These past few years I’ve been listening to more and more podcasts, and I’d like to share favorites of mine. I’ve subdivided the list into for-

For fun

Starting off with the fun ones, these don’t really make my a better person listening to, but they are enjoyable!

  • Turning This Car Around - Three dads chatting about how they are raising their children. When is the time to reveal that Santa isn’t real? And what movies shuold you allow your children to watch? As I’m not a dad, it’s the funny personalities that sell this show much more than the content.

  • Filip and Fredrik Podcast - Two swedish TV personalities talking about the most random subjects. Some insight is offered, but it’s the obscene stories that make the show what it is.

  • The Incomparable - Could best be described as a bunch of nerds who discuss pop culture. Many episodes are dedicated to Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones & diverse book series. I don’t listen to every episode, but if it is about something I know I always tune in, and I’m rarely disappointed in their hyper-analysis.

  • Talk Show - John Gruber interviewing different people in the Apple Ecosystem (lately the Vice President of Marketing of Apple: Phil Schiller himself!) about diverse topics. Gruber’s dry humor and the interesting people he interviews is what makes the show. Although it can be a bit too slow at times, especially when they chat about baseball.

Development

Relating to subjects of programming and business.

  • Accidental Tech Podcast - John Siracusa, Marco Arment and Casey Liss discussing Apple, and tech subjects in general.

  • Debug - Two apple personalities (one of them a developer) interviewing people about Apple. Frameworks, business ideas, predicitions and working at Apple itself are all common subjects. I find their shows often run a bit too long for my taste. But it is always interesting.

  • Developing Perspective - Always fifteen minutes long and always offering some insight on Apple development. One of my favorites because the nuggets David Smith provides are very useful if you are a prospective independent iOS developer. One day I’d wish to work as he does.

General Knowledge

Picking up knowledge for future bar quizes or interesting stories to share at any time.

  • This American Life - I assume anyone who has listened to podcasts have heard This American Life. It’s just great storytelling, very well produced and always worth a listen if you have the time.

  • Radiolab - They rarely put out new podcasts nowadays, but the archive is a treasury trove of interesting tidbits about science and humaniora.

  • 99% Invisible - Short episodes with the storyteller Roman Mars who tells historical short stories of about twenty minutes. It might be about building of light towers in the early 1900-hundreds, the first radio station or the forgotten 13-month calendar. You always learn of something new with every episode.

  • Freakonomics - Practical Microeconomics, mainly about how people act and what effect different factors have. For example how does your name affect your job prospects, or how would you cure obesity if you had no ethical concerns? One of my absolute favorites because of it’s highly analytical nature, it’s not just telling a story, but talking about it as well. The books are excellent as well.

  • Planet Money - Similar to Freakonomics but it is less about analysis and more about just explaining economic theories and markets.