Daniel and Manton react to the European Union’s €13B retroactive tax demand to Apple, talk about the impact of tax laws on indies and small companies, and weigh in on Apple’s purported AI and machine learning triumphs. Finally they catch up on their ambitions to be more productive as the busy summer transitions to fall.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Zendesk: Bring native, in-app support to your app.
• Fabric, Twitter’s mobile SDK: Leverage the power of Crashlytics, Twitter and MoPub to help you build the best mobile apps.

Links:

• Apple vs. EU – Reuters reports on the EU’s €13B demand.
• As Little Tax as Possible – Manton responds with a comparison to a US Presidential candidate.
• AI and Machine Learning at Apple – Backchannel story by Steven Levy about Apple’s AI endeavors.
• I Do Feel the Pea – Guy English joins John Gruber on The Talk Show.
• Try! Swift NYC – Swift developer conference in NYC run by Natasha Murashev.

Manton and Daniel talk about so-called lifestyle businesses, and how they afford both unlimited and always-limited vacations. They also talk about the merit of unlimited or mandatory vacation in workplaces, and go on a deep dive about the challenge of making a living as an indie software developer.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• SmartOthello: An Othello app that doesn’t suck.

Links:

• Stairways Software – Long-time Mac software company founded by Peter Lewis.
• Nolobe – Stairways spinoff founded by Matthew Drayton.
• Timetable – Manton’s short-format solo podcast.
• Just Under 500 – Matt Mullenweg’s update on the state of Automattic.
• WordPress VIP – One of Automattic’s money-making endeavors.
• .Blog – New top-level domain from Automattic.
• Easy Money, Hard Money – Daniel’s tweet reacting to viability of indie software.
• Vesper – iOS note-taking app from Q Branch.
• Last Vesper Update – Brent Simmons announces the end of Vesper development.
• Vesper, Adieu – John Gruber reflects Vesper and challenges to its success.
• Jobs to be Done – Methodology for analyzing viability of specific business models.
• Chief Jobs Officer – Horace Dediu’s Critical Path podcast on the Jobs to be Done approach.
• Four Categories of Software – Daniel’s quip about software people want, need, or only think they want or need.

Daniel and Manton look towards the end of summer as they continue to discuss the challenge of balancing summer family time, vacations, and work commitments. They appreciate Apple’s becoming a well-oiled machine for beta releases, and speculate about the possibility of new Mac hardware to coincide with Sierra. Finally, they touch base with Manton’s Kickstarter progress, and talk about the value of setting up a VPN or “Back to my Mac” configuration for accessing home computers while traveling.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.
• Hired: The world’s most intelligent talent matching platform.

Links:

• Apple Beta Program – Apple’s beta releases are running like clockwork.
• The New Glif – Example of a Kickstarter page from repeat successes Studio Neat.
• OS X Server – Soon to be macOS Server: a bag of many tricks for home servers.
• Arq – Cloud-platform-agnostic backup app for macOS.

Manton and Daniel talk briefly about Xcode 8 Extensions, and reflect on the fragility of poorly designed plugin systems. They talk about vacationing as an indie developer, and share tricks for coping with the overwhelming aspects of a large software project. Finally, they come to term with financial realities and the value of using a spreadsheet to account for cash flow.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Bugsee: Free crash and bug reporting for iOS, with synchronized video, network and logs.
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• Xcode 8 Extensions – WWDC 2016 video from Apple on Xcode 8’s extensibility.
• NSCoding – Protocol reference for Apple’s traditional object serialization strategy.
• Under the Radar #39 – David Smith and Marco Arment talk about the merits of using autolayout inside and out of Interface Builder.
• @macdevnet – Twitter account of Steve Scott (Scotty) of NSConference fame.
• Alykhan Jetha – Çingleton 2011 – Our friend AJ’s talk from the first Çingleton conference.
• The Magic Spreadsheet – Episode of Release Notes featuring Charles Perry’s endorsement of spreadsheet accounting.
• Baremetrics – A financial analysis service that Manton uses.

Daniel gets verified on Twitter, and has mixed feelings. Manton thinks out loud about quality filtering for content-based services. The two discuss Erik Person’s response to Marco’s “10 year challenge”, and the commitment it takes to go from nothing to successful as an indie.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• PDFpen Family: PDF Power on All Your Devices

Links:

• Verified Accounts – Twitter support documentation on the subject.
• Leslie Jones – Twitter account for the star of SNL and Ghostbusters.
• Justin Williams – Mac and iOS developer with the dubious honor of owning @justin
• The Marco Arment 10-year Challenge – Erik Person’s plan to achieve indie success over 10 years.
• Proving Marco’s 10-year Plan – Manton reacts to Erik’s post.
• 10 Year Update – Erik Person’s 6-month update on the plan.
• Decade of Hard Work – Marco Arment’s original tweet about 10 years of hard work.
• A Great Developer… – Manton’s post about the unpredictable rise of indie developers such as Marco Arment.
• Slopes Diaries – Self-reflection on indie development by Curtis Herbert.
• Start – Daniel’s 10-year-old advice for ambitious indie developers.