Let me tell you about traditional podcasts and how I made mine—because what we call "podcasts" today barely resembles what they actually started as.

Back in the day, Apple was looking for content for their new devices called iPods. Someone figured out how to take a directory of audio files from a website, add titles, descriptions, and album artwork, and marry it all together with an XML file. That gave you an RSS feed of audio files. Apple decided it would be called a "podcast" and hosted a directory of these RSS feeds.

By the way, these don't have to be audio files—they can be video too. But when this was created, video was much less common on the Internet.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It has a whole history if you're interested enough to look it up.

Fast forward to 2026. The term "podcast" has been completely bastardized by everyone. It means nothing like what it used to mean. Every video, audio clip, and rambling monologue gets called a podcast now.

Of course, I'm going to create an actual podcast.

I already pay for website hosting, so that's my foundation. You can record audio on iPhone using an app called Voice Memos—it's designed specifically for audio recording, not just ripping audio from video. It's higher quality and less omnidirectional. I exported those files to a directory on my web host and named them things like "episode.1".

For album artwork, I took an existing photo and fed it to Gemini with a description of what I wanted. Used Grok for some finishing touches. But here's the thing—the images chatbots produce are limited by technical constraints. Mine wasn't the correct proportion or detailed enough. So I used Gemini to extract a common background color from the image, then had Claude write me an iOS app that would upscale the image and add a matte to make it square.

By the end, I had a directory of audio files on my website and properly formatted album artwork.

I used Claude to create a web app podcast player with a familiar interface that plays only my episodes. Anyone with a link can listen instantly—no accounts, no apps required.

Then I needed to submit my RSS feed to Apple's directory. First, I had to update the RSS with audio file durations and descriptions. I could have done this directly on the website or used AI to help, but instead I had Claude write me an iOS app that would extract the duration of audio files, let me edit descriptions, and publish my new RSS feed directly to my website with one click.

There was a lot of software written for all of this.

I submitted my RSS feed to Apple. They processed it and extracted the podcast title, episode names, descriptions, album art—everything. Now my podcast can be found in any standard podcast player. I use one called Overcast. iOS has one built in called Apple Podcasts. On Android you can download Pocket Casts.

This is probably why podcasts never really caught on with everyone—there isn't just one website or one place to find everything. But I don't want to be where everyone else is. That's what makes life boring.

For now, I have a real podcast. I may get around to uploading it to Spotify eventually, but for now I'm 100% satisfied. I could not have done any of this without Claude. I understood the structure, but Claude was completely invaluable for bringing it to life.

Listen to GruverCast

You can find GruverCast by searching for it in your favorite podcast player. If you're on iPhone, Apple Podcasts is already built in—just search GruverCast. Android users, I recommend Pocket Casts.

My personal player of choice is Overcast. It's iOS only, but it syncs beautifully between devices and works exceptionally well with VoiceOver. It's written by one person, has no investor funding, and has been the gold standard for serious podcast listeners for over a decade. If you're blind and on iOS, this is the one.

Download Overcast on the App Store