In the midst of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, Daniel and Manton talk about Manton’s long history with Twitter, starting with enthusiasm, continuing to active development for the platform, and ending with disgust. They psychoanalyze Elon Musk and his propensity for seeking adulation on Twitter, and compare him to Jack Dorsey. In the second half of the show they follow up on Help Scout and talk about the service’s statistics reporting on customer service performance. Finally, Manton shares an example of a less than stellar customer support experience he had with another company, and they discuss when and how often automated responses should be used.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- RobinHood – Mobile-friendly stock-trading service.
- Micro.blog – Manton’s microblogging service, often seen as an alternative to Twitter.
- NetNewsWire – A popular, long-lived, and now open-source RSS reader for Mac and iOS.
- Bluesky – Twitter-initiated organization building decentralized social networking technology.
- Everything in its Right Place – Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Twitter thread about Elon Musk.
- Email Response Time – Manton’s blog post about his Help Scout customer service statistics.
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Daniel and Manton follow up on button sizing in SwiftUI. They compare SwiftUI and React Native in terms of maturity and how much you can expand the frameworks on your own to fill missing gaps. Then, they discuss why all previous cross-platform development approaches have “failed” with respect to matching expectations of the native platform, and what native apps can provide in addition to web counterparts.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- SwiftUI Button – Apple’s documentation for the different ways to make a button.
- React Native Diary – Manton’s blog post series about learning React Native.
- Brent Simmons – Inspiration for blog post “diary” series and developer of NetNewsWire.
- NetNewsWire 6.1 – New version of NetNewsWire with themes, backed by web views.
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April 20, 2022 at 2:17 pm.
Daniel talks to Manton about Setapp’s efforts to support the war in Ukraine by offering developers the option of donating a percentage of proceeds. They talk about how Setapp is doing in general, and explain a bit about the compensation scheme for developers. Manton talks about the release of a React Native version of Epilogue for Android, and how satisfied he is with the approach. Daniel wonders whether web frameworks are leapfrogging native ones, and what Apple could or should do about it.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- Setapp – Subscription based service for Mac software.
- MacPaw – Software company that also owns and operates Setapp.
- @vixentael – Ukrainian security researcher/engineer.
- Vincent Ritter – Android developer for Micro.blog.
React Native – Facebook-sponsored cross-platform app framework.
Redwood.js – New web development framework led by Tim Preston-Werner.
- Storybook – User interface development tool that is included with Redwood.js.
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April 17, 2022 at 4:01 pm.
Daniel and Manton talk about accents, and why Manton doesn’t have one after growing up in Texas.
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April 8, 2022 at 8:01 pm.
Manton and Daniel react to Apple’s announcement of WWDC 2022, ponder the merits of the modest in-person viewing opportunity, and wonder about what Apple thinks is in it for them. They struggle to must excitement, wondering whether Apple can still surprise us, but hold out hope for being … well … surprised!
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
- TextExpander: Communicate Smarter. Listeners get 20% off their first year.
Links:
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Daniel and Manton follow up the claim from previous episode that crosswords are “mostly an English-language thing.” Daniel shares more about his experience implementing a custom calendar picker for macOS, and how the AppKit version he emulated differs from Apple’s separate SwiftUI implementation. Manton talks about his positive experience using using React Native, and how SwiftUI would be a tough sell given his desire to target Android. Finally, they speculate briefly about whether WWDC will continue being virtual-only this year, and in years to come.
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Links:
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April 1, 2022 at 5:24 pm.
Manton reacts to Daniel going on an unexpected diversion and implementing a calendar view for Black Ink. Manton talks about the new Micro.blog bookmarks features. They acknowledge the marketing benefits of making minor changes to existing features to draw new attention to them. Finally, they talk about taking pride in the things that matter in work, and not getting bogged down by fear of judgement from others.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
- Tower: A better way to work with Git.
Links:
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March 28, 2022 at 3:49 am.
Daniel and Manton talk about Manton’s trip to Portland, Oregon for the Micro Camp meetup, and celebrate Manton’s completion of the final draft for his Indie Microblogging book. They talk about Daniel’s latest update to FastScripts, including regular expression utilities, and how Manton has employed them for his book authoring workflow. Finally they touch on how to decide between including features for free vs. making them part of a premium upgrade purchase.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- Micro.camp – Home page for Manton’s annual-ish gathering for the Micro.blog community.
- Martin Feld – Presenter of the “An Eye for an Ear” session at Micro Camp.
- Vito – The event-running service from the makers of Tito.
- Ulysses – Mac and iOS app for writing and publishing to WordPress or Micro.blog.
- MarsEdit – Daniel’s Mac app for publishing to WordPress and other blogs.
- FastScripts 3.1 – Daniel’s blog post describing the new regular expressions support in FastScripts 3.1.
- Doug’s AppleScripts – Long-time source for iTunes and media-related scripts for the Mac.
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March 19, 2022 at 3:56 am.
Manton and Daniel compare notes after Apple’s March, 2022 special event. Manton isn’t super-excited, but Daniel celebrates that “The Mac Company” is back. Manton talks about his trip to Portland for Micro Camp, and announces that he is publishing the complete DRAFT of his Indie Microblogging book.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
- TextExpander: Communicate Smarter. Listeners get 20% off their first year.
Links:
- March 8 Apple Event – Apple’s recap page about the special event.
- Micro.camp – Virtual gathering for the Micro.blog community.
- Jean MacDonald – Community Manager of Micro.blog and sometime spur of Manton Reece’s productivity.
- Indie Microblogging – Manton published a complete draft of his book!
- Manton’s Video – Manton shares an update on his Kickstarter where he updates supporters on the status of the book.
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March 11, 2022 at 11:17 pm.
Daniel tells Manton about finally leaving FogBugz and going deep on Help Scout and GitHub Issues. Meanwhile Manton has also finished his migration to Help Scout! They talk about their mutual satisfaction with Help Scout and about how to best manage GitHub Issues.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- Help Scout – Web-based Help Desk management software that Manton and Daniel have both switched to.
- GitHub Issues – The ticket-tracking system built in to GitHub.
- Mathew Patterson – Erstwhile Campaign Monitor employee who now works for Help Scout.
- Keep Customers Coming Back – Help Scout sings the virtues of following up with customers after making improvements.
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March 3, 2022 at 9:31 pm.
