Monthly Archives: March 2016

Miitomo and Wii Transfer

On episode 18 of my Timetable podcast, which I just published this morning, I mention the new Nintendo game Miitomo. Federico Viticci also wrote about it today:

I’ve been keeping an eye on Miitomo – I still don’t completely understand it, but I’m intrigued by the premise of a friend-based network with mini-games and the ability to collect coins. Those coins can then be used to claim rewards and redeem other Nintendo-related content such as games and customizations. I’m curious to see how Miitomo will perform outside of Japan.

For a several years between 2006 and 2010, I sold and actively worked on a little Mac app called Wii Transfer. It was the first time I realized that I could make a living selling Mac software, even though it didn’t always have great sales consistently by itself. To this day, one of the features I’m most proud to have ever written is the Mii export, which could sync Mii data over Bluetooth from the Wii remotes and render it to let you save your Miis as PNG files on your Mac.

I’ve often mused on Core Intuition that I stopped selling the app too soon. At one point I worked on a companion app to the Nintendo DS with similar themes, but didn’t ship it. And I considered building a version for iOS just with the Mii functionality.

From a blog post in 2012, announcing that Wii Transfer would no longer be available:

I’m retiring Wii Transfer to focus on my other apps. It’s not that it doesn’t sell; it still does. It’s just that it’s not an app I actually use anymore. By officially shelving the whole project, I hope to remove a psychological burden of sorts — to no longer worry that I’m ignoring an active product.

I’ll never know if it was a missed opportunity — a mistake for the direction of my indie business to stop selling something that people liked — or the right call to refocus around what I actually cared about. In any case, I’m glad Nintendo is doing something new with Miis. As I play with Miitomo, there’s a part of me that regrets not doing more with Nintendo-compatible software while I had a competitive head start.

Checking out the Pflugerville Public Library and happily surprised at how big it is. Lots of chairs, meeting rooms, reading area… even electric car charging in the parking lot. Not particularly quiet today, but a nice place.

→ 2016/03/30 12:03 pm

Such a gloomy morning in Austin, not feeling inspired to venture out to find a new library. Also forgot to plug my car in last night, so working a little while at Whole Foods while it charges. Free electricity in exchange for ordering an iced coffee is the best.

→ 2016/03/30 11:08 am

512 Pixels on YouTube

Stephen Hackett loves old Macs. (And iPhones and iPods and Newtons.) His fascination with old Apple hardware and the passion to share it with a larger audience — many of whom weren’t around for the dark days when Apple was doomed — is one of the things I love most about reading 512 Pixels.

He’s slowly been expanding into video production with a channel on YouTube. The latest video covers the iPod Shuffle, the tiny iPod without a screen that Apple still sells. At just $49, it’s not much more expensive than a long USB-C cable and may be the best bargain in Apple’s lineup after the $399 iPhone SE. Stephen writes about the original Shuffle:

The first Shuffle was built like a glorified USB thumb drive. This new player was smaller than a pack of chewing gum, and built around the concept of shuffling your music. There was no need for a screen or a true clickwheel. If you wanted to listen to music in order, the switch on the back could be set to continuous playback.

Ah, nostalgia. One of the reasons I blog at all, and have been for 14 years now, isn’t so much for today’s audience but tomorrow’s. Even the most mundane blog posts take on new significance with a few years’ distance. Old technical topics have surprisingly poor representation on today’s web, as linkrot sets in.

I’m looking forward to what else Stephen has planned. I know from the Connected podcast that lately he has been trying to collect all the different original iMac colors. (Two other podcasts that are worth a listen for an additional trip down memory lane: The Record and Simple Beep.)

Get one thing done today

Natasha the Nomad has a post about prioritizing the “one thing” that has to be finished today, even if everything else slips:

When I wake up (or the night before), I think “What is the one thing that I can do today to feel like I had a successful day, even If I nothing else gets done today”. No matter what, I end up getting that one thing done.

I find this kind of approach really useful. Saying you’re only going to finish one thing is admitting the reality that for many days, if you’re unfocused or juggling too many tasks, there’s a lot of “work” but nothing gets done. When I work out of the house in the morning with my iPad Pro, my goal is equally simple: publish a single blog post. If I can take care of email, edit other draft posts, work on planning notes for a project, etc. — that’s great too.

The drive into the hill country a little was totally worth it to visit Laura Bush Community Library. Beautiful library with an incredible view. I’ve got my iPad Pro with me and plan to work here until lunch, just looking out the windows.

→ 2016/03/29 10:45 am

Podcasts, showing up every week, and why 2.0 succeeds

When I went to Open Coffee Club during SXSW week, I met several company founders and investors in Austin, and one was also an iOS developer. I usually do a poor job of promoting my own work in person, but I somehow managed to plug my Core Intuition podcast.

He hadn’t heard of the show before, and when he pulled it up to subscribe his comment was something like: “wow, you’ve been doing this for a long time”. It’s true. Daniel and I started the podcast in 2008. We only have 225 episodes, because we published episodes less frequently back in the old days, but I’ve always been proud of our consistency with the show format going back to the very beginning.

And it made me wonder: is there another Mac or iOS developer-focused tech podcast that has such a long history? Or really, many tech podcasts at all? The ones that come to mind are The Talk Show, which started in 2007, and This Week in Tech, which started in 2005.

It’s another reminder to me that a big part of success is consistently showing up to work. If you’re always starting over, you can’t build on anything and take it further. The secret with the “version 2.0” of most apps isn’t that it has new features; it’s just that it exists at all.

In a couple months, just as WWDC is about to roll around, we’ll celebrate our 8th anniversary of recording Core Intuition. Our audience keeps growing, which is amazing, but there are still a lot of people who have never heard of the show. If you like what we’ve been doing, consider telling a friend, or posting a tweet or blog post about the show.

We expanded to 2 sponsors per episode this year because we wanted to grow the podcast — to commit more time and resources to both recording and to companion web sites like the jobs site. I think 2016 will be a great year and I’m happy that Core Intuition is a key part of helping me stay independent. Thanks for your support!

I had planned to work downtown today, but it didn’t quite happen. Staying closer to home for the late morning at the Spicewood Springs Branch. I’ve always like the tables and chairs along the windows here.

→ 2016/03/28 11:35 am

30 days of libraries, week 1

After wrapping up 30 days of new coffee shops, last week I started visiting a library every day to work. Libraries and coffee shops don’t have that much in common, but they do share a couple basic traits that are necessary for working on a laptop or iPad: wi-fi and tables. In fact, I’ve found that it’s even easier to find an open table or couch in a library than in a busy coffee shop.

So far, so good. In the first week, I’ve visited Cedar Park Public Library, Wells Branch Community Library, Little Walnut Creek Branch, North Village Branch, Old Quarry Branch, Howson Branch, Westbank Community Library, and Yarborough Branch.

I also heard from readers who wanted to see more than the text microblog posts I did for coffee shops, so I’ve been trying to take more photos. These photos are tagged with #newlibraries too, so they’ll show up together with the library text posts. (Photos can be browsed over the web, but they don’t show up in the default RSS feed. The microblog posts also have their own feed.)

As I mention on episode 15 of Timetable, working out of the house in the morning helped provide some structure to the work day. I’d use the morning for writing blog posts and catching up on email, and the afternoon to focus on code. For libraries, I’m going one step further and only bringing the iPad Pro with me. This means that I’m using a small range of apps — Editorial, Mail, Safari, Slack — and reinforces the idea that I’m supposed to be writing.

Getting press

As I mentioned when I first linked to Studio Neat’s Obi project on Kickstarter, I enjoyed the Thoroughly Considered podcast that came out of that endeavor. It’s now one of my favorites.

On the latest show, Dan and Tom and Myke talk about the press: getting press for your product, communicating with press folks, and the impact of being featured in the press. Because Studio Neat makes physical products and not just software, their take on these topics is always good.

While I’ve blogged from time to time about the press, there’s a lot that I get wrong or don’t make time for. I was impressed with David Barnard’s promotion for Rando, a new iPhone app that was a joint venture with David, designer Rick Messer, and Jonathan Hays and Ryan DeVore from Silverpine Software. The app got a lot of great press coverage. Even the reviewers who weren’t convinced they’d use the app couldn’t help but recommend that readers download it. Not just because of its novelty, but because David framed the app with such a clear story.

Self-promotion is hard for many of us. I try to remind myself that journalists want something interesting to write about. The community as a whole benefits when writers have good stories and developers have good traffic to their apps.

One of the approaches I’ve been trying with my upcoming microblog platform is to write about related topics for months before the project is officially announced. It’s great because these are things I would want to write about anyway, regardless of having an app to promote, and so the heightened level of interest from beta testers and bloggers is like a bonus. Now I just have to actually ship the product while the timing is right.