We never like removing functionality from our apps. We especially don’t like doing it when it’s due to circumstances beyond our control. But, sometimes — rarely? — it can happen, and so, please take note:

At some unknown point in the future, Google will revoke Transmit’s access to Google Drive. Sometime after that, we’ll be releasing updates to Transmit and Nova that remove the ability to create Google Drive connections.

Transmit itself is of course still in active development, and no other connection types are affected.

(Note that existing connections should continue to work for as long as they remain authenticated!)

Why Though

Well, Google has a new set of policies that require apps that connect to Google Drive to go through expensive, time-consuming annual reviews, and this has made it extremely difficult for us to reasonably maintain Google Drive access. You may have seen iA Writer’s announcement that they are stopping development of their Android version for similar reasons. Our experience was different, but our circumstances are similar. While Google Drive may not be the most popular connection option in Transmit, we know many users rely on it, and we often use it here at Panic to send and receive files from the game developers we work with. 

This is not a decision we took lightly, and was the result of much debate and anguish in the office. But rest assured we looked at every angle. Hopefully that explains everything.

Actually, I Want to Know More

Okay, okay, here’s a more background for the deeply curious. In 2019, Google announced they were adding additional security checks to apps with full access to users’ files on Drive. Shortly after, they prevented Transmit from authorizing new Drive users. We submitted Transmit to Google for review. And waited for months without hearing anything back.

Eventually, by reaching out through friends of friends of friends to find someone inside Google who could help, we got in contact with a Google employee who was very helpful in getting the process started. We went through review, and our access was restored in early 2020. Unfortunately, we were never able to get Google to approve Nova.

For the next couple years, the annual re-review was pretty straightforward. However, in December 2023, Google again disabled Transmit and emailed us, explaining that we would need to complete a “Cloud Application Security Assessment (CASA)” security review. The review found no security issues with Transmit, but it was an incredibly lengthy process. It involved registering with a security lab, running a vulnerability scanner on Transmit’s source code, and filling out a long form. Between each step, we had to wait for days before we’d hear back from the lab, causing the process to take nearly a month.

In March, Transmit was re-approved for Google Drive access — but we were told we would now need to pass this check annually. At this point, we began to question whether this yearly process was worth it.

Between the weeks of waiting, submitting the required documentation and the process of scanning the code, it took a significant amount of time from our engineers. For example, Google provided a Docker image for running the scanner, but it didn’t work. We had to spend more than a week debugging and fixing it. And because the scanner found no problems, it didn’t result in any improvements to Transmit. No one benefitted from this process. Not Google, not Panic, and not our users.

As a small, independent developer, losing this time for no benefit is a huge cost. That week could have been better spent improving our products. But even so, at the time, we resigned ourselves to the yearly checks. We didn’t want to let our users down, and hopefully, now that we had experience with it, the scanner would be easier to run next year.

But then… a couple of months later, Google completely removed the option for us to scan our own code. Instead, to keep access to Google Drive, we would now have to pay one of Google’s business partners to conduct the review. They promised a discounted minimum price, but no maximum price. We realized that either we’d most likely be paying someone else a chunk of cash to run the same scanner we were running, or our bill would end up much higher.

These ever-shifting requirements and expenses are finally catching up to third parties. Other products have discontinued Google Drive support or come up with interesting workarounds with various limitations that don’t work for all users. Ultimately, we think any workaround strategy is too risky and may result in banned accounts, and we definitely don’t want to be responsible for anyone getting banned.

We’re Very Sorry!

In short, with all these factors in play, we have decided we will not attempt to renew Google Drive access for Transmit once it expires. We’ll miss it too. We will instead focus our efforts on other features and products. We know that this situation, to put it in simplified terms, kinda sucks. If Google ever revises their security policies to be more in reach for a small software company like Panic, we will definitely take a second look.

Thanks for using Transmit and thanks for supporting Panic for all of these years. Onward.

Just announced at gamescom, Herdling is a brand new, beautifully epic video game from Okomotive, the creators of the atmospheric and acclaimed FAR: Lone Sails and FAR: Changing Tides, and Published by Panic.

In Herdling, you head out on a grand alpine expedition with a group of lovable beasts and ascend a mountain path, encountering eerie dangers and surprising obstacles, forging your way to the mystery at the summit.

It’s an unforgettable experience.

You really should watch the game reveal trailer, here:

If you have any plans to attend PAX West, then please stop by the Panic Booth #633 (right across from Larian Studios),say hi to us, and be the first to play a little bit of this incredible new game.

Herdling is possibly the biggest project we’ve helped publish, which is a little scary and also extremely exciting. We think it’s really special, and we hope that it will also resonate with you when it launches next year.

See you soon,
Panic

PS: Remember to follow Panic on Steam and wishlist our growing list of games!

Panic’s busy summer continues with yet another game we’re publishing—and video games don’t come a lot more video gamey than ARCO, a dynamic tactical RPG where your decisions shape the story. It’s got incredible pixel art and great music. It’s lengthy, challenging, and rewarding.

The press also had a chance to check out Arco, and they had this to say:

“…beautiful to look at, runs like a dream and oozes unique personality…”
—Magnus Groth-Andersen, Gamereactor

“…weaves its tapestry through expressive pixel art, refined systems, and remarkable self-confidence. Arco has the juice, the sauce, the rizz – whatever you want to call it, Arco is dripping with it.”
—James Woods, WellPlayed

9/10
—Edge Magazine

(You read that right—nine out of ten. I know, it took us a moment to comprehend it.)

Also, don’t sleep on the incredible Arco soundtrack, composed by José Ramón “Bibiki” García.

It’s a musical masterpiece, available on Bandcamp, Spotify, etc.

We really hope you enjoy Arco. It’s a proper video-game video game, and all of us at Panic are enormously excited for you to dig in.

Thanks for playing,
Panic

PS: Don’t forget to follow Panic on Steam and slap those wishlist buttons!

Hello, friends. Readers of this blog probably know us best for our developer-focused apps. But we also publish video games—and we have a really special one to introduce to you, out now for you to play.

Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a cheeky comedy slapformer—an extremely British romp filled with unlikely tasks, giant meat pies, and everything everywhere smacked into shape, or out of it.

The reviews are in, and, if we’re honest, they’ve totally blown us away.

“…one of the most unique and memorable experiences of the year–as well as one of the funniest games ever made.”
—Matt Gardner, Forbes

★★★★★
“…a bold bit of masterfully orchestrated comedy that confounds expectations at every conceivable turn.”
—Matt Wales, Eurogamer

★★★★★
“…the new high watermark for a comedy game. Constantly hilarious, inventive and creative, it’s a complete joy.”
—Jordan Middler, VGC

All the praise for this game is earned by our friends at Coal Supper, a lovely team who worked amazingly hard over the past few years to make this incredible, hand-crafted piece of art. Great work, lads.

You can get Thank Goodness You’re Here! on Nintendo Switch, Steam, the Mac App Store, Epic Games Store, or PlayStation 4 and 5.

See you next game,
Panic

PS: Here’s a little music video of game co-Creator James Carbutt playing a track from the game’s original soundtrack (coming soon!) with friends.

The Panic Podcast is BACK with another season! The new episode, Season Two, Episode One (S2E1, in the parlance of our times) is titled PAX AT It Again. It attempts to answer one of the hardest questions in both software and games, which is:

Why would anyone—and in particular, Panic—want to make a trade show booth?

It’s 45 tightly edited, gripping minutes on the topic of spatial design (literally). Plus, it includes a look ahead to some of our Season Two episodes!

Listen to it here—or, you know, wherever you get your podcasts.

Yes, it’s time for an announcement!

The best SSH app for iOS now includes a Mac companion. Prompt 3 is here and ready to work.

Way back at the beginning of 2011, we introduced Prompt: a nice, clean SSH terminal client for the iPad and iPhone. People loved it. Then, four years later came Prompt 2, which became the premier terminal client for iOS and iPadOS. Prompt 2 was a stable, reliable workhorse for lots of people – an easy, fast, and nice looking way to connect to servers and do server things on them. Its 4.8-star rating across over 4,300 reviews was a shining testament to that.

Now after many years of work, we’re excited to finally announce Prompt’s next major update. It’s here!

We know it’s been a long (long) time coming, so we made sure to add all of your most-requested Prompt features, like support for Mosh and Eternal Terminal, jump hosts, port forwarding, proper iPadOS multitasking, YubiKey and Secure Enclave authentication, and so much more.

With lightning-fast terminal emulation (thanks to optional GPU acceleration) and customizable fonts and themes, Prompt 3 is speedier and more personal than ever. And yep, there’s even a dark icon.

Oh, and one more thing: Prompt 3 now includes a Mac version, for no additional cost.

And thanks to Panic Sync, your servers and clips are automatically at your fingertips on all the devices and platforms where you run Prompt.

It was important to us that Prompt 3 feel right on all your devices. Since Mac apps have always been a passion of ours here at Panic, these are two separate apps, each developed from the ground up to feel right at home on each platform. The Mac app is a Mac app. The iOS app is an iOS app.

Getting started is so easy. When you pay for one platform, the other version is automatically unlocked and ready for you to download from the App Store.

How much? Not much! Just $19.99 per year, cancel anytime. We’ve been very open about the challenges of making money on iOS utility software, and after evaluating the options available to us on the App Store, we feel this is the best way to support ongoing development of Prompt.

And an app like Prompt really needs full-time development! In addition to the new features and UI refinements required for every major OS update, we spend a lot of time updating and testing our products each year, and there are plenty of new features we want to bring to Prompt 3 in the future.

And remember: you get two separate apps for your subscription — both the Mac and iOS versions of Prompt 3. There’s even a free 7-day trial.

But if you really don’t like subscriptions, believe me, we totally understand. So, we’re also providing an option to buy Prompt 3 outright with a one-time purchase. It’s more expensive, yes, but it will be yours forever.

We believe Prompt 3 is an incredible, professional, and reliable terminal emulator for a fraction of the price of the others. With its lovely user interface, it’s easy and, dare we say, almost pleasant to do command line work on your various servers. We’re sure you’ll understand as soon as you try it yourself.

Prompt 3 is now available on the App Store with a free 7-day trial.

Prompt 3 was built by Michael Buckley, with help from Logan Collins and Heather Buletti, product management by Aaron Bell, design by Kenichi Yoshida and Neven Mrgan, and is currently supported by Jesus Diaz and Mike Freuden.

We hope you enjoy it!

PS: We’re on standby to fix bugs and make it even better! Send us your notes!

Hello!!

Panic has a job opening for a Financial Controller (October 2022) with in-house business experience.

Panic does a lot of interesting things, from developing Mac and iOS software (like Nova, Transmit, and Prompt), to publishing video games (like Untitled Goose Game and Firewatch), to developing our own handheld gaming system from scratch with a full SDK (Playdate). Now at 30 employees, Panic has traditionally relied on outside firms to handle most of its accounting. But, as our business grows more interesting and more complex every year, we’re looking for someone, hopefully you, to bring some financial power in-house.

We are mostly located in Portland, Oregon, and would be happy to pay for your relocation here if interested. For this particular job, because of the collaboration and discussion it requires, we’d like someone willing to work at our headquarters.

What kind of work, exactly?

At the start, you will supervise the overall financial operations of the business, from general accounting, bill payments, reconciliation, etc., state use and sales tax compliance, potential oversight of international VAT tax regulations, and tracking the overall financial health of the company through periodic financial reports.

Beyond that, we’d love to find someone who could also feel comfortable helping make key financial or budgetary recommendations to various departments, providing options to management to scope our investments in various projects, but we worry that’s asking a lot, so it would also be great if you could spot areas of our business where we (and you) may need additional financial help, either by sourcing third-party companies that could work alongside you, or through hiring additional financial roles at your direction.

For more details, hit the link below.

One other thing

Also, a standard and important Panic note about our job postings. If you read our qualifications, and feel like you’re really really close to hitting them all, but you’re missing one — or maybe you aren’t super confident or are prone to imposter syndrome and a voice is telling you to walk away — please consider pushing through and applying. None of us here are perfect geniuses or have it together 100% — we’re all just doing the best job we can, and I’m confident you can do that too.

We really look forward to hearing from you.

Click here for full details, and to apply to our Financial Controller (October 2022) job. Applications close November 4th, 2022.

All of us at Panic deeply appreciate the hard work the everyone has put into creating so many excellent extensions for Nova, our Mac code editor. Your amazing efforts make Nova an even better Mac app.

To make the process of maintaining extensions easier for developers, we’re excited to announce the new and (slightly-awkwardly named) “Nova Extension Developer License Program”. In short, extension developers can now request a free, not for resale (NFR) license of Nova, on the house, once an extension meets the following requirements:

• Published or updated within the last year
• Contains proper documentation, as outlined in the extension template
• 500 or more downloads from the Nova Extension Gallery

To request a license or renewal, simply email us at [email protected] from the email address associated with your developer account, and include the following information:

• A link to your listing on the Extension Gallery
• The name and email address you’d like your license to be registered to
• The serial number associated with your current license (in the case of renewal)

Only one license may be requested per extension developer, and the license is non-transferrable. After the first year, just send us another email and we’ll happily renew your developer license for another year under the same terms.

If you have additional questions about these requirements, or other suggestions about how we can improve the extension development community, please let us know. We’re all ears!

Hello!!

Panic has a job opening for a Playdate Senior QA/Release Engineer (March 2022) on our award-winning team.

Panic does a lot of interesting things, from developing Mac and iOS software (like Nova, Transmit, and Prompt), to publishing video games (like Untitled Goose Game and Firewatch), to developing our own handheld gaming system from scratch with a full SDK (Playdate). In this case, we need some help with the latter.

We’re looking for a Senior QA/Release Engineer that’s truly excited about the prospect of helping us make sure our critical Playdate software is as top-quality and bug-free as possible. You’ll be in charge of releases of Playdate OS (operating system) and the Playdate SDK (software development kit).

We are mostly located in Portland, Oregon, and would be happy to pay for your relocation here if interested. We’re also open to remote work for this position if you are based in the USA. (We hope in the future to expand our hiring and compliance to include international applicants, but we’re not there yet.) Due to Covid-19, our office is currently operating in a hybrid mode, with many employees choosing to only work from home, but while some of us hope to return to the office as soon as we can, others will continue to work remotely.

What kind of work, exactly?

In addition to thoroughly testing and qualifying builds of Playdate OS and the SDK, you’ll also be responsible for quality assurance for Playdate-related applications, including the device simulator, and video capture utilities, which run on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Ideally, you would also be willing to proactively develop and maintain any tools and processes to streamline and simplify QA.

The ideal candidate will have lots of experience with git and issue tracking systems like GitLab. Command-line expertise is a requirement. Experience with embedded systems like Playdate and firmware testing is a bonus, but not required. Experience with deployment and measurement tools such as Memfault is also nice, but not required. Self-direction and strong self-motivation are critical. Interest in creating the necessary tools to make the QA and Release process easier will help a lot. If you think you’d have an unstoppable sense of pride in being the last stop on our software release chain, we’d love to hear from you.

One other thing

Also, a standard and important Panic note about our job postings. If you read our qualifications, and feel like you’re really really close to hitting them all, but you’re missing one — or maybe you aren’t super confident or are prone to imposter syndrome and a voice is telling you to walk away — please consider pushing through and applying. None of us here are perfect geniuses or have it together 100% — we’re all just doing the best job we can, and I’m confident you can do that too.

We really look forward to hearing from you.

Click here for full details, and to apply to our Playdate Senior QA/Release Engineer (March 2022) job. Applications close April 4th, 2022.

Your time is valuable. We’ll keep this brief.

For the next two weeks, Nova — our powerful Mac code editor, the successor to Coda, the future of native editing — is now on sale for 50% off, just $49, and you even get a full year of updates for free.

But hurry, the sale ends on April 1st, 2022.

Not only is Nova 50% off, but Nova 9 adds support for debugging! You can now debug code in PHP, Python, Chrome, Node.js, and of course, our own Playdate Simulator. We’ve also expanded our extension API so users can implement their own debugging support for other environments. There’s a new Debug sidebar, a Debugging pane in the Console, breakpoints, and more.

If you downloaded Nova before and already gave it a shot, don’t worry — we’ve reset the trial period, so everyone can try Nova 9. And remember, Nova is a free download.

That’s it! We hope you’re enjoying Nova and we hope you consider picking it up while it’s on sale! In the meantime, please enjoy this powerful sales video produced by our marketing department.