordings.” Suno has been making the argument that it is allowed to train on copyrighted works as fair use in those cases, one of which has been settled.

Corbin Bolies:

Suno has long acknowledged that its AI music generator relied on the scraping of millions of songs available across the internet, but a new hack reveals just how the company pulled from streaming services and websites[…] all while user information remained vulnerable.

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“Our goal has always been to help people create original new music, not replicate someone else’s. That’s why we build our models around what we call ‘Original Creation, By Design,’” the spokesperson said in a statement. “For example, we intentionally do not use artist names as a category of training metadata because we want our models to help people create brand new songs, not music that replicates other artists’ existing work. It’s also why we built Suno with detection filters that block or prevent a user from using specific artist, song, or album names as prompts, and prevent users from uploading lyrics or sound recordings that match existing works.”

Previously:

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