Manton Reece

Follow @manton on Micro.blog.

Sayonara Wild Hearts was featured in the keynote last week and for good reason. I love what they’re doing with this game. Great blending of music and different gameplay elements. 🕹️

→ 9:38 AM, Sep 19

We posted this week’s Core Intuition today with more on iPhone 11 upgrades, getting ready for iOS 13, and Apple Arcade’s impact on game developers (and on our productivity).

→ 5:59 PM, Sep 18

Next up on Apple Arcade: Rayman Mini. I wanted to try a side-scrolling platformer and this is the first that popped up while browsing. I’ve played Rayman Origins on the Wii. This feels similar, but touch just isn’t quite the same as having a d-pad. 🕹️

→ 9:43 AM, Sep 18

Beautiful new library in New York. I’d love to visit more libraries while traveling. For such an incredible project, though, I wonder why they didn’t make this one bigger.

→ 9:17 AM, Sep 18

I’m enjoying Mini Motorways on Apple Arcade, from the makers of Mini Metro. Reminds me a bit of the original Flight Control in style and craziness when the city gets bigger. I need a new road-planning strategy, though… Wish I could create traffic circles. 🕹️

→ 12:44 PM, Sep 17

Sign in with Apple in Micro.blog
We added Sign in with Apple to the next version of Micro.blog for iOS 13. It can be used to sign in to an existing Micro.blog account, or to create a brand new Micro.blog account right from iOS. It is the fastest way to start blogging.

Because Micro.blog doesn’t have passwords, in previous versions we had to send you an email to confirm signing in. With Sign in with Apple, we can skip this email verification and quickly sign you in with Touch ID or Face ID.

If you have an existing Micro.blog account and use Sign in with Apple with the same email address, you’ll be signed in to your current account. If you pick an email address that doesn’t match the email address used in Micro.blog, or if you choose Apple’s private email relay, Micro.blog will create a new account and start a hosted blog trial for you.

A few things to be aware of:
- You can have multiple email addresses associated with your Apple ID. When signing in, make sure to pick the one that is used by Micro.blog.
- If you accidentally create a new Micro.blog account, you’ll want to delete it so that you can sign in to your real account.
- Micro.blog cannot currently send email through Apple’s private relay service. I hope this will be resolved soon.
This update to Micro.blog ships on Thursday with iOS 13. If you’re already running iOS 13, you can try this update early by joining the TestFlight beta.
→ 11:27 AM, Sep 17

Apple Arcade is rolling out. I’m going to do micro reviews for a new game each day this week. First up: Tint. Beautiful concept to combine mixing paint with brush strokes to solve puzzles. 🕹️

→ 3:37 PM, Sep 16

I signed up for ESPN+ to watch a few FIBA games last week. Love that there’s nearly continuous basketball happening somewhere… WNBA playoffs this week, then NBA preseason in just a few weeks. 🏀

→ 10:12 AM, Sep 16

Finished watching Undone. I’m usually a little suspicious of rotoscope, but it works here and some of the scenes are incredible. The story is told really well. Hoping Amazon goes for another season. 📺

→ 9:07 AM, Sep 16

Finally got to see Les Misérables live this weekend. So great. Still singing the songs, and was trying to play through the sheet music for One Day More on our slightly out-of-tune piano.

→ 12:27 PM, Sep 15

I can understand why it’s not currently a feature, but I wish Apple IDs / Sign in with Apple also offered apps a user profile photo.

→ 9:31 AM, Sep 15

On the latest Core Intuition, Daniel and I talk about this week’s Apple event, whether to get the iPhone 11, working around Apple bugs, and the upcoming Micro.blog update for iOS 13.

→ 1:08 PM, Sep 14

I was reminded today that we’ve had folks on M.b for over 2 years, and the public launch anniversary is just around the corner. Thanks everyone for your support. I’m in this for the long haul… Looking forward to celebrating many milestones over the next decade.

→ 2:46 PM, Sep 13

Submitted the new Micro.blog for iOS 13 to Apple. Not totally sure it will be approved right away because of everything new, but crossing my fingers. Daniel and I talk about some of the potential issues on the next Core Int.

→ 2:16 PM, Sep 13

Love this incredible project (via the Studio Neat newsletter) to capture a 30-year time-lapse of New York City. Over 4 years in already.

→ 1:51 PM, Sep 13

Notifications for third-party Micro.blog apps

Last year after Twitter changed their streaming API so that apps like Twitterrific and Tweetbot could no longer use it, I blogged that I wanted to do everything I could to support third-party Micro.blog apps:

With that in mind, I’ve mentioned before that I’d like to offer a push notification service for developers. iOS and Android developers could upload their push notification credentials from Apple and Google. Micro.blog would store them and deliver push notifications directly to third-party apps.

That is now a reality. Today there’s a new beta of Gluon for Micro.blog that includes push notifications. Micro.blog sends the notifications on behalf of Gluon so developer Vincent Ritter doesn’t need to run his own server.

The other popular iOS app for Micro.blog is the open source Icro. I’ve added a comment to this Icro issue on GitHub with details on the new API. I’m looking forward to working with anyone building native apps for Micro.blog to enable push notifications for their app.

→ 8:33 AM, Sep 13

Solid debate tonight for the Democrats. It’s great to see everyone on the same stage. Strong night for Beto too. 🇺🇸

→ 10:05 PM, Sep 12

Plans for JSON Feed 1.1

I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since Brent Simmons announced JSON Feed. In the first months after the spec was released there was a lot of activity on GitHub and interest from developers. The format has proven really useful in Micro.blog, in feed readers like Feedbin or Brent’s own NetNewsWire 5, and just to make it easier to build new web tools.

We’ve received some great feedback, and I’ve been reviewing a bunch of the issues on GitHub. There are a few things that we want to incorporate into the spec. I’ve posted a list of proposed changes over on GitHub.

→ 11:48 AM, Sep 12

Sent a new beta of Micro.blog for iOS 13 to beta testers. I’m really excited about this release. If you want to get the TestFlight builds, you can sign up here.

→ 1:58 PM, Sep 11

Xcode 11 crashes when I try to run on the device with the iOS 13 beta, so this week I’ve resorted to TestFlight builds and printf-style debugging to troubleshoot Sign in with Apple. Very slow, but I didn’t want to jump to 13.1 quite yet.

→ 10:39 AM, Sep 11

Disappointing loss for team USA against France. I was worried this might happen after watching a couple of the other close games. Single-elimination is tough. But they did qualify for the 2020 Olympics. 🏀

→ 9:33 AM, Sep 11

I’ve already talked myself out of pre-ordering the iPhone 11 Pro this week. Looking forward to upgrading later, though. Just want to save a few bucks first and focus on these iOS 13 updates before I get distracted with a new phone.

→ 3:31 PM, Sep 10

Great updates to the Apple Watch, as usual. I really need to upgrade from my Series 0. I say that every year but it just keeps working.

→ 12:49 PM, Sep 10

Nice pricing on Apple Arcade and TV+. But given the tiny selection of shows compared to Disney+ or Netflix, it makes sense.

→ 12:21 PM, Sep 10

The Apple event stream just started up on YouTube… There’s something amusing about Google shouldering the financial burden of streaming Apple’s most important event of the year.

→ 11:51 AM, Sep 10

← 🕸💍 →