Show Notes
Michael and Damashe are back after St. Louis with an episode that runs long on opinions. Michael shares early Earshot numbers, explains why he is building iCloud sync with privacy defined up front, and walks through why the iOS simulator makes VoiceOver testing nearly impossible. Damashe lays out his solution for Meta and everyone else building smart glasses: stop using disabled people to justify features you should not ship the way you are shipping them.
Also in this episode: switching from Terminal to the Codex app, whether Stage Manager could replace virtual desktops, Todoist versus Reminders, the trick to actually remembering names, and a plan to smoke chili on Sunday.
In this episode
Recapping the shortest show they have ever published, recorded in person in St. Louis
Earshot on the App Store: 249 downloads, 40 subscriptions, and zero marketing so far
Why Michael is cautious about third party subscription analytics and what data is actually available in App Store Connect
The tradeoffs of Apple standing between developers and customers
iCloud sync coming to Earshot: library, queue, play position, and bookmarks, with the help screen spelling out exactly what gets stored
Stress testing with an OPML file of 1,100 feeds and an inbox that pulls in 3,000 episodes every other day
Refresh performance and where concurrent feed checking comes in
Why Michael is not asking for reviews inside the app, and Damashe's case against review prompts that interrupt you
The VoiceOver experience in the iOS simulator, and why "heading, heading, heading" made Michael start pushing developer builds straight to his phone
What this means for sighted developers who want to build accessible apps
Accessible screen sharing on the Mac, the voice pitch quirk, and canceling a remote access subscription
Damashe's take on smart glasses, person recognition, and why contacts should be the boundary instead of a social graph
Whether AI should describe people at all
Saying someone's name five times so you actually remember it
Michael's move from Terminal to the Codex app, plus a good experience with Claude Cowork
Could Stage Manager work as a virtual desktop for a VoiceOver user? Neither of them knows, so tell them
Beta features in shipped builds, and using smaller TestFlight groups to absorb schema migrations
Todoist, Reminders, Fantastical, and getting AI chats to file reminders for you
Perspective Tasks as a free option worth a look
What an operating system might look like if it were just an edit box, and why Damashe is not sold
Links and mentions
Earshot on the App Store
Perspective Tasks by Michael Doise and Taylor Arndt
Stage Manager on macOS: if you use it with VoiceOver, they want to hear from you
Get in touch
Email the show at [email protected]
Michael on Mastodon: https://dragonscave.space/@payown Damashe on Mastodon: https://technically.social/@damashe The show bot: https://technically.social/@tw
Use the hashtag #TechnicallyWorking, and capitalize the T and the W so screen readers say it correctly.
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