Core Intuition

Manton and Daniel discuss the expansion plans of Amazon, Apple, and Google, as they add office space in cities around the United States. Following up on last week's rundown of Riverfold Software's product lineup, Manton takes Daniel on a talk-through of his current lineup of apps.

Daniel regales Manton with tales of his latest "waste of time," as he spends days trying to put the finishing touches on a FastScripts feature 12 years in the making. They talk about the balance time invested in actual development vs. fighting to get code working in the context of a closed system. Manton explains his decision to shut down his Tweet Marker service, and Daniel asks Manton to reflect on the many indie software products that Manton has developed in the past.

Manton and Daniel respond to listener feedback about focusing more on marketing and self-promotion of our apps rather than ourselves, and compare the virtues of the two types of promotion. Daniel talks about his decision to do more public speaking, and promotional benefits of that. They talk about whether the lack of journalistic coverage of Mac software is contributing to marketing challenges. Finally, they talk about WordPress 5.0, Gutenberg, and their hope that the dramatic changes might send some customers to Micro.blog and MarsEdit.

Daniel and Manton talk about Panic's release of Transmit for the Mac App Store, and the gradual evolution of Apple's stance on sandboxing. Daniel talks about his dubious prioritization of quieting deprecation warnings. They both take stock of progress on MarsEdit 4 and Micro.blog around one year after their release. Finally, they muse about the relative profitability of certain software products and whether some apps are inherently bad ideas from a business point of view.

Manton reports back to Daniel about the first week after adding Mastodon integration to Micro.blog. They talk about the merit and necessity of spending time marketing after all the coding work we do. Daniel talks about his recent struggle implementing support for Google's OAuth2, and finally they talk about Apple's new Hardened Runtime and the associated app notarization service Mac apps that are distributed outside the Mac App Store.

Daniel catches Manton up on his experience at Swift by Northwest, and about his positive outlook on public speaking after participating in the show. They talk about accepting their role as the increasingly "old guard" in a community that is always gaining new developers. Manton announces Mastodon integration for Micro.blog and describes his unique approach to integrating Micro.blog without literally being a Mastodon instance. Finally, they react to the October 2018 Apple Special Event, and think out loud some more about the viability of an ARM transition for macOS.

Manton and Daniel check in on the eve of Daniel's Swift by Northwest speaking engagement. They talk about the challenge of biting off topics for speaking, articles, books, etc., that sound good but turn out to be harder to pull off than expected. Manton catches us up on the challenges of finding time to finish his newest features for Micro.blog, and the two talk each other down from stressing out too much about the relatively low-severity things they're worrying about.

Daniel and Manton talk about Daniel’s recent blogging series on Dark Mode. They encourage each other not to get too bogged down worrying about the impact of doing the work we want, whether that's blogging, developing software, or whatever. Daniel frets lightly about his upcoming talk, and they compare notes about coming up with a better strategy for both being prepared to give talks and ensuring you're giving them to the right audience. Finally, Manton announces his decision to help organize IndieWebCamp Austin in early 2019.

Manton and Daniel talk about coming to terms with the challenge of juggling too many things, making our indie businesses more efficient, and the tough question of how to cut projects and commitments that are stealing time from the main focus. THey also touch on the challenge of taking criticism for focusing on what you do well, while others wish you did something else. Finally, they talk about Apple's new requirement that all App Store submissions link to a Privacy Policy, and how that has affected Daniel's priorities submitting apps this week.

macOS Mojave is out! Daniel an Manton talk about the ephemeral nature of App Store features, and the wisdom of not investing too much stock in being featured, or any other external recognition. They catch up on the state of the Mac App Store and wonder about the expected App Store versions of BBEdit and Transmit. Finally, they talk about their own continuing plans for supporting Mojave, particular with respect to Dark Mode.

Manton and Daniel follow-up on their scrutiny of Apple's new Watch-based EKG feature, and try to evaluate whether the hype surrounding it is warranted or not. Manton reports back after finally installing iOS 12, and Daniel talks about putting the finishing touches on MarsEdit 4.2 in time for macOS Mojave's public release.

Daniel and Manton react to Apple’s September 2018 event, announcing the Apple Watch Series 4 and new iPhones. They compare notes about appreciating the new products but feeling relatively unpressured to upgrade. Finally, they talk about the incentives for developers to adopt new OS features and aim to release updates to coincide with OS updates.

Manton and Daniel catch up after a couple weeks off. They talk about Manton's release of Sunlit 2.2, and return to inevitable complaints about App Store Review uncertainties. They compare notes on their mutual lack of interest in developing for Android, and the extent to which an unliked programming language can affect interest in platforms. Finally, they talk about the leaked details of the forthcoming iPhone and Apple Watch. Does it hurt Apple, and should we care if it does?

Daniel and Manton follow up on RapidWeaver 8 shipping without Mac App Store support. Daniel talks about his recent work on FastScripts, and they talk about the sometimes surprising value of "less successful" apps. They react to Marco Arment's announcement that Overcast will support podcasts embedding a "payment" tag in show notes, and indulge in a little analysis of Twitter's handling of the fiasco around Alex Jones.

Manton and Daniel react to sandboxes woes for RapidWeaver 8 on the Mac, and speculate about changes coming in Mojave that might have enticed Panic and Bare Bones to return to the Mac App Store. They talk about Twitter’s continued support for Alex Jones, and the resulting backlash that is driving some users to Micro.blog and to MarsEdit. Finally, they make a philosophical analysis of the state of social networks, and evaluate their feelings about Twitter's struggle to maintain community standards.