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About a year and a half ago, a few notable writers started to give the vibe that they were a little disillusioned with the state of tech podcasts. First, it was Harry Marks; then, Ben Brooks. And I agreed with both of them: I think tech podcasting was in a pretty serious rut that it has had a hard time climbing out of. The genre has largely consisted of lightly-edited conversations about the week’s tech news between people whose blogs you already read. Yours truly:

I appreciate the craft that [Myke] Hurley and others bring to the space. But a time commitment of two hours per podcast per week is arguably a lot, and I often don’t get the sense that podcasters respect listeners’ time. I will sit through an album from start to finish, and it will take about an hour; a podcast can be twice that length, and if it’s unedited conversational rambling, I will struggle to finish the episode. It’s simply not worth that amount of time.

Happily, I think the tech podcasting space is finally starting to get interesting.

First up is the recently-reimagined Inquisitive from Hurley. The episodes marked “Behind the App” offer a well-crafted, succinct look at the challenges and rewards facing app developers today. It’s wonderful; you should check it out.

But Mark Bramhill’s podcast “Welcome to Macintosh” is in a league of its own. There have been two episodes so far, and both feature great interviews with people you know and trust, edited and put together in a really slick package.

Both of these shows are fantastic. They feel like the This American Life of tech podcasts, insomuch as they’ve both raised the production value to an all-time high. I highly recommend them both.