262: ‘Freakishly Snappy’ With Brent Simmons

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: Brent Simmons discusses the release of NetNewsWire 5.0 and the app’s long arc from the early 2000s to its new open-source era. The conversation covers RSS’s enduring relevance through podcasts, the resurgence of newsletters, the value of fast and readable software, practical engineering decisions behind the app, and broader concerns about web bloat, privacy, and platform direction.

Main Topics: NetNewsWire 5.0 launch and app history (Priority: 5/5): The release of NetNewsWire 5.0 is framed as a major milestone after years of development, with reflections on the app’s different eras: original Brent Simmons ownership, Newsgator, BlackPixel/Evergreen, and the current open-source revival. RSS’s changing role in the modern web (Priority: 5/5): The hosts contrast the decline of RSS as a blog-reading habit with its continued massive use in podcast distribution, and discuss how RSS still matters even when users don’t realize it. Open-source development and community contributions (Priority: 4/5): Simmons explains how the new NetNewsWire differs from earlier versions because it is not only open source in licensing but also in practice, with outside contributors actively improving the app. Fast, minimal, and readable software as a design principle (Priority: 5/5): The discussion emphasizes snappy performance, small app size, human-readable formats like JSON and text logs, and avoiding overcomplicated engineering when simpler solutions work better. Old vs. new Apple platforms and programming models (Priority: 4/5): They discuss Cocoa/AppKit, Swift, SwiftUI, and Catalyst, along with OS support cutoffs, binary size, and the tension between supporting older systems and moving forward. The modern web’s hostility to reading (Priority: 5/5): Gruber and Simmons criticize ad-heavy, JavaScript-heavy sites, cookie banners, popovers, and tracking, arguing that RSS and email provide a calmer, better reading experience. Interface choices and power-user navigation (Priority: 4/5): The conversation praises NetNewsWire’s keyboard navigation, single-key shortcuts, smart feeds, and theming history as examples of thoughtful UI design that makes reading efficient and enjoyable.

Key Arguments: NetNewsWire 5.0 feels like a genuine reboot of the app, but it preserves the original philosophy of speed, clarity, and keyboard-driven use. RSS remains highly relevant because podcasts still depend on it, even if many users never think about the underlying protocol. Open source is more than a license; the app benefits from a growing contributor community that can meaningfully shape its future. Supporting older macOS versions is increasingly impractical because testing and compatibility costs are high, so a modern baseline is necessary. Simple human-readable storage and low-tech solutions are often better than premature optimization or complex binary formats. The modern web often treats readers as obstacles rather than users, while RSS and email offer cleaner, less intrusive reading experiences. Objective-C/Cocoa still has a beautiful architectural model, even as Swift and SwiftUI become more important over time.

Data Points: NetNewsWire 5.0 release timing: Shipped this week - The episode centers on the app’s launch and reactions to it. Brent Simmons app development timeline: About 10 months - He says the original NetNewsWire 1.0 took roughly 10 months from start to shipping. App size: 9.9 MB - John Gruber notes the download is extremely small by modern standards. Fast feed import/update: A handful of seconds / about 2 seconds - NetNewsWire updated roughly 50 feeds almost immediately after import. Cron frequency: Every 5 minutes - Gruber’s Twitter-posting script runs on a 5-minute schedule. Posting delay safeguard: 10 minutes - His script waits before tweeting new posts to allow typo fixes. Feed database scale: Up to 30,000+ entries - He describes having around 30,000 Daring Fireball posts and testing with a million-line file. Test file scale: 1,000,000 lines - Used to validate the simple line-by-line approach for checking already-posted items. Historical feed count: Around 150, then doubled - Gruber says his RSS subscriptions increased to roughly twice his earlier count, though he reads fewer major publications there. macOS minimum requirement: 10.14.4 - NetNewsWire 5 requires this version because it’s the first release where Swift libraries no longer need bundling. Swift library size impact: Bigger than the rest of the app combined - Justification for the minimum OS version and the smaller downloadable app size. Apple Card error resolution: Two-factor authentication on the store account - Gruber discovered the issue was due to using separate Apple IDs without 2FA on the iTunes/store account. On red mailbox counts: 37, 1,228, 6,408, 6,914, 13,600, 7,800 - Gruber reads out unread counts in several email accounts while discussing inbox management.

Pivotal Quotes: "I made the app I wanted to make. I could see it in my head for all these years." — Brent Simmons: He reflects on finally shipping NetNewsWire 5.0 after years of work. "What I did is I thought, well, the dumbest thing I could possibly do is just write them to a log file and don't even read the whole thing into a data structure." — John Gruber: He explains the eventual simple solution to his Twitter-posting script problem. "It feels like you're playing a game to go through NetNewsWire." — John Gruber: Praise for NetNewsWire’s speed and keyboard-driven navigation.

Implications: NetNewsWire 5.0 signals renewed interest in RSS-style reading, open-source desktop apps, and minimalist software design. The episode suggests a broader pushback against ad-heavy, tracked, and cluttered web experiences.