ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► oh my goodness, his sausages are wonderful.

00:00:05 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:00:06 ◼   ► If I gave you a playlist of MP3s

00:00:09 ◼   ► and it lasted, say, half an hour to 45 minutes,

00:00:13 ◼   ► would you play that instead of that god-awful crap

00:00:16 ◼   ► that you make everyone listen to every week?

00:00:18 ◼   ► - Probably not, but I would at least be willing

00:00:20 ◼   ► to consider it.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Your honesty is both annoying and appreciated

00:00:23 ◼   ► all at the same time.

00:00:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, chances are not great, I'll tell you that.

00:00:28 ◼   ► But I would consider it.

00:00:31 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:00:32 ◼   ► - Why is everyone in the chat room thanking Casey?

00:00:34 ◼   ► You don't know what the music is yet.

00:00:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a good point.

00:00:38 ◼   ► I mean, what if it's just like a bunch of Dave Matthews band?

00:00:40 ◼   ► Like, is that really an improvement?

00:00:41 ◼   ► I would argue not.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - It honestly would not be a bunch of Dave Matthews.

00:00:45 ◼   ► The only reason I would play a bunch of Dave Matthews

00:00:48 ◼   ► is if A, I had absolute control of the live stream,

00:00:52 ◼   ► which would never happen,

00:00:53 ◼   ► and B, I did it just to troll Marco,

00:00:56 ◼   ► which I don't think I care enough.

00:00:58 ◼   ► So I would like to offer my services as unofficial official DJ or official unofficial DJ, if

00:01:05 ◼   ► you will, if you ever find the need arising.

00:01:08 ◼   ► I'm actually curious, Jon, what would be on your playlist?

00:01:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:01:13 ◼   ► I'd probably throw in some video game soundtracks, some mashups that I like, weird things I would

00:01:20 ◼   ► probably do because I'm not going to play songs that everyone's heard before because

00:01:23 ◼   ► that's boring.

00:01:24 ◼   ► Well, that's why I play fish because no one listens to it except me.

00:01:27 ◼   ► I will say that I did find out, I don't remember if it was you John that told me,

00:01:34 ◼   ► but somebody pointed out to me that the Journey soundtrack was available on iTunes and it

00:01:38 ◼   ► was like five or ten bucks and I pretty much insta-bought that.

00:01:42 ◼   ► That was me of course.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Okay, I thought it might have been you but I wasn't sure.

00:01:45 ◼   ► And it is excellent.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Do you remember the Transport Tycoon soundtrack was like really snazzy and snappy jazz?

00:01:52 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, it was actually pretty good.

00:01:54 ◼   ► It was pretty good.

00:01:55 ◼   ► eventually made MP3s of—because it was all MIDI, I believe, just in a different file

00:02:00 ◼   ► extension—but really it was just MIDI. And somebody took the MIDIs and sampled them or

00:02:06 ◼   ► recorded them—I don't know what the correct term is—but did something with them to create

00:02:10 ◼   ► really good sounding MP3s. And at one point or another I had it, and I've long since

00:02:16 ◼   ► lost it.

00:02:17 ◼   ► I'm sure that the community of Transport Tycoon revivalists, which is quite large actually,

00:02:25 ◼   ► and has, I mean, because you know, if anyone out there is a fan of Transport Tycoon and

00:02:30 ◼   ► you don't know about OpenTTD, let me tell you about OpenTTD.

00:02:35 ◼   ► Fans have basically rewritten the entire engine of the game and it runs on everything.

00:02:38 ◼   ► It runs on Macs, Linux, Windows.

00:02:41 ◼   ► A couple people even ported it to iPad here and there, although the iPad ports are terrible.

00:02:45 ◼   ► It mainly runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux,

00:02:46 ◼   ► and it is so good, and they've added features to the game,

00:02:50 ◼   ► and they've improved things,

00:02:51 ◼   ► like they've improved the pathfinding of the trains

00:02:53 ◼   ► and everything, and they've added different features

00:02:55 ◼   ► that have this whole new signal type

00:02:56 ◼   ► that makes signals more useful.

00:02:58 ◼   ► It's fantastic.

00:02:59 ◼   ► Oh man, if you ever played "Transport Tycoon,"

00:03:04 ◼   ► or even "SimCity 2000," and you're into trains at all,

00:03:08 ◼   ► you're gonna love OpenTTD, and it's free.

00:03:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's really fantastic.

00:03:11 ◼   ► In fact, I think we've mentioned this on the show

00:03:13 ◼   ► some point or another, but Transport Tycoon and Visual Basic 1 were pretty much how you

00:03:17 ◼   ► and I became friends.

00:03:18 ◼   ► That's right, yeah.

00:03:19 ◼   ► The combination of those two. That and an utter fear of the outdoors.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Yeah, that probably contributed more. I mean, we would have found something else to do inside

00:03:28 ◼   ► on your computer if we didn't have those two things.

00:03:30 ◼   ► This is true.

00:03:31 ◼   ► The only time I've ever seen OS/2 warp.

00:03:34 ◼   ► Those were the days. Hi, Guy English. I feel like OS/2 needs, like, a Guy English bell,

00:03:39 ◼   ► just like File Systems and HFS+ is John's bell.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Yeah, it needs to be some kind of like dull thunk.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Like yeah, OS2 warp!

00:03:49 ◼   ► Woo!

00:03:50 ◼   ► Oh goodness.

00:03:51 ◼   ► All right, what's going on?

00:03:54 ◼   ► Any follow up?

00:03:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I put one item in because follow up was feeling lonely.

00:03:57 ◼   ► I can't believe you just put the transport tycoon stuff in a follow up.

00:04:00 ◼   ► I don't know if that qualifies as a follow up.

00:04:01 ◼   ► It was the beginning of the show.

00:04:02 ◼   ► I just knew that when I'm going to do show notes, if this makes it into the show, that

00:04:07 ◼   ► I would want to look at it there.

00:04:09 ◼   ► So it's not strictly follow up.

00:04:10 ◼   ► I'm sorry for tainting the sanctity of your follow-up.

00:04:13 ◼   ► We're talking about Apple Mail in Mavericks and the Gmail-related bugs and how the public

00:04:18 ◼   ► beta program for Yosemite might help Apple catch those type of bugs.

00:04:23 ◼   ► Michael Tsai—I really hope I'm pronouncing his last name correctly—tweeted or emailed

00:04:29 ◼   ► one or the other.

00:04:30 ◼   ► The other alternate theory for the Gmail bug was not so much that Apple didn't catch

00:04:35 ◼   ► it in Mavericks, it's just that it was difficult to figure out how to fix in time for the ship

00:04:40 ◼   ► date and they just shipped knowing that there were bugs and knowing they planned to fix them and were

00:04:44 ◼   ► working on the fix long before maverick shipped and shipped the fix as soon as they got it fixed.

00:04:48 ◼   ► Considering there's a second party involved here, considering like Gmail's on the other end over

00:04:52 ◼   ► there, it may be a bug that involves Google and also involves Apple. It's plausible theory and

00:04:59 ◼   ► we didn't mention it on the last show so I thought I would just mention it now.

00:05:03 ◼   ► I also think it's worth mentioning, so in the context of this we were talking about the Gmail

00:05:07 ◼   ► bug in mavericks point 0 and and you know gmail's various incentives and everything

00:05:13 ◼   ► and I believe John I believe you had asserted that certainly some people in Google use Apple

00:05:20 ◼   ► mail and there and there's enough of them that it'd be worth them making sure it works

00:05:23 ◼   ► and I said I'd be pretty surprised if there were any significant portion of people who

00:05:28 ◼   ► work for Google using using Apple mail and I asked if anybody knew this they could write

00:05:33 ◼   ► in. And we heard from a few people who work at Google who said universally, they all said

00:05:40 ◼   ► nobody there uses Apple Mail or effectively nobody. But they all said they've never seen

00:05:45 ◼   ► anyone use it and pretty much everyone uses Gmail because the workflows that are built

00:05:49 ◼   ► around it and everything, it's like Apple Mail's presence among Google employees is

00:05:54 ◼   ► apparently nearly zero, which does not surprise me.

00:05:57 ◼   ► It makes me wonder what kind of workflows, because they're like, one guy was like, "Oh,

00:06:00 ◼   ► I tried to use Apple Mail.

00:06:01 ◼   ► They all said that Macs are very prevalent there,

00:06:03 ◼   ► which we already knew, right?

00:06:04 ◼   ► So they said everyone's got Macs,

00:06:05 ◼   ► and one of the persons was like,

00:06:06 ◼   ► when I came I tried using Apple Mail,

00:06:07 ◼   ► but it was not the thing to do.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Everyone was using Gmail,

00:06:11 ◼   ► and I'm wondering if they have some kind of plugins

00:06:14 ◼   ► or Gmail Labs things.

00:06:16 ◼   ► What is it about the web interface

00:06:18 ◼   ► that kind of makes it so that Apple Mail isn't viable?

00:06:20 ◼   ► If you're just doing mail stuff, fine.

00:06:22 ◼   ► But what is the, is it just peer pressure

00:06:25 ◼   ► that everybody is using mail?

00:06:26 ◼   ► Is it, I guess maybe integration

00:06:28 ◼   ► with Google Calendar or something?

00:06:29 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:06:31 ◼   ► But anyway, yeah, I guess they're not motivated

00:06:34 ◼   ► to make it work with Apple Mail.

00:06:36 ◼   ► But it's interesting to me that there is that,

00:06:38 ◼   ► that at least that one person felt like there was,

00:06:42 ◼   ► that it was not even a viable thing to do,

00:06:44 ◼   ► not just like personal preference,

00:06:45 ◼   ► but just like once you're in Google,

00:06:48 ◼   ► you're gonna use Gmail 'cause that's the way it's done.

00:06:50 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, like it would be difficult

00:06:52 ◼   ► for you to use Apple Mail, was the gist of it.

00:06:54 ◼   ► And whether that was technical, political, or both,

00:06:58 ◼   ► I think it was kind of left to the imagination,

00:07:00 ◼   ► but I'm guessing it's probably some of both.

00:07:03 ◼   ► - The weird thing about the political angle is like,

00:07:05 ◼   ► oh, you know, well, it's like dog food.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Like why wouldn't, if you're not using

00:07:08 ◼   ► your own mail client, obviously,

00:07:09 ◼   ► then your own mail client sucks,

00:07:10 ◼   ► and you know, like you should use your own,

00:07:12 ◼   ► your own thing should be good enough for you to use.

00:07:14 ◼   ► But like I said, and wasn't contradicted

00:07:17 ◼   ► by any of the emails, Macs are all over the place in Google,

00:07:20 ◼   ► and how is that not a contradiction, you know,

00:07:22 ◼   ► in terms of like why are Chromebooks

00:07:24 ◼   ► not good enough for everybody?

00:07:25 ◼   ► I mean, I guess Google doesn't really make

00:07:27 ◼   ► sort of full-fledged computer but for developers or whatever but they're you know arch rival Apple

00:07:33 ◼   ► they're using all their hardware inside I mean they're not using the phones I assume but for

00:07:38 ◼   ► the laptops they're all Mac so it makes me wonder if like is Google motivated to make a sort of

00:07:43 ◼   ► non-chromebook full-fledged laptop I don't know what the hell OS it would run I mean certainly

00:07:47 ◼   ► not Windows so there it seems like they're internally conflicted no matter what. Well and

00:07:53 ◼   ► And there is a whole, I mean, I think a lot of this is kind of company culture as well.

00:07:57 ◼   ► Like, there's a whole lot of people out there who use a Mac as their computing platform,

00:08:04 ◼   ► but aren't all in on Apple's other stuff.

00:08:06 ◼   ► You know, they use Chrome as the browser, they probably use Gmail in a web window or

00:08:10 ◼   ► something as their mail client.

00:08:11 ◼   ► Like, there's a whole lot of people out there who function that way just fine willingly

00:08:16 ◼   ► and happily because that's just their preference.

00:08:18 ◼   ► And I would imagine those people are more likely to want to work for Google than somebody

00:08:24 ◼   ► who's all in the hall of Apple stuff.

00:08:26 ◼   ► So probably among their employees, it's kind of self-selecting where their employees

00:08:30 ◼   ► probably just want to use Google stuff in its native interface because that's just

00:08:34 ◼   ► their preference, and that's one of the reasons they work there.

00:08:36 ◼   ► Well, you've got Chrome as your browser, and then you have a bunch of terminal windows

00:08:40 ◼   ► in which you run Emacs or something, or maybe you have a favorite text editor.

00:08:44 ◼   ► And that's the whole experience.

00:08:45 ◼   ► But then it's like, why do you need Apple hardware?

00:08:47 ◼   ► Why can't you get by with the Chromebook?

00:08:48 ◼   ► Is it, you know, are you locally compiling things in Go and C++?

00:08:53 ◼   ► Is that why you need to have a better CPU than the Chromebooks?

00:08:55 ◼   ► Do you just want nicer hardware?

00:08:57 ◼   ► Like I don't know if there's much soul searching about this because they're probably like,

00:09:01 ◼   ► "I'm just going to get Apple hardware and then when I use it, I'm using all Google services

00:09:04 ◼   ► and I'm using whatever weird version of TextMate that I've kept left over or I'm using VI or

00:09:09 ◼   ► Emacs or whatever."

00:09:11 ◼   ► So I don't think there's much of an Apple in their faceness, but they're still using

00:09:16 ◼   ► Apple hardware.

00:09:17 ◼   ► to think that if Google continues this kind of Microsoft-like march towards "there is

00:09:22 ◼   ► no market we don't want, there is no thing we can't do, there is no reason we should

00:09:27 ◼   ► rely on everybody," like Google has really crept up on that.

00:09:30 ◼   ► They didn't start off that way, but now it just seems like the old thing with Microsoft

00:09:34 ◼   ► was like, "Is there any business they don't want?

00:09:36 ◼   ► Is there anything having to do with personal computers that they don't want?"

00:09:39 ◼   ► You're like, "Well, they make applications, but they don't make dev tools.

00:09:43 ◼   ► Well, they make a compiler, but they don't really make an ID.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Well, can they make an ID?

00:09:46 ◼   ► Well, they didn't make all the applications. They just do you know basic office. Okay? Well now they have a paint application like you know

00:09:51 ◼   ► Well, they don't make games. We're okay. They have flight simulator

00:09:53 ◼   ► Oh, well, they don't make game consoles not have the Xbox like it was like at Microsoft wanted to do everything and Google is slowly

00:09:59 ◼   ► Going towards it so far Google doesn't want to do

00:10:01 ◼   ► PC hardware like the Chromebook is close kind of they go on a supersede PC hardware with something

00:10:07 ◼   ► That's not as problematic as a PC and maybe they'll succeed in that someday

00:10:09 ◼   ► but I

00:10:11 ◼   ► Have my eye on Google's megalomania

00:10:14 ◼   ► Certainly the Apple we just discussed last week about the Apple IBM thing

00:10:17 ◼   ► There's plenty of things that Apple doesn't want to do like it still doesn't really want to touch enterprise with 10-foot pole

00:10:22 ◼   ► Which is why it's having a 10-foot pole named IBM touch it for them

00:10:25 ◼   ► Is there anywhere to go from here other than some something awesome oh actually before we do that

00:10:33 ◼   ► Speaking of follow-up. I love that

00:10:36 ◼   ► You've had like follow-up withdrawal like you had you get you were holding it for this like two weeks

00:10:39 ◼   ► You know you have to get some kind of follow-up out well

00:10:43 ◼   ► So the Apple IBM thing, we got some feedback from people

00:10:46 ◼   ► who are like, you're too down on Apple about the enterprise.

00:10:48 ◼   ► They actually do a lot of enterprise things.

00:10:50 ◼   ► I tried to express that in the last show

00:10:51 ◼   ► to say that it's not like Apple really ignores it.

00:10:54 ◼   ► They do do a lot of things for the enterprise.

00:10:56 ◼   ► They have come a long way.

00:10:57 ◼   ► But the question is always, are they willing to commit?

00:11:00 ◼   ► Are they willing to go to the lengths

00:11:02 ◼   ► that other enterprise companies go to?

00:11:03 ◼   ► So the two kinds of feedback we got were one,

00:11:05 ◼   ► from the people saying Apple is really doing much better

00:11:08 ◼   ► in the enterprise that are not nearly as bad

00:11:10 ◼   ► as you think they are.

00:11:10 ◼   ► And the other is from people saying,

00:11:12 ◼   ► as far as Apple has come, they're still bad for reasons X, Y, and Z.

00:11:16 ◼   ► So both of those are true.

00:11:18 ◼   ► They're not both seeing a different Apple.

00:11:20 ◼   ► They're seeing the same Apple, just looking at it from two different

00:11:22 ◼   ► perspectives.

00:11:22 ◼   ► One, that they've come such a long way and are so much better now than they

00:11:25 ◼   ► used to be.

00:11:25 ◼   ► And the other is that compared to the companies that build themselves around

00:11:29 ◼   ► serving the enterprise, Apple is still not willing to do all the things the

00:11:33 ◼   ► enterprise wants out of them.

00:11:34 ◼   ► And that's the impasse they've been at forever.

00:11:37 ◼   ► And the question, like I said last show, was always, what's Apple going to do

00:11:40 ◼   ► about that?

00:11:41 ◼   ► They're gonna continue to act this way,

00:11:42 ◼   ► to kind of turn their nose up at it,

00:11:44 ◼   ► but do enough to sort of get a little bit of the business,

00:11:46 ◼   ► or do they feel like they want more of the business?

00:11:48 ◼   ► And I think they feel like they do want more of the business

00:11:50 ◼   ► but they don't want to change them.

00:11:52 ◼   ► They don't want to change their own behavior

00:11:53 ◼   ► to get more of that business.

00:11:54 ◼   ► They just want to have someone else

00:11:55 ◼   ► augment their existing infrastructure and support

00:11:58 ◼   ► to get more of the business indirectly.

00:12:01 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week, once again,

00:12:03 ◼   ► by our friend Matt Alexander at Need.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Need is a refined retailer and lifestyle magazine for men.

00:12:10 ◼   ► and it kind of came out of the Bionic podcast in a way.

00:12:13 ◼   ► And so you figure it has to be pretty interesting

00:12:15 ◼   ► if it came out of that, right?

00:12:17 ◼   ► Each month, Need curates and sells a limited quantity

00:12:20 ◼   ► of exclusive products from the world's top men's brands.

00:12:24 ◼   ► These collections are presented in the form

00:12:25 ◼   ► of a monthly editorial built around a certain theme

00:12:28 ◼   ► and are shot by local independent photographers.

00:12:30 ◼   ► And if I may say so myself,

00:12:31 ◼   ► they all look really stylish and awesome.

00:12:33 ◼   ► Beyond clothing, which they have a lot of,

00:12:35 ◼   ► they also sell coffee, literature, furniture,

00:12:37 ◼   ► and lots of other cool stuff.

00:12:39 ◼   ► "Need is also expanding. Soon they will localize to certain cities around the world,

00:12:43 ◼   ► the first of which will be London."

00:12:45 ◼   ► And I'm guessing that's London, England, or the UK, England? I never know. Great Britain,

00:12:51 ◼   ► oh boy. I'm pretty sure London at least is in England. I don't know how to refer

00:12:55 ◼   ► to the rest of it.

00:12:56 ◼   ► It's in England.

00:12:57 ◼   ► Sorry if I offended the entire UK, England, Great Britain, continent, subcontinent, island.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Okay, so, "Need is only eight months old, but they will already be one of the primary

00:13:07 ◼   ► sponsors of New York Fashion Week. Now I actually know what this is because my

00:13:11 ◼   ► wife watches Project Runway. Do you guys actually know what Fashion Week is?

00:13:15 ◼   ► It's something in New York City where a bunch of fashionable people descend upon

00:13:20 ◼   ► New York and make everyone else feel poor. It's a really good idea to

00:13:27 ◼   ► sponsor this if you're a clothing company and needs already doing it

00:13:29 ◼   ► because Fashion Week is huge. It is like New York has all these stupid things

00:13:33 ◼   ► like they have like internet week and all this crap that they try to boost other industries

00:13:38 ◼   ► and make them make make these like events all trying to mimic fashion week poorly. Fashion

00:13:44 ◼   ► week is the real thing. It's what everyone else is trying to be. It's such a huge deal

00:13:47 ◼   ► in New York. Need is sponsoring fashion week. They'll be bringing along small independent

00:13:52 ◼   ► brands to show off the company and its aspirations in the midst of the world of high fashion.

00:13:57 ◼   ► In other words, in their words, they're going to tell everyone about starting up working

00:14:00 ◼   ► independently and telling great stories in a traditional world of exclusivity and brands."

00:14:05 ◼   ► Anyway, go to neededition.com, and that's not the math, it's the "E" edition, neededition.com,

00:14:13 ◼   ► check out their collection, and it changes every month. Seriously, add this to your RSS

00:14:18 ◼   ► reader, it's one post a month, I mean, come on. If you still use RSS, we'll get to that,

00:14:22 ◼   ► but I still use RSS and I have it in my RSS reader. Anyone who places an order with need

00:14:27 ◼   ► and was sent from ATP can send an email afterwards to hello@neededition.com with the subject

00:14:34 ◼   ► line "New York Fashion Week."

00:14:36 ◼   ► To commemorate the special occasion, they will then throw in a bunch of extras with

00:14:39 ◼   ► those orders before they ship things like magazines, field nose, socks, scarves, etc.

00:14:44 ◼   ► And then you'll be put in a list to get 25% off your next order.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Now they've been doing this offer for a couple of weeks now.

00:14:50 ◼   ► ATP listeners, if you have multiple orders where you've emailed them and gotten the

00:14:54 ◼   ► 25% off the next order thing, you can stack that,

00:14:57 ◼   ► so you can collect two of them and then get 50% off

00:14:59 ◼   ► an order after that.

00:15:00 ◼   ► So just for ATP listeners, they're being really nice to us.

00:15:04 ◼   ► And most of all though, the first five orders

00:15:07 ◼   ► will receive one of five limited edition,

00:15:09 ◼   ► never to be publicly sold, Neid branded hats.

00:15:13 ◼   ► Now I don't have a lot of hair, so hats are very useful.

00:15:17 ◼   ► Neid produced a Neid-Ebbets Field collaboration hat.

00:15:21 ◼   ► Ebbets Field is the company that created

00:15:23 ◼   ► original baseball cap apparently. These hats are gonna be worth about $50 if

00:15:27 ◼   ► they were sold at retail but they're not going to be. There's a

00:15:30 ◼   ► five limited edition hats and let me see I believe you get it for free right yeah

00:15:36 ◼   ► they will just toss us in so the first five orders that email them with this

00:15:40 ◼   ► email hello@neededition.com after you hear this with the subject line New York

00:15:43 ◼   ► Fashion Week after you place an order. This is a great deal I might do this I

00:15:48 ◼   ► I'm gonna take one of these.

00:15:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:15:50 ◼   ► Quick, before the delay on the live stream.

00:15:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:15:53 ◼   ► - Nice. - Anyway, thank you,

00:15:54 ◼   ► thank you very much to Need.

00:15:56 ◼   ► Go to neededition.com to check it out.

00:15:58 ◼   ► - I have a request.

00:16:01 ◼   ► For that ad read, can you put in like ragtime bionic music?

00:16:05 ◼   ► You know what I'm talking about?

00:16:06 ◼   ► - See, I love, I love when Need sponsors

00:16:08 ◼   ► because I can totally mess up the entire read

00:16:11 ◼   ► and put all sorts of my own personal crap into it.

00:16:14 ◼   ► And it doesn't matter because Matt is like a friend of ours

00:16:16 ◼   ► so he doesn't really mind, and it still works,

00:16:19 ◼   ► 'cause people keep ordering stuff.

00:16:21 ◼   ► So it's both a great thing that Matt is doing for us,

00:16:24 ◼   ► and a great thing that our listeners are doing for Matt

00:16:26 ◼   ► and for us indirectly, by buying stuff from his company

00:16:29 ◼   ► anyway, even when I fumble through the read like that.

00:16:31 ◼   ► - Right, so I told you I had a piece of follow-up that I,

00:16:36 ◼   ► oh, that's what it was, I was stalling, so I could remember.

00:16:39 ◼   ► John, how's the review?

00:16:41 ◼   ► - That's your follow-up?

00:16:42 ◼   ► - Yes. - I thought you were gonna

00:16:43 ◼   ► talk about Apple IBM stuff, input from your dad, but--

00:16:46 ◼   ► Nope, I asked and he had nothing.

00:16:49 ◼   ► - No, reviews just going slowly.

00:16:51 ◼   ► It's terrible.

00:16:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:16:54 ◼   ► - Good, eh?

00:16:56 ◼   ► - It's like a dark cloud over my life.

00:16:59 ◼   ► And I just feel like it's never gonna get done.

00:17:01 ◼   ► I don't have to end up taking off time from work to get done.

00:17:04 ◼   ► And then they keep changing things and things don't work.

00:17:07 ◼   ► And you're trying to review anything

00:17:08 ◼   ► that has to do with the network

00:17:09 ◼   ► and like the seeds are coming out the like,

00:17:10 ◼   ► oh, this functionality still doesn't quite work yet.

00:17:12 ◼   ► And then all this stuff they don't mention

00:17:14 ◼   ► and you try it and it doesn't work.

00:17:15 ◼   ► and they're like, well, does it not work 'cause it's broken

00:17:17 ◼   ► or does it not work 'cause it's still like month

00:17:19 ◼   ► from release and I can't really write about it?

00:17:22 ◼   ► And then I'm going back through stuff I've already written

00:17:24 ◼   ► and changing it because I have this big paragraph

00:17:26 ◼   ► complaining about this, but then they change that,

00:17:28 ◼   ► so I don't have the complaint anymore.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Like, yeah, I have notes in my thing of like,

00:17:34 ◼   ► remember to talk about this, and then I have to go back

00:17:37 ◼   ► two weeks later and remove that note,

00:17:39 ◼   ► because oh, actually now that's changed,

00:17:40 ◼   ► so you don't have to remember, I'm not making progress.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I need to plow bravely forward

00:17:45 ◼   ► and just get something written

00:17:47 ◼   ► and then go back and change it even though it keeps,

00:17:49 ◼   ► it's, I don't know.

00:17:50 ◼   ► I don't know if they're changing more things than usual

00:17:52 ◼   ► or if I'm writing too early about things

00:17:55 ◼   ► that I have complaints about, I don't know.

00:17:57 ◼   ► It's going slowly, it's depressing.

00:17:59 ◼   ► - So semi-related, you had tweeted earlier today

00:18:03 ◼   ► that you had something to the order

00:18:05 ◼   ► of four or five machines on your desk

00:18:07 ◼   ► and anytime you did anything,

00:18:09 ◼   ► you were inevitably using the wrong keyboard and mouse.

00:18:13 ◼   ► And I had suggested, and from your snarky reply,

00:18:16 ◼   ► I assume many had suggested that you should use,

00:18:20 ◼   ► what is it, Synergy, is that right?

00:18:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, well see, other people, fine,

00:18:24 ◼   ► people don't know what I know,

00:18:25 ◼   ► but you of all people should know

00:18:27 ◼   ► that I know what Synergy is.

00:18:28 ◼   ► - I was encouraging you to better yourself

00:18:30 ◼   ► by using Synergy. (laughs)

00:18:31 ◼   ► - I know all about Synergy.

00:18:33 ◼   ► I don't want it, I don't need it for this,

00:18:36 ◼   ► like it's just a temporary situation.

00:18:38 ◼   ► I'm not trying to create a setup

00:18:41 ◼   ► where I have a system where I can use five computers

00:18:43 ◼   ► once I just have to do it remote desktop is the worst because you can kind of keep it straight if you're like

00:18:49 ◼   ► It's like laptops and my desktop you kind of keep it straight if things are physically separated

00:18:54 ◼   ► But once you bring a remote desktop into the mix

00:18:56 ◼   ► then it's game over because now like you have the same screen three times because I you know

00:18:59 ◼   ► I've got the original screen and then the remote screen and then my regular screen that it's in and then if

00:19:04 ◼   ► The remote desktop is at the front or then it gets all your keyboard focus

00:19:08 ◼   ► So you're like quicksilver shortcut goes to the remote desktop not to the thing over there, but it's just

00:19:12 ◼   ► It's madness. I could I just quitting apps and closing the wrong windows just for hours at a time slowly going mad

00:19:19 ◼   ► But synergy would fix this for you my friend, and it doesn't take them. No it would not it would not

00:19:25 ◼   ► No, I mean synergy has downsides as well, and it's it's just another layer of stuff

00:19:31 ◼   ► It's the same reason. I don't you screen your team ox right like I know I recognize all the benefits

00:19:35 ◼   ► I've experimented with them, but you know it's always something like you know the screen you're like

00:19:40 ◼   ► "I don't want you taking over control A."

00:19:42 ◼   ► Well, you can remap that.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Well, I don't want it to have any of my keystrokes.

00:19:44 ◼   ► And you know, like it was Synergy doing weird things

00:19:47 ◼   ► with making using your regular computer feel strange

00:19:50 ◼   ► and doing weird things with the command key.

00:19:52 ◼   ► It's just, it's not, I'm not gonna try to,

00:19:55 ◼   ► plus that's a, not really yak shaving,

00:19:57 ◼   ► but it's a diversion.

00:19:59 ◼   ► Like I don't need to be, what I should be doing

00:20:02 ◼   ► is making forward progress in a review,

00:20:04 ◼   ► not trying to tweak my setup that helps me do the review.

00:20:07 ◼   ► It's like I do enough of that of just sitting here

00:20:08 ◼   ► using Yosemite and doing experiments to try to figure out

00:20:13 ◼   ► how I can accurately write a single sentence.

00:20:15 ◼   ► I've spent like 45 minutes, an hour,

00:20:17 ◼   ► experimenting with the thing to say,

00:20:18 ◼   ► "What can I say about this?

00:20:20 ◼   ► "What is the truth of this thing?"

00:20:21 ◼   ► And then it's like, "Well, I wrote one sentence tonight

00:20:23 ◼   ► "and I spent an hour and a half

00:20:24 ◼   ► "and now I'm tired and need to go to bed.

00:20:26 ◼   ► "At this rate, it'll be done in 10 years."

00:20:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:30 ◼   ► - So the review is going excellently is what I'm hearing.

00:20:33 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:20:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:36 ◼   ► - Awesome.

00:20:37 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:20:39 ◼   ► - Well since I've asked, what's going on with Overcast?

00:20:42 ◼   ► - I'm fixing bugs basically.

00:20:44 ◼   ► Yeah, that's about it really.

00:20:46 ◼   ► I'm fixing lots of bugs.

00:20:47 ◼   ► The sales are going pretty well still.

00:20:49 ◼   ► Obviously it's down substantially from the first few days

00:20:53 ◼   ► but it seems to be leveling off now which is nice

00:20:56 ◼   ► because now I'm able to predict roughly what it will be

00:20:59 ◼   ► in next month and so far I'm very happy with it.

00:21:03 ◼   ► - Have you cranked back on the initial server build out

00:21:07 ◼   ► farm, whatever you want to call it.

00:21:09 ◼   ► - I actually haven't.

00:21:11 ◼   ► So far I'm keeping all eight of the webheads

00:21:13 ◼   ► and the reason why is, so as, so before,

00:21:18 ◼   ► you know, I have one feed crawling server

00:21:22 ◼   ► that its entire purpose is to crawl the feeds

00:21:25 ◼   ► and it can be maxed out, you know,

00:21:27 ◼   ► it can be like hammered at CPUs because it doesn't matter

00:21:31 ◼   ► because that's its only job.

00:21:33 ◼   ► And so what I have going at launch,

00:21:36 ◼   ► I had these eight web servers up front

00:21:38 ◼   ► to help take web requests.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And then very quickly after launch,

00:21:43 ◼   ► my feed server got overwhelmed with just the queue

00:21:45 ◼   ► was backing up because so many people were adding more feeds

00:21:48 ◼   ► and I was already crawling a lot,

00:21:49 ◼   ► but people added a lot more than I expected.

00:21:51 ◼   ► So I started, I ran additional crawling processes

00:21:55 ◼   ► under nice on the web servers.

00:21:57 ◼   ► And so in theory, what I think this will do

00:21:59 ◼   ► and what it is doing so far is all the web servers,

00:22:02 ◼   ► I have now burst capacity.

00:22:05 ◼   ► So when a popular show, like right now,

00:22:08 ◼   ► I mean our show is one of the top shows in Overcast.

00:22:11 ◼   ► There's something, I think there's like 20,000 people

00:22:13 ◼   ► or something who subscribe to it in Overcast.

00:22:14 ◼   ► So when a new episode of this show is published,

00:22:17 ◼   ► I send 20,000 push notifications

00:22:19 ◼   ► within the span of a few seconds.

00:22:21 ◼   ► And any of those devices that are connected to the internet

00:22:24 ◼   ► will immediately try to fetch,

00:22:27 ◼   ► try to perform a sync request basically.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And so you might have 20,000 devices all performing syncs

00:22:32 ◼   ► within the first few seconds of that request going out.

00:22:36 ◼   ► And so I need some kind of burst capacity

00:22:38 ◼   ► for when that happens.

00:22:40 ◼   ► So what I'm doing now is I have all these web servers

00:22:43 ◼   ► and I'm keeping the additional crawlers running on nice,

00:22:47 ◼   ► so what I think should happen is I'll have

00:22:49 ◼   ► that burst capacity when I need it,

00:22:50 ◼   ► when a new episode of Something Popular comes out,

00:22:52 ◼   ► and all the rest of it, and when that happens,

00:22:54 ◼   ► all of those processes that are nice will deprioritize

00:22:57 ◼   ► and maybe the queue for crawling other things

00:22:59 ◼   ► will slow down for a minute or two.

00:23:01 ◼   ► And then the rest of the time,

00:23:03 ◼   ► I have all this additional feed capacity.

00:23:05 ◼   ► So I think this is, and my original plan was

00:23:09 ◼   ► that the feed crawling on those web servers

00:23:11 ◼   ► was gonna be temporary and that once everything calmed down,

00:23:14 ◼   ► I would eliminate half of them maybe

00:23:16 ◼   ► and then set up a dedicated feed server

00:23:19 ◼   ► to crawl more feeds that way.

00:23:21 ◼   ► But I think I'm actually gonna keep it the way it is

00:23:23 ◼   ► because it gives me this nice balance

00:23:24 ◼   ► of a lot less wasted capacity.

00:23:27 ◼   ► - And you had said in the past

00:23:29 ◼   ► that whatever the sum total of the monthly cost

00:23:32 ◼   ► for these 810 servers is considerably less

00:23:35 ◼   ► than what you had last paid for Instapaper, is that correct?

00:23:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I'd originally said it was like 540.

00:23:41 ◼   ► I had to upgrade my backup server,

00:23:42 ◼   ► I ran out of space on it,

00:23:43 ◼   ► so now it's gonna be more like 600,

00:23:45 ◼   ► but still, yeah, 600 bucks a month

00:23:47 ◼   ► for a lot of line of instances,

00:23:51 ◼   ► providing a lot of power, a lot of computational power.

00:23:53 ◼   ► That I don't think is a bad deal at all.

00:23:56 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:23:57 ◼   ► - Anyway, that's how Evercast is going.

00:23:59 ◼   ► It's going very well and I'm very happy.

00:24:01 ◼   ► I'm fixing a lot of bugs.

00:24:03 ◼   ► There still are some annoying ones,

00:24:04 ◼   ► but I think I actually got two of the biggest ones

00:24:07 ◼   ► in this update, so we'll see.

00:24:09 ◼   ► I'm still working on the update,

00:24:10 ◼   ► but I'll submit it probably in a few days.

00:24:12 ◼   ► - So do you feel like you're working just as hard

00:24:15 ◼   ► as you were pre-launch and post-launch,

00:24:18 ◼   ► or have you kind of settled into a rhythm at this point

00:24:21 ◼   ► and you're able to breathe?

00:24:22 ◼   ► - I am able to breathe, but it is still a lot of work.

00:24:26 ◼   ► Email, I'm still keeping up with email.

00:24:29 ◼   ► I did hit bottom of the first batch.

00:24:33 ◼   ► What's interesting is what people are requesting now.

00:24:37 ◼   ► So I'm still getting about 100 emails a day.

00:24:39 ◼   ► And many of them I don't respond to.

00:24:43 ◼   ► I promised in the feedback form that I would read everything

00:24:47 ◼   ► but I won't guarantee a response to everything.

00:24:49 ◼   ► And I'm keeping that promise so far.

00:24:51 ◼   ► I am reading everything and I'm not responding to everything

00:24:54 ◼   ► 'cause I can't.

00:24:55 ◼   ► Even reading 100 emails a day takes a long time.

00:24:57 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:25:00 ◼   ► And a lot of them don't even need a response.

00:25:01 ◼   ► A lot of them even say as much, no response necessary,

00:25:03 ◼   ► and so I take them up on that offer usually.

00:25:06 ◼   ► But what's interesting is that what people are asking for now

00:25:11 ◼   ► is different from what people asked for on day one,

00:25:13 ◼   ► even though the main feature set has not changed since then.

00:25:17 ◼   ► I'm getting a couple bug reports, certainly,

00:25:20 ◼   ► here and there, 'cause there are still some bugs

00:25:21 ◼   ► that are affecting a lot of people,

00:25:22 ◼   ► which I'm very annoyed by,

00:25:24 ◼   ► and I'm trying to fix as quickly as I can.

00:25:26 ◼   ► But for example, day one had tons of requests

00:25:30 ◼   ► for the two big things I don't support, streaming and video.

00:25:33 ◼   ► It also had lots of requests for smaller features

00:25:37 ◼   ► and preferences and behavioral preferences people wanted.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Different ways they wanted episode management to be,

00:25:42 ◼   ► push notification options, things like that.

00:25:44 ◼   ► All sorts of different, more granular options

00:25:47 ◼   ► or different modes episodes could be in.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Like one of the more common ones on day one,

00:25:52 ◼   ► which I mentioned before, was a lot of people

00:25:54 ◼   ► want an episode to be new but not downloaded.

00:25:57 ◼   ► And a lot of people want deleted episodes

00:26:00 ◼   ► to also show whether they have been played

00:26:02 ◼   ► or whether they were never played.

00:26:05 ◼   ► So people requesting these different states things

00:26:07 ◼   ► can be in, and of course all the management of the interface

00:26:10 ◼   ► and the code that would go with that would be a lot.

00:26:13 ◼   ► All that was really on day one.

00:26:15 ◼   ► And what I'm hearing from people now

00:26:16 ◼   ► is substantially less of those requests.

00:26:20 ◼   ► And the requests I'm getting now are much nicer and more

00:26:23 ◼   ► like, "You know, it would be nice if someday maybe you added this," not like, "I can't

00:26:27 ◼   ► use a podcast app that doesn't have this," or "I don't believe you shipped 1.0 without

00:26:31 ◼   ► this," which a lot of the day one stuff was that.

00:26:34 ◼   ► And so, and I think, I mean, my theory on this was pretty obvious, really.

00:26:37 ◼   ► You know, I think day one, everyone tried it who was into podcast apps, who heard about

00:26:44 ◼   ► it.

00:26:45 ◼   ► Like, there was this big rush of people who tried it and, you know, probably necessarily

00:26:49 ◼   ► didn't want to like it maybe on some level because nobody wants to change their workflow

00:26:54 ◼   ► if they're established. And also people who really do find those features like deal

00:26:59 ◼   ► killers. Anything that I don't do or that I do differently from what they want to do,

00:27:03 ◼   ► that actually is a deal killer for them. So all of them I heard from on day one, and then

00:27:07 ◼   ► I stopped hearing from them because they stopped looking at the app. So now what I'm hearing

00:27:11 ◼   ► from, who I'm hearing from are the people who are actually using the app for the most

00:27:15 ◼   ► part. I mean, there are new people discovering it every day, but not nearly in the numbers

00:27:19 ◼   ► as the first two days.

00:27:21 ◼   ► So the emails I'm getting now are actually--

00:27:24 ◼   ► on some level, I think they're actually

00:27:25 ◼   ► more important to pay attention to,

00:27:27 ◼   ► because most of those people who I heard from on day one,

00:27:31 ◼   ► I'll probably never win them over.

00:27:33 ◼   ► It's probably not worth a lot of effort to try to win them over.

00:27:38 ◼   ► And there's a lot of people who use the app for whom it could

00:27:40 ◼   ► be a little bit better with what might be a small change.

00:27:44 ◼   ► And by catering to those people, I build Goodwill,

00:27:48 ◼   ► I build fans, I build loyal customers,

00:27:51 ◼   ► and those people are the ones who will spread the app

00:27:54 ◼   ► to their friends.

00:27:55 ◼   ► And so I think it's more important to make a smaller group

00:27:59 ◼   ► more fanatically happy about your app

00:28:02 ◼   ► than to try to address the entire world with it.

00:28:05 ◼   ► - So John, tell us about Arm-based Max.

00:28:10 ◼   ► - Let me talk about this.

00:28:12 ◼   ► So many past shows, it seems like.

00:28:14 ◼   ► I don't know why it's coming up again.

00:28:15 ◼   ► I guess Jean-Louis Gasset wrote about it

00:28:18 ◼   ► on his Monday Note blog, and then a bunch of people

00:28:21 ◼   ► linked it, including Gruber, and people

00:28:23 ◼   ► were talking about it again.

00:28:25 ◼   ► I guess we'll talk about it again, too.

00:28:26 ◼   ► I feel like we had this exact same discussion.

00:28:28 ◼   ► I pulled these exact same numbers last time,

00:28:30 ◼   ► but I mean, I don't know.

00:28:32 ◼   ► I guess we'll talk about it again.

00:28:34 ◼   ► - I don't think it was a very good article,

00:28:36 ◼   ► because it was based on a lot of assumptions

00:28:39 ◼   ► about the relative chip pros and cons between

00:28:43 ◼   ► ARM and Intel that aren't necessarily true,

00:28:47 ◼   ► or at least partially misinformed.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - You're not looking at the notes file either, I guess?

00:28:51 ◼   ► - No.

00:28:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, anyway, so here are the stats I put in the notes file

00:28:54 ◼   ► probably the same exact stats I had last time.

00:28:56 ◼   ► So the whole idea was should Apple not use Intel CPUs

00:29:00 ◼   ► in its Macs anymore, but instead use ARM CPUs,

00:29:02 ◼   ► presumably of their own design.

00:29:05 ◼   ► And everyone suggesting that has their reasons

00:29:08 ◼   ► for suggesting it.

00:29:09 ◼   ► One of the reasons that comes up very often

00:29:10 ◼   ► is that if they did that, ARM CPUs are more power

00:29:15 ◼   ► efficient than x86.

00:29:16 ◼   ► And the second reason is that Apple

00:29:18 ◼   ► would be master of its own destiny because Apple really

00:29:20 ◼   ► wants to own and control all the important technologies that

00:29:23 ◼   ► go into their devices, witness their design of the A7

00:29:26 ◼   ► and their deep involvement in the manufacturing process.

00:29:29 ◼   ► And of course, they do all the software as well.

00:29:31 ◼   ► They make the OS.

00:29:32 ◼   ► They make the applications and blah, blah, blah.

00:29:34 ◼   ► And originally, if you want to go back really far,

00:29:36 ◼   ► they investigated--

00:29:39 ◼   ► My understanding is that they investigated for the iPhone project or for an Apple phone

00:29:43 ◼   ► project.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Can we make a phone and not do a deal with a wireless carrier?

00:29:47 ◼   ► Is it feasible to do it on Wi-Fi?

00:29:49 ◼   ► Can we be our own — what is that acronym, Casey?

00:29:52 ◼   ► MVNO, something like that?

00:29:55 ◼   ► They looked into all that.

00:29:56 ◼   ► It turned out not to be feasible, but the whole fact that they were looking into it

00:29:58 ◼   ► was like, "Can we do this without being beholden to somebody else?"

00:30:01 ◼   ► And it turns out the answer was no.

00:30:03 ◼   ► So a bummer for them.

00:30:04 ◼   ► So anyway, this is along the same vein.

00:30:06 ◼   ► On the tech front, though, and the power thing, every time I think about the power thing,

00:30:09 ◼   ► I think about, you know, just how far Intel has come

00:30:13 ◼   ► in terms of power efficiency.

00:30:16 ◼   ► So we'll look at here, I have stats for the current

00:30:18 ◼   ► 13 inch MacBook Air, which is kind of my sort of

00:30:20 ◼   ► standard bearer for Apple's middle of the road laptop.

00:30:24 ◼   ► It does not have a gigantic battery.

00:30:26 ◼   ► It's pretty slim, but on the other hand,

00:30:27 ◼   ► it is a full-fledged laptop and the performance

00:30:29 ◼   ► is actually pretty good.

00:30:30 ◼   ► So the current Gen 13 inch MacBook Air

00:30:33 ◼   ► is a 54 watt hour battery and Apple says it gets

00:30:36 ◼   ► about 12 hours battery life.

00:30:37 ◼   ► Now in my own testing when I was doing Mavericks battery testing,

00:30:40 ◼   ► I found that number can get even bigger

00:30:41 ◼   ► if you use it very lightly.

00:30:43 ◼   ► Like you really are just doing like light web browsing.

00:30:45 ◼   ► And my battery test was very light in Mavericks.

00:30:48 ◼   ► It was like automated, basically like going

00:30:50 ◼   ► to a bunch of web pages, switching tabs,

00:30:52 ◼   ► reloading web pages, going to a text editor,

00:30:55 ◼   ► typing some random text, saving the text document,

00:30:57 ◼   ► going-- it was like that's the type of stuff it was doing.

00:30:59 ◼   ► Very light.

00:31:00 ◼   ► And I was getting 15 hours out of it.

00:31:02 ◼   ► But anyway, 12 hours is what Apple says.

00:31:04 ◼   ► The iPad Air, which is my standard bearer for the iOS,

00:31:07 ◼   ► ARM device, it's got the biggest, fastest ARM CPU in it,

00:31:11 ◼   ► it's got a pretty darn big battery

00:31:12 ◼   ► 'cause the iPad Air is their biggest iPad.

00:31:15 ◼   ► It is a, I guess, what is this number wrong in here?

00:31:17 ◼   ► 32.4 watt hour battery, let me check.

00:31:22 ◼   ► 32.4 watt hour battery, I just have a typo in the notes.

00:31:25 ◼   ► And Apple claims this is good for 10 hours of battery life,

00:31:28 ◼   ► although they say nine hours if you use cellular data.

00:31:30 ◼   ► So if you do the math on that,

00:31:33 ◼   ► it ends up that the iPad Air is about 40%

00:31:35 ◼   ► more energy efficient than the MacBook Air in terms of how many watt hours gives you

00:31:40 ◼   ► how many hours of usage out of it.

00:31:43 ◼   ► And who knows if Apple's usage things are comparable?

00:31:46 ◼   ► Like, how are they coming up with the 12-hour number of the MacBook Air and what kind of

00:31:50 ◼   ► activity they're coming up with with the iPad Air 10-hour battery life?

00:31:54 ◼   ► But still, the iPad Air wins by like 40%.

00:31:57 ◼   ► The iPad Air wins by 25% if you include cellular data, but the MacBook Air doesn't even have

00:32:02 ◼   ► that option.

00:32:03 ◼   ► So whatever.

00:32:04 ◼   ► better energy efficiency.

00:32:06 ◼   ► But then you look at, you have to have some proxy for,

00:32:08 ◼   ► okay, it's 40% more energy efficient,

00:32:10 ◼   ► but how fast is the CPU?

00:32:11 ◼   ► How does the A7 CPU compare to the MacBook Air CPU?

00:32:14 ◼   ► And CPU benchmarking is a pain.

00:32:16 ◼   ► I just did Geekbench because that's what everybody does,

00:32:19 ◼   ► whatever.

00:32:19 ◼   ► This is just ballpark, right?

00:32:21 ◼   ► So the MacBook Air Geekbench,

00:32:22 ◼   ► compared to the iPad Air Geekbench,

00:32:26 ◼   ► the MacBook Air is 230% faster in single core

00:32:30 ◼   ► and 250% faster in multi-core.

00:32:31 ◼   ► So in exchange for 40% more energy efficiency,

00:32:36 ◼   ► it gives up 2X performance or 2.5X performance.

00:32:40 ◼   ► And so that's quite a gap to make up.

00:32:43 ◼   ► So you could say, oh, the ARM processors

00:32:45 ◼   ► are more energy efficient.

00:32:47 ◼   ► They're not more energy efficient when doing the same thing.

00:32:49 ◼   ► The conjecture of Apple switching to ARM

00:32:52 ◼   ► is that they could switch to ARM CPUs,

00:32:53 ◼   ► ignoring the chipset, ignoring Thunderbolt,

00:32:55 ◼   ► ignoring all the other technical

00:32:57 ◼   ► and intellectual property issues

00:32:58 ◼   ► that may prevent them from having this be feasible.

00:33:00 ◼   ► Just the CPU, can Apple take an ARM chip

00:33:05 ◼   ► and make it 250% faster while maintaining

00:33:10 ◼   ► its 40% energy efficiency advantage, right?

00:33:13 ◼   ► It's because as you make the CPU more performant,

00:33:17 ◼   ► you're gonna lose that energy efficiency, right?

00:33:19 ◼   ► It's not like the iPad Air is 40% more energy efficient

00:33:22 ◼   ► doing the same thing, it's way slower.

00:33:23 ◼   ► It's two times slower at least.

00:33:25 ◼   ► And this doesn't even get into like the relative comparisons

00:33:29 ◼   ► of the embedded GPUs and forget about a discrete GPU

00:33:32 ◼   ► and the MacBook Pros and again, the Mac Pro,

00:33:35 ◼   ► who knows what you would do with that.

00:33:36 ◼   ► So there are a lot of just unanswered

00:33:39 ◼   ► technical performance questions in terms of like,

00:33:42 ◼   ► what would be, putting aside the being master

00:33:45 ◼   ► of your own destiny, what would be the advantage

00:33:49 ◼   ► for Apple to switch to ARM, technically speaking?

00:33:52 ◼   ► Would you get a Mac that lasts longer battery wise?

00:33:55 ◼   ► Would you get a Mac that performs as at least as well

00:33:58 ◼   ► is the existing Macs, would you get Macs to perform better?

00:34:00 ◼   ► These are all unanswered questions, we don't know.

00:34:02 ◼   ► I'm saying that the gap right now,

00:34:04 ◼   ► it does not make it seem like Apple,

00:34:06 ◼   ► like it's a gimme for Apple to say,

00:34:07 ◼   ► oh, Apple could totally make a CPU that is exactly as fast

00:34:10 ◼   ► as the current MacBook Air is,

00:34:11 ◼   ► but is more energy efficient.

00:34:12 ◼   ► I don't see that in the numbers.

00:34:14 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's impossible,

00:34:15 ◼   ► but nothing Apple has ever done so far

00:34:17 ◼   ► has shown that it could do that.

00:34:20 ◼   ► And the second aspect of this is everyone complaining

00:34:22 ◼   ► about the Broadwell delay,

00:34:23 ◼   ► it's like Broadwell being delayed into next year,

00:34:24 ◼   ► which is why Apple had to rev its laptop line

00:34:27 ◼   ► and just say, well, okay, we'll give you more RAM,

00:34:28 ◼   ► which is nice by the way,

00:34:29 ◼   ► give you more RAM and lower the prices

00:34:31 ◼   ► 'cause we're not gonna have new laptops

00:34:32 ◼   ► until we can get the new CPUs.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And so it's a bummer, like, oh, well, see if Apple,

00:34:36 ◼   ► you know, if Apple made its own ARM chips,

00:34:38 ◼   ► they wouldn't have this problem

00:34:39 ◼   ► because they wouldn't be reliant on Intel

00:34:42 ◼   ► and these delays wouldn't affect them

00:34:44 ◼   ► because they would be, you know,

00:34:44 ◼   ► getting masters of their own destiny.

00:34:47 ◼   ► I don't much see that because in the race to say,

00:34:51 ◼   ► can we make an ARM chip that's as good,

00:34:53 ◼   ► that has the same performance per watt as Intel things?

00:34:56 ◼   ► If you're gonna have any shot at that,

00:34:59 ◼   ► you have to be using the same process size as Intel.

00:35:02 ◼   ► And the only person who can do the same process size

00:35:04 ◼   ► as Intel is Intel.

00:35:05 ◼   ► So you'd still be relying on Intel

00:35:07 ◼   ► to fab your 14 nanometer ARM chips.

00:35:09 ◼   ► And if Intel can't get its 14 nanometer x86 chips

00:35:13 ◼   ► out the door, chances of it being able to get your ARM

00:35:16 ◼   ► 14 nanometer chips out the door

00:35:17 ◼   ► before it puts this x86 ones out the door are very slim.

00:35:20 ◼   ► You'd have to get Intel to agree to fab them

00:35:22 ◼   ► in the first place, then you'd have to get them

00:35:24 ◼   ► to agree to give you priority.

00:35:25 ◼   ► And then you'd have to say that the thing that's stopping Intel from making the x86 chips at 14 nanometers is just like laziness or something

00:35:31 ◼   ► And if only you know, if only Apple was whipping them along and say well see if Apple was master of its own destiny

00:35:35 ◼   ► You would have 14 nanometer ARM CPUs for its next generation of MacBook Airs that have more performance per watt than the Intel ones and just

00:35:42 ◼   ► Technically speaking. I don't see it now

00:35:44 ◼   ► It doesn't mean they're not gonna do it or they would do it and just make some excuses and eventually catch up because

00:35:49 ◼   ► That's kind of an Apple's mo. It's like like with the Maps thing

00:35:52 ◼   ► Well, we just can't have Google Maps anymore and our new maps are gonna be worse and they're gonna be worse for a long time

00:35:57 ◼   ► Possibly forever, but we just have to do it. That's always an option

00:36:00 ◼   ► So I'm not saying Apple will never do this but on paper

00:36:02 ◼   ► It does not look like a compelling change for me

00:36:05 ◼   ► And this is even ignoring like the Mac Pro and all my sad x86 games and the ability to run windows and all that

00:36:11 ◼   ► Yeah, the ability run windows. I wonder how much that matters

00:36:15 ◼   ► My my feeling is that it probably matters a good amount still and I'm sure it's going down every year with how much that matters

00:36:21 ◼   ► but I bet there's still a lot of people who run like the Windows version of Microsoft Office in virtualization at least.

00:36:28 ◼   ► Ahem.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Right.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly true. And actually I recorded an episode of Mac Power Users last night,

00:36:35 ◼   ► and one of the things we very briefly talked about is what happens if, you know, Macs go ARM, or if they certainly if they weren't Intel.

00:36:42 ◼   ► And that would be a showstopper for me.

00:36:45 ◼   ► Additionally, if there was an Intel Mac and an ARM Mac, let's say they were both brand

00:36:52 ◼   ► new, you know, Broadwell comes out, but simultaneously there's an ARM-based Mac, I would absolutely

00:36:57 ◼   ► choose the Intel-based Mac for work at least because I live in Windows at work.

00:37:04 ◼   ► I don't use Bootcamp.

00:37:06 ◼   ► Is Bootcamp even still a thing?

00:37:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it's still there.

00:37:08 ◼   ► Okay.

00:37:09 ◼   ► Well, anyway, so I don't use Bootcamp, I use VMware Fusion, but my point is that I pretty

00:37:15 ◼   ► much live in VMware Fusion at work.

00:37:16 ◼   ► And so for me to have really bad and crummy virtualization

00:37:21 ◼   ► would be a showstopper.

00:37:23 ◼   ► I would have to use one of those Dell behemoths

00:37:25 ◼   ► if I didn't have an Intel Mac.

00:37:28 ◼   ► And that's just a terrible life that nobody wants to leave.

00:37:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think, you know,

00:37:34 ◼   ► to do an architecture transition again

00:37:37 ◼   ► would have to come with major gains.

00:37:40 ◼   ► And I think, you know, John, everything you said is right,

00:37:42 ◼   ► and, you know, looking at what they would lose

00:37:44 ◼   ► with Windows compatibility and the cost of having all developers have to recompile, because

00:37:50 ◼   ► as we said last time we talked about this, or as I said at least, going from PowerPC

00:37:56 ◼   ► to Intel, they used Rosetta to try to help transition along and emulate the old stuff,

00:38:01 ◼   ► but that also worked primarily because the Intel chips were so much faster. There was

00:38:05 ◼   ► a huge performance jump when they made that transition. And here there probably wouldn't

00:38:10 ◼   ► that same performance jump, in fact it might even get slower.

00:38:15 ◼   ► It would not be an easy transition.

00:38:17 ◼   ► It would be possible, you know, they could do it,

00:38:19 ◼   ► it's a different environment now,

00:38:21 ◼   ► Windows isn't as important, developers in the Mac App Store,

00:38:24 ◼   ► they're using Apple's Xcode toolkits and everything,

00:38:28 ◼   ► so Apple could just ship a cross compiler

00:38:31 ◼   ► and make universal binaries again.

00:38:33 ◼   ► They could do it if they wanted to,

00:38:35 ◼   ► but it would not be a cheap or easy transition to make.

00:38:38 ◼   ► make. And so the question is whether it would be worth it. And I've been looking at these

00:38:43 ◼   ► numbers and thinking about, you know, john, you're right, thinking about like the fab

00:38:46 ◼   ► capacity issue, and I don't see it really being worth it.

00:38:49 ◼   ► See, I think they could actually make a pretty darn high performance ARM chip, mostly because

00:38:55 ◼   ► like with their integration, like the fact that they control the compiler, they control

00:38:58 ◼   ► the language, they, they control the micro architecture of the chip, you can really get

00:39:02 ◼   ► some impressive gains out of that. But you still are always in the end faced with the

00:39:06 ◼   ► the problem of who the hell is gonna fab this chip?

00:39:07 ◼   ► And if the answer isn't Intel using their best process

00:39:10 ◼   ► before at the same time as they do their own flagship chips,

00:39:13 ◼   ► then your answer is, well,

00:39:14 ◼   ► it doesn't matter how great your chip is.

00:39:15 ◼   ► If you have to fab at a size,

00:39:17 ◼   ► a generation behind what Intel does,

00:39:19 ◼   ► how the hell are you gonna compete

00:39:20 ◼   ► on price performance with them?

00:39:21 ◼   ► Like it is just a huge advantage to say,

00:39:23 ◼   ► you're at 22 nanometers and we're at 14.

00:39:25 ◼   ► It's like, you know,

00:39:27 ◼   ► like everyone likes to bring up the x86 tax.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Like all these crazy instructions,

00:39:31 ◼   ► like the x86 tax has been going down, you know,

00:39:34 ◼   ► for, it just always keeps going down and down

00:39:37 ◼   ► because as the number of transistors in the chip

00:39:38 ◼   ► goes up and up, and even if you exclude cache,

00:39:41 ◼   ► which is a huge part of it,

00:39:42 ◼   ► or even if you exclude the GPU,

00:39:44 ◼   ► like the percentage of transistors you have to spend

00:39:47 ◼   ► that x86 is so small that it's not even a factor.

00:39:50 ◼   ► Like it's a factor, you know, in terms of elegance

00:39:53 ◼   ► and it's just disgusting to think about those things

00:39:54 ◼   ► being there and it would be nice if more of them

00:39:56 ◼   ► get phased out, but at this point it's like,

00:39:58 ◼   ► x86-64 isn't as gross.

00:40:01 ◼   ► You can implement the old like 16-bit instructions

00:40:03 ◼   ► crazy ass crap that's never gonna get called

00:40:05 ◼   ► as slow as you want with as few transistors as you want.

00:40:07 ◼   ► It's just, it's a tiny blip, it's not the kind of blip

00:40:10 ◼   ► that you can build a sustainable performance advantage on.

00:40:14 ◼   ► You know, like process and manufacturing

00:40:16 ◼   ► is just such a huge part of this.

00:40:18 ◼   ► And so Intel has to be a huge part.

00:40:20 ◼   ► And I don't know the ins and outs of the details

00:40:21 ◼   ► that people have been talking about this,

00:40:22 ◼   ► but like CPU is one thing, but you've got chipset,

00:40:25 ◼   ► you've got Thunderbolt, you've got whatever

00:40:26 ◼   ► the current version of PCI expresses and all that stuff.

00:40:29 ◼   ► And a lot of that stuff is tied up with either patents

00:40:31 ◼   ► or actual intellectual property that involves Intel.

00:40:33 ◼   ► So I don't think you're gonna get away from Intel

00:40:36 ◼   ► unless you're gonna do something like an iOS device

00:40:40 ◼   ► where it's like, oh, no Thunderbolt over here,

00:40:42 ◼   ► we don't even have USB.

00:40:43 ◼   ► It's our own little widget,

00:40:44 ◼   ► it's got our own port on the side of it,

00:40:47 ◼   ► and we control everything,

00:40:48 ◼   ► but you can't quite do that with Macs yet.

00:40:50 ◼   ► - We are also sponsored this week by a new sponsor.

00:40:54 ◼   ► It is TopBrewer.

00:40:56 ◼   ► Go to topbrewerusa.com.

00:40:59 ◼   ► It's from a company called Scanomat.

00:41:01 ◼   ► This is interesting.

00:41:02 ◼   ► So Top Brewer is a revolutionary coffee system

00:41:05 ◼   ► that dispenses espresso, coffee, cappuccino, lattes,

00:41:09 ◼   ► filtered sparkling water, cold and hot filtered water,

00:41:11 ◼   ► and other drinks on demand via a Bluetooth connection

00:41:14 ◼   ► with just a tap on your iOS or Android device.

00:41:18 ◼   ► Top Brewer is designed and manufactured in Denmark.

00:41:21 ◼   ► A lot of things that are awesome come from Denmark

00:41:22 ◼   ► that are difficult to pronounce, such as Jorg Jensen.

00:41:26 ◼   ► Is that the Jensen Electronics brand, I assume?

00:41:28 ◼   ► - Is this one of those electronic brands

00:41:30 ◼   ► that no one's ever heard of except for you.

00:41:31 ◼   ► - No, gents, they've been around forever.

00:41:33 ◼   ► They've been around since the 80s at least, right?

00:41:35 ◼   ► Also Bang & Olufsen, which you've probably heard of them

00:41:38 ◼   ► at least, they're in the Apple stores and everything.

00:41:39 ◼   ► And of course Lego, which is singular and plural

00:41:43 ◼   ► at the same time, it is not Legos.

00:41:45 ◼   ► It is Lego trademark brand bricks or something, right?

00:41:48 ◼   ► So anyway, Lego comes from Denmark too.

00:41:50 ◼   ► Great design and great coffee

00:41:51 ◼   ► are also part of Denmark's culture.

00:41:53 ◼   ► Now with Tott Brewer, drinks are customizable

00:41:56 ◼   ► and can be saved as favorites.

00:41:57 ◼   ► You can have this thing if you prefer 9.5 grams

00:42:01 ◼   ► of espresso beans in your espresso, over 8.5 grams.

00:42:04 ◼   ► You can save your preference as a favorite

00:42:06 ◼   ► and your favorite drink as a tap away.

00:42:08 ◼   ► You can save whether you like more or less foam

00:42:11 ◼   ► in your cappuccino, all this stuff.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Now what's cool with Top Brewer,

00:42:14 ◼   ► you probably saw this circulate around,

00:42:17 ◼   ► look at these cool gadget kind of sites about a year ago

00:42:19 ◼   ► when they first announced it and showed it off.

00:42:21 ◼   ► It looks just like a big,

00:42:24 ◼   ► one of those big U-shaped kitchen taps.

00:42:27 ◼   ► It just looks like a tap on a flat counter.

00:42:30 ◼   ► And all the machinery and reservoirs and everything for it

00:42:33 ◼   ► are hidden in the countertop.

00:42:35 ◼   ► It is the coolest, cleanest, most modern looking thing

00:42:39 ◼   ► I've seen in a long time.

00:42:41 ◼   ► It's all, you know, all the machinery's hidden away

00:42:43 ◼   ► and you can see this beautifully designed silver tap

00:42:46 ◼   ► and it's really cool.

00:42:48 ◼   ► And these are commercial grade components in the top brewer.

00:42:50 ◼   ► Now, they target both home installations

00:42:53 ◼   ► as well as small offices and commercial settings.

00:42:55 ◼   ► It includes a burr grinder for the coffee,

00:42:58 ◼   ► which is made of, even the burr grinder

00:43:00 ◼   ► is made of cast aluminum, and it alone is 13 pounds

00:43:04 ◼   ► and is really high quality stuff in here.

00:43:07 ◼   ► So Top Brewer is the perfect marriage

00:43:08 ◼   ► of beautiful design, exquisite coffee,

00:43:10 ◼   ► and so here's what you do.

00:43:12 ◼   ► You find one of these things or install it in your home.

00:43:15 ◼   ► But at first, if you wanna go try it, go find one.

00:43:17 ◼   ► They have them installed at various places

00:43:19 ◼   ► around a lot of cities these days,

00:43:20 ◼   ► and they're expanding very soon.

00:43:23 ◼   ► So go find one of these.

00:43:24 ◼   ► you install their app and then you just order from the app.

00:43:27 ◼   ► You just walk up to the thing

00:43:28 ◼   ► and order it right from the app.

00:43:29 ◼   ► And then it makes your drink right there.

00:43:31 ◼   ► You don't have to interact with anybody.

00:43:32 ◼   ► So maybe the baristas might have a problem with this,

00:43:34 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:43:35 ◼   ► But you don't have to interact with anybody

00:43:36 ◼   ► or give your name so they can misspell it on the cup

00:43:38 ◼   ► or anything like that.

00:43:40 ◼   ► You just walk up to this thing with the app

00:43:42 ◼   ► and it makes your preferred drink.

00:43:44 ◼   ► And you can walk up to any of these things,

00:43:45 ◼   ► anywhere that you find one, in any city,

00:43:48 ◼   ► any stores that have them,

00:43:49 ◼   ► or you can install one right in your home or office.

00:43:52 ◼   ► So anyway, go to topbrewerusa.com.

00:43:56 ◼   ► That is topbrewerusa.com.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Check it out, it's really interesting,

00:44:00 ◼   ► and I think these are probably gonna be big pretty soon.

00:44:03 ◼   ► - All right.

00:44:04 ◼   ► So the other thing that's been going around the internet

00:44:06 ◼   ► over the last week to week and a half, maybe two weeks,

00:44:10 ◼   ► is whether or not anyone can make money

00:44:12 ◼   ► in the iOS App Store.

00:44:14 ◼   ► Marco, are you making any money in the iOS App Store?

00:44:18 ◼   ► - Well, I am right now.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Ask me again in three months.

00:44:21 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:44:21 ◼   ► - That's fine for Marco, that's the other thing

00:44:23 ◼   ► that's going on. (laughing)

00:44:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:44:25 ◼   ► - The actual full version of that is,

00:44:28 ◼   ► is it possible for anyone to make money in the App Store

00:44:30 ◼   ► besides Marco?

00:44:32 ◼   ► That's basically the meme.

00:44:33 ◼   ► - That's true. - Besides Marco

00:44:34 ◼   ► and like three other people that they list.

00:44:36 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:44:37 ◼   ► - I mean, there's two problems really that people face.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Problem number one is getting noticed at all

00:44:43 ◼   ► and ever having strong sales.

00:44:45 ◼   ► So that's like, my reputation and existing audience

00:44:49 ◼   ► gives me that kind of for free.

00:44:51 ◼   ► Not entirely free, but close.

00:44:53 ◼   ► But then problem number two affects me

00:44:56 ◼   ► as much as anybody else, which is once you've found

00:45:00 ◼   ► and saturated the number of people

00:45:02 ◼   ► who are going to ever buy your app,

00:45:04 ◼   ► what happens to your sales curve?

00:45:07 ◼   ► And how do you get more people to buy it

00:45:10 ◼   ► who are not finding it, or who are choosing not to buy it,

00:45:14 ◼   ► or who are looking at the category

00:45:17 ◼   ► and choosing one of your competitors instead?

00:45:20 ◼   ► And that's a much harder problem.

00:45:22 ◼   ► And I don't have any benefits there

00:45:25 ◼   ► over anyone else really.

00:45:26 ◼   ► And it's a hard problem to solve.

00:45:28 ◼   ► And so the first problem you can kind of address

00:45:33 ◼   ► by doing things like picking a category

00:45:40 ◼   ► where there's less competition but there is still a market.

00:45:42 ◼   ► That's really hard to find though.

00:45:44 ◼   ► A lot of times there's no competition

00:45:45 ◼   ► 'cause it isn't very useful.

00:45:48 ◼   ► Or it's a problem that it's very useful

00:45:50 ◼   ► like 10 people in the world and you're one of them.

00:45:52 ◼   ► So congratulations, but it's gonna be hard to sell it.

00:45:55 ◼   ► And a lot of things are just like,

00:45:57 ◼   ► you know, it's kinda cool, but who's gonna pay for it?

00:46:00 ◼   ► And if it isn't that compelling to pay for,

00:46:03 ◼   ► even if it's kinda cool,

00:46:05 ◼   ► it's hard to get a lot of sales there.

00:46:07 ◼   ► So we've seen a lot of these blog posts

00:46:11 ◼   ► over the last couple of weeks

00:46:14 ◼   ► on the problems in the App Store

00:46:15 ◼   ► and how hard it is for developers

00:46:17 ◼   ► to make a good living there.

00:46:19 ◼   ► And a lot of developers have shared numbers,

00:46:22 ◼   ► like actual numbers, here's what we made,

00:46:24 ◼   ► which is unusual.

00:46:25 ◼   ► In most places, talking about your salary is taboo,

00:46:29 ◼   ► and that's a whole other discussion

00:46:32 ◼   ► about whether that should be that way.

00:46:33 ◼   ► There's actually a really good Planet Money episode

00:46:35 ◼   ► about that recently that you can find.

00:46:37 ◼   ► It's interesting though to see,

00:46:39 ◼   ► 'cause what most of these people are revealing

00:46:42 ◼   ► is that they're making a lot less money

00:46:44 ◼   ► than people might have assumed,

00:46:45 ◼   ► and that a lot less money then is worth continuing

00:46:48 ◼   ► to work on it basically.

00:46:50 ◼   ► And so this was started out by Jared Sinclair

00:46:54 ◼   ► and his post about Unread, which is an RSS reader,

00:46:58 ◼   ► and it ends up it's made, I forget the exact number,

00:47:01 ◼   ► it was like $30,000 over its lifetime of over a year,

00:47:04 ◼   ► right, something like that?

00:47:06 ◼   ► - I thought it was like 40-ish, but the point is,

00:47:08 ◼   ► it was in the 30 to 50 range, let's say.

00:47:12 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:47:13 ◼   ► So, and so it was below his expectations

00:47:16 ◼   ► and makes it hard to justify full-time work on it.

00:47:20 ◼   ► If you're a programmer in the United States

00:47:23 ◼   ► paying for United States health insurance and everything

00:47:25 ◼   ► and rent or a mortgage and everything else,

00:47:28 ◼   ► it's pretty expensive to live here.

00:47:30 ◼   ► And if you're making 30,000 a year,

00:47:34 ◼   ► when you have a skill that you could make easily twice that,

00:47:37 ◼   ► probably more so, depending on the area that you live in,

00:47:41 ◼   ► working for anybody else, that's kinda hard to justify.

00:47:44 ◼   ► So I don't know, Casey, I mean, what do you think about this?

00:47:45 ◼   ► 'cause you're a normal person.

00:47:47 ◼   ► I'm apparently, people get mad when I talk about this

00:47:51 ◼   ► because anything I say, people say,

00:47:53 ◼   ► "Oh, well, this doesn't apply to you.

00:47:55 ◼   ► "You can't say that.

00:47:56 ◼   ► "Oh, this works for Marco."

00:47:57 ◼   ► People get very mad at me when I talk about this.

00:47:59 ◼   ► So Casey, you are more normal than I am

00:48:02 ◼   ► and people tend to like you a lot more.

00:48:04 ◼   ► So what do you think of this?

00:48:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:48:07 ◼   ► - Right, so I think it's a tough thing

00:48:11 ◼   ► and there's been a bunch of things that,

00:48:14 ◼   ► friend of the show _DavidSmith has posted both in text form and in audible form about this.

00:48:20 ◼   ► I think he is a good counterpoint to yours insofar as he is also successful, but he does it by way

00:48:29 ◼   ► of diversification, whereas you do it by way of really dumping all of your time into one app. And

00:48:35 ◼   ► both of those are perfectly valid ways of going about it. For me, I don't think I'm going to ever

00:48:42 ◼   ► post this in a blog post or anything, but I was looking at fast text numbers and

00:48:46 ◼   ► in brief the first check I got from Apple was

00:48:51 ◼   ► the end of September in 2010 and it was $43 and I was

00:48:58 ◼   ► unbelievably excited about that because I had actually earned some modicum of money on the App Store.

00:49:04 ◼   ► I didn't earn a lot and if we care I could go in the blow-by-blow of how much I earned but suffice to say it wasn't

00:49:11 ◼   ► until sometime during ATP's run that I finally cracked into profit for fast text.

00:49:20 ◼   ► And I was just adding up all the numbers, and if I added things correctly, I am $143

00:49:28 ◼   ► in the black.

00:49:29 ◼   ► That counts for all the money I've made, which is about $650, minus five years in the app

00:49:37 ◼   ► which is about a hundred bucks a pop, minus the $40 I spent on Opacity Express to make

00:49:43 ◼   ► the world's worst icon with feet. You're welcome, Jon.

00:49:47 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:49:47 ◼   ► I liked it.

00:49:49 ◼   ► Well, you're not subtracting on WWDC tickets or travel to WWDC or the price you paid for the

00:49:55 ◼   ► inferior footless icon that replaced the real icon?

00:49:58 ◼   ► Well, I have not... My friend, Jacob Swydek, actually did not charge me for that icon. He

00:50:06 ◼   ► He did it out of the goodness of his heart because he's awesome.

00:50:08 ◼   ► And I don't know if he's doing contract work anymore,

00:50:10 ◼   ► but if you want a good icon, talk to him.

00:50:12 ◼   ► Anyway--

00:50:13 ◼   ► But WWDC, you don't count.

00:50:14 ◼   ► And that wipes out all your profit.

00:50:16 ◼   ► Well, yes and no.

00:50:17 ◼   ► Of the four years I've been to WWDC,

00:50:20 ◼   ► I think work paid for three of them, if I'm not mistaken.

00:50:23 ◼   ► So you could argue that that one year would put me heavily

00:50:29 ◼   ► in the red.

00:50:30 ◼   ► But I consider that slightly ancillary.

00:50:34 ◼   ► And we can get into a whole debate as to whether or not that's reasonable, but

00:50:37 ◼   ► let's take WWDC as completely unrelated.

00:50:40 ◼   ► Let's assume I've never been to WWDC still over five years because, uh,

00:50:45 ◼   ► fast text last, or excuse me, launched shortly after iOS four came out.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Um, and so in the five or so years that it's been out, I've earned $143.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Now I've done nothing to promote it other than occasionally mentioning it here.

00:51:01 ◼   ► And that's about it.

00:51:04 ◼   ► And to be honest, especially now, it's getting a little old,

00:51:07 ◼   ► getting a little long in the tooth.

00:51:09 ◼   ► I need to find some time to work on it.

00:51:13 ◼   ► - I can't believe I beat you.

00:51:14 ◼   ► - I know.

00:51:15 ◼   ► - I can't believe overcast shit before your iOS 7 update.

00:51:18 ◼   ► - The really embarrassing thing is that

00:51:19 ◼   ► iOS 8 is gonna beat me too.

00:51:21 ◼   ► I did work on it briefly two weeks ago.

00:51:24 ◼   ► And I, what was it that you had said?

00:51:27 ◼   ► The, shoot, the top--

00:51:29 ◼   ► - The top layout guide.

00:51:29 ◼   ► - Yes, that got me halfway there,

00:51:31 ◼   ► but I'm not quite through yet.

00:51:33 ◼   ► And because I'm too damn stubborn to use springs and struts,

00:51:36 ◼   ► I still haven't updated it.

00:51:38 ◼   ► But anyway, but yeah, so over the course of five years,

00:51:43 ◼   ► having done no real marketing whatsoever,

00:51:47 ◼   ► I've earned $143.

00:51:50 ◼   ► And I'm happy with that.

00:51:51 ◼   ► I mean, I'm certainly not complaining about it,

00:51:54 ◼   ► but I certainly wouldn't be leaving my job

00:51:56 ◼   ► for $143 over five years.

00:51:59 ◼   ► I mean, that's like one nice meal, if by nice you mean Panera Bread, every half year to

00:52:06 ◼   ► a year.

00:52:07 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:52:08 ◼   ► So it's hard.

00:52:09 ◼   ► And Justin Williams has been talking in his snarky way, which I love, but he's been talking

00:52:17 ◼   ► on and off about that, "You know what?

00:52:19 ◼   ► Business is just hard.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Business is hard."

00:52:24 ◼   ► And that's the thing is that you got to be a businessman or woman before you're

00:52:32 ◼   ► a developer in a lot of cases.

00:52:34 ◼   ► And I think Marco, you've done pretty well with that by finding a niche, niche, niche,

00:52:40 ◼   ► whatever, finding a cubby that's not terribly well served up until Overcast.

00:52:47 ◼   ► And in the case of Overcast, finding a way to make it something unique.

00:52:53 ◼   ► And we'll see over time, or you'll see over time, whether or not that's sustainable.

00:52:58 ◼   ► But _DavidSmith, by comparison, has his hands in a lot of different pots.

00:53:05 ◼   ► And that's what keeps him profitable and able to be independent.

00:53:10 ◼   ► And somebody mentioned in the chat a moment ago, "Well, yeah, you say you didn't do any

00:53:14 ◼   ► real marketing, but, well, you mentioned it on ATP and that's marketing."

00:53:18 ◼   ► And that's a fair point.

00:53:19 ◼   ► That's an absolutely fair point.

00:53:20 ◼   ► "Okay, let's assume that that's quote-unquote real marketing. I still have only earned 150 bucks over five years."

00:53:27 ◼   ► You know, so if that's real marketing, that means it's even more depressing than we originally thought.

00:53:32 ◼   ► So...

00:53:33 ◼   ► This episode is also sponsored by Fast Text.

00:53:35 ◼   ► Right? You know, so...

00:53:37 ◼   ► I don't know. It's...

00:53:39 ◼   ► I long so much. I long so much to be able to go independent and do my own thing and not work for the man.

00:53:47 ◼   ► And I love my job, I truly do.

00:53:49 ◼   ► But it would be so neat to be like you or underscore and be able to be my own person,

00:53:55 ◼   ► if you will, in mega air quotes.

00:53:58 ◼   ► But in the end of the day, I don't really have a terribly stressful job.

00:54:03 ◼   ► And as long as I show up and do decent work, I'm going to maintain that not terribly stressful

00:54:10 ◼   ► job.

00:54:11 ◼   ► And there's a lot to be said for that.

00:54:13 ◼   ► And I think, as always, the grass is greener on the other side.

00:54:18 ◼   ► And I have it pretty easy, all told.

00:54:22 ◼   ► So young and foolish.

00:54:23 ◼   ► "If I just show up every day and do good work, I'll keep my job."

00:54:26 ◼   ► And I tell you about that right after my first child was born, that I lost my job.

00:54:31 ◼   ► Anyway, that's lots of fun.

00:54:33 ◼   ► What job number is this for you, Casey?

00:54:34 ◼   ► Is it number three or something?

00:54:36 ◼   ► This is four.

00:54:38 ◼   ► And did you voluntarily leave all the previous jobs?

00:54:41 ◼   ► Thus far, yes.

00:54:42 ◼   ► you're a quitter. What I'm saying is chances are good that you're going to have more jobs

00:54:48 ◼   ► in your life. And I think it's a reasonable chance that some of those transitions will

00:54:54 ◼   ► happen not by your choice. It is certainly possible. I tend to try to

00:55:00 ◼   ► pick a company that from everything I can tell is stable and to the best of my ability

00:55:08 ◼   ► I am certainly not the most important person there, but I am not the low-hanging fruit,

00:55:14 ◼   ► if you will.

00:55:16 ◼   ► But you're right.

00:55:17 ◼   ► I mean, the company that I work for, it could fold tomorrow, and I could be none the wiser.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Well, let's not turn this into an episode of quit.

00:55:25 ◼   ► But the whole thing of the illusion of stability versus the panic that you feel and the stress

00:55:33 ◼   ► that you feel about, "Oh, I'm doing my own thing, but that means it's all on me,"

00:55:36 ◼   ► where it's like, well now I'm not doing my own thing,

00:55:39 ◼   ► it's not all on me, but at least I have security.

00:55:40 ◼   ► Well you really don't have security,

00:55:42 ◼   ► but it kind of feels like you do.

00:55:43 ◼   ► So the reality is that depending on your personality trait,

00:55:47 ◼   ► the bottom line is, do you feel more stressed?

00:55:49 ◼   ► Are you more stressed in situation A versus situation B?

00:55:52 ◼   ► Regardless of whether situation A and B

00:55:55 ◼   ► are actually comparable in any way.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Because like, just because you feel safer in a job

00:55:59 ◼   ► doesn't mean a job is safer,

00:56:00 ◼   ► but feeling safer is like 90% of the battle anyway.

00:56:03 ◼   ► Like if you have a personality

00:56:05 ◼   ► where if you were to go off on your own,

00:56:07 ◼   ► all you would do is stress all the time.

00:56:09 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:56:10 ◼   ► - That wouldn't be a good thing for you,

00:56:12 ◼   ► even if it was exactly comparable risk-wise in reality.

00:56:15 ◼   ► It just matters how you feel.

00:56:16 ◼   ► But like all this stuff on the web,

00:56:18 ◼   ► going around about the App Store viability,

00:56:21 ◼   ► I have to think that it's motivated by,

00:56:25 ◼   ► like there's no point in writing about this

00:56:28 ◼   ► if there's not an angle.

00:56:30 ◼   ► And the angle I see a lot is someone who's not me

00:56:35 ◼   ► is to blame for my difficulties.

00:56:39 ◼   ► Not in a bad way, 'cause everyone kind of thinks that,

00:56:40 ◼   ► but it's like, if it was just on you, you're like,

00:56:43 ◼   ► well, I mean, kind of like Casey's thing,

00:56:44 ◼   ► he's not writing posts complaining about how hard it is

00:56:46 ◼   ► to make money out of FastX.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Whose fault is it that, you know, FastX?

00:56:49 ◼   ► Well, is FastX a awesome super duper app?

00:56:52 ◼   ► No, it's not. - No, it is not.

00:56:54 ◼   ► - Has it been updated religiously

00:56:56 ◼   ► to keep up with the latest tech?

00:56:57 ◼   ► No, it has not.

00:56:58 ◼   ► - You're a jerk.

00:56:59 ◼   ► - Is it, you know, it's not like you're searching for like,

00:57:02 ◼   ► why couldn't I make money off,

00:57:03 ◼   ► you know why you couldn't make money off FastX,

00:57:05 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:57:06 ◼   ► - Absolutely.

00:57:06 ◼   ► - And that's why you're not writing blog posts about it.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Whereas other people like Jared,

00:57:09 ◼   ► they'd say like, "I made a great app.

00:57:11 ◼   ► I love it.

00:57:12 ◼   ► It embodies my own ideals.

00:57:14 ◼   ► I think the interface is great.

00:57:15 ◼   ► I think it does something useful.

00:57:16 ◼   ► I really like the way it works.

00:57:17 ◼   ► I worked hard on it.

00:57:18 ◼   ► It's bug free.

00:57:19 ◼   ► I've kept it updated.

00:57:20 ◼   ► I use latest technologies."

00:57:22 ◼   ► And then, "Why aren't I successful?"

00:57:27 ◼   ► And you're not gonna turn that on yourself

00:57:29 ◼   ► because you're like, "Look, I made an awesome app.

00:57:30 ◼   ► I did a good job with this.

00:57:31 ◼   ► I look at all the other apps that are out there.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Mine is at least as good as them, if not better.

00:57:35 ◼   ► So you're gonna immediately be looking for

00:57:37 ◼   ► some reason why you didn't succeed

00:57:39 ◼   ► that doesn't have to do with your own personal failings.

00:57:41 ◼   ► And in most cases, it's not really your fault.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Like you did do a good job on the things that you care about.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Like you did make an ICUI.

00:57:48 ◼   ► It is a good app, it is bug-free, it does do something useful

00:57:50 ◼   ► but then you get into all the things

00:57:52 ◼   ► the market was talking about.

00:57:52 ◼   ► All right, well then whose fault is it?

00:57:54 ◼   ► What am I gonna write about?

00:57:54 ◼   ► Well, maybe you wrote an app

00:57:56 ◼   ► that has a potential customer base of 10 people

00:57:59 ◼   ► and they all bought it already, right?

00:58:00 ◼   ► Maybe your taste doesn't match other people's tastes.

00:58:03 ◼   ► Like if you have a beautiful bug free,

00:58:05 ◼   ► nice interface application for like, you know,

00:58:09 ◼   ► counting oranges, how many people in the world

00:58:11 ◼   ► need to count oranges?

00:58:12 ◼   ► Maybe it's just a hobby of yours or like train spotting

00:58:14 ◼   ► or some other strength.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Like you have, there's so much more to it

00:58:17 ◼   ► and that's where the end of the business is.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Maybe you picked a good audience,

00:58:19 ◼   ► maybe it's already crowded, so on and so forth.

00:58:21 ◼   ► And that's kind of boring too.

00:58:23 ◼   ► That's where a lot of these things get to is like,

00:58:24 ◼   ► oh, just business is hard or whatever.

00:58:26 ◼   ► But everyone is looking for something more interesting

00:58:29 ◼   ► than that because just saying business is hard,

00:58:30 ◼   ► Like that post has to come after everyone else's post comes

00:58:33 ◼   ► to be kind of like the, you know,

00:58:34 ◼   ► let me just say the obvious thing to get us back to sanity.

00:58:37 ◼   ► The previous ones are like, what is Apple doing?

00:58:40 ◼   ► What is the app, is the app store environment getting worse?

00:58:43 ◼   ► Is Apple not doing things that may,

00:58:45 ◼   ► it used to be easier to make money,

00:58:46 ◼   ► but now it's not as easy.

00:58:47 ◼   ► And I blame Apple for that

00:58:49 ◼   ► because they control the ecosystem.

00:58:50 ◼   ► And on iOS, there is an angle to that

00:58:52 ◼   ► because it's like, if you want to make an iOS app,

00:58:55 ◼   ► the app store is the only game in town.

00:58:57 ◼   ► Like unless you want to, you know,

00:58:58 ◼   ► sell them one of those weird jailbreak stores or something,

00:58:59 ◼   ► which usually people don't want to do,

00:59:01 ◼   ► Apple controls everything.

00:59:03 ◼   ► And so unless Apple is perfect, you're gonna say,

00:59:06 ◼   ► I made a good app, I think I picked a reasonable category,

00:59:09 ◼   ► but the App Store is harder to make money in now

00:59:12 ◼   ► than it used to be.

00:59:13 ◼   ► And whenever I see posts like that, I think, well, yeah,

00:59:17 ◼   ► like people know about it now.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Like it's not, you know, getting in early,

00:59:21 ◼   ► the gold rush is over.

00:59:22 ◼   ► The gold rush didn't end because Apple did something bad.

00:59:25 ◼   ► The gold rush ended because everyone came to California.

00:59:28 ◼   ► Like, and now everyone's here now.

00:59:29 ◼   ► Like the gold has been dug out of the ground.

00:59:32 ◼   ► When you're the first app on the App Store on day one,

00:59:34 ◼   ► everyone buys you because there's nothing for them to buy.

00:59:36 ◼   ► If you were the first Read Later app,

00:59:39 ◼   ► then you would get a lot more customers

00:59:40 ◼   ► than if you're the 17th Read Later app, right?

00:59:42 ◼   ► That's just, the gold rush means everyone rushed in

00:59:44 ◼   ► and the market was filled.

00:59:45 ◼   ► And so now of course it's harder to make money,

00:59:47 ◼   ► but it kind of gets, like what I kind of get back to is the,

00:59:50 ◼   ► I see this a lot in writers complaining,

00:59:53 ◼   ► I guess developers too, like writers, developers,

00:59:57 ◼   ► anybody who does anything creative fields

00:59:59 ◼   ► in development, they're like, don't work for free.

01:00:02 ◼   ► We've all heard that before,

01:00:02 ◼   ► and I think I've done this complaint

01:00:04 ◼   ► about the same thing on the podcast.

01:00:05 ◼   ► But don't work for free because it devalues the work.

01:00:08 ◼   ► So when you work for free and I tell somebody

01:00:10 ◼   ► that I wanna get paid, they're like,

01:00:11 ◼   ► well, I'll just take this guy, he works for free.

01:00:13 ◼   ► And don't do that because you're making the thing

01:00:16 ◼   ► that we do less valuable by being willing to do it for free.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And that is 100% true.

01:00:22 ◼   ► If the market is full of people like,

01:00:23 ◼   ► I will write your application for free,

01:00:25 ◼   ► or I will write your blog post for free,

01:00:27 ◼   ► I will do this logo design for you for free it makes it harder for you to

01:00:31 ◼   ► Charge money for any of those services because if the guy doing it for free is just as good or God forbid better than you

01:00:37 ◼   ► You've got you know it's very difficult to charge money, and so you if you are talking to your peers

01:00:42 ◼   ► Hey, everybody who does whatever everybody who paints paintings everyone who writes articles everyone who develops software

01:00:46 ◼   ► Don't do your thing for free or don't give your thing away because that makes it harder for all of us to make money

01:00:51 ◼   ► and

01:00:53 ◼   ► That is true. But the problem with that is what if the thing that you're doing is really fun

01:00:58 ◼   ► What if it's really cool? What if it's really fun to make apps? What if it's really fun to do paintings?

01:01:03 ◼   ► What if logo design is really fun? What if you can do it in your spare time like while having a regular job?

01:01:09 ◼   ► What if college students really like to do it and they're really smart and talented and don't really need to have a job

01:01:14 ◼   ► Those are unfortunate facts of life about many endeavors and making apps is kind of fun

01:01:19 ◼   ► I guess and working for yourself is also fun all these things that make it attractive to people like Casey and me and you know

01:01:25 ◼   ► it's like

01:01:25 ◼   ► That makes it attractive to everybody. Everybody wants to do that. Everybody wants to lead the good life. Everyone wants to do something cool and

01:01:32 ◼   ► all the people who are able to do that something cool because they don't need to have a job or because they're in college or

01:01:39 ◼   ► Because they're just young and foolish or whatever and like their reward is the fun of it

01:01:43 ◼   ► They make it hard for everyone else to make money

01:01:46 ◼   ► That's like I don't know it's like that's not I don't I don't think you can blame anybody in that the people saying that that

01:01:52 ◼   ► It's made it's harder

01:01:53 ◼   ► It is harder, but I don't really blame the people doing it for free or for the fun of it

01:01:56 ◼   ► because they're getting their own reward out of it and like that's

01:02:00 ◼   ► I'm not gonna say that this you know people who've run these blog posts are not entitled

01:02:05 ◼   ► But like I'm I'm making it statement independent of that thing of saying there is no entitlement

01:02:09 ◼   ► To be able to make a good living doing something awesome that you love right think of all the people who are in actual

01:02:16 ◼   ► creative fields like, you know, people who want to be singer-songwriters or like painters or poets.

01:02:23 ◼   ► You can be like, "Boy, wouldn't it be great if I could make six figures a year writing poetry?"

01:02:28 ◼   ► Yes, that would be great. Good luck with that, right? Like, the more people want to do it,

01:02:32 ◼   ► the more awesome it seems. Of course, the harder it's going to be to do that. And

01:02:36 ◼   ► writing applications is much more viable skill in terms of making money than poetry. But it's

01:02:43 ◼   ► It's a continuum, and writing applications

01:02:45 ◼   ► that you feel like writing when you feel like writing them

01:02:48 ◼   ► is farther towards the poetry end of the spectrum

01:02:50 ◼   ► than doing what Casey or I do,

01:02:53 ◼   ► which is doing something that an established company

01:02:56 ◼   ► needs you to do for money in a business

01:02:58 ◼   ► that they've already proven is a viable business.

01:03:01 ◼   ► Is that too depressing?

01:03:02 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:03:03 ◼   ► - Do you, Jon, at all aspire to be independent,

01:03:08 ◼   ► be that an independent consultant

01:03:09 ◼   ► or perhaps an independent product guy?

01:03:12 ◼   ► Is there any part of you that desires for that?

01:03:15 ◼   ► - Oh, I aspire to be retired.

01:03:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:03:19 ◼   ► - That's a wonderfully John Syracuse answer.

01:03:21 ◼   ► - Oh, that's fantastic.

01:03:23 ◼   ► - I aspired not to have to work.

01:03:24 ◼   ► I aspired to be independently wealthy.

01:03:26 ◼   ► All these are reasons why I will never have these things,

01:03:28 ◼   ► but if you're just asking what I want,

01:03:29 ◼   ► yep, that's what I want.

01:03:30 ◼   ► I want to not have to work.

01:03:31 ◼   ► And who doesn't want to not have to work?

01:03:33 ◼   ► Like seriously, like exactly.

01:03:34 ◼   ► - So accepting that working in some capacity

01:03:38 ◼   ► is a fact of life at the age in which we all are,

01:03:42 ◼   ► Would you, in a perfect world,

01:03:44 ◼   ► do you think you would prefer to be independent,

01:03:45 ◼   ► or do you think you would prefer to be working for the man

01:03:48 ◼   ► and have that either perceived or perhaps actual stability?

01:03:53 ◼   ► - Well, I'm just doing what everyone else does,

01:03:55 ◼   ► which is you kind of like,

01:03:56 ◼   ► you do the thing that causes the least pain, essentially.

01:04:01 ◼   ► - Right. - So for me,

01:04:03 ◼   ► I would be incredibly stressed out

01:04:05 ◼   ► if I was in any of these situations

01:04:07 ◼   ► these indie developers are in.

01:04:08 ◼   ► - Oh, amen, absolutely. - It just is not compatible

01:04:11 ◼   ► with my personality, right?

01:04:13 ◼   ► So the only way, like, it's very attractive,

01:04:15 ◼   ► but the only way I could do it is if I could say,

01:04:17 ◼   ► well, I don't have to worry about money,

01:04:20 ◼   ► so, like, that's, the thing of it is,

01:04:22 ◼   ► like, if you just dump the bucket of money on me,

01:04:24 ◼   ► and say, here you go, you never have to worry

01:04:25 ◼   ► about money again, what I would end up doing

01:04:27 ◼   ► would look a lot like what an indie developer ends up,

01:04:29 ◼   ► is doing, but the only reason I'd be able to do it

01:04:31 ◼   ► is because I would have no pressure to be successful.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Like, I could do whatever the hell I wanted,

01:04:36 ◼   ► and it doesn't matter if it's a seizure or fails,

01:04:38 ◼   ► and that's the only way I could do that

01:04:40 ◼   ► without stressing myself to death.

01:04:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you'd find other things to stress about.

01:04:44 ◼   ► - No, I wouldn't though.

01:04:45 ◼   ► This is like the remaining,

01:04:48 ◼   ► well, I guess I would probably stress

01:04:49 ◼   ► about health and stuff eventually.

01:04:50 ◼   ► I get old and stress about my kids and all that stuff.

01:04:52 ◼   ► But there's always something.

01:04:53 ◼   ► But in terms of work, the only thing I would do,

01:04:57 ◼   ► the only way I would ever do the indie lifestyle

01:04:59 ◼   ► is if it didn't count,

01:05:01 ◼   ► like if it didn't matter whether I succeeded or failed.

01:05:03 ◼   ► So because I just wouldn't,

01:05:05 ◼   ► the kind of life that Marco leads,

01:05:07 ◼   ► or any of these indie developers were like,

01:05:09 ◼   ► or even, I mean, well, I don't know.

01:05:12 ◼   ► If your livelihood depends on you being successful

01:05:16 ◼   ► by doing something that you wanna do

01:05:18 ◼   ► with the skill that you have,

01:05:20 ◼   ► whether it be writing an application

01:05:21 ◼   ► or even like writing a novel or running your own website

01:05:25 ◼   ► or anything like that where it's just you, nobody else,

01:05:27 ◼   ► no support, so like basically entrepreneurial spirit.

01:05:30 ◼   ► I do not have that because there would just be

01:05:33 ◼   ► too much stress and I would be miserable.

01:05:34 ◼   ► And so I have chosen a life that avoids that stress

01:05:37 ◼   ► by saying someone else worry about that.

01:05:39 ◼   ► I will develop my skills, become a valuable worker

01:05:42 ◼   ► for someone else to pay, and that to me feels more secure.

01:05:46 ◼   ► And I don't know what number job I'm on,

01:05:47 ◼   ► like six, seven, something like that.

01:05:49 ◼   ► I don't like that experience either,

01:05:51 ◼   ► having to go from job to job, but the gaps are longer,

01:05:55 ◼   ► and in between I feel like I have more stability

01:05:57 ◼   ► than I would know those things,

01:05:58 ◼   ► which is why neither one of us to this point,

01:06:00 ◼   ► Casey or I, are Marco, and Marco is Marco,

01:06:03 ◼   ► because he did things that we were not willing to do.

01:06:06 ◼   ► - Well, hold on though.

01:06:08 ◼   ► There's a big asterisk here though,

01:06:10 ◼   ► what a lot of people don't know or have forgotten,

01:06:14 ◼   ► is that I didn't take Indeed development full-time

01:06:16 ◼   ► until after it was successful.

01:06:19 ◼   ► - Yes, and that's true, but I've thought about this

01:06:22 ◼   ► on and off a fair bit.

01:06:24 ◼   ► You did answer a Craigslist ad for a job posting

01:06:29 ◼   ► that had, for a company of one employee,

01:06:32 ◼   ► which is something that I can't speak for Jon,

01:06:35 ◼   ► but there's no frickin' way I would ever do that

01:06:37 ◼   ► because at that point, all of the stability I'm seeking,

01:06:41 ◼   ► it's not there, because it's just one guy.

01:06:42 ◼   ► How could one guy possibly do anything right?

01:06:45 ◼   ► - But he was young, though.

01:06:47 ◼   ► Like, I might do that if I was young.

01:06:48 ◼   ► - Well, no, that was a concern.

01:06:50 ◼   ► That was definitely a concern,

01:06:51 ◼   ► because of how expensive New York is to live in,

01:06:54 ◼   ► I was concerned that, well, if this company goes under

01:06:56 ◼   ► and I stop getting paid, it takes like one and a half months

01:06:59 ◼   ► for me to have no savings left, and that's it.

01:07:02 ◼   ► So I was concerned, but I mean, the main reason I did that

01:07:04 ◼   ► was not because I was some forward-thinking maverick

01:07:09 ◼   ► or something, it was because I only had two offers

01:07:12 ◼   ► that were at all even reasonable,

01:07:14 ◼   ► and I really didn't wanna take the other one.

01:07:18 ◼   ► The other one would've made me miserable, and I knew that,

01:07:20 ◼   ► and David let me work on a Mac, so I took that one.

01:07:23 ◼   ► That was it, that was the factors that went into it.

01:07:26 ◼   ► - Right, and all of that makes sense,

01:07:27 ◼   ► but the thing of it is is that you took what to John or I,

01:07:30 ◼   ► or I shouldn't speak for John, but what to me

01:07:33 ◼   ► was a tremendously risky offer. Even though in a lot of ways it was better, it was still

01:07:38 ◼   ► riskier and I am so risk adverse that I really admire the fact that you took that job offer

01:07:45 ◼   ► at Davidville which led to all of these other things. If I was in the same position, I would

01:07:54 ◼   ► have gone to whatever that financial services firm or whatever it was that you were also

01:07:58 ◼   ► flirting with. That's where I would be and I would be freaking miserable right now.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Well, see, I would have taken that job.

01:08:03 ◼   ► My first job out of school was in a five-person startup.

01:08:06 ◼   ► It was like the dot-com days, like 1997.

01:08:09 ◼   ► So that's what you did then.

01:08:11 ◼   ► And it's your first job, and you don't have any responsibilities.

01:08:14 ◼   ► And you figure-- I did take that job.

01:08:17 ◼   ► It's just that my company didn't turn out to be Tumblr,

01:08:20 ◼   ► like almost everyone else's.

01:08:21 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:08:22 ◼   ► So it's almost just luck of the draw.

01:08:23 ◼   ► But the thing about Marco saying,

01:08:24 ◼   ► well, I didn't leave my job until I was making

01:08:26 ◼   ► good money with Instapaper.

01:08:28 ◼   ► Like, yeah, that's the typical nerd way to do it.

01:08:30 ◼   ► But even at that point, I would be saying,

01:08:33 ◼   ► well, I did this app in my spare time.

01:08:36 ◼   ► It's popular.

01:08:36 ◼   ► People like it.

01:08:37 ◼   ► I'm making good money off of it.

01:08:39 ◼   ► Now I can quit my job.

01:08:40 ◼   ► And I would never get to that leap point,

01:08:41 ◼   ► because I would say, you can't quit your job, because yeah,

01:08:44 ◼   ► you're making money off of an app, but what about next year?

01:08:45 ◼   ► And the year after that, and the year after that.

01:08:47 ◼   ► And you have to have some confidence,

01:08:48 ◼   ► like this is a thing that I can do, that I can sustain this,

01:08:51 ◼   ► that I'm going to have to write a second app and a third app,

01:08:53 ◼   ► and I'm going to have to find ways to make money,

01:08:55 ◼   ► and whatever.

01:08:55 ◼   ► And I would never have confidence that I could do that.

01:08:56 ◼   ► And what I would feel like I was doing

01:08:58 ◼   ► if I take the time off, I'm derailing from a career path elsewhere.

01:09:02 ◼   ► And if I go off and Instapaper goes for a few years and then it kind of fizzles out,

01:09:05 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, now what do I do?

01:09:07 ◼   ► I got to go back into the job market and I would be afraid that I can't get back into

01:09:11 ◼   ► the job train."

01:09:12 ◼   ► Now, that is not a really irrational fear because if you wrote Instapaper and it fizzled

01:09:16 ◼   ► after a few years but did really well in between, it would be no problem for you finding a job

01:09:20 ◼   ► doing iOS contracting.

01:09:22 ◼   ► It wouldn't actually be a problem.

01:09:24 ◼   ► But I mean, I wasn't looking at the App Store

01:09:26 ◼   ► at the time, so I was in 1997.

01:09:28 ◼   ► There was no App Store or anything like that.

01:09:29 ◼   ► But that's the kind of feeling that,

01:09:31 ◼   ► even if you are doing a side project,

01:09:33 ◼   ► and even if the side project becomes successful and

01:09:36 ◼   ► lucrative, the truly person who's

01:09:40 ◼   ► afraid about his financial security like I am

01:09:42 ◼   ► and probably like Casey is, would be like, oh, that's fine.

01:09:45 ◼   ► But you can't quit your job, because what are you

01:09:47 ◼   ► going to do next year, or the year after that,

01:09:48 ◼   ► or 10 years from now, or 15 years, or 20 years from now?

01:09:51 ◼   ► Or do you think this is a sustainable thing

01:09:53 ◼   ► that you can do in your entire career?

01:09:55 ◼   ► Or do you think this is something that might go well

01:09:57 ◼   ► for a couple years, then you're gonna have to get

01:09:59 ◼   ► a real job again anyway.

01:10:00 ◼   ► And if you had to get a real job again anyway,

01:10:01 ◼   ► why not just keep the real job you have now

01:10:03 ◼   ► because it'll be harder to come, you know.

01:10:05 ◼   ► That's the kind of little voice in the back of my head

01:10:08 ◼   ► that's preventing me from ever doing anything independent.

01:10:12 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:10:13 ◼   ► - Well, but you know, the trick there,

01:10:14 ◼   ► I mean, but this really is quit.

01:10:16 ◼   ► The flaw in that thinking is in assuming

01:10:20 ◼   ► that jobs are stable.

01:10:21 ◼   ► And the reality is like they're not at all.

01:10:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I made the same point before.

01:10:26 ◼   ► And I've been through seven jobs anyway.

01:10:27 ◼   ► I'm just saying like people do essentially

01:10:29 ◼   ► what makes them feel comfortable

01:10:31 ◼   ► within the bounds of their values or whatever.

01:10:33 ◼   ► And within the bounds of my values,

01:10:35 ◼   ► having a regular salary job makes the rest of my life

01:10:38 ◼   ► less stressful.

01:10:40 ◼   ► As you get closer to retirement,

01:10:43 ◼   ► maybe that changes, but it's like,

01:10:44 ◼   ► well, you know, maybe I go independent now

01:10:46 ◼   ► because it's not like I have 20 years of career

01:10:47 ◼   ► ahead of me anyway.

01:10:48 ◼   ► So if I end up doing something outside of my job

01:10:50 ◼   ► that becomes vaguely successful,

01:10:51 ◼   ► I can't jump ship and do that because if it fizzles out after a few years

01:10:54 ◼   ► Then I'm actually really I'm gonna retire with all the money

01:10:56 ◼   ► I saved for my salary job during those other years anyway

01:10:58 ◼   ► So I think all these indie developers talking to each other on these blogs and amongst each other is

01:11:04 ◼   ► just kind of a way of each person coming to terms with their own sort of values like

01:11:09 ◼   ► It takes a certain amount of guts to leap into that lifestyle and it takes a certain sort of

01:11:15 ◼   ► Temperament and mindset to keep at it like underscore definitely has the mindset

01:11:20 ◼   ► He has the mindset to jump into it and he has the head for keeping doing it

01:11:23 ◼   ► He's just gonna do what it takes and he's like, you know

01:11:26 ◼   ► The the full spectrum kind of business thing and you to Margo for this but you know

01:11:29 ◼   ► Like you may like set one aspect more than another but you realize there is a spectrum of things that you have to do

01:11:35 ◼   ► there's the business side the marketing side choosing what you're gonna do the technical side and

01:11:38 ◼   ► You have your favorites and nobody likes all of it, but you realize it's sort of a you know

01:11:42 ◼   ► instead of like a full-stack web developer

01:11:45 ◼   ► you have to be a full-stack business person,

01:11:47 ◼   ► and you have to be able to tolerate

01:11:48 ◼   ► the lifestyle that comes with that.

01:11:50 ◼   ► Obviously, success makes it more tolerable,

01:11:52 ◼   ► but some people jump into it

01:11:54 ◼   ► liking only one aspect of it,

01:11:56 ◼   ► and realize that all that other stuff is just necessary.

01:11:59 ◼   ► And that's the problem with the gold brushes.

01:12:00 ◼   ► You could jump into it just being into the one aspect of it,

01:12:03 ◼   ► and just be like, "I really like development,

01:12:04 ◼   ► "and I made an app,

01:12:05 ◼   ► "and it's one of the only three of its kind

01:12:07 ◼   ► "in the app store, and I'm making money for three years."

01:12:10 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden, all these competitors come in,

01:12:12 ◼   ► and it becomes a more competitive market space,

01:12:13 ◼   ► and you're like, well, I really don't like doing any

01:12:15 ◼   ► of the parts except for the cool part where you write the app

01:12:18 ◼   ► and if I don't do those things, I can't really compete

01:12:22 ◼   ► and App Store, you've changed, man.

01:12:24 ◼   ► It's like, well, maybe you just weren't cut out for that.

01:12:28 ◼   ► Just like the environment has changed

01:12:30 ◼   ► and the things that you like to do and don't like to do

01:12:33 ◼   ► no longer make so, are no longer a fit for success

01:12:37 ◼   ► in this environment, right?

01:12:38 ◼   ► And so as the environment changes,

01:12:39 ◼   ► the things that it selects for success change as well

01:12:42 ◼   ► I don't like we all have complaints about the App Store and what Apple does and those are all legitimate complaints

01:12:47 ◼   ► but most of this sort of talking about the App Store I think has to do with

01:12:51 ◼   ► people coming to terms with their own tolerance for what the current App Store environment is like and then

01:12:56 ◼   ► Because some people like well, I had to stop being independent

01:12:59 ◼   ► I had a job and other people like I'm gonna stick it out no matter what and like what you don't hear about

01:13:03 ◼   ► All these things is like well, here's my sales numbers, but like does your spouse work during that time?

01:13:08 ◼   ► Are you still living with your parents? Are you independently wealthy?

01:13:11 ◼   ► So it doesn't matter what happens here anyway, because you have a trust fund like you never know what they're actual

01:13:15 ◼   ► Do you live in Kansas where your rent is really low or like you never know what the actual situation is?

01:13:20 ◼   ► Like how do you live? How do you live on that little money?

01:13:22 ◼   ► Are you going to stick it out or you're not going to those are more like personal decisions that have to do with your current

01:13:27 ◼   ► Living situation and your tolerance for risk and stress

01:13:30 ◼   ► And that I think is the bulk of the discussion which is a good discussion to have

01:13:34 ◼   ► The these tiny sliver of the discussion is are there things that Apple is doing or not doing?

01:13:40 ◼   ► that make it better or worse for everybody or better or worse for a particular type of developer and that I think is the

01:13:45 ◼   ► Thing I took away from this is like not so much. What is Apple doing to the App Store?

01:13:50 ◼   ► that makes it a more hostile or friendly environment for developers, but

01:13:54 ◼   ► What kind of people are they selecting for and obviously the people having this discussion thinks if Apple is not selecting for me

01:14:01 ◼   ► That's bad because I'm awesome, which is good. You should think that but

01:14:03 ◼   ► The other side of the coin Apple might be thinking oh, yeah

01:14:08 ◼   ► We want to select those apps that win Apple design awards

01:14:10 ◼   ► But not as much as you might think like we just need enough to have Apple design awards, but in reality

01:14:16 ◼   ► We're also kind of okay with EA being in the store

01:14:20 ◼   ► Even though EA is never gonna win an Apple design award

01:14:22 ◼   ► Right and so like what the kind of store that we wish it was all filled with beautiful handcrafted artisanal

01:14:28 ◼   ► applications made by passionate people with attention to detail like you can't make a full store of that or

01:14:34 ◼   ► If you can maybe that's not the store that Apple wants you you do need like

01:14:38 ◼   ► Yeah, you need EA in there. I guess I mean and even even things like Tokuboko which are great applications

01:14:43 ◼   ► That's obviously that's like a full-fledged business

01:14:46 ◼   ► It's not like two people working out of a garage right even if it may have started that way and maybe even need Angry Birds

01:14:51 ◼   ► Which again started as two people and becomes this big thing so?

01:14:53 ◼   ► So I think it was an interesting discussion. I enjoyed spectating it from the sidelines, but I don't think there's any one clear like

01:15:02 ◼   ► Mission or like sign we can all hold over our head to say do X now or else it's just more like this is life

01:15:09 ◼   ► our final sponsor this week is

01:15:12 ◼   ► Fracture once again fracture is the company that prints photos directly on glass

01:15:17 ◼   ► It's really nice. I have a bunch of fractures all around my office

01:15:21 ◼   ► fractures

01:15:23 ◼   ► It's hard to describe

01:15:24 ◼   ► It's literally what it sounds like they print a photo on

01:15:27 ◼   ► The back of a very thin piece of glass that then adhered to like a thin

01:15:31 ◼   ► in almost like a corrugated cardboard type of backing

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01:15:47 ◼   ► there's your photo, and it's really affordable

01:15:50 ◼   ► in my opinion.

01:15:51 ◼   ► What I use them for, so I have a couple of big ones

01:15:55 ◼   ► over my desk for pictures that I print,

01:15:56 ◼   ► you know, actual photos.

01:15:57 ◼   ► And then up on my wall I have this row

01:16:00 ◼   ► of app icon fracture prints.

01:16:02 ◼   ► And it's 'cause they have this small square size,

01:16:04 ◼   ► it's something like five by five, let me see.

01:16:07 ◼   ► Six by six maybe, something like that.

01:16:09 ◼   ► And so I have my app icons of the apps

01:16:14 ◼   ► I've worked on before, all printed on those.

01:16:16 ◼   ► So there's a row of three of them now,

01:16:18 ◼   ► I got two of them coming, yeah.

01:16:20 ◼   ► Anyway, it's a great way to have a visual representation,

01:16:24 ◼   ► like a tangible trophy of the apps you've done.

01:16:26 ◼   ► and you can put website icons up there, podcast artwork,

01:16:30 ◼   ► pretty much anything square or rectangular,

01:16:32 ◼   ► you can get printed on these things.

01:16:33 ◼   ► The print quality is fantastic, I'm very happy with it.

01:16:36 ◼   ► The photos look good, the icon artwork looks good.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Oh yeah, see, price I started just $12

01:16:43 ◼   ► for the small square size, which is five by five,

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01:16:47 ◼   ► Fracture puts everything you need right in the box.

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01:17:37 ◼   ► the first 25 people to use coupon code marcofree

01:17:40 ◼   ► will get a free small square size,

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01:17:44 ◼   ► So go to fractureme.com to make an order

01:17:47 ◼   ► to use code marcofree.

01:17:48 ◼   ► If you're one of the first 25 people to do it,

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01:17:57 ◼   ► Still fantastic prices.

01:17:59 ◼   ► I love these guys.

01:18:00 ◼   ► Really, they sponsored our show a lot.

01:18:02 ◼   ► Even before they sponsored, I used them myself

01:18:04 ◼   ► and I continued to order prints from them.

01:18:07 ◼   ► Even when we don't even have a code

01:18:08 ◼   ► and I have to pay full price,

01:18:09 ◼   ► I still continue to order prints from them

01:18:11 ◼   ► because they're that good.

01:18:13 ◼   ► Anyway, thank you very much to Fracture,

01:18:15 ◼   ► who prints your photo in vivid color directly on glass.

01:18:17 ◼   ► fractureme.com.

01:18:20 ◼   ► So we should also point out with regard to people opening the kimono or whatever the phrase is.

01:18:26 ◼   ► That's such a gross phrase.

01:18:27 ◼   ► Well, sorry.

01:18:29 ◼   ► Revealing their numbers, which also, okay, sharing their number, whatever.

01:18:33 ◼   ► Anyway, the point is somebody, Jazzy Chad, I don't know who exactly that is, but Jazzy Chad put up a post,

01:18:43 ◼   ► which we'll put in the show notes, about what it's like for game developers.

01:18:47 ◼   ► because the assumption is the game developers make all the money in the app store.

01:18:51 ◼   ► And as it turns out, this person who has a day job at Twitter, which allows him,

01:18:56 ◼   ► I'm assuming it's a him, allows him to make these things in his spare time

01:19:02 ◼   ► and not have to worry about making a living off of it.

01:19:04 ◼   ► He wrote three or four games, some of which looked really nice.

01:19:08 ◼   ► I've not played any of them, but nevertheless, he wrote a few games.

01:19:12 ◼   ► And for three games, even in some of which he spent a lot of time

01:19:17 ◼   ► trying to market, he basically ended up a little bit in the red because of the marketing

01:19:23 ◼   ► he paid for in order to try to make some money on these games.

01:19:29 ◼   ► So even for game developers, all is not rosy in the app store anymore.

01:19:32 ◼   ► Well, you don't have to say even for, because what's more fun than writing a cool iOS application?

01:19:38 ◼   ► Writing an iOS game.

01:19:40 ◼   ► It's a reasonable yardstick to say, "How much fun is it to do this thing?"

01:19:45 ◼   ► And then how many people can do it at all?

01:19:48 ◼   ► All development has a good number in the how many people can do it at all because only

01:19:54 ◼   ► certain people have the desire or tolerance to learn all the SOTR crap you have to learn

01:19:58 ◼   ► to be a programmer, right?

01:19:59 ◼   ► So people just aren't into it, like, "That's great, that's good for us, right?

01:20:02 ◼   ► It helps us make more money because most people don't want to learn this crap."

01:20:07 ◼   ► But game development of all the kinds of programs you're going to write, writing a game, like

01:20:12 ◼   ► if you talk to any programmer, a lot of the first programming experiences is, I wanted

01:20:16 ◼   ► to write a game.

01:20:17 ◼   ► Because people who like to program maybe also like computer games, and I would like to write

01:20:20 ◼   ► one of those.

01:20:21 ◼   ► And even if you don't end up as a game programmer, how many of us, I know certainly my first

01:20:24 ◼   ► programs I ever wrote were game programs, and I certainly didn't end up as a game programmer.

01:20:28 ◼   ► Game programming is fun, so if it's fun, it's not looking good for what are my chances of

01:20:33 ◼   ► making a lot of money doing this.

01:20:35 ◼   ► In fact, it starts to become more like, what are my chances of making a hit movie or a

01:20:39 ◼   ► best-selling novel.

01:20:41 ◼   ► Games are kind of like that.

01:20:42 ◼   ► It is a creative field, you need all sorts of skills that don't have anything to do with

01:20:46 ◼   ► technical skills, and you need technical skills on top of that, which is like, "Oh, now it's

01:20:49 ◼   ► really hard to find this one or two people who can do this," right?

01:20:52 ◼   ► And also it's kind of a hit-driven culture where you have to have the right game at the

01:20:56 ◼   ► right time, and boy, that's tough.

01:20:59 ◼   ► I would not be surprised to see that it is much harder to make a living selling games

01:21:03 ◼   ► in the App Store than it is selling a to-do list application or a podcast application

01:21:08 ◼   ► or anything else.

01:21:09 ◼   ► games are a tough market because there is infinite competition. There are so many games.

01:21:17 ◼   ► Games are also competing for attention with other things that you do to kill some time sometimes

01:21:24 ◼   ► and have some fun sometimes. That includes things like social networking and movies and music.

01:21:29 ◼   ► No one listens to music except me anymore. Other people watch movies and browse Twitter and

01:21:36 ◼   ► and Facebook and post stupid stuff and like all of that is competing for time and attention

01:21:42 ◼   ► with games. And so, and you know games have these immense price pressures are squeezed

01:21:47 ◼   ► from all sides plus they have the problem of like you know if you make if you make an

01:21:52 ◼   ► RSS reader you can ship a 1.0 that isn't very good that didn't take you very long

01:21:56 ◼   ► to make and you can add to it over time. Games don't really work that way at least not

01:22:01 ◼   ► most of the time that you know usually with a game you pretty much have to do all of it

01:22:05 ◼   ► up front before you know whether anybody will buy it.

01:22:08 ◼   ► And so it's just a really tough market.

01:22:10 ◼   ► Unless you license IP and then you can do episodic content because you have a known

01:22:14 ◼   ► property, you know, like it's just, it's much more like games are almost nothing like the

01:22:19 ◼   ► application market and almost everything like the market for all their entertainment, whether

01:22:23 ◼   ► it be television shows or movies or music or anything like that.

01:22:27 ◼   ► There's a technical aspect to it and there's all sorts of those details that you have to

01:22:30 ◼   ► know but that's just the kind of like adds a degree of difficulty to what is basically

01:22:34 ◼   ► can you make a good game?

01:22:35 ◼   ► Can you even think of a good game that's fun?

01:22:38 ◼   ► And then can you implement that well?

01:22:40 ◼   ► And then can you put it out into an extremely crowded market in a way that people even see

01:22:45 ◼   ► it?

01:22:46 ◼   ► It's really hard to do.

01:22:48 ◼   ► Because there's no utility value.

01:22:50 ◼   ► Like a podcast app, this helps me do a thing I like to do.

01:22:53 ◼   ► It's like, it's different between, well, like I say, a podcast app helps you sort of play,

01:22:59 ◼   ► do something you want to do, which is listen to podcasts.

01:23:01 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of a game equivalent.

01:23:03 ◼   ► I don't know if there is one.

01:23:04 ◼   ► helps you manage your games, I don't know.

01:23:06 ◼   ► But games are just like the thing that you do that's fun.

01:23:09 ◼   ► It's like podcasts are the thing that you do that's fun.

01:23:12 ◼   ► - Right, and games do have a few advantages

01:23:14 ◼   ► over other app types.

01:23:16 ◼   ► One of them being, for example, that they don't really

01:23:21 ◼   ► compete directly as much as you might think

01:23:24 ◼   ► in the way that people usually only use

01:23:27 ◼   ► like one RSS reader at a time.

01:23:30 ◼   ► And they might only ever buy one or two RSS readers.

01:23:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, games are consumables, right?

01:23:34 ◼   ► - Exactly, like games, like you download,

01:23:36 ◼   ► you play it for a little while,

01:23:38 ◼   ► and then you move on and you buy more games.

01:23:40 ◼   ► And so it's not like, it's easier for multiple games

01:23:43 ◼   ► to reach the same customer.

01:23:45 ◼   ► Whereas if you're in a category of competing similar apps,

01:23:48 ◼   ► chances are most people are just gonna pick one of those.

01:23:51 ◼   ► - Or like email apps, like people aren't switching,

01:23:53 ◼   ► a small group of nerds is even looking

01:23:55 ◼   ► for alternative email apps.

01:23:56 ◼   ► Most people have an email app,

01:23:57 ◼   ► they're gonna stick with it or whatever,

01:23:58 ◼   ► but games are consumable.

01:24:00 ◼   ► That's actually a better fit for the App Store

01:24:02 ◼   ► in that respect, I guess,

01:24:03 ◼   ► It's like what do I do for upgrade?

01:24:04 ◼   ► But you don't you just make another game or you make game version two and you know

01:24:08 ◼   ► Make it a sequel and it's a separate app because everyone like no one has a problem with that

01:24:12 ◼   ► Yeah, well somebody does but you know, yeah, but it's the same thing. It's like well then how do you know?

01:24:16 ◼   ► It's just everyone wants to make a game and making a good game is really hard because it's just not technical

01:24:22 ◼   ► It's not really UI. Although you might have to do some UI but it is really hard to make a good game

01:24:26 ◼   ► I think though to end this on a positive note

01:24:31 ◼   ► You know when when the when all these posts first came out like two weeks ago whenever whenever Jared started it

01:24:36 ◼   ► When these first came out it looked pretty grim for the first few days

01:24:40 ◼   ► in the last few days, I've seen a lot of posts from people who are making it work and

01:24:47 ◼   ► They're they're they're inspirational in a way, you know, they're they're motivational at least where?

01:24:53 ◼   ► You can make this work

01:24:56 ◼   ► But you have to both

01:24:58 ◼   ► do it intelligently in a way that will succeed and have

01:25:01 ◼   ► reasonable expectations on how much you're going to make and you know base your decisions on that so

01:25:07 ◼   ► For instance, you know and John you were saying earlier like a lot of people want to be app developers

01:25:13 ◼   ► So therefore there are a lot of app developers and a lot of people doing it for very little money

01:25:16 ◼   ► Because a lot of people do it on the side. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how I started

01:25:20 ◼   ► Casey you're a side app developer John you would be if you could write apps in Perl

01:25:25 ◼   ► This is how lots of people start.

01:25:27 ◼   ► Like, and that's, and a lot of people never

01:25:30 ◼   ► take it full time.

01:25:31 ◼   ► That's what they always, they always do part time,

01:25:34 ◼   ► side projects, mostly as hobbies that might bring in

01:25:37 ◼   ► a little money here and there.

01:25:39 ◼   ► And there's nothing wrong with that.

01:25:41 ◼   ► You should probably start with that

01:25:43 ◼   ► if you're interested in doing this at all.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Don't quit your job and have this romantic notion

01:25:47 ◼   ► of sitting in a coffee shop and writing apps all day

01:25:49 ◼   ► and collecting a bunch of money.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Like, it's harder than that.

01:25:52 ◼   ► And it's gonna take longer than that

01:25:53 ◼   ► before you reach that point.

01:25:55 ◼   ► Like in the past year that I've been working on Overcast,

01:25:58 ◼   ► it really hasn't been full time.

01:26:01 ◼   ► I've had this show and I've had my blog.

01:26:04 ◼   ► Those both bring in money, they both take time and work,

01:26:08 ◼   ► and so I didn't have zero income for the last year.

01:26:12 ◼   ► I had income from those two things.

01:26:14 ◼   ► I don't think I would have done Overcast

01:26:16 ◼   ► if I had zero income for a year.

01:26:18 ◼   ► I think I would have tried to find some way

01:26:20 ◼   ► to continue having money come in every month.

01:26:23 ◼   ► And we all start from a very small amount.

01:26:26 ◼   ► Like, you look at apps today,

01:26:28 ◼   ► it's similar to putting AdSense on a blog in 2006.

01:26:33 ◼   ► Like, I had AdSense on my blog in 2006,

01:26:35 ◼   ► and I was extremely happy.

01:26:37 ◼   ► I was getting like fast text numbers at most.

01:26:40 ◼   ► And Google had like a minimum

01:26:43 ◼   ► where they wouldn't even send you a check

01:26:44 ◼   ► until you had at least, I think it was 100 bucks.

01:26:47 ◼   ► It was like 50 or 100 bucks,

01:26:48 ◼   ► and I only hit that twice in the entire time I ran ads.

01:26:51 ◼   ► So I made a total of like 200 bucks maybe in like five years.

01:26:56 ◼   ► You were my ad sense on my blog.

01:26:58 ◼   ► It was miserable.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And I was working on that frequently.

01:27:01 ◼   ► I was writing like probably once a week at least.

01:27:04 ◼   ► The problem is like the amount of effort

01:27:07 ◼   ► you put into something does not correlate directly

01:27:10 ◼   ► to how much other people are willing to pay for it.

01:27:13 ◼   ► And so you have to have reasonable expectations

01:27:16 ◼   ► of no matter how much effort you put into an app of type X,

01:27:21 ◼   ► whatever it is you want to make,

01:27:23 ◼   ► you're probably not going to earn more than

01:27:27 ◼   ► a few thousand bucks in the best case scenario.

01:27:29 ◼   ► Rather than bemoan that and complain

01:27:32 ◼   ► and say it's Apple's fault,

01:27:33 ◼   ► 'cause you know, there are things Apple can do to improve,

01:27:36 ◼   ► but this is mostly not Apple's problem.

01:27:38 ◼   ► I think if you look at what something

01:27:39 ◼   ► like _DavidSmith is doing,

01:27:42 ◼   ► he makes many apps.

01:27:43 ◼   ► He tries things all the time.

01:27:46 ◼   ► He said on one of his shows recently,

01:27:47 ◼   ► I think he's made like a couple hundred apps,

01:27:50 ◼   ► And they aren't all still in existence in the store,

01:27:52 ◼   ► but he's created something like a couple hundred apps.

01:27:56 ◼   ► And he sees what works.

01:27:57 ◼   ► He doesn't put a ton of time into version one

01:27:59 ◼   ► if he can help it.

01:28:00 ◼   ► He sees what works.

01:28:02 ◼   ► And in the ones that work, he puts the time in

01:28:04 ◼   ► that they earn, basically, from their sales.

01:28:07 ◼   ► Proportionally, if something sells well,

01:28:09 ◼   ► he'll give it the attention, more attention to succeed more.

01:28:12 ◼   ► And if something doesn't sell that well,

01:28:14 ◼   ► he's going to, he discontinues it and moves on.

01:28:17 ◼   ► That's a really smart approach.

01:28:19 ◼   ► It's a very pragmatic approach,

01:28:20 ◼   ► it's a very effective approach,

01:28:22 ◼   ► and it's very realistic of what the store actually is.

01:28:25 ◼   ► I saw another post from a guy who said,

01:28:27 ◼   ► I'll try to find these in the show notes, I'm sorry.

01:28:30 ◼   ► I don't remember the names offhand,

01:28:31 ◼   ► but I saw another post from a guy who said,

01:28:34 ◼   ► he develops apps on the side, or as most of his income,

01:28:38 ◼   ► but he lives a really inexpensive lifestyle,

01:28:40 ◼   ► and he can go skiing with his family

01:28:42 ◼   ► and be present for his kids,

01:28:43 ◼   ► and he just lowers his expectations

01:28:46 ◼   ► and lowers his expenses,

01:28:47 ◼   ► and he can do what he wants.

01:28:50 ◼   ► That's great.

01:28:51 ◼   ► If you go into it with reasonable expectations,

01:28:55 ◼   ► you can succeed, but you have to know what the market is

01:28:59 ◼   ► and know what you're likely to get out of it.

01:29:02 ◼   ► And I saw also, like Justin Williams had a post

01:29:04 ◼   ► saying that he doesn't think you should spend

01:29:06 ◼   ► any more than 90 days building version 1.0.

01:29:09 ◼   ► 'Cause that way, you know, you get it out there quickly

01:29:11 ◼   ► and if it's gonna be a flop, you can move on quickly.

01:29:13 ◼   ► And if it's gonna be a hit, then you can know that

01:29:15 ◼   ► and you can choose how much you invest in it in the future.

01:29:18 ◼   ► That again, greater device.

01:29:20 ◼   ► This is all about, and I know I just violated all this

01:29:23 ◼   ► with Overcast, but you know, keep in mind,

01:29:25 ◼   ► as I said, that was not full-time work.

01:29:27 ◼   ► It's all about limiting your risk

01:29:32 ◼   ► and lowering your expectations,

01:29:34 ◼   ► and then adapting to the conditions

01:29:36 ◼   ► that actually happen once you put it out there.

01:29:38 ◼   ► There was also, oh man, what's, I forget the name,

01:29:41 ◼   ► what's the guy who's running the four-part experiment

01:29:43 ◼   ► who had an app and he made it free

01:29:44 ◼   ► They made an in-app purchase.

01:29:46 ◼   ► An app store experiment, Stuart Hall.

01:29:47 ◼   ► All right, now I know.

01:29:48 ◼   ► Okay, so it's Stuart Hall.

01:29:50 ◼   ► We'll into it in the show notes.

01:29:51 ◼   ► It's called an app store experiment,

01:29:52 ◼   ► and there's like five or so parts.

01:29:55 ◼   ► And it's really good.

01:29:57 ◼   ► It's a really good read.

01:29:58 ◼   ► So he started out, he made an app

01:29:59 ◼   ► called the 7 Minute Workout.

01:30:01 ◼   ► It does something relatively simple,

01:30:03 ◼   ► but there is a market for it,

01:30:04 ◼   ► but it's a relatively simple app.

01:30:06 ◼   ► And he started out with it being a paid app,

01:30:10 ◼   ► and then it went in-app purchase, free app,

01:30:12 ◼   ► and he's trying all these additional things,

01:30:15 ◼   ► and he's showing the results,

01:30:16 ◼   ► he's showing all the actual numbers the whole time

01:30:18 ◼   ► of like, you know, here's, like, every,

01:30:19 ◼   ► I think like every six months or so,

01:30:20 ◼   ► he posts a new thing saying,

01:30:22 ◼   ► here's what I've done in the last six months,

01:30:23 ◼   ► here's the results that it has had and everything.

01:30:26 ◼   ► This is the way to do the App Store.

01:30:28 ◼   ► You take an approach like this,

01:30:30 ◼   ► or an approach like _DavidSmith's,

01:30:31 ◼   ► where he makes a lot of small apps first,

01:30:33 ◼   ► and then decides what to work on, you know,