135: On the Street at WWDC 2018
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How do we start?
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Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app
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development.
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I'm David Smith.
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And I'm Marco Arment.
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Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes.
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So let's get started.
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I have to think about that for a second.
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We are live on the streets of San Jose during WWDC.
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We're going to do a slightly different episode this week
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rather than what we normally do, because we
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have the benefit and the opportunity
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to talk to other independent developers, other than Marco
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and I, about the things that were announced.
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And in subsequent episodes, we can
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unpack what we think they mean and some
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of the implications of that.
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But it seemed like an interesting opportunity
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to just kind of get a first impression of what
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is the thing that different people are most excited about
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for what was announced yesterday as we're recording.
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So I'm honestly curious, Dave.
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Let's start with you, if possible.
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What is the thing that you are most excited about?
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Obviously, I think we got a lot of stuff.
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There's a lot of broad, far-reaching, big and small
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changes with the APIs and everything.
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Is there one thing that you're most excited about,
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or is it kind of like a broad array of diffuse things?
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I mean, I think I have a real answer and a fake answer.
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My fake answer is that the thing I'm most excited about
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is that there was no holistic ground-rebuilding change that I
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have to spend my summer dealing with.
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I was worried and excited that WatchOS, for example,
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was going to go and do this massive overhaul of how
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we make apps and have to rebuild all my things, which
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would have been exciting.
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But it also meant I wouldn't have seen my family
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this summer, and that would have been not as exciting.
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That would be next year.
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It's like, maybe that's next year,
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but this summer, that's not the case.
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And so I'm kind of excited about that.
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The thing I'm most excited about, honestly,
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is just seeing them make nice, solid, incremental
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improvements on the watch.
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That the workout tracking stuff has gotten a lot better,
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should be a lot neater and nicer,
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and allow me to make an app that is more comparable to the built
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in app, which is great.
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And then also, just on the audio side of things,
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that they brought parity, essentially,
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to a lot of the things that we were able to do on the iPhone,
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and now we can do it on the watch.
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And I like that they are-- of all the platforms,
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some of the platforms felt like the iPad wasn't mentioned
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at all on stage, essentially.
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TVOS was barely mentioned on stage.
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But the watch and the iPhone were the show.
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And as somebody who is focused on the watch,
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I'm excited that the watch is continuing
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to get focus and attention when other things potentially
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seem to be getting slightly neglected,
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at least for this year.
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Yeah, I miss that.
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The watch, especially-- I also have
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a lot of good stuff on the watch, because it seems like
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they read my post about why I couldn't make a podcast app that
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was good on the watch, and it seems
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like they fixed every single thing on that list.
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I have to take a closer look to see if this is actually--
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if all these things are worth the way I need them to,
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and if they're reliable, and if there's
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any major shortcomings.
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But it looks pretty good at first glance.
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And so I'm really looking forward to diving in
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and playing with that.
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And the nice thing, too, is they've
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announced it as a marquee feature,
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that background audio and audio-related things is a thing.
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So if there are problems, if there are bugs,
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it seems likely that you'll be able to actually get them fixed
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and have them work on it, because they want a feature
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of the Apple Watch publicly announced now
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to be background audio, to be able to play podcasts
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and audio books and long-form audio content on the watch.
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And I mean, I think that makes sense.
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And they dropped support for the Series 0 watch as well,
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which I was excited about.
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But I think--
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Oh, I didn't know that.
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Yeah, they dropped support for the Series 0 watch.
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So watchOS 5 only supports 1, 2, and 3, which is fantastic.
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And I could also see this fall, Apple's
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going to be wanting to make as strong of a case
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as they can for why you're going to want to buy a new watch.
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Because all that first-generation people
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who bought a watch who might be on the fence,
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anything that's-- it makes me encouraged
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that Apple is going to fix bugs and make watchOS as good as it
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can be this summer, because this fall, they're
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going to have to resell a bunch of people
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on there getting a new watch.
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That's a really interesting-- because I
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bet cutting off the Series 0 is probably what allowed them
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to do background full-time audio,
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because it probably was the cutoff of not having enough RAM
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or something to keep more than two apps running
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in the background.
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The challenge with background audio
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is if you have a background audio app running,
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and you also then want to have a workout app running,
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then you have to have both apps that stay open.
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Neither of them can be suspended at any time.
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And so maybe the Series 0 just didn't
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have enough RAM or something, or the CPU
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would be too slammed to make that good.
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And just in general, it was just really slow,
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and the battery life wasn't that great.
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And so I've been advocating for it
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to be going away for a long time.
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And I'm glad to see that it seems
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a little aggressive of a schedule for them to be using,
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but that's great.
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I'm very glad that they were able to do that.
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And that's the small little nugget from yesterday
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that I was most excited about, because building watch apps
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that now I just only have to worry with the S2 and the S3
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chips, they are so much more capable than that first
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generation chip.
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So that should make my summer a lot easier.
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And I think it's better for everybody, too.
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You figure the vast majority of the watches that
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are out there being used are not Series 0,
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because the sales have gone up over time.
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And so most of them, presumably, are now
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these much newer models and much better models.
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And so if you can improve the OS in key ways,
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like background audio and various other things
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that you can do now, for everybody, that's a clear win.
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And everybody wins.
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The developers win, the user wins.
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Everybody wins except Series 0 owners.
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But because they stopped selling the Series 0,
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now, what, about two years ago?
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Two years ago, yeah.
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You know, those batteries weren't lasting that long.
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And a lot of Series 0 owners, their battery
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no longer holds a useful charge.
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So their devices are naturally aging themselves out anyway.
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So I think you're right.
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It is a little bit aggressive, although I
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think it's similar to what happened on the iPad,
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with the iPad 1 versus the iPad 2.
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But ultimately, it's going to be way better for everybody
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that the OS gets better.
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And it's not actually going to hurt that many people.
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Because when I look at my numbers,
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the number one in use chip is the S3 chip, so the Series 3
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watch, which is now there are now more of those in use
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than Series 0, 1, or 2.
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So they're selling really well.
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So they didn't actually hurt that many people in doing it.
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But it makes sense.
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They could have done it-- they had the big slide
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during the keynote about iOS, where they're like,
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we go back all the way to 2013.
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And isn't that awesome?
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But I'm so glad on the watch they
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didn't hold themselves to the same kind of goal.
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Because now we can do so much more on the watch
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than we ever could have been able to if Series 0 was
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the baseline we had to meet.
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And they can.
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Like, the built-in stuff can get better, too.
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But certainly, they can finally enable better stuff
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for developers, too.
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And that's just great.
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All right, so first thing you're doing-- I mean,
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you probably have already started.
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A little bit.
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First major thing you're working on-- health and fitness stuff,
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Yeah, it's going to be adopting the new workout APIs
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in Workouts++, Podometer++, adding some of the Siri
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shortcut stuff, just in terms of for-- it seems like I can do
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more sophisticated shortcuts for starting workouts, which
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I could have done before.
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But now I can do even slightly more clever stuff there,
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as well as showing you data, like surfacing data
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about asking Siri what's my step count,
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and surfacing that to you.
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Oh, that's cool.
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And then after that, it'll go back
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to doing background audio for podcasts and audio books.
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All right, well, I think we're going
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to move on to guests now?
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Is that a solid plan?
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Sounds great.
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All right, well, thanks for letting us know your plans.
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And I guess I'll go last after all the guests.
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So anyway, before we get into guests,
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Thank you so much to Linode for supporting this show.
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Hi, I'm Curtis Herbert.
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I'm the author of the app Slopes.
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I love slopes.
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Wait, do you actually skier snowboard?
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But I follow you on Twitter, and I
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look at all your design progress and everything,
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and your business model progress and everything.
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As an indie developer, I think any indie developer
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should be following you.
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Oh, well, thank you.
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So anyway, I'm curious, Curtis, what
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are you looking forward to most out of the new stuff?
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Or what is most relevant to you here?
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So the first one, just kind of fun, is the AR stuff.
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So I shipped AR in Slopes.
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So for anyone who doesn't know, it's
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a skiing and snowboarding app.
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At the end of the day, you get a recap of all your speeds,
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where you went on the mountain.
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And something I added last season
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was a virtual 3D mountain in the app itself.
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So you can see Whistler Blackcomb,
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and you can see where you went on the mountain and replay it.
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And this spring, I added ARKit to it,
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because it was in scene kit.
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Kind of why not?
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Low hanging fruit.
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But it actually ended up being kind of fun.
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It's not a compelling AR experience yet.
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But it is something my users are really actually
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interested in, surprisingly.
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So I think the shared experiences with ARKit
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will be pretty cool, because for a lot of people,
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they might not have Slopes installed already
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or have any data in there.
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So if their one friend is using the app a lot,
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and they're like, oh, look at this cool 3D view.
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Now instead of having to crowd around a tiny iPhone,
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I can just have a player view on the other person's phone.
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And they can just look with their own phone
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and kind of explore around the AR experience
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without having to hand over the other person's phone
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or do anything like that.
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I don't think that's going to be a big compelling business
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thing for me, but it's fun.
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And I love shipping fun features.
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And my users really like this 3D stuff.
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So that's definitely something I'm interested in.
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That's a really cool point.
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Yeah, because-- and this is one of the reasons why
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it's fun to follow you, because even though I don't ski
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or snowboard, when you have an app like this where you can do
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it a really basic way, like a basic data driven app,
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just basic data display and everything, you could do that.
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But you go all out and you make it this cool high production
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value, app full of fun displays, nice design, fun features
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and everything.
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And I feel like that's one area where indies can really do well.
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Yeah, definitely.
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Because if you're willing to put that amount of effort
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into something and have that kind of fun sensibility
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and good design sensibility, and if you
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can do it fairly easily, because still on an indie time budget.
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Well, that still took like three or four months to write that.
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But yes, relatively speaking, yeah.
00:11:52
◼
►
A lot of late night with trigonometry.
00:11:53
◼
►
It was a bit of a nightmare.
00:11:56
◼
►
But it's such a cool thing.
00:11:58
◼
►
I feel like that's kind of like the quintessential Apple app.
00:12:01
◼
►
It's a unique feature that's compelling that you
00:12:03
◼
►
won't find anywhere else.
00:12:05
◼
►
Yeah, it's like a maximum viable product,
00:12:08
◼
►
like to use Panick's term, to do the absolute most awesome job
00:12:12
◼
►
you can with what seems like it could be a simple task.
00:12:15
◼
►
Yeah, it's something that you wouldn't necessarily ever
00:12:17
◼
►
expect from an app.
00:12:18
◼
►
But then you see it and you're like, oh.
00:12:20
◼
►
Well, so at least for skiers and snowboarders, we think in 3D.
00:12:23
◼
►
So like for me, it was kind of an obvious like,
00:12:25
◼
►
it's not like a running app where
00:12:26
◼
►
elevation matters a little.
00:12:28
◼
►
But you care about the 2D top down.
00:12:30
◼
►
Like for skiers and snowboarders,
00:12:31
◼
►
the vertical is just as important as the latitude,
00:12:34
◼
►
longitude coordinates.
00:12:36
◼
►
So it makes sense in your head, but you would never
00:12:38
◼
►
expect it from an app.
00:12:39
◼
►
But once you see it, you're like, oh, why does every ski
00:12:42
◼
►
app not do this?
00:12:43
◼
►
Like this is how we think.
00:12:46
◼
►
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:12:47
◼
►
So yeah, that's the fun one.
00:12:49
◼
►
Again, I don't think it's going to really move
00:12:50
◼
►
the needle in my business or anything, but my users love it.
00:12:53
◼
►
And that's kind of what I'm there for.
00:12:55
◼
►
Just like what were they saying?
00:12:56
◼
►
One of the cornerstones of good apps during the State
00:12:58
◼
►
of the Union delight.
00:13:00
◼
►
Well, and that does move the needle.
00:13:02
◼
►
It helps me stand out.
00:13:04
◼
►
Any one feature in isolation, you might say, well,
00:13:06
◼
►
I don't know how much this matters.
00:13:07
◼
►
But the sum of it--
00:13:08
◼
►
--equaling this delightful app that people love and talk
00:13:11
◼
►
about, that does very much matter.
00:13:13
◼
►
That does move the needle on sales and everything.
00:13:15
◼
►
The holistic picture will do it.
00:13:17
◼
►
Like this one feature won't move my needle.
00:13:19
◼
►
But combined with all the other 3D stuff and the cool things
00:13:21
◼
►
that I do, it's almost like users expect, at this point,
00:13:24
◼
►
out of slopes, that I'm going to push the envelope
00:13:26
◼
►
and do these things with it.
00:13:28
◼
►
So the one I'm actually interested in more from-- not
00:13:31
◼
►
a business standpoint, I guess, but not a fun feature--
00:13:34
◼
►
is bringing UIKit to the Mac.
00:13:37
◼
►
I added Sync to my app last season,
00:13:40
◼
►
so over the summer of 2017.
00:13:42
◼
►
And since then, I've gotten a lot of requests for iPad app,
00:13:46
◼
►
But I have gotten quite a few requests for a Mac app.
00:13:49
◼
►
Interesting.
00:13:50
◼
►
Just to replay your data.
00:13:51
◼
►
Yeah, because you have a bigger, nicer screen.
00:13:53
◼
►
Yeah, you have a 27 inch.
00:13:54
◼
►
Like, you want to see that 3D data, those visualizations,
00:13:58
◼
►
And I totally get that.
00:14:00
◼
►
So I was thinking of an iPad app recently,
00:14:04
◼
►
and I held off once marzipan rumors broke.
00:14:06
◼
►
I'm like, OK, I'm going to see what this is about
00:14:08
◼
►
before I invest in it.
00:14:09
◼
►
And I'm actually really thrilled now,
00:14:11
◼
►
because it looks like it's going to-- arguments around WWDC
00:14:14
◼
►
about what this will eventually be,
00:14:15
◼
►
but I'm getting the read that this will be basically
00:14:19
◼
►
your app is UIKit on the Mac, no app kit involved,
00:14:22
◼
►
and it's basically your iPad app.
00:14:24
◼
►
So I'm already planning on moving to an iPad app
00:14:26
◼
►
as just a viewer of your Slopes data,
00:14:29
◼
►
and I'm going to get a Mac app for another 5% work.
00:14:34
◼
►
If everything goes well--
00:14:35
◼
►
That's exactly the ratio that I always think about.
00:14:37
◼
►
Because the iPad app, for me, was about 5% more work
00:14:40
◼
►
than the iPhone app.
00:14:41
◼
►
And if I can get a Mac app for maybe another 5% of work--
00:14:44
◼
►
Oh, it's totally worth it.
00:14:45
◼
►
It's low-hanging fruit.
00:14:46
◼
►
And again, that's not something that I
00:14:48
◼
►
think is going to move the needle on its own,
00:14:50
◼
►
but I think it helps provide a more complete platform
00:14:53
◼
►
experience, and that's something that users really
00:14:55
◼
►
resonate with and shows them that this is somebody who's
00:14:57
◼
►
dedicated to shipping a good app.
00:15:00
◼
►
So I expect a lot of apps are going to have to do that.
00:15:03
◼
►
But I'm excited just because now I
00:15:04
◼
►
don't have to view all my data on my tiny iPhone-- well,
00:15:07
◼
►
tiny iPhone X, but I can actually view it on my 5K
00:15:10
◼
►
display, and that's going to be compelling.
00:15:12
◼
►
I love having the iPad simulator up
00:15:14
◼
►
and bringing it up full screen and seeing my 3D rendering
00:15:18
◼
►
Now I'll have that native.
00:15:19
◼
►
So those two are, I think, the two
00:15:21
◼
►
that I'm really looking forward to.
00:15:23
◼
►
Well, thanks, Curtis.
00:15:24
◼
►
And where can people find you in your app?
00:15:25
◼
►
So you can find me on Twitter as @parrots,
00:15:28
◼
►
the plural of the bird.
00:15:30
◼
►
And you can find my app at getslopes.com.
00:15:33
◼
►
Thanks a lot.
00:15:33
◼
►
Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:15:36
◼
►
Hi, I'm Joe Chubunsky.
00:15:37
◼
►
I am a developer and designer person, indie person
00:15:41
◼
►
in this community for quite a while.
00:15:43
◼
►
And I host the Release Notes podcast and conference
00:15:46
◼
►
and stuff of that nature.
00:15:47
◼
►
So Joe, what are you most excited about for anything
00:15:52
◼
►
that was announced or new changes that were happening?
00:15:55
◼
►
Basically, what's top of your mind?
00:15:57
◼
►
Right now, top of my mind is Siri, honestly,
00:15:59
◼
►
and the workflow team and all that stuff,
00:16:01
◼
►
because I think the way they've integrated is interesting.
00:16:05
◼
►
And often when I come out of one of these dub-dub situations,
00:16:08
◼
►
like day two is always my brain has exploded
00:16:11
◼
►
and I don't know what to really think about it.
00:16:13
◼
►
And so I've really seen the sessions and dig into it.
00:16:15
◼
►
But I have a feeling that that's going to be a big deal,
00:16:17
◼
►
more so than I'm thinking off.
00:16:19
◼
►
It doesn't seem like that big a deal
00:16:21
◼
►
until you start digging into the possibilities.
00:16:23
◼
►
I like Apple's philosophy on this,
00:16:24
◼
►
that they're putting the power into the hands of the customer
00:16:27
◼
►
like they usually do instead of us, the developer, which
00:16:30
◼
►
means the customer gets to choose which apps they want
00:16:32
◼
►
to automate and which ones they want to use with their voice
00:16:34
◼
►
and which words they use in order to trigger those.
00:16:37
◼
►
And I think that's a neat approach that's
00:16:39
◼
►
very different from Amazon's and from Google's approaches.
00:16:42
◼
►
And I'll be interested to see how that works out long term.
00:16:45
◼
►
Yeah, that's one area where I have very strong interest,
00:16:47
◼
►
because not only is there this big user side of it,
00:16:50
◼
►
but then there's also the API developer side of it
00:16:52
◼
►
where we can make all these vocabularies and actions
00:16:55
◼
►
for our apps and have them indexed
00:16:57
◼
►
and have them show up in the proactive suggestions
00:16:59
◼
►
and things like that on the Siri watch face.
00:17:02
◼
►
There's a lot there.
00:17:03
◼
►
I think this really will have a major impact on usage
00:17:07
◼
►
of the devices and also what our apps can do.
00:17:09
◼
►
Yeah, it's something we've wanted for so long,
00:17:11
◼
►
we've been begging Apple for.
00:17:13
◼
►
And it's finally here, and now it's
00:17:15
◼
►
overwhelming almost, because we really
00:17:16
◼
►
don't know what to expect.
00:17:18
◼
►
So yeah, I can't think of an app where
00:17:20
◼
►
I wouldn't want some sort of intent possible.
00:17:23
◼
►
So there's a lot of possibilities there.
00:17:25
◼
►
Yeah, I feel like this opens up power user levels,
00:17:29
◼
►
like how good you can get, how fast you can get,
00:17:32
◼
►
how productive you can get, how customizable of a workflow
00:17:35
◼
►
you can build and conveniently use on iOS devices.
00:17:38
◼
►
Like before, the ceiling has been kind of low on that.
00:17:41
◼
►
And this doesn't blow it totally open,
00:17:44
◼
►
but it makes a huge gain, I think.
00:17:46
◼
►
Yeah, definitely.
00:17:47
◼
►
And like I said, it would be nice also
00:17:49
◼
►
to-- people won't be complaining anymore.
00:17:51
◼
►
Like, Apple, please do something with Siri.
00:17:52
◼
►
Well, they did something.
00:17:53
◼
►
So they finally did that, and I don't
00:17:55
◼
►
know how it's going to shake out.
00:17:58
◼
►
But just seeing how much of workflow
00:18:00
◼
►
is obviously still in there, that team,
00:18:02
◼
►
and I know those guys a little bit.
00:18:03
◼
►
I've met them a few times.
00:18:05
◼
►
It's nice to see that that work seemed
00:18:07
◼
►
to have paid off over the last year.
00:18:09
◼
►
I'm very, very excited about where that might go.
00:18:11
◼
►
Now, a lot of the work you do with release notes
00:18:15
◼
►
is focused more on the business side of things.
00:18:17
◼
►
Are there any major business or marketing type changes
00:18:19
◼
►
that you're excited about?
00:18:20
◼
►
Yeah, I mean, it looks like the Mac App Store-- obviously,
00:18:23
◼
►
the redesign was way overdue.
00:18:26
◼
►
And it looks like they did more than just redesign the store,
00:18:28
◼
►
though, because a couple of these major folks like Panic
00:18:31
◼
►
and Rich Siegel, I mean, he was at our conference two years ago
00:18:34
◼
►
basically saying, these are all the reasons why
00:18:37
◼
►
I left the Mac App Store.
00:18:38
◼
►
He did that famous talk at our conference.
00:18:40
◼
►
He did a talk saying, this is what it would take to get me
00:18:43
◼
►
And that list was a long list, and they
00:18:45
◼
►
didn't announce all that list.
00:18:46
◼
►
So they must have done something that made him more inspired.
00:18:49
◼
►
And I've heard there's sandboxing changes and things
00:18:51
◼
►
of that nature that we haven't really
00:18:52
◼
►
heard all the details yet.
00:18:54
◼
►
So anything they can do to help that sort of thing.
00:18:56
◼
►
And Panic is going to be able to sell a subscription on the Mac
00:18:59
◼
►
App Store and standalone on their website.
00:19:01
◼
►
More flexibility for us as business,
00:19:03
◼
►
I think, is a good thing.
00:19:05
◼
►
And I think it's a testament to what the editorial team has
00:19:08
◼
►
done with the iOS App Store over the last year,
00:19:10
◼
►
that if they're going to bring that to the Mac
00:19:12
◼
►
and be serious about it and staff it up properly
00:19:14
◼
►
and feature apps the way they should,
00:19:16
◼
►
then that might be a positive step.
00:19:19
◼
►
Well, thanks a lot.
00:19:20
◼
►
Where can people find you and your work?
00:19:21
◼
►
You can find me at leisnotes.tv if you
00:19:23
◼
►
want to check out that podcast.
00:19:24
◼
►
You can always find me @josee.design.
00:19:26
◼
►
And on Twitter, I'm just @jh.e, but spelling my names.
00:19:29
◼
►
Yeah, not worth it.
00:19:30
◼
►
You'll find me some other way.
00:19:32
◼
►
Thanks a lot, Joe.
00:19:35
◼
►
I'm Kaya Thomas.
00:19:36
◼
►
I'm the creator of WeWe2, which is an app
00:19:39
◼
►
directory of children's and young adult books written
00:19:41
◼
►
by authors of color.
00:19:43
◼
►
And what are you most excited about,
00:19:46
◼
►
the things we got this week, or announcements or changes?
00:19:49
◼
►
For me, the most exciting thing so far was actually Create ML.
00:19:54
◼
►
I've actually not really been that interested
00:19:55
◼
►
in machine learning before I saw that because of the barrier
00:19:59
◼
►
to entry of actually trying to figure out how to get a model
00:20:02
◼
►
and train it.
00:20:03
◼
►
And figuring out that part, I think,
00:20:05
◼
►
is just such a steep learning curve
00:20:08
◼
►
that I never really got into it.
00:20:09
◼
►
And I think after seeing that demo, where she created
00:20:13
◼
►
and trained a model in like two minutes, I was blown away.
00:20:16
◼
►
And I actually really want to start learning more
00:20:18
◼
►
about the app services that they have for machine learning.
00:20:22
◼
►
Yeah, honestly, I was very excited about that as well,
00:20:24
◼
►
because I don't know anything about machine learning.
00:20:26
◼
►
I love to dive in and start experimenting with it,
00:20:29
◼
►
playing around.
00:20:30
◼
►
And I was faced with the same problem
00:20:32
◼
►
they described on stage of you've
00:20:34
◼
►
got to download all these different open source tools that
00:20:36
◼
►
mostly are designed to run on Linux servers.
00:20:38
◼
►
And it was just really cumbersome of a process
00:20:41
◼
►
and a very intimidating process.
00:20:44
◼
►
So intimidating.
00:20:45
◼
►
I mean, when I was in school, there
00:20:46
◼
►
was a machine learning class.
00:20:47
◼
►
And a lot of it was straight up math.
00:20:50
◼
►
And it was really intimidating.
00:20:52
◼
►
So I didn't even take the course,
00:20:53
◼
►
because I was like, machine learning
00:20:55
◼
►
is for the PhD folks.
00:20:58
◼
►
And now, with being able to do that in a playground,
00:21:00
◼
►
I think it's really going to change the game.
00:21:02
◼
►
And it's actually going to make machine learning more
00:21:04
◼
►
accessible to different types of folks who
00:21:06
◼
►
don't feel like they need that kind
00:21:08
◼
►
of heavy academic understanding of what machine learning is
00:21:11
◼
►
supposed to be.
00:21:12
◼
►
Yeah, definitely.
00:21:12
◼
►
I'm one of those people, too.
00:21:14
◼
►
I don't have the academic background at all.
00:21:16
◼
►
I don't understand the concepts.
00:21:17
◼
►
I don't understand the algorithms.
00:21:18
◼
►
Most of even the terms that people use, I don't understand,
00:21:21
◼
►
because I just have never used that before.
00:21:23
◼
►
And I bet a lot of developers are in that position, right?
00:21:24
◼
►
Because it's a fairly recent thing.
00:21:27
◼
►
And development's a pretty big, wide world and big, wide field.
00:21:30
◼
►
And so I think most of us have not
00:21:32
◼
►
specialized in advanced research areas like that.
00:21:35
◼
►
And so to make that more accessible to all of us,
00:21:38
◼
►
it probably helps a lot, right?
00:21:40
◼
►
I mean, I love that.
00:21:41
◼
►
I love what they've done over the years with the Swift
00:21:44
◼
►
playgrounds as well.
00:21:45
◼
►
There's some small updates that's coming there.
00:21:47
◼
►
I think that Apple's showing that they're really
00:21:49
◼
►
trying to make programming accessible to more folks
00:21:52
◼
►
and make it less intimidating.
00:21:54
◼
►
And I really, really appreciate that.
00:21:56
◼
►
Any other changes you're excited about?
00:21:58
◼
►
I'm really excited about some of the small updates to Xcode.
00:22:01
◼
►
I mean, being a developer day to day, the things
00:22:04
◼
►
like having in the change bar showing
00:22:08
◼
►
if there's a merge conflict or showing
00:22:10
◼
►
if there's upstream changes.
00:22:12
◼
►
I think that's going to make a lot of people's lives easier,
00:22:14
◼
►
mine included.
00:22:15
◼
►
Because everyone's been in that kind of git black hole
00:22:18
◼
►
where there's a merge, and you're trying to rebase.
00:22:20
◼
►
And it takes hours to get out.
00:22:23
◼
►
So I think doing small updates like that really matters.
00:22:27
◼
►
Just focusing on the day to day life of a developer.
00:22:30
◼
►
I'm really excited about some of those.
00:22:32
◼
►
And multi cursor editing.
00:22:36
◼
►
That made me so happy.
00:22:38
◼
►
Because I've done some multi cursor editing in Sublime.
00:22:41
◼
►
Yeah, TextMate.
00:22:42
◼
►
Seeing that come to Xcode finally is just sigh relief.
00:22:46
◼
►
Yeah, there have been so many times where I've copied
00:22:49
◼
►
a big list of properties or something out of Xcode
00:22:51
◼
►
into TextMate, done a big multi column edit,
00:22:54
◼
►
and then pasted it back over to Xcode.
00:22:55
◼
►
It feels so clunky.
00:22:58
◼
►
So yeah, that'll be great.
00:22:59
◼
►
I forgot about that.
00:22:59
◼
►
That'll be great.
00:23:01
◼
►
So I think they're working on some really small incremental
00:23:04
◼
►
changes that'll make a big impact on developers'
00:23:06
◼
►
day to day lives.
00:23:08
◼
►
All that stuff.
00:23:09
◼
►
Because I feel like every year we
00:23:10
◼
►
talk about the big headlining features.
00:23:12
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And all these little tools and API improvements
00:23:15
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that are less, kind of lower profile,
00:23:17
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we often kind of forget about for a while.
00:23:19
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But then they just make our lives better for the next year
00:23:21
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Yeah, exactly.
00:23:22
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And I think that seemed like the focus this year.
00:23:25
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A lot of it is not necessarily about the big, big features.
00:23:29
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But it's about small performance improvements.
00:23:32
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These just small incremental changes
00:23:34
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that are going to make the experience for developers
00:23:36
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and users just much better.
00:23:38
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And I really like that, actually.
00:23:41
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Is there one thing that you're excited to do first?
00:23:45
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As soon as you get back home, back to work,
00:23:48
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what's the very first API or thing
00:23:50
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that you think you might look into?
00:23:52
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Oh, that's a good one.
00:23:53
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Well, I already downloaded Xcode Beta.
00:23:55
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Oh, you're way ahead of me.
00:23:56
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Yeah, I downloaded Xcode Beta.
00:23:59
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I think the most thing I'm excited to play around with
00:24:02
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is ML and Playgrounds.
00:24:05
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I'm going to play around with Create ML and Playgrounds
00:24:07
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and see what it can do.
00:24:09
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I mean, the demo that she had really
00:24:11
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made me feel confident that I could actually
00:24:13
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train some data and play around and actually create
00:24:16
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an app that uses machine learning, potentially.
00:24:19
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Well, thank you so much.
00:24:20
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Where can people find you and your work?
00:24:21
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Yeah, so I'm on Twitter as kthomas901.
00:24:25
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And my website is kiahthomas.info.
00:24:28
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And you can find me there.
00:24:29
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Great, thanks, Kiah.
00:24:32
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So Marco, what are you most excited about?
00:24:34
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I think you came into this year with a-- it seemed like there
00:24:38
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was a lot of possibility and options for things,
00:24:40
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the way things could have gone that could have dramatically
00:24:43
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changed what your summer looked like.
00:24:44
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So what ultimately-- how do you feel about what happened?
00:24:47
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And what are you most excited about?
00:24:49
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Mostly I'm very excited about that I could finally
00:24:52
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do Apple Watch offline playback.
00:24:54
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But the funny thing is I've already written that.
00:24:56
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And so I already have that pretty much ready to go.
00:25:00
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So I don't think I'm actually going to need
00:25:01
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to do a lot of work on that.
00:25:03
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Ultimately, what I'm even more excited about than that
00:25:07
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is the UIKit apps on the Mac thing, which is funny,
00:25:10
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because I can't do anything about that yet either.
00:25:13
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So this is not going to be a bit somewhere in those areas,
00:25:17
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But I'm very excited that I'll be
00:25:20
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able to bring my app to the Mac in a way that is probably not
00:25:25
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that much more complicated than bringing it from iPhone to iPad.
00:25:28
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And if it truly does work that way, which it sure
00:25:32
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looks like it will, that's going to be amazing for so
00:25:35
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many reasons.
00:25:35
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For app developers like us, who only really have time
00:25:39
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to for one major code base, to be
00:25:42
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able to bring our apps to the Mac where it makes sense,
00:25:44
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I think is going to be a huge benefit.
00:25:47
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Because any time we can leverage the work we already
00:25:49
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have in a major way to spread into a new market
00:25:53
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without adding a whole ton of maintenance work and coding
00:25:56
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work and everything, that always benefits us.
00:26:00
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We need to be smart with our time
00:26:01
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and leverage our code base as much as possible
00:26:03
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without having a whole bunch of separate things to maintain.
00:26:06
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So if this truly gives us that for the Mac,
00:26:08
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that's going to be awesome.
00:26:09
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And I'm just looking forward to it as a user of the Mac.
00:26:12
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There's so many apps that I would
00:26:14
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love to have quick access to on the Mac, great iOS apps.
00:26:19
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And we don't have those a lot of the time.
00:26:21
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And to be able to have that now more frequently
00:26:24
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with less work for the developers,
00:26:25
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I think is a great idea.
00:26:26
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So even though that's still at least a year out,
00:26:29
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I'm very much looking forward to that.
00:26:31
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And I'm very happy that Apple, even though there's
00:26:33
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nothing we can do about it yet, that they actually
00:26:35
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told us about it so that way we can make better plans.
00:26:38
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Yeah, it's lovely that we now know that it's coming.
00:26:41
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And also, I think what I like about that
00:26:43
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is I think it gives them more flexibility about how
00:26:45
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they roll it out.
00:26:46
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In theory, it doesn't even have to be next year at WWDC.
00:26:49
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It could be next spring.
00:26:51
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It could be whenever, because it's pre-announced.
00:26:53
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It's not this thing that they have
00:26:54
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to build the secrecy around and manage in the same way.
00:26:57
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Or they could roll that out incrementally
00:26:59
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and have a simpler version of it, or a technology
00:27:04
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preview, or whatever.
00:27:05
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They have a lot more options and flexibility
00:27:07
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around what they actually do there
00:27:09
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than if it had just been the secret project that's
00:27:12
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a secret secret.
00:27:13
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And it also means they can start to get feedback about it.
00:27:16
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I imagine they'll start to reach out to developers who
00:27:20
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will start using it ahead of time,
00:27:22
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or at least getting feedback about how
00:27:23
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they might want to use it.
00:27:25
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They're using it themselves.
00:27:26
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It seems like a really nice thing.
00:27:28
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And I think I love, as a independent developer,
00:27:32
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I like the leverage that that provides.
00:27:34
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That suddenly, rather than needing--
00:27:39
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Jumping onto a new platform can often be a tremendous amount
00:27:42
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►
If it isn't a tremendous amount of work,
00:27:44
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then it's just a lovely opportunity
00:27:45
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that we can take advantage of.
00:27:47
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And it just leverages all of the stuff we already have built
00:27:50
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in a totally new platform, and with a new Mac App Store
00:27:53
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that they seem to actually care about now.
00:27:56
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They care about it more than they had for the last five
00:27:59
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Because we're going to have gotten progressively worse
00:28:01
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and worse over time.
00:28:03
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At least they've reset back to caring about it now.
00:28:06
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And so we'll see where they go from here.
00:28:08
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But at the very least, signs of life, which is great.
00:28:13
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Well, thanks a lot, everybody, for listening.
00:28:15
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►
Best of luck to all the developers out there
00:28:17
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►
going through all these betas and beta ones.
00:28:19
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Please don't install beta one on your main phone.
00:28:21
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I mean, we all know many of us will.
00:28:22
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But please don't.
00:28:23
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Just at least wait till beta two.
00:28:25
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At least wait till beta two.
00:28:26
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Yeah, beta two, you can at least kind of excuse it.
00:28:28
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And it almost seems reasonable.
00:28:31
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Anyway, thanks, everyone.
00:28:32
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Best of luck dealing with all this new stuff all summer.
00:28:35
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And we will talk to you next week.
00:28:38
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[BLANK_AUDIO]