Does USB Matter? Exploring the Significance of USB in Podcasting

Dave Jackson [00:00:00]:

The new iPhone has USB. Does it matter? This is the future of podcasting where we ponder what awaits the podcasters of today. From the school of podcasting, here's Dave Jackson. And from the Audacity to podcast, here's Daniel j Lewis. Daniel, future of podcasting episode 30, does USB matter? We've got news from Apple. Right? The the big iPhone 15 coming out, and now now that you've Officially got everything switched over from the last time they switched their ports. They're they're switching their ports again To which is gonna be kinda nice because I don't know about you, I do you have just a pile of cables in front of you With 1, there's USB, USB micro, old USB, new USB, then the other one, and yeah. So this will be nice that More things are going to USB c.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:00:59]:

Yeah. And it's it's long overdue, I think. Now the reason that lightning was invented in the 1st place was it Did bring several much needed improvements to the whole Apple Apple ecosystem with their hardware and plugging in, and It was the 1st port that you could plug either way. There was no upside down. Because we all know with regular USB port plugs, No matter what you do, no matter which side you put the peanut butter and jelly on, you will always plug it in upside down Every time the 1st time. Yeah. No matter what you do, tie a cat to the USB cable. It doesn't matter.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:01:36]:

It always goes in upside down. Yeah. USB c Solved that by there is no upside down or right side up with the cable, which is fantastic. And it's small. It's fast. It supports Other technologies too. So USB c is purely the form factor. It's not the speed.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:01:54]:

It doesn't immediately imply Thunderbolt 3 or 2 or 4 or even USB 3 speeds. Like, even the iPhone 15 supports USB 2. IPhone 15 Pro supports USB 3. So even there, even though it's they're both USB c ports, They support different speeds just like we saw this years ago with the original 1st generation Roadcaster Pro that has a USB c port on the back, But it supported only USB 2 transfer speeds. But as least according to the specs, it looks like the new RODEcaster Pro 2 and the RODEcaster Pro Duo support USB 3, which is much needed upgrade. But all that to say, does the USB actually matter, and and not just in the devices that we just talked about, but to podcasting overall. So, Dave, here's a question for you. How many devices do you use in podcasting that connect via USB? Like, anything and everything you can think of.

Dave Jackson [00:03:00]:

The only thing I'm using right now is the RODEcaster DUO. Right? My microphone plugs in XLR, The RodeCaster plugs into, you know, my computer via USB on the back, but technically, I take that back. I'm recording this directly into the I I could disconnect this from my, at least the USB C one. Let me think about this, because we are using SquadCast as a backup, and that's connected to my computer. So, yeah, that's that's it, the Rodecaster, at this

Daniel J. Lewis [00:03:29]:

point. Do you use a mouse?

Dave Jackson [00:03:31]:

I do use a mouse, but it

Daniel J. Lewis [00:03:33]:

Do you use a keyboard? I do. Do you have external hard drives?

Dave Jackson [00:03:38]:

Yeah. That's, yeah, That's a good point.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:03:41]:

So, see, I'm I'm building a bigger picture

Dave Jackson [00:03:43]:

here.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:03:43]:

Yeah. Do you have a monitor?

Dave Jackson [00:03:45]:

I do.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:03:46]:

Yeah. That's Obviously, you don't

Dave Jackson [00:03:48]:

That's operate your device blindly. HDMI. Yeah.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:03:53]:

So all of these things Have the ability to connect to USB. And on and I know for on the Android side, For a long time, you could connect many of these devices to Android. You can also do that with iPhones. And now, though, What I love and why I wanted to bring this up and how this affects the future of podcasting is we now have one port that can connect to everything, everything from this point on that is. And I think people are much more likely to upgrade their phones before they their cars. So I know there is that argument of, oh, not everyone's on the latest generation. I know. People will catch up eventually, though.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:04:38]:

But what's exciting, really, I think, for the future of podcasting is all of these devices that you already have, People are already reporting that they work on the new iPhone. We've already known that some of them work on the iPad. Like but on your iPhone, You can plug in a USB keyboard into your phone and type with your keyboard on your phone. Think about that potential.

Dave Jackson [00:05:03]:

Yeah. Because it I mean, they've had similar tools for Ipads, right, the little Cases and you fold it up and the keyboard and that, but that would be amazing because I hate absolutely hate typing On a laptop keyboard, it just to me, it's uncomfortable. Just the fact that if I could have a nice wireless keyboard with a USB gizmo and that whole 9 yards, That would be very cool.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:05:29]:

Yeah. And and you could before, you could do Bluetooth keyboards just fine, and I've done that for many years. But now it can be whatever keyboard you prefer as long as it connects through USB, could connect to the iPhone very easily. And for the device manufacturers now, they have 1 port

Dave Jackson [00:05:49]:

Mhmm.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:05:49]:

They need to worry about. So none of this there's a lightning version and a USB version. It's now it can now just be one thing, a USB c port. And so I think think of it this way. Every device out there that connects via USB C, specifically, Could potentially be used to help you make your podcast on only your phone. That's exciting.

Dave Jackson [00:06:18]:

That is exciting. And the beauty of it is that giant bag of adapters that you have Yeah. Right. It should start to get a little dusty because we've already heard where if you're plugging into, You know, the lightning port on an iPhone via an adapter to USB c, so far, we have one report that that's not working, But if you go to an iPad, it did, but if he tried in this case, it was Rob from Lipson, and he went through I think he said that Did he go through a camera kit or no? It was, no. It was

Daniel J. Lewis [00:06:53]:

Yeah. It was, they call it the USB connection USB camera connection Yeah. It's it is basically a USB to lightning adapter where you get the USB female Yeah. And the lightning male plugged plug into the phone. But, yeah, that that makes sense that it wouldn't work for a couple of reasons. One is What the lightning port could do power wise, I think specifically power wise, but also maybe even what that specific generation of the adapter could do because some of the adapters were very different than others. Like, some of them could provide power to whatever that USB device was, Some

Dave Jackson [00:07:32]:

couldn't. And then there's always the weird magic voodoo of the actual company Cable versus, you know, the Amazon Basics version because I know I have a RODE Wireless GO system, And I bought a USB C to whatever to lightning cable, and it didn't work. And then I bought the, whatever, Rode Sixteen cable, same exact end. It looks like it's the same thing, but because it came from RODE, it worked great. So that was an easy way to to plug my wireless system into my phone, and RODE has a really cool recording. You can actually do video Now so you can have you and a guest, it'll record split screen. It'll use the back camera and the front camera at the same time. It's really neat.

Dave Jackson [00:08:20]:

But that was one where, You know, do you think you're gonna save a few bucks by getting the generic cable off of Amazon and then it doesn't work? And I cannot, You know, I'm just I think I'm done doing that. I've probably done that 3 times now where you're like, oh, this will work, and then you get it, and you're like, oh, okay. Can we overnight the real one now? So That's always Yeah.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:08:38]:

And I was running into a similar problem with I'm trying to work with I recently upgraded to an Elgato Facecam. Mhmm. And I like to mount it upside down because I prefer for it to come down from above my monitor, and I use my old Heil PL two t stand. But I was looking at USB C cables because I wanted one that had an angle bracket coming out of it so it could go straight up from the back of the camera instead of sticking out the back of the camera. And I found some great looking cables, but then realized, oh, This is only USB 2. Even though it's USB c, it's only USB 2. I need USB 3 to make sure it has that transfer speed. And on the lightning side with Apple, Apple has had this made for iPhone certification program or mFi, And only products that were ImFi certified could have the made for iPhone logo stamped on them, and they were guaranteed To some extent, to work on Apple Devices.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:09:36]:

And if you didn't have something that was MiFi certified, then it might not work. And so maybe, like, some of those cheap cables that you got because, yeah, there are people making knockoffs all over the place. Maybe some of those cables were not ImFi certified, But that whole Inphi certified thing goes away because Apple doesn't have that anymore. They have USB c. There is no MiFi certified. So what I really like, again, coming back to, like, how does this affect the industry as a whole in

Dave Jackson [00:10:05]:

the

Daniel J. Lewis [00:10:06]:

future, is this means the companies out there that develop these hardware products, going back to this, first, they need to make only 1 now, only 1 version. So that means you as a podcaster have to buy only 1. It's not like you have to think, oh, what if I ever switch devices, Or what if the device I own now ever changes its port in the future? Now they're all USB c. So If you get USB c a USB c device now, you can pretty much assume it will last you for years across multiple devices. So you only have to spend that money once. The company then only has to develop it once. They don't have to worry about supporting multiple technologies, So that's more money and time they can invest into making a better product. We'd love it if that meant that they would drop the price of their products, but we all know that's not gonna happen.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:10:56]:

But they can reinvest that money in other places. Also, not having to pay Apple For the Inphi certification program means, again, they will have more money and resources to put into making Better products now that Apple has joined along with this universal standard. So I think we're going to see More good equipment and maybe even more inexpensive and, yes, maybe even cheaply made equipment, but more stuff that will be accessible to podcasters because now there's only the 1 standard to worry about. You plug it in, and it's It's more likely going to work now. Even, like, the USB c port on the iPhone 15 is only USB 2. On the 15 pro, it's USB 3. That's most likely not going to matter for most of the devices podcasters might use, like audio devices. For the Elgato Facecam and certainly for the Facecam Pro, it has to be USB 3 in order to handle the High frame rate and four k definition, anything like that that you're dealing with tons of data, which is typically going to be video related, You'll need the USB 3.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:12:11]:

So you would want the iPhone 15 Pro. But for audio based stuff, plugging in a microphone, An audio interface, a Rodecaster, a Zoom, or whatever kind of thing might come out in the future, I don't think you're going to have to worry about that. You just plug it in and it's going to work most

Dave Jackson [00:12:28]:

likely. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see if anyone makes, Like a USB C, like a little baby mixer. Like, if you think of something like the Zoom PodTrak P4, it's got 4 inputs, And granted that's a recorder, but I know there are already little recorders that you can just plug a microphone into, But if we could just use our phone as the recorder, that's 1 less piece of gear we have to carry around. So if we have other things that we could plug in that would then expand if we needed Multiple microphones and things like that. That would be an interesting piece of of gear.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:13:05]:

It's also I might expect To see something like that come from maybe, Focusrite because they've got the Vocaster 1 and Vocaster 2. Now those are kind of large devices, But they could make theoretically, they could make a Vocaster two Mini that's designed specifically to be Extremely portable and go with you with your iPhone and maybe be closer to the size of an iPhone. And it's they've guaranteed that it works through USB c so you could work with your iPhone, your Android phone, your tablet, whatever version tablet you have, or even with your computer. That thing is more possible now.

Dave Jackson [00:13:43]:

I recently started using Elgato Ecamm Live, and one of the things I I love about it is they have this really active Facebook group, and there would be times when somebody goes, oh, I'm using this, and I'm so used to looking at stuff like that and going, Oh, is that for PC or Mac? Well, did I say El Gato before? Ecamm Live. Yes. It's Ecamm Live, not El Gato, but Ecamm Live, is Mac only, and it's similar in the fact that everything they design for, they know it's going to go on a Mac so you don't have to worry about having it work this way or that way, so you've got a A super focused development team, they don't have to worry about all these other things, and so just reinforcing everything you just said by not having to, worry about, oh, will this work here or there? I know for a while, years ago, Camtasia, the video editing software, they had features that were available on the PC but not available on the Mac or vice versa. And when you have a universal port, you kind of eliminate some of that. So it's gonna It is gonna be fun to see what comes down the pike.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:14:48]:

Kind of similar to the recent news of Google Podcasts will be shutting down in 2020 4 and moving everything over to YouTube Music.

Dave Jackson [00:14:56]:

Wait. Google is shutting something down? What No way. Make podcasts on the front page and number Just everybody follow us. Come on. Google oh, okay. Never mind.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:15:06]:

Yeah. Yeah. I I had quite a a few tangents actually in the time since that announcement has come out. But, like, even with that, while that has its, certainly, its negative aspects to it, and there's Certainly plenty to talk about with that. We're not gonna go into depth in that. But what it one positive thing from that is that now Google will be focusing All their attention in one space, that will be YouTube and the aspects of YouTube. YouTube is really becoming the new Itunes, Basically. So at what point are we going to see Google then say, you know what? We're gonna do the same thing Apple did, and now we're gonna split YouTube into Separate apps, and then they'll have Google Podcasts again and Google Music and Google Books and Google App Store.

Dave Jackson [00:15:56]:

Gmail right inside of YouTube. There it is. Yeah.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:15:59]:

You've always wanted to check your Gmail and plan your calendar while watching those YouTube videos. Yeah. But the this I I love when the the industry as a whole and they're not thinking about podcasters when they make this decision, but it does present lots of opportunities for podcasters. When the industry as a whole can get together and get behind a single standard and push this standard forward, While it might seem limiting, it's actually freeing because of all these things we've mentioned, and It means it's something less to worry about. It's you pick a USB C device. That's it. And the potential now this gives for podcasters to have new kinds of podcasting workflows where You could podcast entirely, completely with your iPhone while using your professional equipment All plugged into your tiny little iPhone. You could even use your keyboard.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:17:01]:

And I don't know if a mouse works on the iPhone. I know a mouse works on the iPad, but, I think I saw someone say that a mouse actually works on the iPhone. But whatever the case, you could do all of this. You could have your full studio in this itty bitty little screen. Your iPhone is your actual computing device. The the potential that has for the future and things that we can do with that, the podcasters can do, that the manufacturers can do, I think it's

Dave Jackson [00:17:32]:

fantastic. What were people using before lightning? I know there was,

Daniel J. Lewis [00:17:37]:

it was the, it had a name. Yeah. I forget the name, but frequently called the 30 pin connector.

Dave Jackson [00:17:44]:

Yeah. So I'm just wondering if, like because they they did lightning. Like you said, there were more features to it. Now that everybody's unified on USB I I hope that somebody somewhere down the road goes, wait. How much money did we lose by sending you know, Selling, you know, charging devices and all those other things. We need we need our own proprietary. Hopefully, that's not gonna happen. So I I think Apple's doing okay without, charging sales, you know, that whole 9 yards.

Dave Jackson [00:18:17]:

So

Daniel J. Lewis [00:18:17]:

When even the you look at the environmental impact of this, and this is something that Apple spent, in my opinion, way too much time on in their latest presentation. But I am one who I'm not afraid of what's happening in the environment, but I do believe it's our responsibility to take care of the environment. And I like the idea of having less waste, that you can have a single USB charging brick that charges any device you want to. I mean, we kind of already had that anyway, but you had to have different cables. Now you could have just 1 cable, and you don't have to worry about, I've gotta bring this cable for my watch, this cable for my tablet, this cable for my phone, this cable for my, my laptop, this cable for my Earbuds, and I better bring an extra of this cable just in case. No. You could just have 1 cable. No adapters.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:19:09]:

None of that. And that same cable Could also plug in your podcasting gear to your

Dave Jackson [00:19:15]:

phone. Yes. Very cool. I'm it will be fun to see, Especially now that that Apple is kind of not that they've set the standard, but they've joined the standard in the same way when When Apple launched you know, when they brought podcasting into, back then, iTunes, there that sent kinda shock waves in in some ways, or some people, you know, quit because Apple got in the game, but now that Apple's getting in the game, again, we might see hardware go in that direction because they know there are, you know, bazillion Apple users that could use their products. So we've already seen leaps and bounds of Different products that have come up because specifically made for podcasters. This might actually open those floodgates even more.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:20:01]:

Yeah. I think of devices like one of the microphones that I really like is the Shure MV 88. I believe, yes, the MV 88, the original

Dave Jackson [00:20:12]:

Not the plus?

Daniel J. Lewis [00:20:13]:

MV 88. Not the plus. Oh. I think they made the plus because of the problems of lightning versus USB c. Because, see, the m v 88 was lightning only. So if you had an Android phone, you could not buy An m v 88 that worked on Android phones. They didn't make one that was compatible with Android phones. It was only a lightning port.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:20:37]:

Now there was the issue of plugging the lightning port into a phone that was already in a case. You couldn't do that, so you'd have to take your phone out of a case. I always dislike that. Yeah. But the m v 88 plus then moves that out. So now you have a cable, but that cable then you need to use The lightning cable for an older iPhone or USB c cable for a newer iPhone or an Android device, but they could bring the form factor back to That design that it plugs directly into the phone, there's no cable, no other attachments or anything like that, I really liked that physical design. They could bring that back And support both phones.

Dave Jackson [00:21:16]:

And if I remember right, that phone came with software where you could adjust the polar pattern. Was that the one I'm thinking of?

Daniel J. Lewis [00:21:23]:

Yeah. Yeah. You could both point the microphone either direction you wanted. So you could point in at you like if you were doing a selfie video or you could point it at the other person. You could hold the phone as a microphone and have the microphone pointing straight up, and you could change the polar pattern. You could even make it record, stereo sound. It was a stereo microphone, so you it was designed so that if you recorded in stereo or have this mode Where it would assume that the screen is facing 1 person and the back of the phone is facing the other, so you'd get a kind of slightly, Well, it would be basically split track. There would be a lot of crossover between them because 2 people talking into the same microphone, even if it's stereo, you're going to get some crossover.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:22:04]:

But still it was much better than 2 people mixed into 1 single track, and that was really handy to be able to do with that form factor, they can bring that back. And and maybe we'll even see the Griffin IMIKE USB C that I was So excited about years ago when they announced it and then they never brought it out, and in fact, they killed the Griffin I, Mike series. Maybe they'll bring that back. Maybe they'll bring back the USB C that they announced years ago. I doubt they will, but they could because now it will work on anything.

Dave Jackson [00:22:38]:

Very cool. It's funny you say that. I I started going to the gym again, and I dug out my old gym bag, and for whatever reason, there was a Griffin I bike They're my gym bag.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:22:49]:

It's what every podcaster needs in their

Dave Jackson [00:22:51]:

gym bag. That's right. Just in case. Just in case I need to, you know, plug a microphone in.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:22:56]:

And speaking of gym bags, you know what would really fill our gym bags with goodness and happiness is some Boostagrams. We didn't get any These last couple of weeks, but we know that podcasters out there might be listening for different things different things going on, but we do really appreciate your support. And it also gives us the opportunity to test some things too for you as we go along in the future of podcasting. So send those boostograms if you can, And especially attached message with it. Make sure you identify yourself too so we know who you are and can thank you by name if you like that.

Dave Jackson [00:23:27]:

Yeah. And we always appreciate those that are Streaming along as they're listening, we always appreciate that as well. But, that'll put a pin in episode 30 of the future of podcasting. Again, our website, future of podcasting.net. We'll see you in 2 weeks with or 1 week or something. Whenever Dave gets it out, we will see you with a new episode Of the future of podcasting.

Daniel J. Lewis [00:23:50]:

Keep boosting and keep podcasting.