Podcast: MacBreak Weekly (rating: 3/4)
In preparation for becoming a switcher, I started listening to Mac-oriented podcasts to learn more about the Mac and the latest developments with it. One of my favourites is MacBreak Weekly.
MacBreak Weekly is part of Leo Laporte’s TWIT network of podcasts. It has good production values (i.e. the sound is consistent among the participants) and is very entertaining. Usual hosts include Leo Laporte, Alex Lindsay, Andy Ihnatko, Chris Breen, Merlin Mann, and Scott Bourne. The biggest knock I would have against it is that most episodes are quite long with various digressions (they call them ratholes), many of which aren’t totally relevant to the Mac. However, for the most part they are entertaining so even if you aren’t learning anything useful, the infotainment value is high.
The show primarily consists of commentary about the week’s Mac-related news. At the end of the show each of the participants provides a pick and those can be very useful in finding out about new hardware and software. Now that I have my iMac I can finally use some of these (I have been collecting them in a file). There is a website of all the picks so you don’t even have to listen to all the back episodes to take advantage.