Technically Working
4 days ago

#175 – Our Access Is Not Your Excuse

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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