Daniel and Manton talk about road trips. Daniel re-visits a beloved pizza place and Manton plans for fall travel.

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Manton and Daniel talk about Daniel’s progress on MarsEdit 5. They weigh the pros and cons of releasing major upgrades vs. a steady stream of “regular updates.” They talk about the changing landscape of PR and marketing for Mac software, and icky feelings associated with trying to “reach influencers.” Finally, they talk about the value of sticking to one’s own ideals an indie developer, and powering through feelings of hopelessness when you run into challenges.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• TextExpander: Communicate Smarter.

Links:

• The Winter Slowdown – Manton’s post about his “most productive time” of the year.
• Nova – Panic’s native Mac code editing app.
• Chime – Matt Massicotte’s native Mac code editor, primarily for Go developers.
• Neon – Open source framework for syntax highlighting.
• TreeSitter – Open source framework for parsing text from programming languages.
• Gutenberg – WordPress’s block-based editor.
• Ulysses – Popular Mac app for writers.
• Visual Studio Code – Microsoft’s Electron-based code editor.
• Code Mirror – Javascript/HTML code editing framework.

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Daniel and Manton talk about the Meridian announcement, check-in apps, and the potential for a new “place marking” infrastructure. Daniel reiterates an earlier point on the podcast about how specialized features like Micro.blog’s bookshelves could be generalized for new types of data and workflows. Finally, Daniel pre-announces his new blogging app that is just for pizza posts. 🍕

Download Audio (MP3, 38 minutes)

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

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

Links:

• Introducing Meridian – Manton’s blog post announcing the project and why he and Jon Hays are working on it.
• latl.ong – The official web site for Meridian.
• Buzz Andersen – iOS developer who Daniel spontaneously met up with once because of Foursquare.
• manton.coffee – Manton’s blog just for check-ins.
• Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel – Blog post by Maciej Cegłowski about how burritos get to New York City.

Manton and Daniel talk about Daniel’s latest detour into working on new features for FastScripts, at the expense of other, possibly more pressing work. They discuss the merit of seeking out “quick wins”, while acknowledging the difficulty of predicting whether a goal will turn out to be a quick win or a huge time sink.

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Links:

• FastScripts – Daniel’s scripting utility for macOS.
• Quick Wins – Episode of the Rework podcast talking about the value of small accomplishments.
• Late Night Software – Developer of Script Debugger for Mac.
• Mark Aldritt – Founder and main developer at Late Night Software.
• Keyboard Maestro – A substantially more capable competitor to FastScripts.
• Peter Lewis – Founder and main developer of Keyboard Maestro.
• Micro.blog – Manton’s micro-blogging service.
• Vincent Ritter – Micro.blog employee who contributed greatly to the latest Micro.blog for iOS.

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Daniel and Manton follow up on the iPhone 14, discussing who bought it and revisiting the different payment plans. Then they talk about the Micro.blog 3.0 for iOS beta release with a long detour into the TestFlight approval process and why it often feels ridiculous.

Download Audio (MP3, 43 minutes)

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• TextExpander: Communicate Smarter.

Links:

• Apple iPhone upgrade program – Get a new iPhone every year, different than other financing.
• Micro.blog 3.0 beta – Manton blogging about the new version.
• TestFlight – Apple’s beta testing system that has slightly different rules than the App Store.
• CloudKit – A good example of dogfooding helping Apple and third-party developers.
• React Native – Cross-platform framework used to develop Micro.blog 3.0.

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Manton and Daniel react to Apple’s latest event and compare notes about the potential impact on their wallets. They marvel at the production value of Apple’s many long videos, but wonder how much value they have, and whether they go too far in dramatizing customer catastrophes. They talk about their shared appreciation of the Apple Watch, and shared belief that Apple’s events are getting too long and boring.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

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

Links:

• Far Out – Apple’s September 2022 event.
• ATP 499 – Marco, Casey, and John react to the Apple Event.
• Emergency SOS via Satellite – Apple documentation on the new iPhone 14 feature.
• iPhone 14 – Apple’s forthcoming phone, featuring a new “dynamic island” UI metaphor.
• Fantasy Island – Late ’70s-Early ’80s television show.
• Survivor – Popular American reality show since the year 2000.
• Dithering – Podcast on which John Gruber and Ben Thompson recently recapped the Apple event.

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Daniel and Manton talk about next week’s Apple event and the expected iOS and iPadOS releases, including Apple’s choice to withhold Stage Manager functionality from non-M1 iPads. Then they talk about 5G wireless and the advantages of Apple’s eSim support for using the second SIM to add data independently from your main plan.

Download Audio (MP3, 21 minutes)

Links:

• Apple’s September 7th event — MacStories blog post previewing the announcement.
• iPadOS 16.1 beta — TechCrunch blog post with quote from Apple on delaying iPadOS.
• Stage Manager controversy — 9to5Mac on Stage Manager’s limited support for iPads.
• Studio Display — Apple product page hyping up the support for Center Stage and other features.
• Truphone — eSIM option that Daniel used while on vacation.

Manton and Daniel catch up on their respectively busy vacation plans over recent weeks, and start looking forward to a more structured September schedule. Daniel shares his early progress on MarsEdit 5 development, while Manton talks about his experience converting a private blog from WordPress to Micro.blog, after first going all-in on the WordPress Block Editor, to understand how it works.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

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

Links:

• Chime – Matt Massicotte’s Go-focused native Mac code editor.
• Neon – Massicotte’s open source library for syntax highlighting.
• Tree Sitter – Open source language parsing framework originating at GitHub.
• Prompt – Panic’s SSH client for iOS.
• Gutenberg – WordPress’s block-based editor.

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Daniel and Manton talk about Manton’s decision to cancel his Blinksale account, after 16 years of service. They weigh the relative value of the thousands of dollars paid as a fraction of the overall business conducted. They talk about Stripe’s increasing dominance in the world of financial services, and how they even offer a comparable invoicing product as a built-in feature.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

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

Links:

• Blinksale – Invoicing SaaS that Manton used for 16 years.
• Micro.blog – Manton’s microblogging service.
• Write.as – A service that offered a 5-year subscription plan.
• Stripe Invoicing – Comparable service to Blinksale from the popular payment processor.
• Braintree – A payment processing service owned by PayPal.
• Shopify – Payment processing that focuses on full-service hosted intefaces.
• wooCommerce – Automattic’s WordPress-based eCommerce service.

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Manton tells Daniel more about his experience with Blinksale, how they raised his monthly fee to account for features that he didn’t receive. They talk about our collective tendency as customers to lose track of the amount we are paying for subscription services that raise their prices regularly over time. Daniel explains that he shipped MarsEdit 4.6 but that it doesn’t include all the updates he hoped for, and they elaborate on the challenge of continuing to ship updates while perpetually having to put off certain changes.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• TextExpander: Communicate Smarter.

Links:

• Blinksale – A super simple invoicing company that was even simpler for Manton than it was for new users.
• Netflix – Video streaming service that Daniel and Manton both like enough to not really know how much they pay.
• Our First Price Change – Slack announces oddly precise pricing increases, and a change of its terms for free accounts.
• MarsEdit 4.6 – Daniel’s blog post about the latest release of his Mac blogging app.
• Out-Heart the Competition – Video of Daniel’s 2015 talk about embracing competitors.
• React Native – Popular framework from Facebook that Manton is adopting for Micro.blog.

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