Howl Podcast Player

iOS Developer, Designer (2015 - 2020 iPhone App)

In 2014 I was contracted to make a prototype podcast playing app for Midroll, the company that owns popular podcast comedy network Earwolf. They were interested in making a mobile app to showcase their content, their hosts, and make a great experience for their fans. They also wanted to launch an exclusive premium podcast network that came to be known as Howl Premium. This was years before Luminary and other similar attempts.

I designed the app and website, and made the iPhone version. Over the years it grew in popularity and went on to be the exclusive home of WTF w/ Marc Maron’s popular show archives. The application design was unique and a little unusual, reflecting my relative inexperience at the time. It was bouncy, fun, animated, and very very fast.

It had features that podcast apps are only just adopting such as indepth show sorting, splitting long running shows into seasons, and local searching. It included host photos and information, and photos of recording sessions. For fans of Earwolf/Howl shows it was like no-other podcast app! There are still users who have continued using it and refused to move to Stitcher or other podcast apps.

The E.W.Scripps company purchased Midroll in July 2015, and then purchased Stitcher in June 2016 I moved over to the Stitcher team fulltime. However Howl kept on kicking and it’s subscription revenue stayed strong for far longer than it should have. It’s feature set was small and easily maintained, and its architecture has scaled gracefully to new versions of iOS (and phone sizes). It is on its last legs and the services that power it will be shutting down soon but, for now, you can download it on the App Store.

This was the first podcast app I worked on and it holds a special place in my heart. It taught me fundamental principles of UI, UX, and MVC architecture. RIP Howl

Software and Tools:

• Xcode (Objective C)

• Photoshop

• Sketch

• Github