Update

I thought I’d let people know what I’ve been working on lately. I’ve been keeping busy!

NetNewsWire 6.0

My main project that I’ve been working on for the last couple years is NetNewsWire. This project is amazing to work on. The community that Brent Simmons has created is great. The popularity of NetNewsWire is great too. It really helps get you motivated when so many people benefit from and appreciate your work.

For the 6.0 release cycle I did the Big Sur UI refresh, iCloud syncing, and the Reddit and Twitter extensions. I also finished up the work that another developer had started on the Reader API code. That got us BazQux, The Old Reader, Inoreader, and FreshRSS syncing. I did some other small things for 6.0 too, like the Share Extension.

Lots of other developers contributed to 6.0 including in big ways like implementing NewsBlur syncing and other UI changes. NetNewsWire 6 is a big deal for the team. I hope you check it out and give it a try.

Feed Spider

This project has been on hold for about 6 months. I’d still like to tackle the feed discovery problem. For those not familiar with Feed Spider, I was working on creating a searchable blog directory. Look through my back posts in this blog for details.

I still want to tackle this again. I paused my work on it to learn more about Machine Learning, but then I got distracted with building an outliner application. I’ll probably work on this more in the coming year as a way to mix up my development work and not get bored.

Zavala

I built an outliner application called Zavala. This is a fun project. I’m a bit of an outliner novice and didn’t use one on a regular basis. Now I use one constantly and for all kinds of different things. Organizing my thoughts, planning and managing projects, and even just as a TODO manager.

I just released the first Alpha builds of Zavala. That means that from here until the release, I’m only fixing bugs. No new features are planned for the 1.0 release. This shouldn’t take up much time and I’ll probably work on some other things in the meantime.

What’s Next

I’m not sure what’s next. There are some things I would like to see in NetNewsWire 6.1, so there will be some work done there for sure. I’ll work on small features for Zavala to fill in the time. Maybe I’ll even get to spend some time on Feed Spider.

And we can’t forget that WWDC is coming. After Apple releases its updated frameworks, there is always updating that has to be done to existing applications. That often takes up a good chunk of an Apple developer’s summer. Maybe by Fall things will be slowing down for me. Then again, I’ll probably just find something new and shiny to start chasing.