Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective, the developing perspective. It's a podcast

00:00:07 ◼   ► discussing news of note in iOS development, Apple and the like. I'm your host, David Smith.

00:00:08 ◼   ► I'm an independent iOS and Mac developer based in Hardin, Virginia. This week I'm coming

00:00:11 ◼   ► at you live from WWDC in San Francisco. It's issue number 54. All right, so I just got

00:00:19 ◼   ► out of the WWDC keynote and as sort of as expected, it was an excellent show with a

00:00:25 ◼   ► lot of interesting stuff to talk about and I figured I'd do a show right now, just you

00:00:31 ◼   ► know, I'm recording at 12.45, I just had a quick lunch, here I am to talk about what

00:00:35 ◼   ► they talked about, what it means and kind of my initial reactions and I think it's probably

00:00:39 ◼   ► good to do that now before we start to get into the actual NDA stuff that they're going

00:00:44 ◼   ► to talk about later.

00:00:45 ◼   ► So it allows me to kind of just speak freely without having to worry about anything else

00:00:49 ◼   ► because everything I know is public knowledge at this point.

00:00:53 ◼   ► So first, what I thought would be interesting to say is you kind of try and-- Apple is clearly

00:00:58 ◼   ► very intentional about what they say at a keynote.

00:01:01 ◼   ► And what I always think is interesting is to try and understand what is the message

00:01:05 ◼   ► they're trying to get across.

00:01:06 ◼   ► What is the-- if they had a theme statement, if you go back to middle school English, you're

00:01:14 ◼   ► writing a paper, you want to have a theme statement, what is Apple's theme?

00:01:18 ◼   ► I think Apple's theme this year is,

00:01:20 ◼   ► we make the best products in ways

00:01:23 ◼   ► that no one else can even come close to us.

00:01:25 ◼   ► But more importantly, we make the best products

00:01:27 ◼   ► for the best reasons.

00:01:29 ◼   ► And you can see this in the emphasis

00:01:31 ◼   ► they gave both in the introductory video

00:01:33 ◼   ► as well as throughout the presentation about them doing

00:01:37 ◼   ► things that are bettering mankind.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And that's a little bit of marketing,

00:01:41 ◼   ► and that's a little bit of showmanship.

00:01:43 ◼   ► But I think it's also kind of indicative of Apple having

00:01:48 ◼   ► arrived at a point where they are not just making new products.

00:01:54 ◼   ► They are so far ahead in terms of product development

00:01:58 ◼   ► of almost all of their peers or competitors

00:02:00 ◼   ► that they're kind of getting into the next level.

00:02:02 ◼   ► It's kind of like if you have Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

00:02:05 ◼   ► They're totally sorted out all of the basic levels.

00:02:08 ◼   ► And now they're just kind of getting to a point

00:02:10 ◼   ► that they're just trying to make awesome things more awesome.

00:02:13 ◼   ► And they can start addressing meta concerns and problems

00:02:17 ◼   ► and making apps for the blind or the autistic or all these

00:02:21 ◼   ► things that aren't even on the radar for someone else who's

00:02:24 ◼   ► still trying to deal with the basics.

00:02:27 ◼   ► I think that's where Apple is these days.

00:02:29 ◼   ► They have crossed over from the basic concerns into dealing

00:02:34 ◼   ► with some of the more fundamental and impactful

00:02:38 ◼   ► aspects of technology, which is awesome.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And so the next I was going to talk about, OK, so what was

00:02:44 ◼   ► this show about?

00:02:45 ◼   ► We had a refresh to their laptop line.

00:02:48 ◼   ► We had Mountain Lion, and we had iOS 6.

00:02:51 ◼   ► There was no big surprise necessarily in terms of one

00:02:55 ◼   ► more thing or anything like that, which I think is kind of

00:02:57 ◼   ► expected at this point.

00:02:59 ◼   ► It would surprise me if they actually did another kind of

00:03:01 ◼   ► one more thing or something like that where that was kind

00:03:06 ◼   ► of Steve's thing.

00:03:07 ◼   ► And so it wouldn't surprise me that this year it's kind of

00:03:08 ◼   ► like that was just the show, and when it

00:03:10 ◼   ► was over, it was over.

00:03:12 ◼   ► But let's see.

00:03:13 ◼   ► So the laptop refresh, the first 2/3 of that,

00:03:17 ◼   ► fairly mundane, straightforward.

00:03:19 ◼   ► They took the current line of MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros

00:03:23 ◼   ► and just made them a little bit better.

00:03:26 ◼   ► They put Ivy Bridge in and USB 3.0,

00:03:28 ◼   ► dropped the price on the MacBook Airs a little bit, which is nice.

00:03:31 ◼   ► I think it's especially emphasized going after education,

00:03:34 ◼   ► especially as we head towards the college season and back to school.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Schools are wrapping up.

00:03:40 ◼   ► Kids are starting to go to college.

00:03:41 ◼   ► I think they really are trying to put a MacBook Air in every

00:03:45 ◼   ► college student's backpack this fall.

00:03:49 ◼   ► And then of course, there's the big unveil of, hey, we have

00:03:52 ◼   ► our first Retina Mac.

00:03:53 ◼   ► And it's a 15-inch MacBook Pro that is thin, not quite as

00:03:58 ◼   ► thin as an Air, but thin all the same, and has many of the

00:04:03 ◼   ► benefits of a MacBook Pro in a form factor that's more like a

00:04:06 ◼   ► MacBook Air, and of course, it has a Retina screen.

00:04:09 ◼   ► And at a pretty competitive price, that starts at $2,200,

00:04:13 ◼   ► which I would say surprised me.

00:04:15 ◼   ► I think it speaks to the power of their supply chain.

00:04:19 ◼   ► When you compare that to some of the prices of the other

00:04:21 ◼   ► MacBook Pros, it's not that much more, if anything.

00:04:25 ◼   ► But it's a much, much, much, much, much more powerful

00:04:27 ◼   ► machine, and it's doing things that are

00:04:29 ◼   ► just kind of unheard of.

00:04:31 ◼   ► So if I pull up the spec sheet for the MacBook Pros, you can

00:04:36 ◼   ► see that it is just so much more powerful.

00:04:39 ◼   ► And I mean, a retina screen is just totally crazy

00:04:42 ◼   ► in many ways.

00:04:43 ◼   ► But the cost is not that out of reach for a lot of people.

00:04:48 ◼   ► The MacBook Pro starts at $1,800,

00:04:53 ◼   ► and then this new retina one goes to $2,200.

00:04:56 ◼   ► So it's kind of like, for that $400,

00:04:58 ◼   ► you get an amazing machine with a gorgeous display,

00:05:01 ◼   ► similar battery life, similar in many ways.

00:05:04 ◼   ► But it's only $400 more.

00:05:06 ◼   ► That's quite something.

00:05:07 ◼   ► And it's definitely an impressive thing that they did.

00:05:10 ◼   ► I wish they had done more than just a Retina MacBook Pro,

00:05:14 ◼   ► though.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Because this is just for me personally,

00:05:18 ◼   ► but I work primarily at my office.

00:05:20 ◼   ► I mean, I want big screens.

00:05:22 ◼   ► I mean, it's nice.

00:05:23 ◼   ► And I'm sort of tempted to buy it, if only just

00:05:26 ◼   ► because it's awesome.

00:05:27 ◼   ► But I have no real practical use for it, and I doubt I'll get one.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Because that's just too small for the kind of things that I do.

00:05:34 ◼   ► I have two 27-inch displays.

00:05:36 ◼   ► And fair enough, a Retina display actually has more

00:05:38 ◼   ► pixels than a 27-inch cinema display.

00:05:40 ◼   ► But I was a little disappointed by that.

00:05:43 ◼   ► And of course, as I talked about on the show, I really

00:05:46 ◼   ► want a new Mac Pro.

00:05:48 ◼   ► And Mac Pro didn't get updated, which makes me sad.

00:05:51 ◼   ► So that's where we are on the new Mac Pro Pros.

00:05:58 ◼   ► You can just see that I think it's going to sell great.

00:06:00 ◼   ► And I think you'll see in Apple stores all over the

00:06:02 ◼   ► country, you're going to have these great displays.

00:06:05 ◼   ► They're going to be front and center.

00:06:06 ◼   ► You walk in the door, you're going to see those displays,

00:06:08 ◼   ► and they are just going to sell them like they are hot

00:06:10 ◼   ► cakes, because it's a screen technology that no one's ever

00:06:15 ◼   ► seen.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And so you'll see it, and you'll be like, wow, that's

00:06:18 ◼   ► gorgeous.

00:06:18 ◼   ► And they'll have these great demos with HD video and

00:06:20 ◼   ► gorgeous pictures.

00:06:21 ◼   ► And it's a beautiful display, and more power to them.

00:06:27 ◼   ► I really hope they at some point do a retina

00:06:30 ◼   ► Thunderbolt display and an update to update to Mac Pro.

00:06:34 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:06:35 ◼   ► I was a little disappointed, but not too bad.

00:06:38 ◼   ► So next, they jumped over into Mountain Lion.

00:06:40 ◼   ► And so Mountain Lion was not too--

00:06:43 ◼   ► there weren't that many new technologies

00:06:44 ◼   ► or things that they talked about.

00:06:46 ◼   ► I think the new, really previously unannounced stuff

00:06:48 ◼   ► was dictation.

00:06:50 ◼   ► So going after something like Dragon Speech or something

00:06:53 ◼   ► like that, which I think it's nice.

00:06:55 ◼   ► I think I'll look forward and enjoy using that.

00:06:59 ◼   ► Not that often, but I think for a couple of small cases

00:07:02 ◼   ► where it could be really helpful to be able to not rest my arms

00:07:05 ◼   ► and do that.

00:07:06 ◼   ► But it's really not going to be sitting in Xcode dictating

00:07:08 ◼   ► comments or anything.

00:07:10 ◼   ► And I think Facebook integration was new,

00:07:13 ◼   ► which is great and interesting, but ultimately not

00:07:17 ◼   ► that significant.

00:07:18 ◼   ► A few minor updates to Notification Center.

00:07:20 ◼   ► And then probably the most significant part

00:07:22 ◼   ► is that they gave it a date.

00:07:23 ◼   ► So it's going to ship in July.

00:07:25 ◼   ► So at worst, John Siracusa has 19 days or 20 days before he

00:07:33 ◼   ► has to launch his review.

00:07:34 ◼   ► And at best, he has about 52 days to go.

00:07:39 ◼   ► So it's definitely exciting.

00:07:41 ◼   ► I think I'm looking forward to it.

00:07:43 ◼   ► It's like 5 Live, the app I wrote for listening to the 5

00:07:47 ◼   ► by 5 Live shows, is already updated for the Retina screen.

00:07:51 ◼   ► But I've also updated it, or have an update ready, for

00:07:55 ◼   ► making it notification center compliant and all those types of things.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And that's just kind of cool.

00:07:59 ◼   ► I think Mountain Lion is a nice boost and it is pretty wild when they can, you know,

00:08:04 ◼   ► it seems, the thing that seems kind of odd actually is that they made the price $20 and

00:08:09 ◼   ► I almost wonder if this is the same problem that they had back in the day with the iPod

00:08:14 ◼   ► Touches where they couldn't give them software updates because of accounting problems or

00:08:18 ◼   ► rules because it seems like $20 is a very strange amount of money for them to charge

00:08:23 ◼   ► for it.

00:08:24 ◼   ► And I say that because I think what he said is--

00:08:27 ◼   ► it's like, I have to pull up the number,

00:08:28 ◼   ► but Lion has sold millions of copies.

00:08:31 ◼   ► I think it was 27 million copies.

00:08:33 ◼   ► That's the number six in my head.

00:08:34 ◼   ► But whatever it was, it's in the tens of millions of copies.

00:08:39 ◼   ► And at $30 a thing, fair enough, they made whatever,

00:08:44 ◼   ► a couple hundred million dollars, which isn't anything

00:08:47 ◼   ► to raise your nose at.

00:08:49 ◼   ► But in reality, and in the context

00:08:52 ◼   ► of all of what Apple does, that's actually a relatively small amount of money.

00:08:56 ◼   ► And it seems odd, though, that they wouldn't just make it free.

00:09:01 ◼   ► It just seems odd to me that you say, "Okay, yeah, it's awesome.

00:09:04 ◼   ► It's 20 bucks."

00:09:05 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, why don't you just make it free if it's making it $20?"

00:09:08 ◼   ► I feel like they would be better served in terms of driving everybody forward by making

00:09:14 ◼   ► it free.

00:09:15 ◼   ► But that's their prerogative.

00:09:17 ◼   ► They want to make that couple hundred million dollars at the expense of slightly slower

00:09:20 ◼   ► adoption, then that's fair enough.

00:09:24 ◼   ► And then, which is sort of in contrast to where they started

00:09:27 ◼   ► off talking about iOS 5 or iOS 6.

00:09:30 ◼   ► And they started off talking about iOS 6 by

00:09:32 ◼   ► talking about iOS 5.

00:09:33 ◼   ► And how about 80% of users are on iOS 5.

00:09:36 ◼   ► And that's very consistent.

00:09:37 ◼   ► I've written many articles, if you follow my blog, about how

00:09:40 ◼   ► quickly iOS 5 has taken off, and then how over the updates

00:09:44 ◼   ► have really driven ridiculously fast update.

00:09:49 ◼   ► just from regular users, moms and tops, and people who are

00:09:54 ◼   ► just using their iPhone, they're updating at a

00:09:55 ◼   ► tremendous pace.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Part of that, I think, is because it's free.

00:09:58 ◼   ► In contrast to what I was just saying about Mountain Lion.

00:10:01 ◼   ► And then also, it's just a device that

00:10:02 ◼   ► you're always using.

00:10:03 ◼   ► You're constantly picking it up all day.

00:10:05 ◼   ► So if it pops up and says, hey, there's

00:10:06 ◼   ► something new for you.

00:10:07 ◼   ► You're going to see that in a way that you may not

00:10:09 ◼   ► necessarily be able to-- or be interacting with it when

00:10:12 ◼   ► you're on your Mac or PC.

00:10:16 ◼   ► So that was interesting.

00:10:19 ◼   ► And I think it's nice for-- I think they love just sticking their finger in Android's eye

00:10:24 ◼   ► every time they can and talk about how the dairy product that Google shipped, you know,

00:10:30 ◼   ► Ice Cream Sandwich, is only at 7% in the same time it took them to get to Haiti and all

00:10:36 ◼   ► that.

00:10:37 ◼   ► And it's like, okay, I've talked about that for a long time, but it's just-- at some point,

00:10:42 ◼   ► I wonder if Apple will stop doing that.

00:10:44 ◼   ► And I guess maybe it will probably be--it will only do it if the press stopped presenting

00:10:50 ◼   ► this as an equal race of two equals, where in reality, they are so far ahead.

00:10:58 ◼   ► This part of me that almost feels like it's Usain Bolt running against a third grader

00:11:03 ◼   ► in a 100-meter dash.

00:11:05 ◼   ► At some point, that just becomes inappropriate and childish and looks just mean.

00:11:12 ◼   ► And so I kind of wonder at some point if they'll kind of back off of that kind of rhetoric.

00:11:15 ◼   ► But at this point, I think they're just doing it because the press still talks about, "Oh,

00:11:20 ◼   ► Android this, Android that."

00:11:21 ◼   ► And they're like, "Well, that's not really that interesting."

00:11:23 ◼   ► So then, IOS 6, a few things popped out at me.

00:11:27 ◼   ► It seems like they're--you know, the maps is new.

00:11:31 ◼   ► There's a--the passbook stuff looks kind of cool and interesting.

00:11:33 ◼   ► And as a user, I think that'll be cool.

00:11:36 ◼   ► From the developer side, I didn't see that much that was like super cool and interesting,

00:11:40 ◼   ► built-in native pull to refresh was kind of cool.

00:11:43 ◼   ► One thing that I did see on the slide that I think I'll

00:11:45 ◼   ► talk about probably for the rest of the episode is I think

00:11:49 ◼   ► they confirmed the 16 by 9 iPhone for the fall.

00:11:55 ◼   ► And I'll say that because they included one bullet on one of

00:11:59 ◼   ► the slides that says auto layout.

00:12:02 ◼   ► And if you're a Mac developer, you know

00:12:03 ◼   ► exactly what they mean.

00:12:05 ◼   ► So on the Mac, what they recently did-- and I think this

00:12:07 ◼   ► was in Lion was the first time they did it.

00:12:09 ◼   ► They introduced a technology called Auto Layout, which

00:12:11 ◼   ► allows you to dynamically organize views in your view

00:12:15 ◼   ► hierarchy.

00:12:16 ◼   ► And then they'll adjust as you resize the screen.

00:12:19 ◼   ► So an example of this-- or also when you

00:12:21 ◼   ► localize it as well.

00:12:21 ◼   ► So an example of this is you could say, I want this button

00:12:24 ◼   ► to be in the bottom right corner of my app.

00:12:28 ◼   ► I want it to be 50 pixels from the right and 50 pixels from

00:12:30 ◼   ► the bottom.

00:12:31 ◼   ► And then you would create another control and say, I

00:12:33 ◼   ► want this one to be to the left of that control by so

00:12:37 ◼   ► mini pixels or center it this way.

00:12:39 ◼   ► There's all kinds of different constraints that you can build.

00:12:42 ◼   ► And those constraints then allow you to dynamically move

00:12:46 ◼   ► the application size and its frame.

00:12:49 ◼   ► And it'll adjust based on all those constraints to find the

00:12:52 ◼   ► best fit for all of them, which allows you to do--

00:12:56 ◼   ► on the Mac, it's great because obviously, Windows get

00:12:58 ◼   ► resized all the time.

00:13:01 ◼   ► On iOS, though, that technology doesn't make any

00:13:06 ◼   ► sense unless you have multiple sized screens served with a

00:13:11 ◼   ► different amount of content in it.

00:13:13 ◼   ► And I think that, more than anything else, is strong

00:13:16 ◼   ► confirmation that we'll see a 16 by 9 or whatever.

00:13:20 ◼   ► I mean, the 16 by 9 part is up for grabs, but I think we'll

00:13:22 ◼   ► see a different physical sized iPhone screen this fall.

00:13:27 ◼   ► Because Auto Layout would allow you to be very simply and

00:13:31 ◼   ► very easily, rather than giving absolute

00:13:33 ◼   ► locations to things, give relative bounds, and then

00:13:37 ◼   ► everything moves around correctly as it's resized

00:13:39 ◼   ► between the big screen and the small screen.

00:13:41 ◼   ► So that's kind of one of those things.

00:13:42 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, I definitely wanted to sort of

00:13:44 ◼   ► say that on the show before I go into the session this

00:13:49 ◼   ► afternoon in case they give more information about that,

00:13:52 ◼   ► which would indicate that in a way that I couldn't talk about

00:13:54 ◼   ► because of NDA reasons.

00:13:55 ◼   ► But I think that's a very, very, very, very, very strong

00:13:58 ◼   ► indication that that's what's coming.

00:14:00 ◼   ► So anyway, that's kind of it for today's show.

00:14:03 ◼   ► I think I'll-- like I said, I'm going to do a bunch of

00:14:05 ◼   ► episodes throughout the week and just kind of be walking

00:14:08 ◼   ► through other parts of the keynote.

00:14:09 ◼   ► I'm going to probably re-watch it tonight, go through it,

00:14:12 ◼   ► look at all the screens, kind of pausing in different

00:14:14 ◼   ► places, and then be able to hopefully give you a lot more

00:14:19 ◼   ► depth into the keynote.

00:14:21 ◼   ► If not, that doesn't work.

00:14:22 ◼   ► Then maybe I'll shorten that down.

00:14:23 ◼   ► But hopefully I'll have some interesting things to share.

00:14:25 ◼   ► If you have any questions, comments, concerns--

00:14:27 ◼   ► and I always say that.

00:14:29 ◼   ► Questions, comments, concerns, hit me up on Twitter.

00:14:30 ◼   ► underscore David Smith but specifically this week if you have questions or

00:14:33 ◼   ► things that you're interested about that you if you weren't able to get to WWDC

00:14:37 ◼   ► and you're curious about things if it's I'll try as best I can to talk about it

00:14:41 ◼   ► I know a lot of the stuff's under NDA but I'll do my best

00:14:43 ◼   ► otherwise you can always follow the show on dev perspective hope you enjoyed the

00:14:47 ◼   ► keynote and I will talk to you later happy coding