Three Things Again

The point of today’s post is that while I’ve been using Three Things myself for a year now, a very nice person was kind enough to email me last week and let me know that the version posted online had expired. My bad.

Here’s an updated build.

Also, this new version comes with an experimental new feature: iCalendar syncing!

This Only Happens Here

My five year old, driving home from daycare today, unprompted: I know what lockdown is. Like when we had to stay home for a long time last year? It’s when we turn the lights off and lock the door and hide in the fire room because a bad guy is coming. Pause. But, daddy. Why do bad guys have swords and kill all the people?

Time Machine

We opened the door and stepped out of our time machine — my children another year older.

“No thanks to the App Store”

Moments after publishing my previous post, I was doing a final editing pass and found Riccardo Mori published his own, excellent take on the App Store and developers. It’s spot on. Go read the whole thing.

The Entire Amount of Commerce

Since Apple will stand on a virtual stage tomorrow and tell us how much they love, value, and appreciate third-party developers, I want to be crystal clear about the value these apps (and many others) provide.

I could switch to Windows and Android. I wouldn’t like it, but I could make the switch. Except for all those third-party apps. I couldn’t give those up without significant effort – if it would even be possible to find replacements for each.

Third-party apps are what keep me locked into Apple’s lucrative don’t-call-it-a-walled-garden.

In any healthy software ecosystem, third-party developers and the platform vendor are a symbiotic relationship. To pretend otherwise is fanciful gaslighting.