#51: Fear the Robot
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Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing
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news of note in iOS development, Apple and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm
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an independent iOS developer based in Herndon, Virginia. This is show number 51 and today
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is June 4th. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's get started.
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All right, so I'm going to have two topics today. The first one I'm going to talk about
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is Android and general multi-platform development. And that's something I've talked about before,
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if you're curious for kind of like the back issues you can go to show 0.8 and show 5 and
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that's 0.8 because that was sort of in my earlier run of shows where I was still working
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on how to do podcasting and so the quality is not as great but hopefully the content
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is still pretty good. But this is you know sort of comes to mind and is relevant because
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today Instapaper launched for Android which is in some ways you kind of wonder it's like
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did you know did hell just freeze over like pigs are flying through the air I mean it's
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a crazy thing. And you kind of think, well, that's a bit surprising. What's going on with
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that? And it's a funny thing because in many ways, it speaks to, I think there are three
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parts that always come to mind when I think about multi-platform development. And they
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are money, support, and what is your goal? And I'm going to kind of walk through those
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three things in general. And specifically, I'm going to be kind of talking about it from
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from a perspective of if you're an independent developer, which is essentially the target
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of this podcast, that's what I am, that's what I know, that's what I can talk with some
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authority on.
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So, this is sort of focused in that regard.
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If you're a large company, if you're developing an application for a Fortune 500 company,
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you probably have different goals than if you're an independent developer.
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Independent developers typically don't have a lot of resources.
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There are a lot of resources both in terms of time and also both in terms of money.
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And even beyond just money in terms of cash flow, it's money in terms of risk that we
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If I make some bad choices and my apps start doing terribly or I make a big bet on something
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that doesn't pan out, that could impact my family.
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That could impact a lot of things that I care a whole lot about.
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And so my risk is not so.
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I don't have a lot of risk tolerance, I guess is what I mean.
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And so generally, maybe it's fair to start off in saying at this point I've essentially
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abandoned multi-platform development beyond the multi-platform part of work developing
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for iOS, developing for iPhone and iPad within that, as well as developing for the Mac.
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So I develop on three platforms right now, and the second part of the show I'll talk
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about maybe a fourth that I may be developing for soon.
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But they're all within the Apple ecosystem.
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I'm honing a skill set, both in terms of technical knowledge, as well as an experience just in
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an understanding of how the market works, how things work within the Apple ecosystem,
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that I think is very difficult to then take that and move into another platform and do
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it successfully.
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And I just, in general, I would say for most independent developers, it just doesn't make
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sense to move onto these other platforms. They're not as good by almost every measure
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that you can kind of think on where there's a lot of people who are like, "I love, you
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know, very, I've heard very few people, for example, I'm going to be picking on Android
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a little bit because that's sort of the topic du jour." But typically the people who like
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Android and kind of other, you know, the vocal minority of people is typically, you know,
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they're tinkerers. They're people who enjoy playing. They're very kind of, you know, sort
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of a Linux-y feel to me, maybe. And that's great, and I'm glad that they have a platform
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that they can work on, but that does not mean that there is a lot of money to be made there.
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And if there's no money to be made, I don't know why I'd be working on that. I do this
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for a living. This is how I make my money. My mortgage payment comes out of the app sales
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that I make. So it's important to me that I'm going to put some time and energy into
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something that I can see a return on that. And financially, I've never seen a good return
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on Android. I've abandoned my apps at this point, really. I think the last update I did
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was, I don't know, six, seven months ago, and I barely even check in on the sales anymore.
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And certainly I'm sure sales are not doing well now because I decided to abandon them
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months ago, but those months ago, the sales weren't much better. I mean, things haven't
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fallen off dramatically in a way that leads me to think, "Oh, I just neglected it and
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and it kind of fell off on its own.
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And just sort of that being said, it's just there's no money in it.
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I've never found-- I very rarely hear of people who've--
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they go onto Android and they're like, oh my goodness,
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why haven't we been doing this all along?
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There is so much money here.
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Versus I've heard many times people go into the app store, the iOS app store,
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and they suddenly-- they hit it right and they start making good money
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and they start making a living.
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And I'm not even necessarily talking about making millions of dollars,
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being the next temple run, being the next Angry Birds, whatever
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I'm talking about making a living, whatever.
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Say as a goal, making $100,000.
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Say you take that as a goal and say,
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I want to make $100,000 in a year.
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I think your odds of doing that on the App Store
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are orders of magnitude higher than they
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are on the Android App Store.
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I think that's just the way it is.
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And I'm sure there's some people who are out there hacking
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on the edges of the Android App Stores who
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making good money but I just either I've never met them they're very quiet or
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they don't exist and it's hard to know which one's which but that seems to be
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the way this sort of the way things work. Alright so the next thing I was gonna
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talk about is and this is supporting multiple platforms and this is a
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huge pain you know it's sort of the difficulty of supporting multiple
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versions of iOS difficult not great you know like I have a whole drawer
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full of devices with all different versions. I've got an iPad on 3.2, I've got an old iPhone
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running 3.1, I think. And I've got all kinds of flavors of 4, all kinds of flavors of 5.
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You know, I support all these different devices, all these different screen resolutions, and
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all these different iOS versions. That's a big pain. You start to get into Android, and
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I think this is a thread I've heard and seen in my own data to back it up. The vast majority
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of support requests you get for Android are, "This doesn't work on my blank." And that
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blank is almost certainly some phone you've never heard of. It's the HTC Super Fantastic
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Super Califragilistice. You're like, "I'm sorry. I can't help you." And that just makes
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you feel terrible. Like every time I see one of those emails, it's like, "Okay, here's
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someone who's expressed an interest and potentially parted with money to use an app that I'll
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that I've created and I can't help them.
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I mean, I could go out and buy an HTC Supercalifragilistice,
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but, okay, so I go out and buy a phone for $600
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to support one user?
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It just doesn't scale.
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And I don't think I can create a user experience
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that I feel comfortable with on Android.
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And that's just, it's a weird way to say it,
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'cause really it's you and somebody that say,
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"Well, that's the customer's choice."
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but ultimately what I want is to create excellent experiences for customers.
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That's why I'm an app developer.
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That's why I do what I do.
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I really love when people come back and say, oh man, that was awesome.
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I had a six hour plane ride that I was not looking forward to.
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I got an audio book.
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I listened to it.
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It made a fly by.
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Or it made my commute better.
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And so I'm happier when I get home to my kids.
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I mean, there's all kinds of things that I hear.
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And it's like, that's awesome.
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But I just can't create that experience on Android or on any other platform.
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I've tried Windows Phone 7, I've tried a whole bunch of stuff.
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And it just doesn't work.
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And then the last thing is I want to talk about what's your goal.
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And this is something that everyone's situation is different.
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And I'm coming at this from an independent iOS developers,
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or really an independent developers perspective.
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My goal is to enjoy making software, doing something
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that I find interesting and engaging, and support my family doing that.
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And those things right now, I find that on the iOS platform,
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is the easiest place for me to do that.
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That's the best place for me to do it that I've found so far.
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I can meet that goal by making iOS apps.
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And I've been doing it now for three years, something
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like that, full time, supporting my family.
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I mean, that's fantastic.
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That's longer than any job I've had at a single company
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at this point.
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And it's great that I'm doing that directly with customers,
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directly with people who enjoy what I do.
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And if your goal is thousands of users,
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if your goal is to have brand awareness,
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if your goal is to have a feature
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that you can put on a checklist that says,
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hey, we're better than XYZ,
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then maybe moving to multiple platforms works
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and makes sense, but I just, I think you'd be better off.
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And this is, maybe it's a bit interesting way to say it is,
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I think you'd be better off being exclusively
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an Android developer, then you would be necessarily trying to develop for all platforms. I think
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if you're a small company or if you're a focused development team, because I don't think that
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you can do that well. The thinner you spread yourself, the weaker you're going to be. And
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so, anyway, just a few thoughts about Android. I said I've talked about it before, show 5
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show 0.8, which are in the show notes. But it's just, it keeps coming up over and over
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again. And I keep I've tried, I have tried to make it work. And I've never been able
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to get it to happen. I've made apps for Amazon App Store, for the Google App Store, for the
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Windows Phone App Store. And across the board, that all those enterprises have failed, I've
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never been able to make it work. And I did the same similar kind of app in both platforms.
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always iOS is always better. So that's where I'm gonna be and I said basically
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I'm just abandoning everything else and I'm just kind of almost bored with this
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topic now. I'm just gonna move on like I don't really care I'm just gonna focus
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on Apple there's enough it's like there's enough pie there for me to you
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know for me to share in for to keep me going for years and years I think so
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anyway that's the start off. And the second thing I'm going to talk about
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which is sort of interesting saying that I'm done with new platforms is
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is talking about addressing slightly the all the rumors and speculation about
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and about apps and SDK for that. If you're not familiar with the Apple TV it's a little
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puck that you plug in an HDMI port into your television
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and you can, you know, essentially consume content on it.
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And I would say that is the best way to think about it. It's definitely a dead horse
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that's been beaten many times of this "Oh, you will use the iPad for
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you know, consumption or creation and all this, it's like, I think the iPad you could say
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fairly comfortably is
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primarily designed for consumption. That's what, I'm sorry,
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the Apple TV is designed for consumption. That's what it does.
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It's a big, big, high resolution screen with audio.
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Now, you may be able to combine that with other devices in interesting creative ways,
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but the actual TV part, you know, is a fairly passive, non-interactive thing,
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and so that's kind of where you find yourself. And
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If you've used an Apple TV, you could definitely see where Apple could go in terms of creating an SDK for that.
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There are apps currently that run on that. There's a Netflix app, there's an MLB app, there's an NHL app, there's a podcast app.
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I'm trying to think of all the others. There's all kinds of these little apps whose purpose is to allow you to access content in a useful way.
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And I think that would be a really interesting and useful thing if Apple opens up next week at WWDC.
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I think out behind. I think one thing I have learned over the years is if Apple creates
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an SDK and creates a platform for something new for developers, it is very worthwhile
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to explore that. I've done it when the App Store launched pretty close, when the iPad
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launched, when the Mac App Store launched. In all cases, I've created apps targeting
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ideally for day one. For the iPhone, I was a little bit late, but on the iPad and Mac
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App Store, I was there on the first day, and in all cases it's been worthwhile.
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Either I've recouped my investment in terms of time and energy, or even just the things
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that I've learned and the enjoyment that I derive from that, I think I've always made
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it worth it.
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So, anyway, just something that I'll probably have a lot more to say about that as we go
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on, talking about some of the other parts of Apple TV.
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next week. I'll be recording at WWDC in case you were curious. I'll probably do a show.
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I'm hoping to do five shows while I'm out at WWDC. I'm getting a little special mic
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mount and things so I can take all my equipment off to my hotel room. And I'm hoping to kind
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of walk through the keynote and sort of part by part and kind of walk through it in on
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each of the days. So look out for that. And if you're not at WWDC, hopefully I can provide
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as much as I can, and a lot of it's NDA'd, but I can kind of give you some of the flavor
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and the color of what I'm absorbing in the sessions.
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But anyway, that's it for today's show.
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I hope it was useful, and as always, if you have questions, comments, concerns, I'm on
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I'm @_davidsmith, and if you'd like to follow this particular podcast on Twitter, it's @devperspective,
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D-E-V, perspective.
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And otherwise, I hope you have a good week, happy coding, and I will talk to you soon.