The Talk Show With John Gruber

440: ‘Flush a Radar’, With Brent Simmons

February 1, 2026

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  • Brent Simmons has retired from Audible after five years working on the iOS app, where he focused on simplifying the codebase by eliminating Objective-C and reducing framework proliferation. 
  • NetNewsWire 7 for Mac has shipped, requiring macOS 26 Tahoe, and features an adoption of SwiftUI (Liquid) and Swift structured concurrency, while the iOS version is nearing completion. 
  • Brent Simmons and John Gruber strongly criticize Apple's macOS 26 Tahoe design choice to add icons to every menu item and to render keyboard shortcut text in gray, which obscures useful information. 
  • Third-party developers historically drove significant Mac innovation during periods when Apple's own software stagnated, exemplified by utilities like Windowshade and features like Pull to Refresh (invented by Lauren Brichter). 
  • The current trend of Apple enforcing UI decisions, such as mandatory icons next to every menu item in macOS 26 Tahoe, is criticized as stifling developer freedom and user experience, contrasting with the era where developers stood up for their users. 
  • The conversation concludes with a critique of data-driven, visionless software development (Backseat Software) exemplified by social media platforms optimized purely for engagement metrics, contrasting sharply with the thoughtful, deliberate conversations fostered by the earlier era of RSS and personal blogs. 

Segments

Brent Simmons’ Return and Retirement
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Brent Simmons has returned to The Talk Show With John Gruber after a six-year absence and recently retired from his role at Audible.
  • Summary: Brent Simmons had not appeared on the podcast since August 31, 2019 (Episode 262). He retired from Audible, where he worked on the iOS app for just over five years, achieving the goal of retiring young without bosses.
Audible Engineering Culture
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(00:03:21)
  • Key Takeaway: Working at Audible involved operating within a large corporate structure, contrasting sharply with Simmons’ prior experience on small teams.
  • Summary: Simmons was an SDE3 on the iOS team, which was large compared to his previous roles at companies like NewsGator (100 people) or Omni (60-70 people). A major project involved eliminating Objective-C code, reducing it from a quarter to a couple of percent of the app, and deleting hundreds of thousands of lines of unused code.
Code Quality and Warnings Policy
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(00:06:43)
  • Key Takeaway: Simmons enforced a strict ‘zero warnings’ policy at Audible, viewing it as essential for maintaining long-lived codebases in large teams.
  • Summary: The proliferation of frameworks, often added with good intentions, led to complexity, exemplified by two identical, prefix-changed versions of FMDB existing in the app. Zero warnings was the only sustainable policy, contrasting with the historical practice at Bare Bones where builds had to pass warnings on two different C compilers.
Corporate Promotion Drivers
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(00:14:30)
  • Key Takeaway: Simmons learned that corporate software development, including at Audible/Amazon, is heavily promotion-driven, influencing project leadership and priorities.
  • Summary: The incentive structure revolves around promotion documents, which requires engineers and PMs to lead projects to advance. While this drives good work, an overemphasis on internal politics can corrode culture if not balanced.
NetNewsWire 7 Release Details
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(00:21:51)
  • Key Takeaway: NetNewsWire 7 for Mac has shipped, adopting SwiftUI (Liquid) and Swift structured concurrency, and requires macOS 26.
  • Summary: The Mac version is out, with Stuart Breckenridge handling the Liquid adoption, which Simmons feels is a high-quality example of the new framework. The iOS version is close to shipping but required more UI rewriting due to complexities like handling size classes across iPhone and iPad.
NetNewsWire Philosophy and Design
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(00:30:51)
  • Key Takeaway: The modern NetNewsWire is intentionally opinionated and free of charge to promote RSS usage against proprietary social networks, avoiding the anxiety caused by excessive customization.
  • Summary: Simmons’ goal is to ensure a free, non-ad-supported RSS reader exists because RSS is not owned by billionaires monetizing outrage. The app is designed to be humble and opinionated, similar in layout to Apple Mail, to prevent user anxiety over too many settings, unlike the original version.
Critique of macOS 26 Menu Design
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(00:50:53)
  • Key Takeaway: Simmons vehemently opposes Apple’s macOS 26 decision to add icons to every menu item and to render keyboard shortcut text in gray, which obscures crucial information.
  • Summary: Icons should only be used where they clarify an ambiguous command (like window resizing or image rotation), not universally, as this creates visual noise. Furthermore, rendering keyboard shortcuts in gray text makes them appear disabled, hiding the useful signal that a command has a simple shortcut (Command+Key).
Third-Party Mac Innovation History
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(01:03:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Third-party utilities like Windowshade and Tweety’s Pull to Refresh preceded and influenced core macOS features.
  • Summary: A period of weak Apple software fostered great third-party Mac software, including theming utilities and Windowshade, which allowed users to roll up application windows. Lauren Brichter invented Pull to Refresh in his third-party Twitter client, Tweety, before it became a system-wide feature. This history shows that innovation often originates outside of Apple’s core development efforts.
Developer Stance Against Platform Guidelines
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(01:07:21)
  • Key Takeaway: Developers must stand up for users against platform guidelines they believe are detrimental, such as mandatory menu item icons in macOS 26 Tahoe.
  • Summary: There is a philosophical disagreement with the mindset that developers must blindly follow platform guidelines, such as Apple’s requirement to place icons next to every menu item. The job of a developer is to make the best product for their users, even if it means deviating from stated platform rules. This defiance serves as a form of feedback to Apple when users benefit from the change.
Squarespace Sponsorship Read
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(01:10:28)
  • Key Takeaway: Squarespace offers an all-in-one platform for website building, now integrating AI tools alongside traditional drag-and-drop functionality.
  • Summary: Squarespace is promoted as a long-running sponsor, providing an all-in-one platform for building online presence, including commerce and invoicing features. Listeners are encouraged to send others to Squarespace for easy website creation, noting the platform continuously evolves. Listeners can get a 30-day free trial at squarespace.com/slash talk show and use code talkshow for 10% off.
Phantom Obligation in RSS Readers
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(01:13:51)
  • Key Takeaway: The concept of ‘phantom obligation’ describes the anxiety users feel from unread counts in RSS readers, which are otherwise UI playgrounds for innovation.
  • Summary: An essay by Terry Godaire discusses RSS readers as mail-like apps, focusing on the anxiety caused by unread counts, which are an obligation users impose on themselves. Feed readers are seen as UI playgrounds where innovation, like Dave Weiner’s Feedland or Icon Factory’s Tapestry, can flourish without needing to change underlying content sources. Unlike browsers, feed readers allow for diverse UI models because their core function is less standardized.
Critique of Social Media vs. RSS
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(01:17:56)
  • Key Takeaway: Social media platforms are optimized for engagement and attention hijacking, whereas RSS provides a more peaceful, complete, and thoughtful consumption model.
  • Summary: The algorithmic nature of platforms like Threads and Twitter creates an obligation to constantly check for updates, wasting time and hijacking attention away from productive work. The older model of conversations unfolding over days via blog links was more thoughtful and less trollish. The speaker found that by relying on RSS via NetNewswire, they remained informed without the negative mental impact of engagement-optimized social feeds.
Critique of Data-Driven Software Development
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(01:36:20)
  • Key Takeaway: Data-driven A/B testing culture leads to visionless software where momentum replaces direction, prioritizing metrics over genuine user love.
  • Summary: Mike Swanson’s essay critiques software development driven solely by data, where every interaction becomes a provisional hypothesis, leading to a loss of strong product vision. This metric-first approach causes product teams to optimize for what moves fastest, even if it moves in the wrong direction. The speaker advocates for an ‘Auteur Theory of Design,’ where a director’s taste sets the ultimate quality standard, which is superior to committee consensus or pure metrics.
Critique of Tim Cook’s Leadership Style
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(01:45:12)
  • Key Takeaway: Tim Cook’s preference for decisions based on quantifiable metrics leads to overly cautious leadership, preventing revolutionary, unquantifiable design choices.
  • Summary: The speaker argues that Tim Cook’s weakness is not a focus on money, but a reliance on arguments that can be made with numbers, leading to decisions that cannot be enumerated being sidelined. The shipping of mandatory menu icons in macOS 26 is cited as an example of a terrible idea that survived because arguments based on pure aesthetic revulsion no longer hold sway without numerical backing. This metric-driven caution prevents the kind of revolutionary risk-taking exemplified by Steve Jobs.
Political Engagement and Apple’s Reputation
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(01:52:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Tim Cook’s handling of the second Trump administration, particularly yielding to demands regarding the ICE Block app, risks giving Apple a long-term ‘MAGA stink’ reputation.
  • Summary: The decision to remove the ICE Block app from the App Store upon government demand is seen as a major misstep, signaling weakness to a bully. Unlike the first Trump administration where Apple maintained consistency, the current administration’s actions are perceived as different, and Cook’s attempts to remain neutral are failing to protect the company’s long-term reputation. This political navigation is viewed as potentially existential for the brand’s standing.