Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development.

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:05 ◼   ► And I'm David Smith.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:09 ◼   ► So it is the warm days of summer.

00:00:13 ◼   ► We are, I think, the US just has survived a heatwave,

00:00:20 ◼   ► and I'm in Europe right now, and they're having another one of those.

00:00:23 ◼   ► And in the heat of the day as I sit there contemplating my future,

00:00:29 ◼   ► my thoughts keep coming back to the Apple Watch,

00:00:33 ◼   ► which is very strange in many ways for something that you

00:00:37 ◼   ► to think a lot about on vacation, but that is what I find myself

00:00:40 ◼   ► often thinking about.

00:00:42 ◼   ► And as a platform, it's something that, the more I think about it,

00:00:45 ◼   ► the more I start to see patterns and opportunities in it.

00:00:49 ◼   ► And I think there's a lot of interest in terms of discussing those patterns

00:00:52 ◼   ► and opportunities in the context of the show, because I think,

00:00:56 ◼   ► in general, the more that we can, it is very useful to kind of

00:01:01 ◼   ► try and anticipate opportunities or things that are coming,

00:01:05 ◼   ► that will present unique things that we can act on,

00:01:10 ◼   ► as independent developers or just in general as people who are trying to

00:01:14 ◼   ► make a living in the App Store.

00:01:16 ◼   ► And the Watch is an interesting platform, I think, in that way.

00:01:20 ◼   ► And specifically, I've been thinking a lot about how I think

00:01:23 ◼   ► the hardware that we get this year, you know, I don't, it's,

00:01:27 ◼   ► well, you know, it's not for sure, but I think it would be very unlikely

00:01:30 ◼   ► if we didn't get a new Series 5 Apple Watch this fall.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Like, that just seems like a lock exactly when that comes.

00:01:36 ◼   ► If it's with the iPhone in September or if it's maybe in October,

00:01:39 ◼   ► who knows, but sometime this fall, there's going to be,

00:01:42 ◼   ► almost certainly, a new Apple Watch.

00:01:44 ◼   ► And a pattern that I started to, when I started to think about

00:01:47 ◼   ► the various Apple Watches we've seen to date,

00:01:50 ◼   ► I think is starting to kind of emerge a pattern in the way in which

00:01:54 ◼   ► they're developed, where, and I think that mirrors very closely

00:01:58 ◼   ► the development of the iPhone and the iPad,

00:02:01 ◼   ► and I don't think that's a sort of an accident.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I think this is something in the way that Apple iterates on products

00:02:07 ◼   ► and the way that their kind of iteration mindset works,

00:02:10 ◼   ► where the first generation Apple Watch, the Series 0 Apple Watch,

00:02:14 ◼   ► barely worked.

00:02:17 ◼   ► It was a product that was a functional product,

00:02:22 ◼   ► and I think it did what it needed to do, but it barely did it.

00:02:26 ◼   ► And especially on the application side, it was rough,

00:02:30 ◼   ► like very rough in lots of horrible ways.

00:02:33 ◼   ► And that watch has now been shoved to the side,

00:02:37 ◼   ► is no longer supported in WatchOS 5, let alone 6.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And then it was replaced by the Series 1 Apple Watch,

00:02:48 ◼   ► which I think was a, well, I guess the Series 2 Apple Watch,

00:02:51 ◼   ► as well as the Series 1, but anyway.

00:02:53 ◼   ► The next generation of Apple Watch came along in much the same way

00:02:57 ◼   ► that the iPhone 3G did, where it was the first Apple Watch that kind of,

00:03:02 ◼   ► that it got its legs under it, and it seemed like its purpose

00:03:06 ◼   ► was primarily just to take what, like fix all the little things

00:03:09 ◼   ► that didn't quite work great on the first generation

00:03:12 ◼   ► and just make them work.

00:03:14 ◼   ► And then that was followed up by the Series 3 Apple Watch,

00:03:17 ◼   ► which had the same physical design,

00:03:21 ◼   ► but had tremendous steps forward in terms of processing power

00:03:25 ◼   ► and in some ways battery life.

00:03:28 ◼   ► But more interestingly, what I think is they took the battery life improvements

00:03:32 ◼   ► that they could have kept in the device,

00:03:35 ◼   ► and instead they spent them on enabling cellular,

00:03:38 ◼   ► where suddenly now we have enough capacity

00:03:41 ◼   ► that we can actually do cellular connectivity,

00:03:44 ◼   ► which sort of worked and has its whole range of things.

00:03:47 ◼   ► But from a hardware perspective,

00:03:49 ◼   ► I think there's this clear pattern that they took,

00:03:51 ◼   ► they had the same case design, and a year later,

00:03:53 ◼   ► they were able to squeeze a lot more out of that,

00:03:56 ◼   ► and they sort of spent this excess in adding cellular,

00:03:59 ◼   ► as well as a little bit of performance.

00:04:02 ◼   ► Then last year we get the Series 4,

00:04:04 ◼   ► which is a radical departure physically

00:04:06 ◼   ► from the first three generations of Apple Watch.

00:04:09 ◼   ► And this is where it gets interesting,

00:04:11 ◼   ► because now they took that increase in size,

00:04:14 ◼   ► because the watch is physically bigger,

00:04:17 ◼   ► and it seems like they took the advancements

00:04:19 ◼   ► and probably also the increase in physical battery size,

00:04:23 ◼   ► and they spent it on performance.

00:04:25 ◼   ► I think the Series 4 Apple Watch is very similar to Series 3 in most ways,

00:04:30 ◼   ► except it is just way faster.

00:04:32 ◼   ► The ECG is the main hardware feature that they added to it,

00:04:37 ◼   ► but in my mind, that is a technology they added onto it,

00:04:42 ◼   ► rather than something that necessarily this new...

00:04:45 ◼   ► They didn't spend their excess on that so much,

00:04:49 ◼   ► as they added that onto it in the same way that

00:04:52 ◼   ► we might add the telephoto camera onto an iPhone.

00:04:55 ◼   ► The previous iPhone could have done it,

00:04:59 ◼   ► but it just didn't. It was just not physically there.

00:05:02 ◼   ► It leads me to this year, in this fall,

00:05:05 ◼   ► where the more I think about it,

00:05:07 ◼   ► the more I think of this year,

00:05:09 ◼   ► the Apple Watch is going to have a tremendous amount of excess to spend.

00:05:12 ◼   ► If you imagine the amount of space and size

00:05:15 ◼   ► that these new, kind of larger, chunkier Apple Watches...

00:05:18 ◼   ► Chunky is probably a bit unfair,

00:05:20 ◼   ► because it's thin, but it's physically much bigger.

00:05:23 ◼   ► They have a year of advancement on that.

00:05:26 ◼   ► I suspect that we're going to have a lot of energy to work with.

00:05:30 ◼   ► What's interesting about that is

00:05:33 ◼   ► they could spend that energy that they now have

00:05:35 ◼   ► in a variety of different ways.

00:05:37 ◼   ► If you imagine, say, that they could either now make the watch

00:05:41 ◼   ► twice as fast or have twice as much battery power

00:05:45 ◼   ► at a comparable performance,

00:05:47 ◼   ► there's a lot of interesting things you can do with that.

00:05:50 ◼   ► It's, A, I think interesting to see if this pattern starts to...

00:05:55 ◼   ► It actually happens this fall.

00:05:57 ◼   ► I think it's interesting, just from the viability of this platform

00:06:01 ◼   ► and to see where it goes.

00:06:03 ◼   ► I think I found it very helpful on iOS and with the iPhone

00:06:06 ◼   ► to wrap my head around a sense of,

00:06:09 ◼   ► this is the pattern that we start to see.

00:06:11 ◼   ► When we get a new generation of phone,

00:06:14 ◼   ► the next year we have the S cycle,

00:06:16 ◼   ► which tends to add on more nuanced features

00:06:21 ◼   ► rather than just be about the cosmetics

00:06:24 ◼   ► or the aesthetics of something.

00:06:26 ◼   ► The XS is the X with lots of pluses,

00:06:32 ◼   ► and I think we're going to start to see that in the watch.

00:06:34 ◼   ► If we do, I think that will be good for the platform

00:06:36 ◼   ► in terms of it gives me some confidence

00:06:38 ◼   ► that Apple has a good plan going forward

00:06:40 ◼   ► for exactly what they're doing,

00:06:42 ◼   ► that they're not just shooting blindly with this,

00:06:44 ◼   ► that they'll make a new case design,

00:06:46 ◼   ► and then the next year we'll get just that, but better.

00:06:49 ◼   ► That's the pattern I'm seeing.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Before I get into some of the cool ways

00:06:54 ◼   ► that I think that Apple could spend this,

00:06:56 ◼   ► does this seem at all reasonable to you?

00:06:58 ◼   ► Is this me just in the heat of a European heat wave

00:07:02 ◼   ► just starting to make up crazy things,

00:07:04 ◼   ► or does this actually seem like I'm onto something with this?

00:07:07 ◼   ► Europe is not known for its air conditioning, but--

00:07:10 ◼   ► No, it is not. There is no air conditioning.

00:07:13 ◼   ► I am very warm right now.

00:07:15 ◼   ► Yes, but it definitely does make sense.

00:07:18 ◼   ► To expand just very briefly on something you said

00:07:20 ◼   ► a while ago now, one thing that makes the watch

00:07:23 ◼   ► an interesting opportunity for developers,

00:07:25 ◼   ► for indies in particular,

00:07:27 ◼   ► I've always liked when platforms are very young

00:07:30 ◼   ► and there's not a lot you can do on them,

00:07:33 ◼   ► but there's something you can do on them.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Original iPhone is the best example of this.

00:07:38 ◼   ► When the App Store first came out 11 years ago,

00:07:41 ◼   ► it seems forever now--

00:07:42 ◼   ► That's a long time ago.

00:07:44 ◼   ► Apps couldn't do that much, relatively speaking,

00:07:47 ◼   ► and that I always find is the most fun

00:07:50 ◼   ► and provides the most opportunity for individuals,

00:07:53 ◼   ► because at that point, you're not really limited by people,

00:07:57 ◼   ► because more people still can't make that great of an app

00:08:03 ◼   ► or a game on a graphing calculator.

00:08:05 ◼   ► There's limited abilities that the platform can even do,

00:08:09 ◼   ► and so individuals can compete better with bigger companies

00:08:12 ◼   ► and the platform itself.

00:08:14 ◼   ► We can compete better because the capabilities are so new

00:08:17 ◼   ► and young.

00:08:18 ◼   ► The watch is still very much in that realm.

00:08:20 ◼   ► It's still very young.

00:08:22 ◼   ► It's still very limited.

00:08:24 ◼   ► I think it is kind of a fun exercise to see,

00:08:27 ◼   ► in the same way that sometimes on tech podcasts,

00:08:31 ◼   ► we will joke about how easy it is for us

00:08:33 ◼   ► to spend Tim Cook's money,

00:08:35 ◼   ► I feel like this is like,

00:08:36 ◼   ► "Let's spend Dan Riccio's battery budget

00:08:38 ◼   ► "and see how can we spend the battery budget on the watch

00:08:43 ◼   ► to make it better?"

00:08:44 ◼   ► But first, we are sponsored this week,

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00:10:45 ◼   ► of Under the Radar and all of Relay FM.

00:10:48 ◼   ► All right, let's spend Dan Riccio's battery budget.

00:10:51 ◼   ► How are we going to make the watch better

00:10:53 ◼   ► by burning battery power?

00:10:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, so the first thing that I think comes to mind for me

00:10:58 ◼   ► is thinking of the watch as it's,

00:11:01 ◼   ► like the thing that it has probably become most useful for

00:11:05 ◼   ► is its health and fitness tracking.

00:11:07 ◼   ► And I started thinking about what they could do

00:11:09 ◼   ► on health and fitness tracking to make it more compelling

00:11:12 ◼   ► and honestly more useful and complete.

00:11:15 ◼   ► And the thing that comes to mind is,

00:11:17 ◼   ► and it's actually based on my experience using,

00:11:19 ◼   ► there's a fitness tracker called the Whoop,

00:11:21 ◼   ► which I've tried all manner of fitness trackers,

00:11:24 ◼   ► just as in terms of trying to make sure

00:11:26 ◼   ► that I'm kind of aware of the state of the art,

00:11:28 ◼   ► and this is one that I tried for a while.

00:11:30 ◼   ► And what's interesting about it is it is a device

00:11:32 ◼   ► that it does nothing but continuous heart rate monitoring.

00:11:36 ◼   ► Like that is, it's pure function.

00:11:38 ◼   ► It has no screen, it has no anything on it.

00:11:41 ◼   ► It's just like a strap you wear that has

00:11:43 ◼   ► a heart rate monitor and just like a battery indicator,

00:11:46 ◼   ► and then you have an app on your phone.

00:11:48 ◼   ► And what was fascinating about it,

00:11:50 ◼   ► from when I wore it for several months,

00:11:53 ◼   ► is there's a powerful thing that you get

00:11:57 ◼   ► when you have truly continuous heart rate monitoring.

00:11:59 ◼   ► And by that I mean essentially the heart rate monitoring

00:12:01 ◼   ► that you get during a workout currently on the Apple Watch.

00:12:05 ◼   ► Like I don't know exactly the interval that the Whoop

00:12:08 ◼   ► is tracking versus what the Apple Watch tracks in a workout,

00:12:10 ◼   ► but something where it is you are getting

00:12:12 ◼   ► a heart rate sample all of the time essentially.

00:12:17 ◼   ► And what was fascinating is what that means

00:12:19 ◼   ► and what that allows is that you don't need

00:12:22 ◼   ► to then think about and be modal with your Apple Watch,

00:12:26 ◼   ► or potentially in this case,

00:12:28 ◼   ► where it was always tracking your heart rate.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Whereas right now, you say you want to work out,

00:12:32 ◼   ► you have to say I'm working out, and when you do that,

00:12:35 ◼   ► it kicks up the heart rate sensor,

00:12:37 ◼   ► it starts spooling all these things up,

00:12:40 ◼   ► all these high energy resources.

00:12:42 ◼   ► But it can only do it during a workout

00:12:44 ◼   ► because it doesn't have the battery life.

00:12:46 ◼   ► But that also means that you'll miss workouts,

00:12:48 ◼   ► or you'll miss data for a workout.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Like if you have the, in the current WatchOS 5,

00:12:53 ◼   ► they added the feature where you can,

00:12:56 ◼   ► if you go for a run and you forget to start a workout,

00:12:59 ◼   ► like after you've been running for whatever it is,

00:13:01 ◼   ► half a mile, it'll be like hey,

00:13:02 ◼   ► it looks like you're going for an outdoor run,

00:13:04 ◼   ► should we start it?

00:13:05 ◼   ► And you say yes.

00:13:06 ◼   ► And it'll have the right distance

00:13:08 ◼   ► because the distance is always being tracked

00:13:09 ◼   ► because that's coming from the accelerometers,

00:13:11 ◼   ► which are part of the step counting system.

00:13:14 ◼   ► But the heart rate data isn't there.

00:13:17 ◼   ► And if you look at a graph for that in Workouts++,

00:13:21 ◼   ► the first part of your run won't be tracked.

00:13:24 ◼   ► And that's kind of a bummer and kind of sad.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And so then you start to think, well,

00:13:28 ◼   ► you could spend this extra resources

00:13:30 ◼   ► on continuous heart rate monitoring,

00:13:32 ◼   ► or at least dramatically increase what it is now,

00:13:35 ◼   ► where maybe it's every three to five minutes or so,

00:13:38 ◼   ► you'll get a heart rate sample out of the watch.

00:13:41 ◼   ► And I think that'd be really interesting and compelling.

00:13:44 ◼   ► And I think it would also create,

00:13:47 ◼   ► it's another interesting set of opportunities

00:13:49 ◼   ► for development, just because something I have found

00:13:52 ◼   ► time and time again is the more data

00:13:54 ◼   ► that Apple collects and adds to health,

00:13:57 ◼   ► just like the more things that we can do.

00:13:59 ◼   ► It's amazing that we can do automatic sleep tracking

00:14:01 ◼   ► right now based on the limited things

00:14:03 ◼   ► that Apple Watch collects.

00:14:05 ◼   ► And if they had continuous heart rate monitoring,

00:14:07 ◼   ► that data would get even better,

00:14:09 ◼   ► not even to get into sleep tracking,

00:14:11 ◼   ► which is like topic three for me to spend

00:14:14 ◼   ► the energy resources with.

00:14:16 ◼   ► But anyway, I think continuous heart rate monitoring

00:14:18 ◼   ► would be very interesting and a compelling way

00:14:20 ◼   ► to kind of spend this budget.

00:14:22 ◼   ► - One thing that a lot of people would suggest immediately

00:14:24 ◼   ► would be multi-day battery life.

00:14:27 ◼   ► Multi-day battery life though,

00:14:29 ◼   ► I'm gonna say that's a bad idea because

00:14:31 ◼   ► there's two main issues with it.

00:14:33 ◼   ► Number one is that it's very expensive.

00:14:36 ◼   ► Like a battery improvement year over year

00:14:39 ◼   ► in two different models might be like 20%,

00:14:41 ◼   ► maybe you get 20% more battery life.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Or if you have a really good advancement, maybe 50%.

00:14:47 ◼   ► If you get 50% more battery life

00:14:49 ◼   ► from a watch that lasts one day,

00:14:51 ◼   ► it'll last a day and a half.

00:14:53 ◼   ► That isn't that useful because nobody wants a watch

00:14:56 ◼   ► that you have to charge every three days.

00:14:59 ◼   ► If you're charging it that regularly,

00:15:01 ◼   ► just charge it every night, it's fine.

00:15:03 ◼   ► Or don't have to charge it for like a month, right?

00:15:06 ◼   ► And there's not a lot of value to have things in between.

00:15:09 ◼   ► If it can't last a month,

00:15:11 ◼   ► which would require the battery to be about

00:15:13 ◼   ► 25, 30 times bigger than it is now,

00:15:15 ◼   ► if it can't last that long,

00:15:17 ◼   ► then just charge it every day and then you're fine.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Nobody wants to have to charge it every three days

00:15:22 ◼   ► because then that'll increase the rate

00:15:24 ◼   ► that you will forget to charge it on that third day

00:15:26 ◼   ► because you're in the habit of not charging it every day.

00:15:28 ◼   ► So let's rule that right out.

00:15:30 ◼   ► - And I will say too,

00:15:32 ◼   ► I've used lots of fitness trackers like I was saying

00:15:36 ◼   ► that have a wide variety of charging intervals.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And some of them, like some of the Fitbits I've used,

00:15:42 ◼   ► have like that three or four day charging intervals.

00:15:45 ◼   ► And I will say it's far more likely

00:15:48 ◼   ► that those devices ended up dead at some point

00:15:50 ◼   ► where it's just not part of my pattern, like my routine.

00:15:53 ◼   ► And I mean, I wear an Apple Watch all the time,

00:15:56 ◼   ► like I wear it when I sleep and when I'm awake

00:15:58 ◼   ► and it's just, I'm in the routine that if I'm,

00:16:00 ◼   ► it's like whenever I'm getting ready for,

00:16:02 ◼   ► like I'm taking a shower in the morning

00:16:03 ◼   ► or I'm getting ready for bed,

00:16:04 ◼   ► my Apple Watch is on a charger and it's fine.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Like that's all I need.

00:16:07 ◼   ► And that part was, I think it's very important

00:16:10 ◼   ► for like charging to be part of the routine of your life.

00:16:14 ◼   ► And so like, yeah, having three or four days of battery life,

00:16:16 ◼   ► like it would be nice, but it'd be nice mostly

00:16:19 ◼   ► in like very narrow specific situations

00:16:22 ◼   ► where like I'm traveling or I'm going hiking

00:16:25 ◼   ► or some situation where it's not like

00:16:28 ◼   ► just normal day to day life.

00:16:30 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't think that is actually a great way

00:16:32 ◼   ► to spend this excess battery budget

00:16:35 ◼   ► 'cause it doesn't really improve the user experience

00:16:38 ◼   ► very much in a way that actually makes the device better

00:16:41 ◼   ► rather than just like maybe it looks good on a slide maybe.

00:16:45 ◼   ► - Right, and if you have the budget to say last three days,

00:16:48 ◼   ► imagine what you could do in one day

00:16:50 ◼   ► with the rest of the capabilities that we're talking about.

00:16:52 ◼   ► So anyway, so one thing that I would put up there

00:16:55 ◼   ► pretty high would be some kind of always on face mode

00:16:59 ◼   ► because one of my biggest annoyances with the Apple Watch

00:17:01 ◼   ► is when I look at it and it's just blank

00:17:04 ◼   ► and I'm trying to see something on it,

00:17:05 ◼   ► I'm trying to either check the time

00:17:06 ◼   ► or check a complication or see, you know,

00:17:09 ◼   ► why did it just tap me?

00:17:10 ◼   ► And you know, maybe I'm like in the middle,

00:17:12 ◼   ► like this morning I was doing a workout,

00:17:14 ◼   ► I was like holding myself up in a high plank

00:17:15 ◼   ► and my watch tapped me.

00:17:17 ◼   ► And when you're holding a high plank,

00:17:18 ◼   ► it's kind of hard to do the twisting motion

00:17:19 ◼   ► to activate the watch to say hey, what's on it?

00:17:22 ◼   ► And so like I just had to wait, you know,

00:17:24 ◼   ► which wasn't the end of the world,

00:17:25 ◼   ► but still like it would have been a better device

00:17:27 ◼   ► if it could show me that in some kind of always on mode.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Now I don't expect full color,

00:17:31 ◼   ► I don't expect full brightness,

00:17:32 ◼   ► that actually would be bad.

00:17:33 ◼   ► I wouldn't want people's wrists glowing all day,

00:17:35 ◼   ► especially like in dark rooms at night,

00:17:37 ◼   ► that would be really distracting.

00:17:38 ◼   ► But Android smartwatches have done this

00:17:40 ◼   ► since almost the beginning.

00:17:41 ◼   ► Like we know it can be done,

00:17:43 ◼   ► we know current battery and screen technology

00:17:46 ◼   ► can handle this.

00:17:48 ◼   ► Some kind of always on display,

00:17:49 ◼   ► I know it would be reduced brightness,

00:17:51 ◼   ► I know it would be reduced update speed,

00:17:53 ◼   ► maybe it wouldn't have the animated seconds hand,

00:17:55 ◼   ► but it could at least show like hour, minute,

00:17:58 ◼   ► and very basic info past that.

00:18:00 ◼   ► So that I think is a good way to spend the budget.

00:18:05 ◼   ► But one thing that, I'm gonna name one more thing

00:18:08 ◼   ► and then I'm gonna get into a little dilemma here

00:18:09 ◼   ► that I think you'll probably have good opinions on.

00:18:11 ◼   ► I also would want for cellular models,

00:18:15 ◼   ► I want a more persistent cellular connection.

00:18:18 ◼   ► Right now the cellular connection is not very useful

00:18:21 ◼   ► a lot of the time because it isn't reliable.

00:18:24 ◼   ► Because much of the time the watch powers it down

00:18:27 ◼   ► to save power because it's very expensive

00:18:29 ◼   ► to keep it on all the time.

00:18:30 ◼   ► So reality wise, I think cellular would be a lot more useful

00:18:34 ◼   ► if that connection could be kept on

00:18:36 ◼   ► as long as it was off wifi all the time.

00:18:39 ◼   ► Like just keep it on the way a phone is kept on

00:18:41 ◼   ► or the way an iPad cellular connection is kept on.

00:18:43 ◼   ► And the problem is, that is a big battery drain.

00:18:47 ◼   ► So is all the constant heart rate monitoring.

00:18:51 ◼   ► That would also be probably a similar level of battery drain.

00:18:54 ◼   ► So would an always on screen mode

00:18:56 ◼   ► for time and basic data display.

00:18:59 ◼   ► So maybe, people suggest having separate models.

00:19:05 ◼   ► Actually maybe having the aluminum ones

00:19:07 ◼   ► be like the sport ones and have those

00:19:08 ◼   ► have continuous heart rate monitoring

00:19:10 ◼   ► versus have the steel ones,

00:19:12 ◼   ► because the steel ones already all have cellular,

00:19:14 ◼   ► maybe have those be the ones optimized for cellular

00:19:17 ◼   ► or always on screens or something.

00:19:19 ◼   ► I don't think this has to be separate models.

00:19:21 ◼   ► I think this could just be different modes that you pick.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Because everyone who buys an Apple Watch

00:19:26 ◼   ► has different needs and different priorities.

00:19:28 ◼   ► And while health is very popular,

00:19:29 ◼   ► there's a whole bunch of people who wouldn't use

00:19:31 ◼   ► continuous heart rate monitoring.

00:19:33 ◼   ► And so maybe you get to pick, like pick one.

00:19:36 ◼   ► You can either have continuous heart rate monitoring,

00:19:38 ◼   ► always persistent cellular,

00:19:41 ◼   ► or the always on screen face.

00:19:44 ◼   ► And that could just be a setting.

00:19:45 ◼   ► And you just pick, you know,

00:19:46 ◼   ► you can choose as your needs change

00:19:48 ◼   ► or as your preferences change,

00:19:49 ◼   ► or as the software changes,

00:19:51 ◼   ► you can just set that in settings.

00:19:53 ◼   ► That I think is worth considering,

00:19:55 ◼   ► because any one of those things,

00:19:56 ◼   ► if they added any one of those things,

00:19:57 ◼   ► that might burn 30% more battery,

00:20:00 ◼   ► but for almost everyone who doesn't use those features,

00:20:03 ◼   ► which like for cellular, almost no one uses cellular.

00:20:06 ◼   ► So for people who don't use those features,

00:20:08 ◼   ► that's just a huge chunk of the battery

00:20:10 ◼   ► that they don't really need.

00:20:12 ◼   ► But I feel like there's ways you can spend it

00:20:14 ◼   ► that would be really useful to people.

00:20:16 ◼   ► And to have it just be an option,

00:20:18 ◼   ► just because everyone doesn't use

00:20:19 ◼   ► continuous heart rate monitoring, for instance,

00:20:21 ◼   ► that can just be a setting.

00:20:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think that's a,

00:20:25 ◼   ► the way that, I mean, I don't know if necessarily

00:20:27 ◼   ► I would structure it that it would be exclusive

00:20:29 ◼   ► that you had to pick one.

00:20:30 ◼   ► Like, you turn them all on and just know

00:20:32 ◼   ► that your battery life isn't gonna be as good.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Like, that's a, you're empowering your user

00:20:37 ◼   ► to make that choice.

00:20:38 ◼   ► For someone who wants, like, persistent cellular,

00:20:41 ◼   ► continuous heart rate monitoring, and always on display.

00:20:43 ◼   ► And I understand that maybe my battery life

00:20:45 ◼   ► goes back to what it was when it was a Series 2 Apple Watch.

00:20:48 ◼   ► And like, usually it got through the day,

00:20:50 ◼   ► but every now and then it would be a little funny.

00:20:52 ◼   ► Like, okay, like, we made that work.

00:20:54 ◼   ► And I'd be making a conscious choice to do that.

00:20:57 ◼   ► And also, it's the, I'm empowered to just turn them off.

00:21:00 ◼   ► And like, you kind of imagine in the same way

00:21:02 ◼   ► that with an iPhone, where, you know,

00:21:04 ◼   ► you get to the point in the day where,

00:21:07 ◼   ► you know, your battery gets down to 20%,

00:21:09 ◼   ► and then your phone pops up and says,

00:21:11 ◼   ► "Hey, do you want to put on low power mode?"

00:21:13 ◼   ► Which is a slightly comedic thing on the watch right now

00:21:16 ◼   ► where it says, like, "Do you want to turn on power reserve?"

00:21:18 ◼   ► And I've never turned on power reserve.

00:21:20 ◼   ► And I've been wearing an Apple Watch since it came out,

00:21:22 ◼   ► like, every day of my life.

00:21:24 ◼   ► Like, power reserve mode is so silly

00:21:26 ◼   ► where it turns this big fancy watch into something

00:21:29 ◼   ► that you have to push a button to see the time.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Like, it's a bad analog watch at that point.

00:21:34 ◼   ► So anyway, I think that is definitely something where,

00:21:38 ◼   ► assuming you have the cellular, I think it would be great

00:21:41 ◼   ► if they just made cellular better.

00:21:43 ◼   ► And honestly, I think a big way you could do that

00:21:45 ◼   ► would be to make it like the cellular on iPads

00:21:49 ◼   ► rather than trying to make it like a phone.

00:21:52 ◼   ► It's just something that I, the more I think about the way

00:21:55 ◼   ► that cellular would be most useful for most people

00:21:58 ◼   ► is if I could only, if it had,

00:22:03 ◼   ► at least as an option even, but it's like,

00:22:06 ◼   ► if I could just have data so that I can do text messaging

00:22:09 ◼   ► and FaceTime audio on my watch,

00:22:13 ◼   ► but I don't need it to, like, ring my phone number

00:22:15 ◼   ► and all those kind of, like, crazy complicated things

00:22:17 ◼   ► that then make it really awkward when I want to cancel it

00:22:20 ◼   ► or change it or turn it on and off

00:22:22 ◼   ► because AT&T makes a big deal of it

00:22:24 ◼   ► versus the way on an iPad where you can just, like,

00:22:27 ◼   ► you want to add data to an iPad,

00:22:30 ◼   ► you just, like, go and turn it on for a month

00:22:32 ◼   ► and then you can cancel it and turn it off.

00:22:34 ◼   ► And it's all done inside of Apple's thing.

00:22:35 ◼   ► There's no, like, contacting the cell provider.

00:22:38 ◼   ► And I think that would change, too.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Like, there's ads.

00:22:43 ◼   ► And if that's cellular, you get a data-only option

00:22:45 ◼   ► that was cheap, relatively, in the same way,

00:22:48 ◼   ► if you had the same pricing you get on iPad data plans,

00:22:50 ◼   ► which are relatively inexpensive,

00:22:52 ◼   ► and then add to that the fact that you, you know,

00:22:56 ◼   ► could make it more persistent.

00:22:58 ◼   ► And in some ways, I think of it in the way that on an iPhone,

00:23:00 ◼   ► you can say, what they call Wi-Fi Assist, I think it is,

00:23:04 ◼   ► where it views cellular as, like, the backstop for communication,

00:23:11 ◼   ► that if it's having any issue communicating on Wi-Fi

00:23:15 ◼   ► or in general, it falls back to cellular.

00:23:18 ◼   ► That's an option you can turn on.

00:23:20 ◼   ► Like, that would be great on the watch, too,

00:23:22 ◼   ► because just because you're in Wi-Fi range potentially,

00:23:25 ◼   ► like, I feel like sometimes it tries really, really hard

00:23:28 ◼   ► to stay on my Wi-Fi network at home,

00:23:30 ◼   ► and, you know, it's like I'm out in my backyard,

00:23:32 ◼   ► and it's really trying to stay on that Wi-Fi,

00:23:35 ◼   ► but it would be great if it just switched to cellular

00:23:38 ◼   ► in that situation, because that's fine.

00:23:40 ◼   ► You know, and it would be fine if it --

00:23:42 ◼   ► you know, if I have the battery power to spend for it,

00:23:45 ◼   ► then great, do it.

00:23:47 ◼   ► So, anyway, that's another thing on the data side

00:23:49 ◼   ► and on the cellular side that I think there's so much

00:23:51 ◼   ► that could be done there, and I think that is one of those things

00:23:53 ◼   ► where, you know, this year they talked so much about independence

00:23:56 ◼   ► like trying to make the watch independent,

00:23:58 ◼   ► like making the cellular story more compelling

00:24:01 ◼   ► than just this, like, really awkward, complicated thing

00:24:05 ◼   ► with -- that I found -- like, in my --

00:24:07 ◼   ► like, I didn't -- my last Apple Watch I bought,

00:24:09 ◼   ► I wasn't cellular, because I had such a bad experience

00:24:11 ◼   ► with trying to, like, deal with AT&T with my first time I did it

00:24:16 ◼   ► that it's like I didn't go down that road.

00:24:18 ◼   ► So I'd love to see them come in,

00:24:19 ◼   ► just like they did with the iPad, and just be like,

00:24:21 ◼   ► "Hey, we have a better story for this now."

00:24:23 ◼   ► You know, and it's limited in some ways.

00:24:25 ◼   ► Like, you can't just make phone calls,

00:24:27 ◼   ► but if you want to do that, you can go ahead and do that.

00:24:29 ◼   ► You know, it's like sign up for AT&T for that,

00:24:31 ◼   ► but in the app, you know, we partnered with T-Mobile

00:24:33 ◼   ► and they have this great, you know,

00:24:35 ◼   ► you buy 500 megabytes of data for whatever, you know,

00:24:38 ◼   ► for not very much money every month,

00:24:40 ◼   ► and you can just use it that way and it'll be fine.

00:24:42 ◼   ► Yeah, that would be great.

00:24:44 ◼   ► One thing also, like, I --

00:24:45 ◼   ► probably my biggest request for --

00:24:47 ◼   ► if we had, you know, Dan Ritchie was budget to spend here.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:50 ◼   ► I would love -- in so many places,

00:24:53 ◼   ► watchOS software-wise and the APIs that we are allowed to use

00:24:56 ◼   ► as developers are extremely limited

00:24:59 ◼   ► because it so aggressively has to conserve power.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Things like the CPU limit of, like, you know,

00:25:04 ◼   ► two seconds of CPU time that an app can use

00:25:06 ◼   ► before it gets killed and stuff like that.

00:25:08 ◼   ► There's so much of that that is extremely limited

00:25:10 ◼   ► in what apps can do.

00:25:12 ◼   ► One of the biggest areas for that -- that I run into

00:25:14 ◼   ► is I can't make a good complication

00:25:16 ◼   ► because complications can only request, you know,

00:25:18 ◼   ► a certain number of updates, and eventually you, like,

00:25:20 ◼   ► run out of update budget and stuff.

00:25:22 ◼   ► Like, it's just -- there's so much about watchOS software

00:25:25 ◼   ► and API-wise that could be so much better for developers

00:25:29 ◼   ► and we could make such better apps

00:25:31 ◼   ► if there was a little bit more relaxation

00:25:34 ◼   ► of some of those restrictions,

00:25:35 ◼   ► some of the resource restrictions,

00:25:37 ◼   ► some of the, like, you know, more frequent background updates,

00:25:39 ◼   ► more frequent complication updates,

00:25:41 ◼   ► or just an actual, like, live complication API,

00:25:43 ◼   ► which would be even better.

00:25:45 ◼   ► And I think maybe that also might be an argument

00:25:47 ◼   ► why we don't have third-party faces.

00:25:49 ◼   ► But, hey, let's get third-party faces, too.

00:25:51 ◼   ► Like, if we have more battery to spend,

00:25:54 ◼   ► spending it on stuff like that

00:25:56 ◼   ► could be a huge boost to the app ecosystem.

00:25:59 ◼   ► -Yeah, and I think complications is a great example

00:26:01 ◼   ► of something where it's -- it is very awkward right now.

00:26:04 ◼   ► I want to say, like, as someone who has made tremendous --

00:26:07 ◼   ► spent a huge amount of time working on complications,

00:26:09 ◼   ► there is just -- it's just very limiting when, at best,

00:26:13 ◼   ► the most often that I've been able to reliably

00:26:16 ◼   ► have a complication update

00:26:17 ◼   ► is probably about every 15 to 20 minutes,

00:26:20 ◼   ► which is fine, like, if you're trying to have something

00:26:23 ◼   ► continuously update throughout the day, I suppose,

00:26:25 ◼   ► but is -- it's not great.

00:26:27 ◼   ► Like, it causes lots of confusions and lots of things,

00:26:30 ◼   ► and, of course, Apple's complications don't do this.

00:26:33 ◼   ► So it isn't something that isn't, like --

00:26:35 ◼   ► that it's not technically possible.

00:26:37 ◼   ► It's just a question of policy and, like, privilege,

00:26:40 ◼   ► that, you know, that -- you know, if you look at the activity --

00:26:44 ◼   ► you know, the activity numbers that you're getting

00:26:47 ◼   ► for Apple's activity faces,

00:26:49 ◼   ► they update essentially in real time, you know,

00:26:51 ◼   ► and, you know, if you tap on them,

00:26:53 ◼   ► they'll be exactly the same as what's shown in the activity app,

00:26:56 ◼   ► but there's no way that I can do that currently.

00:26:58 ◼   ► There's no way that I can have this sense of kind of continuous update

00:27:01 ◼   ► or more continuous update,

00:27:03 ◼   ► even if it isn't strictly continuous.

00:27:05 ◼   ► You know, if it's being up -- there's a big difference,

00:27:07 ◼   ► I think, being, you know, up to date once per minute

00:27:10 ◼   ► versus being updated once every 20 minutes,

00:27:12 ◼   ► and that would be a great way to spend that budget in general

00:27:15 ◼   ► about making the watch face itself more compelling,

00:27:18 ◼   ► you know, and I think with the --

00:27:20 ◼   ► tying in a little bit with the always-on display,

00:27:22 ◼   ► like, I think something that's kind of interesting there is

00:27:24 ◼   ► I would imagine that the actual sort of always-on part

00:27:27 ◼   ► would probably just be the time, potentially,

00:27:30 ◼   ► and then if you, like, if -- like you were saying

00:27:32 ◼   ► in terms of if there's a notification or, like, the little,

00:27:34 ◼   ► you know, like, the -- -The dot.

00:27:36 ◼   ► -The red dot, like, the red eye staring at you,

00:27:39 ◼   ► I could imagine having some indication

00:27:41 ◼   ► as to what that red dot is indicating be there,

00:27:45 ◼   ► even, you know, for privacy reasons,

00:27:47 ◼   ► it's not going to, like, show you the time --

00:27:49 ◼   ► you know, the text message you just received,

00:27:51 ◼   ► but maybe you have either a red dot there

00:27:53 ◼   ► or the message icon or something.

00:27:56 ◼   ► But that probably would be just that

00:27:58 ◼   ► in terms of it would only show a very basic thing

00:28:01 ◼   ► because the whole point is that you only turn on

00:28:03 ◼   ► as few of these OLED pixels as possible, so --

00:28:06 ◼   ► but then, like, make the experience --

00:28:08 ◼   ► when you raise your wrist, like, make that experience

00:28:10 ◼   ► really good because the basic experience now

00:28:13 ◼   ► isn't just the watch face.

00:28:15 ◼   ► You know, the basic experience is the always-on,

00:28:18 ◼   ► you know, really simple thing.

00:28:20 ◼   ► So, like, I think you could do a lot there.

00:28:23 ◼   ► And, you know, at this point, it's hard to expect,

00:28:25 ◼   ► necessarily, that we would get, like,

00:28:27 ◼   ► live-updating complications, but even if just

00:28:29 ◼   ► on the Series 5 watch, they boosted all the quotas a bunch,

00:28:32 ◼   ► sort of in a more transparent way to the user

00:28:36 ◼   ► and to the developer, I think that would go a long way as well.

00:28:39 ◼   ► -Yeah, like, once a minute. That would be amazing.

00:28:41 ◼   ► You could -- as you said, like, you could do so much more

00:28:43 ◼   ► with once a minute, and certain types of applications

00:28:46 ◼   ► just can't have useful complications until we do.

00:28:49 ◼   ► Like, I can't make a useful media-control complication,

00:28:51 ◼   ► or, like, I can't display, like, how far along you are

00:28:54 ◼   ► and playback very usefully.

00:28:56 ◼   ► Things like, you know, flight trackers,

00:28:58 ◼   ► like, if there's, like, a delay, they can't really show that

00:29:00 ◼   ► on the complication because by the time you see it,

00:29:02 ◼   ► you know, that information is pretty out of date.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Like, there's just -- that's what I want to see, like,

00:29:07 ◼   ► expansion of what kind of apps can even be made

00:29:10 ◼   ► or how good apps can be on the watch by raising

00:29:13 ◼   ► these very aggressive budgets that exist everywhere.

00:29:16 ◼   ► -Yeah, and I think -- I think I'm really hopeful

00:29:18 ◼   ► that we'll get this. Like, Apple seems to really care

00:29:20 ◼   ► about the Apple Watch, so, I mean, these are all the ways

00:29:22 ◼   ► that I came up with and you came up with to spend,

00:29:24 ◼   ► you know, spend this battery budget, and I'm just super excited

00:29:26 ◼   ► to see what we're going to get in a couple months,

00:29:28 ◼   ► you know, all the kind of the cool apps

00:29:30 ◼   ► that we're going to be able to make as a result.

00:29:32 ◼   ► -Yep. So, thank you for listening, everybody.

00:29:34 ◼   ► Sorry, Dan Riccio, and we will see you in two weeks.

00:29:36 ◼   ► -Bye.

00:29:38 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]