What is your favourite developer tool and why?

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m super picky… I’ve stared at this question for a day, and honestly I don’t really love any tool right now.

I’m frustrated that there’s no Discussions + Task Tracking + Wiki tool where we can get “all” our work done. For example, working out a problems before it’s fully shaped in a create Discussion board. Then executing on them with Task Tracking. And then documentation after the fact.

Craft could be close. They do a lot of tiny things right, like strikethrough completed tasks, highlighting text, and solid iOS app. But the image layout limits are brutal for iOS screenshots and comments can’t contain images which kills feedback and creative discussions. I hope they’ll get there within a year or so, but I standby the fact that I’m too picky to call it my favorite. ;)

What's one tool you wish you had used sooner?

The built-in Text Shortcuts in macOS/iOS!

Because it works natively within auto-correct and syncs between iOS and macOS. It allows me to “write” long thoughtful replies even on mobile. I use it for common links, replies to users, symbols, asking for more info, and hard to remember numbers. Here are some favorites.

/cal is the URL to book a meeting on my calendar

/zoom is my meeting room URL

/fl is the URL to Flighty = https://apps.apple.com/app/id1358823008

-> is → , <- is ←, /= is ≠, ~= is ≈,  <-> is ↔, >> is 􀯻, << is 􀯶, /check is ✓, /xx is ✗, /apple is 

/report = I see. For deeper issues like this, we need to triage via our support email.  If you can send a detailed summary and applicable screenshots via Settings > Help > Problem, then we can assign and engineer and follow up with you. 🙏”

/when = When do you want this? How would you use it? What do you do today instead? 

/review = If you can spare a minute, it would be super helpful if you could leave an app review. Other people read them to see if the app is worth download. Quick Link: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1358823008?action=write-review

What is a tool you couldn’t live without?

SavvyCal.

It’s basically Calendly but with perfectly smooth UX. I swear it removes 5-10 nonsense emails a day for planning and rescheduling meetings. Over the years I’ve nailed the right words to make it not seem pretentious (shared below), half the people that use my scheduling link commment on how nice it was, and it’s trivial to reschedule instead of 5 emails back and forth about moving the meeting at the last minute.

“Just send me whatever time slots work best for you and I’ll make it work. Or you can access my full calendar here.”

If you could choose one tool/app to be installed on Macs in all Apple stores, which one would it be and why?

Velja.

Do you ever click a link that opens in Safari, even though you have the native app? This fixes that. You can make rules about where to send any link, plus out-of-the-box it supports popular native apps like Twitter, Slack, Linear, Figma, Front, and Zoom. You can setup heuristics to basically send any URL anywhere. And it can also remove tracking parameters from links automatically and remove “mailto:” when copying an email address.

Your top 5 apps on your Mac/iPhone/iPad?

Miro - A very flexible digital whiteboard. It has an iOS app, which is key for me, because all my best ideas happen AFK.
CleanShotX - For taking clean screenshots and recordings
Pastebot – Keeping track of your copy & pastes
Rocket – Type emojis faster using Slack-style shortcuts
Twitter - It’s LinkedIn for us. I’m pretty sure all my great co-workers, partners, and opportunities have come from there. The amount of CEO’s, leaders, and experts you can just chat with is nuts.
Figma - Particularly the Figma Mirror app which has gotten a lot better lately. For me, it’s a requirement to design in-situ and Mirror is the best that UX has ever been.

#user-feedback channel - This is cheating because it’s not an app, but we pipe all user feedback into one Slack channel just for browsing. So everyone in the company can keep a pulse on users just as easily as reading a feed. We have all support emails, DM’s, replies, new app reviews, google keyword alerts, and newsletter signs up flowing into the channel