Manton Reece

Congrats to Federico Viticci and the MacStories team on 10 years of MacStories. To appreciate how long ago this was, I re-read Federico’s interview with me from 7 years ago. This was 3 years after his first post but the content feels like a lifetime ago.

I really like this interview because I think it captures that time on the App Store and as a Twitter developer. We talked about iOS 5 user interface design, my early indie apps before starting Micro.blog, but also a few things that are still relevant today, like using the iPad for real work and app pricing.

Most importantly, it was a few months before Twitter’s infamous 4-quadrant chart that would set in motion Twitter’s move away from third-party developers. My priorities changed significantly after that, eventually leading to Micro.blog.

We all expected Dark Mode in iOS 13, but according to this rumor from 9to5Mac, the next major version of iOS is also going to feature some major changes to windows and detachable sheets:

There are many changes coming to iPad with iOS 13, including the ability for apps to have multiple windows. Each window will also be able to contain sheets that are initially attached to a portion of the screen, but can be detached with a drag gesture, becoming a card that can be moved around freely, similar to what an open-source project called “PanelKit” could do.

We also get an answer to one of the questions Brent Simmons asked about split views:

Split Views on Marzipan apps based on iPad designs that run on the Mac will get the ability to be resized by dragging the divider and have their position reset when double-clicking the divider, like existing Split View apps on the Mac.

I hope that support for multiple windows maps over to macOS with Marzipan. We’ve been saying on Core Intuition that this WWDC is going to be special. Marzipan is the biggest shake-up to the Mac since the Carbon to Cocoa transition.

There’s a fantastic article by Jeffrey Zeldman in A List Apart this week, starting with the problems of venture capital-backed social networks and ending with the question of whether we can help fix the web:

On an individual and small collective basis, the IndieWeb already works. But does an IndieWeb approach scale to the general public? If it doesn’t scale yet, can we, who envision and design and build, create a new generation of tools that will help give birth to a flourishing, independent web? One that is as accessible to ordinary internet users as Twitter and Facebook and Instagram?

I believe strongly that the answer is “yes”. Brent Simmons also responds, using the example of how even focused apps like RSS readers can move things forward without needing to solve all the problems at once:

Do I claim it’s as accessible to ordinary internet users as Twitter (for instance)? I do not. But it’s the step forward that I know how to take.

This is a great attitude. There are steps forward that we can all take individually, from leading the way by blogging more ourselves, to building tools for others to use. Together these steps add up to something significant that really matters.

It has been very encouraging to watch the Micro.blog community grow and new people regularly post to their own blog first instead of the big ad-based social networks. Seeing so much progress — but also knowing how much more work there is still to do — gives me a lot of hope for the future of the web.

If you’re still using Instagram but want to copy your photos and videos to your own microblog, a great solution is OwnYourGram. This is a free service that checks your Instagram account for new photos and videos, then sends them to your microblog automatically. Along with video support in Micro.blog, we’ve also improved support for videos from OwnYourGram.

First, make sure you’re on the podcast + video hosting plan on Micro.blog. For $10/month, we’ll host audio and video for you in addition to photos, and generate a podcast feed for you if you ever want to start a podcast later. You can upgrade here.

Next, follow the instructions on this help page for setting up your Micro.blog account so that it works with Instagram. This just means telling Micro.blog about your Instagram username, and telling Instagram about your microblog.

You can use OwnYourGram to send a specific video from Instagram to Micro.blog to test that everything is working. After that, OwnYourGram will check Instagram for new photos and videos and send them to your microblog. Photos and videos on Micro.blog are real blog posts, so you can always edit the posts later after they are created automatically.