Daniel and Manton greet the New Year with a vague sense of optimism, as Daniel moves closer to serious iOS development, and Manton remains confident and focused on Micro.blog. They talk about finding a balance between optimistic enthusiasm and realism about chance of failure. Finally, Daniel talks about his shifting plans for Black Ink 2 and the possibility of co-launching it with an iOS version.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• TextExpander: Communicate Smarter.
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• CVS – American drug store that stubbornly refused to support Apple Pay.
• DotSwift – Paris-based conference that Daniel will speak at later this month.
• Unread’s First year – Jared Sinclair’s 2014 blog post about the success of Unread during its first year.
• Core Int #148 – We discuss Jared Sinclair’s blog post on an earlier episode of the show.
• Only a Game – Daniel’s 2009 comparing the indie software business to game playing.
• Micro.blog Holiday Giveaway – Manton’s promotion encouraging users to invite others to Micro.blog.
• FlexTime for Mac – Daniel’s Mac app which one customer estimated the price as too expensive “by the megabyte.”

Manton and Daniel discuss the expansion plans of Amazon, Apple, and Google, as they add office space in cities around the United States. Following up on last week’s rundown of Riverfold Software’s product lineup, Manton takes Daniel on a talk-through of his current lineup of apps.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• New Campus in Austin – Apple press release about their expansion in Austin and other areas of the US.
• Google Hudson Square – Google’s announcement of similar expansion in Manhattan.
• Open Space at Apple’s New Campus – Manton’s blog post reacting to the news from Apple.
• Slack – Online collaboration software.
• Red Sweater – Home page for Daniel’s software company.
• Sell Me Your Product – Daniel’s 2007 blog post that led to his acquiring Black Ink.
• Hard to Categorize – John Gruber’s terse assessment of FlexTime 1.0.
• Super Robots – Direct download of a Mojave-compatible version of Daniel’s first Mac app.

Daniel regales Manton with tales of his latest “waste of time,” as he spends days trying to put the finishing touches on a FastScripts feature 12 years in the making. They talk about the balance of time invested in actual development vs. fighting to get code working in the context of a closed system. Manton explains his decision to shut down his Tweet Marker service, and Daniel asks Manton to reflect on the many indie software products that Manton has developed in the past.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Sentry: Open-source error tracking.
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• FastScripts – Daniel’s Mac-based scripting utility.
• Tweetmarker.net – Home page for Manton’s soon to be dismantled Twitter timeline-syncing service.
• 27th Annual Eddy Awards – Manton won a Macworld Editor’s Choice award for Tweet Marker in 2011.
• Riverfold – Home page for Manton’s indie software business prior to Micro.blog.
• The Best Archive Search Tool – AppStorm reviews Manton’s Watermark.io in 2013.
• Clipstart – Manton’s one-time video management app for Mac.
• Flip Cameras – Handheld video cameras that were briefly popular in the era before smartphone video cameras.
• Wii Transfer – Manton’s one-time Nintendo Wii companion app for Mac.

Manton and Daniel respond to listener feedback about focusing more on marketing and self-promotion of our apps rather than ourselves, and compare the virtues of the two types of promotion. Daniel talks about his decision to do more public speaking, and promotional benefits of that. They talk about whether the lack of journalistic coverage of Mac software is contributing to marketing challenges. Finally, they talk about WordPress 5.0, Gutenberg, and their hope that the dramatic changes might send some customers to Micro.blog and MarsEdit.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• PDFpen: Edit PDFs with ease!
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• Pieter Omvlee – Founder of Bohemian B.V., makers of Sketch.
• Sketch – Popular Mac illustration app.
• The Great Pretender – Pieter Omvlee’s talk at Release Notes 2015.
• Release Notes – A conference about the business of software.
• Twelve Days of Microblogging – Manton’s first post in a series about Microblogging.
• Supporting Dark Mode – Daniel’s series of posts about Dark Mode support in Mac apps.
• Micro Monday – Jean MacDonald’s podcast featuring short interviews with Micro.blog users.
• DotSwift – Paris-based conference that Daniel will be speaking at in January.
• MarsEdit – Daniel’s blog editing app for the Mac.
• So Awesome, It’s Nuts – Help pages for Gus Mueller’s Acorn for Mac.
• Create the Batman Logo – Example of the diverse help content available in the Acorn docs.
• MacStories – iOS and Mac oriented blog by Federico Viticci and crew.
• SixColors – Apple-oriented blog by Jason Snell and Dan Moren.
• Sparkle – Duncan Wilcox’s web design app for Mac.
• Micro.blog 1.4 – Major new version of the iOS app for Manton’s microblogging service.

Daniel and Manton talk about Panic’s release of Transmit for the Mac App Store, and the gradual evolution of Apple’s stance on sandboxing. Daniel talks about his dubious prioritization of quieting deprecation warnings. They both take stock of progress on MarsEdit 4 and Micro.blog around one year after their release. Finally, they muse about the relative profitability of certain software products and whether some apps are inherently bad ideas from a business point of view.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• Transmit – Panic product page for the venerable FTp app.
• FTP Made Easy – App Store feature of Panic’s Transmit.
• BBEdit – Bare Bones’s text editor for Mac.
• Privileged File Operations – Daniel’s blog post about Transmit’s new sandbox entitlements.
• NSWorkspaceAuthorization – Documentation for a new method of asking users for additional sandbox privileges.
• MarsEdit – Daniel’s Mac-based blog editor.
• Omni Group Free Trials – Omni’s approach to Mac App Store trials and upgrades.
• Black Ink – Daniel’s Mac-based crossword puzzle app.
• Gutenberg – WordPress’s new block-based editing environment.
• DaisyDisk – An example of a seemingly mass-appeal Mac app.
• Micro.blog – Manton’s microblogging service.

Manton reports back to Daniel about the first week after adding Mastodon integration to Micro.blog. They talk about the merit and necessity of spending time marketing after all the coding work we do. Daniel talks about his recent struggle implementing support for Google’s OAuth2, and finally they talk about Apple’s new Hardened Runtime and the associated app notarization service Mac apps that are distributed outside the Mac App Store.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.
• Sentry: Open-source error tracking.

Links:

• Micro.blog + Mastodon – Manton’s post announcing new Mastodon features for his microblogging service.
• Mastodon – Central project homepage for the federated social networking service.
• Timetable – Manton’s micro-podcast, now hosted on Micro.blog.
• AppAuth-iOS – Open-source OAuth2 library project from the OpenID Foundation.
• IndieAuth – Domain-name based authentication protocol.
• Notarizing Your App – High-level overview of the App Notarization service.
• New Docs on Notarization – Rosyna Keller shares links to several new documents for developers.

Daniel catches Manton up on his experience at Swift by Northwest, and about his positive outlook on public speaking after participating in the show. They talk about accepting their role as the increasingly “old guard” in a community that is always gaining new developers. Manton announces Mastodon integration for Micro.blog and describes his unique approach to integrating Micro.blog without literally being a Mastodon instance. Finally, they react to the October 2018 Apple Special Event, and think out loud some more about the viability of an ARM transition for macOS.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• PDFpen: Edit PDFs with ease!
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• Swift by Northwest – Portland-based conference that Daniel spoke at.
• Panic – The famous, Portland-based Mac software developers.
• Neven Mrgan – One of our friends who works at Panic.
• Ben Norris – Micro.blog account for one of the people Daniel met at SwiftxNW.
• Great Tools and Tips – Sketchnotes by Ben Norris of Daniel’s talk.
• Micro.blog Mastodon Support – Manton’s announcement of Mastodon support with the Mastodon social syndication protocol.
• The Way Out – Manton’s blog post outlining his vision for solving the problems of social networks.
• Apple Special Event: October 2018 – Video of the live event at which the new Mac Mini and iPad Pro were announced.
• Protective Sandwich – Episode 298 of the Accidental Tech Podcast, featuring analysis of Apple’s event.
• North Korean USB Fan – John Moltz joins John Gruber to assess Apple’s event.
• Give us a Tablet Already – Manton’s 10-year-old post about his desire for a tablet running Mac OS X.

Manton and Daniel check in on the eve of Daniel’s Swift by Northwest speaking engagement. They talk about the challenge of biting off topics for speaking, articles, books, etc., that sound good but turn out to be harder to pull off than expected. Manton catches us up on the challenges of finding time to finish his newest features for Micro.blog, and the two talk each other down from stressing out too much about the relatively low-severity things they’re worrying about.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Sentry: Open-source error tracking.
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• Swift by Northwest – iOS and Mac conference in Portland, OR.
• Hopper – Fancy Mac-based disassembly tool.
• It’s Difficult When You’re a Billionaire – Accidental Tech Podcast episode in which Marco Arment talks about RV cleaning fees.
• Steve Jobs’ Mercedes – Cult of Mac story about Steve Jobs’s famously license-plate free car.
• Red Sweater Privacy Policy – Daniel’s new company privacy policy.
• Micro.blog Privacy Policy – Manton’s privacy policy for Micro.blog.

Daniel and Manton talk about Daniel’s recent blogging series on Dark Mode. They encourage each other not to get too bogged down worrying about the impact of doing the work we want, whether that’s blogging, developing software, or whatever. Daniel frets lightly about his upcoming talk, and they compare notes about coming up with a better strategy for both being prepared to give talks and ensuring you’re giving them to the right audience. Finally, Manton announces his decision to help organize IndieWebCamp Austin in early 2019.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• Supporting Dark Mode – Daniel’s blogging series about macOS Mojave’s new dark mode feature.
• Two Weeks Notice – Manton’s blogging series upon going indie.
• Swift by Northwest – iOS and Mac conference in Portland, OR.
• IndieWebCamp – Organization for which Manton will be organizing a 2019 Austin meetup.

Manton and Daniel talk about coming to terms with the challenge of juggling too many things, making our indie businesses more efficient, and the tough question of how to cut projects and commitments that are stealing time from the main focus. They also touch on the challenge of taking criticism for focusing on what you do well, while others wish you did something else. Finally, they talk about Apple’s new requirement that all App Store submissions link to a Privacy Policy, and how that has affected Daniel’s priorities submitting apps this week.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• TextExpander: Communicate Smarter.
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• Micro.blog – Manton’s primary indie passion: microblog hosting and social network.
• 30 Days of Coffee – Manton’s posts from 30 days of visiting a different coffee shop, in 2016.
• Jean MacDonald – Community manager of Micro.blog.
• Jon Hays – Co-author of Sunlit and Wavelength apps for Micro.blog.
• Riverfold – Manton’s primary indie passion before Micro.blog.
• Swift by Northwest – Portland, OR conference at which Daniel will be speaking.
• Apple.com/privacy – Apple’s high-level “marketing” page for their stances on privacy.
• Apple Privacy Policy – Apple’s actual, legal mumbo-jumbo privacy policy.
• Overcast Privacy Policy – Marco Arment’s privacy policy.
• Panic Privacy Policy – Panic’s stance on privacy.