Manton and Daniel talk about the major update to Micro.blog, and how to cope with demand as it either meets or doesn’t meet daily limits. They opine about the virtue of having a baseline product on which to build future updates. They react to Mark Gurman’s report that Apple has a plan to make it easier to bring iOS apps to the Mac, and finally, they catch up on Daniel’s post-release MarsEdit activity.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Digimarc: The best mobile scanning solution today. The only solution for tomorrow.
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• Major Update – Manton announces major updates to Micro.blog.
• WPEngine – Popular WordPress hosting company.
• Squarespace $200 Million – News report about Squarespace’s fundraising success.
• One User Experience – Mark Gurman breaks news of purported plan by Apple to bring iOS apps to Mac.
• Chameleon – The Iconfactory’s example of a library aimed at bringing iOS app to Mac.
• App Transport Security – The Apple security-minded technology that Daniel maybe shouldn’t have adopted.
• HSTS – HTTP Strict Transport Security.
• Let’s Encrypt – Free SSL certificate provider.

Daniel and Manton catch up on MarsEdit 4’s progress a week after releasing. They talk about the anxiety and fear of making a huge mistake when releasing, and the relief of discovering you haven’t. They reflect on the effectiveness of direct email to inform existing customers of updates, and Manton looks forward to releasing Micro.blog to the public, and how much PR fanfare he should be looking to generate.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.
• Carbon Copy Cloner: Don’t let disk failure be a showstopper – make your bootable backup today!

Links:

• Campaign Monitor – Email marketing company that Daniel uses.
• MailChimp – Email marketing company that Manton uses.
• Micro.blog – Manton’s soon to be publicly available Microblogging service.
• IndieWebCamp Austin – The local conference that Manton co-organized.
• Apple Has Ruined Podcasts – Slate article condemning Apple’s Podcasts app but praising Overcast.
• Overcast – Marco Arment’s iOS podcast playing app.

Manton and Daniel celebrate the launch of MarsEdit 4. Daniel shares the unlikely experience of literally weeping at his keyboard as he released it. They take stock of the challenges of getting 4.0 done, and talk about planning for a more predictable update schedule for MarsEdit 5. They wrap up the show answering listener questions about PR strategy for new updates, establishing rapport with press and bloggers, and the importance of projecting authenticity when marketing.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• TextExpander: Communicate Smarter.

Links:

• MarsEdit 4 – New version of Daniel’s blog editing app for the Mac.
• prMac – Press release distribution service.
• Leo Laporte – Long-time booster of MarsEdit and other app’s of Daniels.
• MacBreak Weekly – One of Leo’s many netcasts on the TWiT network.
• Micro.blog – Manton’s microblog publishing and social networking service.
• MarsEdit for Your Custom Blog – Ancient yet applicable advice for implementing support for MarsEdit.
• Micropub – An open standard API for blog publishing.
• Timetable 89 – Manton celebrates MarsEdit 4 and argues for compatibility among social and blogging apps.
• Everythign I Have Ever Posted – John Gruber’s link to MarsEdit 4 and a nice endorsement of it.
• IndieWebCamp Austin – Eventbrite page for the meetup that Manton is co-organizing.

Daniel and Manton discuss Apple’s massive root access security flaw, Apple’s reaction to it, and what the internal repercussions at the company might be. Daniel catches Manton up on his ambition to ship MarsEdit 4 as early as next week!

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• Ship better apps, faster with buddybuild.

Links:

• Security Update 2017-001 – Apple’s official information page about the macOS root access bug.
• Leave the Password Empty – Innocuous-seeming advice in the Apple Developer forums about the root login vulnerability.
• Pure Frustration – Follow-up comment explaining the inspiration for trying to log in as root.
• Apple to Audit Development Processes – Reuters story includes a copy of Apple’s official statement of regret.
• lsbom – Man page for the little known installer-package inspection utility.

Manton and Daniel compare notes about that time they shared a hotel room together at a tech conference. Or did they?

This episode is available exclusively to members. Become a member today to gain access to this and other cool stuff!

Links:

• Hivelogic Fanatics — 2008 picture of Manton and Daniel at the W Hotel in San Francisco.
• California Adventure — Manton blogs about his trip to California for WWDC 2004.

Daniel commits to wrapping up MarsEdit 4 by December 1. Manton also looks towards wrapping up for a public Micro.blog release. They reminisce about Apple’s abandoned system-wide help systems, and review Daniel’s approach to going freemium with in-app-purchases on the Mac App Store.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• Carbon Copy Cloner: Don’t let disk failure be a showstopper – make your bootable backup today!

Links:

• Micro.blog for iOS – The iOS app for Manton’s microblogging service.
• Authoring Apple Help – Apple’s development guide to their in-app Help system.
• Apple Guide – Wikipedia article about Apple’s old guided tutorial help system.
• Balloon Help – Another of Apple’s abandoned system-wide help systems.
• Introducing Scrivener 3 – Announcement of the new version from Literature & Latte.
• Taking Longer Than Hoped – Pre-release blog post from the Scrivener folks that mentions waiting for Apple app review.

Daniel and Manton close in on committing to release dates for MarsEdit and Micro.blog. They weigh tough, last-minute decisions about keeping or cutting features. Manton admits to taking on new commitments as an event organizer. Finally, they talk about resources for teaching kids to code including App Camp, Hour of Code, and Swift Playgrounds.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.
• Digimarc: The best mobile scanning solution today. The only solution for tomorrow.

Links:

• StoreKit – Apple’s API for in-app purchases.
• MarsEdit – Daniel’s Mac-blased blog editing app.
• Micro.blog – Manton’s Web, Mac, and iOS micro-blogging app.
• IndieWebCamp Austin – Open web conference that Manton is co-organizing.
• Release Notes – The gold standard for podcaster-organized developer conferences.
• App Camp – App Camp for Girls fundraising campaign.
• Hour of Code – Program devoted to giving kids a cursory introduction to programming.
• Swift Playgrounds – Apple’s immersive, iPad-based programming education app.
• Minecraft – The popular world-building game.
• TinyMUD – Server-based world-building game from the 1990s.
• Moos (object oriented MUDs) – Object-oriented variation on MUDs.

Manton got his iPhone X, while Daniel patiently awaits his. Daniel admits fault for having been dismissive about Face ID, and Manton concedes the iPhone 8 and X seem to be complementary hits. They talk about Daniel’s decision to migrate his web server, and weigh the merits of taking on too many tasks vs. outsourcing to experts. Finally, they talk about the fear of shipping and the consolation that only a subset of all possible customers is ever reached by the news of a major release.

Many thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Ship better apps, faster with buddybuild.
• Linode: Cloud Hosting for You.

Links:

• iPhone X – Apple’s newest new phone.
• Verge Review – Video includes night-vision filming of Face ID’s IR projection.
• Kinect – Microsoft’s 3D vision technology.
• Wii Remote Sensor – Information from Wikipedia on the sensor’s 3D viewing abilities.
• Face ID Skepticism – Daniel’s historically unfortunate malprediction.
• Upgrade 166 – Including Jason Snell’s take on Apple’s recent earnings.
• AAPL stock price – Yup. It’s past $900 Billion.
• Red Sweater – Daniel’s main site, recently migrated to Linode.
• Postfix – The venerable UNIX mail server.
• Craig Hockenberry – Friend of the show who is not a friend of self-hosting.
• Yellow Dog Linux – Manton’s 2003 web-hosting solution.
• Ubuntu – Daniel’s 2017 web-hosting solution.

Daniel and Manton recap their experience placing pre-orders for the iPhone X, discuss Apple’s unusual PR strategy for iPhone X reviews, and debate the appropriateness of Apple firing an engineer for letting his daughter film a YouTube video of his pre-release phone.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• TextExpander: Communicate Smarter.

Links:

• iPhone X – Apple’s product page for the new phone.
• Face the Future – The Verge’s iPhone X review.
• iPhone X at Disneyland – Matthew Panzarino’s review for Techcrunch.
• My iPhone X Video Went Viral – Brooke Amelia Peterson’s recap of reviewing her father’s iPhone X.
• Mike Allen’s Nephew – John Gruber’s take on Axios’s early impressions of the iPhone X.

Manton and Daniel anticipate the night of iPhone X pre-orders, and the shame of waking in the middle of the night to order a phone. They catch up with their faltering ambitions to ship MarsEdit and Micro.blog, and acknowledge the merit of sharing ambitions with others to help motivate progress. Finally, they contemplate whether eliminating a feature altogether is preferable to shipping it with obvious deficiencies.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• Ship better apps, faster with buddybuild.

Links:

• iPhone X – Pre-order instructions from Apple.
• iPhone 8 – The incredibly great phone that you can buy today.
• Micro.blog for iOS – The app Manton is updating for iPhone X.
• Micro.blog for Mac – The beta version of Manton’s Mac app.
• Extra Intuition 2 – Members-only podcast episode featuring Gus Mueller.
• The Shape of Everything – Gus Mueller’s blog.
• Acorn – Gus Mueller’s Mac-based image editing app.