Daniel talks to Manton about his last-minute preparations for Micro Camp, and the extent to which he’s had to drop everything to focus on the virtual conference. Daniel describes the process of reacing to the New York Times dropping Across Lite support, and his ultimate delivery of an updated version of Black Ink to work around the change. Finally, they talk about the merit of staying engaged with customers who have made feature requests, even if it was a long time ago.
Many thanks to our sponsors this week:
- RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!
- Linode: Instantly deploy and manage an SSD server in the Linode Cloud. New accounts get a $100 credit.
Links:
- Micro.camp – Manton’s virtual conference for Micro.blog users and developers.
- Vi.to – Online conference-running solution from the makers of Ti.to.
- Black Ink 2.1.7 – Daniel’s announcement of the update to Black Ink that preserves NYT support.
- OmniFocus – Productivity app that Daniel uses to manage his ToDos and recurring task lists.
- Brené Brown – Episode of NPR’s “How I Built This” featuring the vulnerability expert.
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August 13, 2021 at 2:44 pm.
Manton talks to Daniel about his upcoming Micro Camp conference, and the process he went through in acquiring the associated micro.camp domain. They talk about taking advantage of the benefits of “content marketing” without being sleazy about it, and the value of trying lots of different things. Daniel shares his reaction to the New York Times announcing they are dropping support for the puzzle file format that Black Ink uses, and the impact it’s having on the Times’s and his customers.
Many thanks to our sponsors this week:
- Linode: Instantly deploy and manage an SSD server in the Linode Cloud. New accounts get a $100 credit.
- TextExpander: Communicate Smarter.
Links:
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August 6, 2021 at 9:42 pm.
Daniel tells Manton about his decision to focus on one product until it ships, and shares some tricks he’s using to stick with it. Daniel also explains how he accidentally made Black Ink 2 completely free on the Mac App Store, for a whole year, without realizing it. Manton catches up about his experience so far of hiring a software engineer, and they discuss the challenge of gauging the effectiveness of having hired somebody.
Many thanks to our sponsors this week:
- Linode: Instantly deploy and manage an SSD server in the Linode Cloud. New accounts get a $100 credit.
- RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!
Links:
- Draft Day – Movie in which a piece of paper with a written goal plays a role.
- Black Ink 2 – Mac App Store page for Black Ink – no longer accidentally free!
- Vincent Ritter – Manton’s software engineering hire, and developer of Gluon for Micro.blog.
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July 30, 2021 at 8:10 pm.
Manton and Daniel catch up on the effectiveness of “Must-do Monday.” They talk about the value of gaining any momentum at all when moving towards achieving goals. Manton suggests “Finish Friday” as a counterpart to aid in actually ever shipping. Manton talks about Micro.blog’s server downtime, and confesses his disdain for at least one of his precious servers.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
- Linode: Instantly deploy and manage an SSD server in the Linode Cloud. New accounts get a $100 credit.
Links:
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July 22, 2021 at 3:03 pm.
Daniel learns about Manton’s decision to hire a contract developer to help with server/backend stuff. They talk about the tendency to minimize the real cost of performing the many small steps in any project, and the productivity boot an extra team member can bring. Daniel tells Manton about his new “Must-Do Monday” strategy, with which he must spend Mondays committing to some long-overlooked items on his todo list.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- Vincent Ritter – The newest member of the Micro.blog team.
- Gluon – Vincent’s Micro.blog app for iOS and Android.
- Micro.blog Open Source – The GitHub organization for all of Micro.blog’s open-sourced projects.
- React Native – The cross-platform development SDK that Vincent uses for Gluon.
- Jon Hays – Manton’s colleague and sometime employer.
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July 16, 2021 at 9:08 pm.
Manton and Daniel talk about the new “Workation” offering from Try! Swift, and wonder about how likely it is that any “work” would get done in a tropical paradise. They compare notes about recent podcasting sponsorships they have made, and discuss the relative comfort of spending money supporting blogs, podcasts, etc., that we like, versus sponsorships that support companies we are more ambivalent about.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
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July 10, 2021 at 12:59 pm.
Daniel talks to Manton about his decision to open source all of Micro.blog’s native platform apps. They acknowledge the difficulty of overcoming personal hesitations whenever you decide to put your own work out in the world. Manton appreciates the aspect of open source that contributes to a lasting legacy of our time on earth, and finally we appreciate product simplicity as a competitive advantage over “more successful” products that seemingly must become more and more complex.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
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Manton and Daniel talk about Daniel’s decision to release a public beta of Black Ink for iOS, and the merit of pushing forward with ambitons, one step at a time. They discuss the anticipated freemium subscription model Daniel plans to offer, and talk about the importance of getting paid for one’s work. Finally, they talk about gaining and maintaining confidence in your work and that what you have to offer is valuable even if not everybody agrees it is good.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
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June 18, 2021 at 8:01 pm.
Daniel and Manton react to the unfolding news from WWDC, talking specifically about Shortcuts for Mac, the new Async/await coroutines functionality for Swift, Xcode Cloud, and the new Weather app. They talk about whether Apple should horde functionality like the weather service they acquired from Dark Sky, or make it available in a public framework. Finally, they take stock of Catalyst and the writing on the wall that this year’s announcements have made clear.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- WWDC 2021 – Main page for Apple’s developer conference and a place to watch the keynote.
- Apple Developer – Apple’s official app supporting WWDC and other developer-facing services.
- Shortcuts for macOS – WWDC session about the new automation technology for Mac.
- Async/await – Swift Evolution document proposing the new coroutine functionality.
- “Freaking” Block Syntax – A site that famoulsy references the difficult to remember syntax for C Blocks.
- Crazy YOLO App Rewrite – Blog post from a former Uber developer about their experience rewriting the app in Swift.
- Xcode Cloud – Apple’s forthcoming continuous integration service.
- A Couple of Heads in the Xcode Cloud(s) – Scotty and John on the iDeveloper Podcast, talking about Xcode Cloud.
- Buddybuild – The remnants of Buddybuild, the service that Apple acquired a while back.
- GitHub Pricing – The high level price tiers for GitHub’s source hosting and CI services.
- Dark Sky Has a New Home – Last year’s blog post about Apple’s acquisition of the weather app/service.
- Slopes – Curtis Herbert’s skiing and snowboarding app.
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June 12, 2021 at 4:27 am.
Manton and Daniel respond to criticism about our opinions on the Apple vs. Epic case and Apple’s public testimony. They speculate more about WWDC, wondering about possible iPadOS improvements. Finally, they appreciate that Apple’s design award finalists includes Nova from Panic, a Mac app that is not available in the App Store.
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Links:
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