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:

• WWDC 22 – Apple’s home page for their next developer conference.
• Swift Student Challenge – An opportunity for students to show off their Apple-platform programming skills.
• The Talk Show Live – 2019 Edition of John Gruber’s typically annual live interview show.
• ATP Live at WWDC – “No shows are currently scheduled”

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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.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Links:

• Black Ink – Daniel’s crossword app for the Mac.
• Kreuzworträtsel – Example of a German-language crossword courtesy of Jan Barnholt.
• Wordle – The online word-guessing game.
• New York Times Crossword – The quintessential American crossword.
• 500K Subscribers – 2019 article from the NY Times boasting of their crossword subscriber base.
• Same Code, Different Targets – Daniel’s Twitter post highlighting the differences in calendar UI from the same SwiftUI code base.
• React Native – Cross-platform framework for mobile development.
• Epilogue on GitHub – Manton’s open source book-tracking app.
• Ben Johnson – Contributor to the Epilogue open source project.

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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:

• NSDatePicker – The AppKit control that features a standard graphical calendar interface.
• Bookmark Improvements in Micro.blog – Manton’s blog post announcing improvements to Micro.blog.
• Tweet Library Screenshots – A glimpse at what was Tweet Library.
• Dory – Fan page for the forgetful fish from “Finding Nemo”.
• Really Convenient – John Gruber appreciates FastScripts 3.1 on Daring Fireball.
• Jean MacDonald – Conmmunity manager of Micro.blog.
• Micro.blog Bookmarks – The Help page that Manton acknowledges could use some revision.
• Sloppy Code – Rebecca (Slatkin) Sloane on Twitter, venting about a jerk’s response to her.

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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:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

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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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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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:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

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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Manton talks to Daniel about his decision to switch from Zendesk to Help Scout, and gets Daniel excited about the prospect of finally switching away from FogBugz for his own work.

No sponsor this week! Please consider sponsoring us, or asking your employer to do so.

Links:

• FogBugz: Daniel’s current help desk and issue tracking system.
• Zendesk: Manton’s current help desk system.
• Freshdesk: A help desk system considered by Daniel.
• Help Scout: The help desk system Manton is switching to, and that Daniel is intrigued by.

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Daniel and Manton talk about the specifics of Apple’s attempted compliance with the Netherlands’s new dating app requirements. They express their continuing disappointment with Apple’s apparent disdain for developers, and their surprise at the poor management of the situation on the PR front. Daniel talks about finally moving from Mercurial to Git and the advantages of standardizing on technologies that have “clearly won.”

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Links:

• StoreKit External Entitlement – Apple’s documentation about entitlements for alternate payment methods in Dutch dating apps.
• Going Dutch – John Gruber’s take on Apple’s response to the Dutch authorities.
• Finally Biting the Bullet – Daniel’s post on Twitter that he has finally surrendered to Git.

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Manton and Daniel celebrate their 500th episode by looking back at several arbitrarily chosen episodes spanning the history of the show. They remark about the things that have changed, the things that have stayed the same, and their surprise that certain events happened when they did. They wrap up the episode with a discussion about their satisfaction with going full-time as indie developers, and unlikelihood that they will go back to “real jobs” any time soon.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• TextExpander: Communicate Smarter. Listeners get 20% off their first year.

Links:

• Episode 50 – “Don’t Get Too Attached”
• A Journey of a Thousand Miles – Chinese proverb attributed to Lao Tzu.
• I’m Backing App.net – John Gruber’s 2012 tweet that we cited on the podcast.
• App.net API Specification – Github-hosted API documentation for the former social network.
• Episode 150 – “Full On Nickel and Diming”
• Euler – Mattt Thompson’s Swift library for mathematical symbols.
• Culture Espresso – Manton’s one-time NYC coffee pitstop.
• Episode 250 – “The Advantage of Buttony Buttons”
• iOS 10 Review – The MacStories review by Federico Viticci.
• Episode 350 – “Inspired to Look at This”
• Micro.blog + Mastodon – Manton’s 2018 post about adding support for the open social networking protocol.
• Timetable – Manton’s Micro.blog-hosted short-form podcast.
• Brewster Kahle on Recode Decode – Interview in which the average lifespan of an webpage is estimated at 100 days.
• Episode 450 – “The Full Indie Experience”
• Silverpine Software – iOS consulting firm that Manton does part-time work for.
• VitalSource – Manton’s former employer.
• Station Eleven – A book and miniseries about a fictional pandemic.
• I Can’t Drive 55 – Sammy Hagar’s 1984 song.

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Daniel declares to Manton that he is finally starting to feel comfortable as an iOS developer, and looking forward to shipping Black Ink for iOS. Manton, meanwhile, is getting more interested in ReactNative as a means to possibly porting Epilogue to Android.

They talk about the virtue of venturing into unfamiliar technologies, waiting to get over the learning curve, and adapting what you like about other technologies back to your favorite platforms. Finally, they talk about the value of embracing “essential tools” and about what distinguishes an essential tool from a merely useful one.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Links:

• Lists in UICollectionView – WWDC video from 2020 detailing how to replace UITableView code with modern alternatives.
• React Native – Facebook’s open source cross-platform development framework.
• Micro.blog for Android – Early access release on the Google Play store.
• Vincent Ritter – The main developer of Micro.blog for Android.
• Epilogue – Manton’s book-blogging app for Micro.blog

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