Under the Radar

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

00:00:03 ◼   ► I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:05 ◼   ► And I'm David Smith.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Under the Radar is usually not longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:09 ◼   ► We made it to the other side.

00:00:11 ◼   ► This summer has been a journey.

00:00:15 ◼   ► It's like, so looking at, if you're a long-time listener of Under the Radar, A, thank you,

00:00:22 ◼   ► and B, you may have noticed we've gone through some stuff.

00:00:25 ◼   ► If you look at the titles of the episodes of the show over the summer, we have The Aftermath,

00:00:31 ◼   ► The Tidal Wave, Design Despair, and then Upswing.

00:00:34 ◼   ► It's been a journey, but here we are, and it's the middle of September.

00:00:40 ◼   ► iOS 26 submissions have opened, and I think I'm delighted to report that both of us have

00:00:47 ◼   ► submitted apps, have had our apps approved.

00:00:51 ◼   ► We made it.

00:00:52 ◼   ► We did it.

00:00:53 ◼   ► It's like, good job, us.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Yeah, we did it.

00:00:56 ◼   ► It was, as you said, it was a struggle, honestly, working with the new design language.

00:01:00 ◼   ► I mean, you know, whenever Apple does a big, you know, visual design update, you know, whether

00:01:07 ◼   ► it's a new system theme or the year they added dark mode, it creates a lot of work for every

00:01:13 ◼   ► app developer, including Apple itself, because you have to, you know, go through your app and

00:01:17 ◼   ► go through every screen and make sure that, you know, the metrics still work and then consider

00:01:21 ◼   ► better redesigns or different tweaks to it.

00:01:24 ◼   ► And trying to do that while also maintaining backwards compatibility with the old OS if

00:01:28 ◼   ► you need to, like, that's, it's a huge undertaking.

00:01:31 ◼   ► It's a ton of work.

00:01:32 ◼   ► And I do think this summer was made especially difficult because liquid glass is, you know,

00:01:40 ◼   ► complicated and I think not fully baked yet.

00:01:43 ◼   ► And it's not, like, it isn't, you can't just leave it alone and hope for the best.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Like, you do have to really do a lot of consideration around it.

00:01:50 ◼   ► Some of the new design language does not work well in certain circumstances or certain surroundings.

00:01:55 ◼   ► So you have to, like, make different design choices to try to minimize its shortcomings.

00:01:59 ◼   ► And so it's been a journey.

00:02:01 ◼   ► It really has.

00:02:02 ◼   ► It's been quite a lot to go through.

00:02:06 ◼   ► I personally, I've reached a point now where I am generally satisfied.

00:02:10 ◼   ► It did take a lot.

00:02:11 ◼   ► And I did have to, I needed to get used to some of liquid glass.

00:02:17 ◼   ► Some of the, you know, like the parts that aren't necessarily bad.

00:02:21 ◼   ► They're just different.

00:02:22 ◼   ► And there's a lot about it that I actually do like more than the old system.

00:02:25 ◼   ► Like when I'm, as I've been doing final release testing for Overcast, I've been using a lot

00:02:30 ◼   ► of iOS 18, you know, you know, testing that old version, you know, or testing the version

00:02:35 ◼   ► on the old OS, rather.

00:02:36 ◼   ► And it's been, it's interesting, like, when you go back to iOS 18 after using 26 for a

00:02:40 ◼   ► while, it does look old.

00:02:42 ◼   ► You do feel like you're going back in time.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Also, everything's really fast.

00:02:46 ◼   ► But you do, it does, it does look old.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And so that does kind of make me appreciate the new design more once I, once I see the old

00:02:54 ◼   ► one again.

00:02:55 ◼   ► So, you know, I've gone through this journey.

00:02:58 ◼   ► And with Overcast, like, I decided to just put it up there, you know, I submitted it

00:03:01 ◼   ► to the App Store, once you get the GM, and I submitted it with automatic release, and Apple

00:03:07 ◼   ► approved it the next morning, and it's released.

00:03:08 ◼   ► So it's out there.

00:03:09 ◼   ► It's been out there for about a day and a half now.

00:03:11 ◼   ► And so far, the reaction has been very positive.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I was, as you heard me on this show, I was terrified of the reaction.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I think one thing that, I think I mentioned on ATP, regular people largely like the new

00:03:31 ◼   ► design, like, you know, the liquid glass, iOS 26 design.

00:03:35 ◼   ► Most of the criticism of it is coming from, you know, old Mac nerds like us, and UI designers,

00:03:42 ◼   ► you know, like us, sort of.

00:03:45 ◼   ► And so, it's valuable feedback, and I think it's important feedback, and I think the practice

00:03:50 ◼   ► of UI design has gotten lost in the practice of graphic design.

00:03:56 ◼   ► I think those things have become conflated where they really should not have been.

00:04:00 ◼   ► They really should be two things that work together, and right now, UI design seems to not exist

00:04:05 ◼   ► anymore, and now it's only graphic design.

00:04:08 ◼   ► But, at the end of the day, the customers don't care nearly as much as we do.

00:04:13 ◼   ► They don't see nearly as many problems as we do.

00:04:16 ◼   ► They don't see nearly as many, like, you know, poor UI design, or poor usability, or poor accessibility

00:04:22 ◼   ► choices as we see.

00:04:23 ◼   ► Because it's our job to spot those things, and avoid those things, and, you know, design

00:04:27 ◼   ► things to be usable, and accessible, and universally applicable.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Like, that's our jobs.

00:04:32 ◼   ► We're good at that.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Most people aren't seeing that.

00:04:34 ◼   ► Most people, they get the new theme on their phone, and they're like, ooh, it looks cool.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Yeah, everything's clear and glassy.

00:04:39 ◼   ► They like it.

00:04:39 ◼   ► They like things that look cool.

00:04:40 ◼   ► It looks fresh and new.

00:04:41 ◼   ► And so, we have to, I think, I've reached the point where I accept that, you know, we're

00:04:48 ◼   ► going to have some usability sacrifices for a little while, as this is the current in-fashion

00:04:54 ◼   ► theme.

00:04:54 ◼   ► It will change over time, you know, over the next two or three years.

00:04:58 ◼   ► I'm sure they will tweak the design to, like, send off some rough edges, or improve some

00:05:02 ◼   ► things that maybe don't work as well in practice as they expected, or something like that.

00:05:05 ◼   ► You know, that happens with every big system redesign.

00:05:07 ◼   ► But in the meantime, I'm embracing it, because most other people will.

00:05:11 ◼   ► Everyone else out there, all my customers, my current, my existing customers, and my potential

00:05:17 ◼   ► future customers, they're all going to embrace it.

00:05:19 ◼   ► They're all fine with it.

00:05:20 ◼   ► They all like it, even.

00:05:21 ◼   ► Or at least most of them like it.

00:05:23 ◼   ► And so, as, you know, my opinion as, like, I consider myself a pretty good UI or usability

00:05:30 ◼   ► designer, my opinions as that role almost don't matter when it comes to deciding what to do

00:05:37 ◼   ► for my business.

00:05:37 ◼   ► What my business needs to worry about is, what's everyone else going to use, and how is my app

00:05:43 ◼   ► going to look in the store?

00:05:45 ◼   ► How's my app going to look on everyone's phones?

00:05:47 ◼   ► How's it going to look against my top competitors, number one of which is Apple's own podcast app?

00:05:51 ◼   ► So, you know, I have to consider all of that.

00:05:54 ◼   ► I think I've reached a point now where I accept Liquid Glass for all of its flaws.

00:06:00 ◼   ► I accept that this is what we have.

00:06:02 ◼   ► This is what is shipping.

00:06:03 ◼   ► And I've tried my best to embrace what's good about it, to avoid what's bad about it, and

00:06:10 ◼   ► to ship something that I think is pretty good.

00:06:12 ◼   ► And remarkably, my customers are agreeing with me.

00:06:18 ◼   ► Like, I don't think I've ever been as nervous to ship an app update as I have with this one.

00:06:24 ◼   ► I think I let myself believe that the criticism of iOS 26 was more universal than it is.

00:06:32 ◼   ► And that's because, you know, I follow mostly other nerds like me.

00:06:35 ◼   ► Like, you know, my main social network is Mastodon.

00:06:39 ◼   ► My main, you know, friend groups around Apple are like other Apple nerds and other programmers

00:06:45 ◼   ► who, you know, are more skeptical of this design or have more problems with it.

00:06:49 ◼   ► So I thought that the, like, hate of 26's design was going to be a real risk for my app adopting

00:06:58 ◼   ► the design.

00:06:58 ◼   ► Like, what if I adopt the design, if I adopt the design and everyone hates it, that's going

00:07:02 ◼   ► to blow up in my face.

00:07:03 ◼   ► But so far, it seems like that's not the case.

00:07:08 ◼   ► And in fact, I've gotten a more positive reaction to this redesign than I've ever gotten about any

00:07:17 ◼   ► other change I've ever done to Overcast's UI.

00:07:19 ◼   ► That's great.

00:07:20 ◼   ► It's shocking to me.

00:07:21 ◼   ► And like, I'm incredibly relieved.

00:07:24 ◼   ► I'm a little suspicious, to be honest.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Like, I'm having a hard time believing it so far.

00:07:28 ◼   ► And, you know, we'll see.

00:07:29 ◼   ► Like, you know, the general public doesn't have it yet.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Like, they don't have iOS 26 yet until next week.

00:07:34 ◼   ► But it's a lot of people using it already.

00:07:36 ◼   ► And the reaction has been incredibly positive.

00:07:39 ◼   ► You know, I've got a couple small things to fix, but it's nothing major.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Like, I'm incredibly relieved and really surprised.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Which is great to hear from my perspective, because my app updates are currently pending

00:07:54 ◼   ► developer release.

00:07:55 ◼   ► I'm expecting to release them on Monday alongside iOS 26.

00:08:00 ◼   ► And so I'm still in the terror, fear, bracing for the blow kind of side of this feeling.

00:08:08 ◼   ► And it is very encouraging to hear that your initial actual real world, not just test flight,

00:08:14 ◼   ► not just narrow, like out actually in the world world response has been positive, which is good

00:08:21 ◼   ► to hear because it's like, yeah, it was one of these things like it's just the inevitability

00:08:24 ◼   ► of the summer was a really challenging, complicated thing, you know, and six episodes of us like

00:08:32 ◼   ► wringing our hands and going back and forth on it because it's not straightforward if you

00:08:36 ◼   ► aren't totally excited about all the aspects of something to be excited to go forward with

00:08:42 ◼   ► it.

00:08:42 ◼   ► But at the same time, it was coming.

00:08:44 ◼   ► And, you know, we, you know, at the beginning, in June, when they announced it, like the timeline

00:08:50 ◼   ► has been exactly what I expected it to be that, you know, I needed to be ready to submit beginning

00:08:55 ◼   ► of this week.

00:08:56 ◼   ► And that's what it was.

00:08:57 ◼   ► And so, like, that was coming regardless of whether I, my feelings about it, you know,

00:09:03 ◼   ► were positive, negative or indifferent, like that was going to happen.

00:09:06 ◼   ► And so that was, I think we both, you know, I wasn't glad we were able to sort of work

00:09:09 ◼   ► our way along and get to a place that we're just like, yeah, no, this is coming.

00:09:13 ◼   ► We can do.

00:09:13 ◼   ► And I think there's an element of just doing, you know, sometimes it's like, sometimes the

00:09:18 ◼   ► best we can do is just the best we can do.

00:09:19 ◼   ► And I think I'm really happy with my designs.

00:09:22 ◼   ► I think, you know, having had the same experience as you this last week where I've been doing a

00:09:26 ◼   ► lot of iOS 18, iOS 17, you know, usage of the app to make sure things are working there.

00:09:31 ◼   ► And it's like, yeah, I prefer the new app to the old app.

00:09:36 ◼   ► It's like that I can say definitively and straightforwardly, like I prefer using the iOS

00:09:41 ◼   ► 26 design.

00:09:42 ◼   ► I think it is a better design.

00:09:43 ◼   ► That doesn't mean that I have, you know, don't have complaints or problems or things that I

00:09:47 ◼   ► wish were slightly different in iOS 26, but it is an improvement.

00:09:51 ◼   ► And I think that is, you know, that has taken some work and some effort and some, some thoughtful

00:09:57 ◼   ► aspects of the way that I've done this.

00:09:59 ◼   ► And there's, you know, it's, there's a lot of working around rough edges rather than being

00:10:03 ◼   ► able to smooth them off, which is, you know, never feels great when you're in that situation.

00:10:07 ◼   ► But it's like, we got there.

00:10:09 ◼   ► And I think that that's an accomplishment and a cool thing.

00:10:11 ◼   ► And I, yeah, it's, I think it's just going to be a fascinating next, you know, I guess,

00:10:16 ◼   ► probably realistically, it's probably another two months before the majority of our customers

00:10:21 ◼   ► are running iOS 26.

00:10:23 ◼   ► And so the sort of this next couple of months is just going to be very interesting to get

00:10:28 ◼   ► a sense of, you know, where the, where the trends are, where people are going.

00:10:33 ◼   ► Like, I think something that I've been fascinated by is I've, you know, I've been very public

00:10:38 ◼   ► about my iOS redesigns.

00:10:40 ◼   ► You know, I have a whole like series of design posts on my website talking through the evolution.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I have a video where I'm doing like before and afters, like I've been very public about

00:10:49 ◼   ► it.

00:10:50 ◼   ► I haven't seen that many other people's iOS 26 designs.

00:10:56 ◼   ► Like I've seen Apple's, you know, the ones that they've shipped with their apps.

00:10:59 ◼   ► I've, you know, seen, I've seen Overcast.

00:11:01 ◼   ► I've seen a few other apps, but a lot of them haven't.

00:11:03 ◼   ► And so it's going to be a fascinating thing where it's like, we get to, you know, probably,

00:11:07 ◼   ► you know, next Monday and we all sort of like, here we go.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Here's our things.

00:11:12 ◼   ► And I'm sure there's going to be some things where I see and I'm like, oh yeah, that's

00:11:17 ◼   ► better.

00:11:17 ◼   ► And, you know, there'll be some, this is some quick reshuffling of things in my apps or things

00:11:22 ◼   ► that I do, or maybe some, you know, it's like stuff that I'm doing that people will be like,

00:11:26 ◼   ► yep, no, actually that was better than what I was doing.

00:11:27 ◼   ► Like there's this interesting period where we're going to have before it really goes wide for

00:11:33 ◼   ► us to kind of ran, run around shuffling things around being like, yep, no, that's a better

00:11:37 ◼   ► pattern for that.

00:11:38 ◼   ► That works better here.

00:11:39 ◼   ► Oh, how I wonder how they did that.

00:11:40 ◼   ► And then you, you know, you're sort of, we can share best practices or things we've

00:11:43 ◼   ► learned or, you know, some of the weird stuff that we, we have to do there.

00:11:47 ◼   ► But, uh, it's been an interesting process in that way of like, you just, I don't know,

00:11:51 ◼   ► we all, we, we, it's like, we got here and it was coming inevitably and I'm really happy

00:11:56 ◼   ► with it.

00:11:56 ◼   ► And it's, it's super psyched that you're happy with overcast and you should be, I've been

00:12:01 ◼   ► using it and it's, it's a slightly funny situation over the summer because when I first put

00:12:06 ◼   ► I was 26 on my main carry phone, one of the things that I said at the time was that I need

00:12:12 ◼   ► to go full liquid glass, everything.

00:12:15 ◼   ► I didn't want to use any apps that weren't liquid glass.

00:12:18 ◼   ► And so at the time that meant that I, the only podcast app that was available to me was

00:12:22 ◼   ► Apple podcast.

00:12:23 ◼   ► So I switched to using that for like a month, you know, just, you know, it's in, with tremendous

00:12:30 ◼   ► reluctance, I did this, you know, don't feel bad.

00:12:33 ◼   ► It's okay.

00:12:33 ◼   ► I absolve you of your sins.

00:12:34 ◼   ► I'm immediately back in overcast and everything's better, but there was a period where I was really

00:12:39 ◼   ► wanting to be immersed.

00:12:40 ◼   ► So like all the apps I used were, you know, liquid glass apps.

00:12:44 ◼   ► And it was interesting then to go back to now overcast with liquid glass.

00:12:50 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, this is nicer.

00:12:52 ◼   ► I like, like, I like the way that you've, you've done it.

00:12:54 ◼   ► I think it works.

00:12:55 ◼   ► It works really well.

00:12:56 ◼   ► It's a, like we talked about before, it's a light touch.

00:12:58 ◼   ► Um, you know, it's native, but not extremely native, not going over, not leading so far into

00:13:06 ◼   ► liquid glass that you start really hitting some of the rough edges.

00:13:09 ◼   ► You know, it's a really thoughtful, clean design and it's like, I think there's going

00:13:13 ◼   ► to be a lot of that, that we see a lot of people who are native, but are just in a comfortable

00:13:17 ◼   ► way, not, you know, like, and then somebody from my apps, it's like widget Smith.

00:13:21 ◼   ► I think it's redesign is more like what you did where it's, it's a, it feels natural, but

00:13:27 ◼   ► isn't really pushing it.

00:13:28 ◼   ► And I think pedometer plus plus is a much more like it's very liquid glass and lots of, you

00:13:35 ◼   ► know, lots of transparency, lots of shiny things.

00:13:38 ◼   ► Um, you know, lots of concentricity, you know, everything's concentric.

00:13:41 ◼   ► Um, and that's just, you know, it's like, I really, even between those two apps, really

00:13:47 ◼   ► curious to see kind of what we, what people respond to more and less and what I, you know,

00:13:51 ◼   ► what changes I'm going to have to make, because, uh, I think I remember this from last year

00:13:55 ◼   ► when you and I were talking about our iOS 18 releases and how like the mental picture

00:14:00 ◼   ► I have for, uh, software development that I think has been very helpful is that of like

00:14:05 ◼   ► a farmer's carry so I can fitness where you pick up something heavy and you carry it as

00:14:08 ◼   ► long as you possibly can.

00:14:09 ◼   ► And you put it down and then, you know, pick it up and carry it again.

00:14:12 ◼   ► And it's like, we, we've released these updates.

00:14:14 ◼   ► They're out, you know, or in this case I've submitted mine and they'll be out on Monday,

00:14:17 ◼   ► but like, they're not done.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Like all that hard work, all that hard graft over the summer to get to this point.

00:14:24 ◼   ► And then now it's like, well, now we've got to pick things back up and keep going for

00:14:28 ◼   ► the, you know, the 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Um, so we have a lot of work ahead of us.

00:14:33 ◼   ► So there's like, in some ways, great.

00:14:34 ◼   ► We've reached the starting line, which is exciting, I suppose.

00:14:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:38 ◼   ► I mean, that's like, I have not even touched any of the new iOS feature APIs.

00:14:44 ◼   ► Like I haven't touched any of the foundation models, like all of the, you know, like, you

00:14:48 ◼   ► know, they finally gave us on-device LLMs that we can use for free and we can do all sorts

00:14:54 ◼   ► of stuff with them.

00:14:55 ◼   ► And I have not even started.

00:14:57 ◼   ► I have not even tried, um, because I didn't have time like the, you know, this took up

00:15:01 ◼   ► all the time I had, just, you know, getting the design refresh out the door.

00:15:05 ◼   ► Um, and there's a lot of features I want that I'm, that I kind of have laid the groundwork

00:15:10 ◼   ► for, but haven't had time to, to finish and fully implement.

00:15:13 ◼   ► And I would love to get back to those now too.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Like I'm, I'm looking forward to this period now, you know, now that the, the design obligations

00:15:22 ◼   ► are pretty much taken care of, you know, again, I got a couple of minor bug fixes with it,

00:15:26 ◼   ► but it's not, you know, it's not going to take me more than a week.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Um, I don't think, knock on wood.

00:15:31 ◼   ► Um, so I'm looking forward to just being able to get back to feature work now and to dive

00:15:36 ◼   ► into a lot of the other stuff that we can now do with the new APIs, with the new capabilities

00:15:41 ◼   ► and which just, you know, stuff that doesn't require new APIs.

00:15:43 ◼   ► It just required time.

00:15:44 ◼   ► You know, like one of, one of the most common requests for overcast is, uh, per episode

00:15:50 ◼   ► artwork, which used to be something no podcasts ever used.

00:15:54 ◼   ► And now it's something that lots of podcasts use.

00:15:56 ◼   ► And so, yeah, that's on my list.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Like I, I had to build some support here and there.

00:16:00 ◼   ► I got to do, do a little more work to make it happen in a, in a privacy sensitive way.

00:16:03 ◼   ► But otherwise like, yeah, that's coming.

00:16:05 ◼   ► I, I, but I haven't had time to do it all summer.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Stuff like that.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I'm, I'm finally, you know, I'm finally starting to record season tags on podcasts.

00:16:13 ◼   ► And so I can display things by season.

00:16:15 ◼   ► Once I build in that, that UI, like there's just so much stuff like that, that I have been

00:16:21 ◼   ► wanting to do.

00:16:22 ◼   ► And, you know, the, the big design work blocked that.

00:16:25 ◼   ► Um, but now, you know, I'm, I feel like I'm free.

00:16:28 ◼   ► I, I haven't been in a place like this where right at this moment, I don't feel like I am

00:16:34 ◼   ► behind right at this moment.

00:16:37 ◼   ► I just, I submitted my iOS 26 build for day one, actually got it approved, you know,

00:16:42 ◼   ► on like day negative four or whatever.

00:16:44 ◼   ► So I'm actually ahead of the game on that.

00:16:48 ◼   ► I have not been on time or ahead of the game for an OS release in years.

00:16:54 ◼   ► And that was entirely fixed now, thanks to the hell I went through for the last couple

00:17:01 ◼   ► of years doing the rewrite.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Like that really the rewrite is what enabled me to have this speed again.

00:17:07 ◼   ► And then as soon as, as soon as I had set up, set all the fires out or, you know, put all

00:17:12 ◼   ► the fires out from the rewrite, then we get this system redesign.

00:17:15 ◼   ► So that kept me busy for the last few months.

00:17:17 ◼   ► But now I feel like I'm like on fire.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Now I'm like, I have so much potential now.

00:17:23 ◼   ► I can do so much now because the big stuff is done.

00:17:26 ◼   ► The rewrite, you know, I know I have a couple of areas of bugs that people are keep hitting.

00:17:32 ◼   ► I'm rewriting the downloader.

00:17:33 ◼   ► You know, there's a couple of things like that.

00:17:34 ◼   ► But like, I'm mostly freed up to do feature work now, which I haven't been free to do in

00:17:40 ◼   ► a while.

00:17:41 ◼   ► And I cannot wait to really get in there.

00:17:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:45 ◼   ► I think there's lots of knock on effects and benefits to the summer we've had.

00:17:49 ◼   ► But before I go down talking to those, I want to just take a minute to, I guess it's not

00:17:53 ◼   ► an ad.

00:17:53 ◼   ► I guess it's more of a message.

00:17:56 ◼   ► So in lieu of our usual advertising spot that we would have at this point in the episode,

00:18:00 ◼   ► this is September, which is so it's iPhone month, it's iOS month, but it's also Childhood

00:18:06 ◼   ► Cancer Awareness Month.

00:18:08 ◼   ► And so here on Relay, where we host our podcast, it's really all the shows get together and

00:18:13 ◼   ► we try and raise money for St. Jude, which is an organization that tries to keep and help

00:18:20 ◼   ► children who have cancer to not have it anymore, to be, you know, to be healthy, to be have long

00:18:26 ◼   ► lives ahead of them.

00:18:28 ◼   ► And they do tremendous work.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And it's something that Relay has been working with them for, you know, since 2019 and raised

00:18:34 ◼   ► over $4 million for it.

00:18:36 ◼   ► And, you know, this is another year and another time for us to just come together as a community

00:18:40 ◼   ► of people who listen to, you know, the Relay shows and to support St. Jude.

00:18:44 ◼   ► And it's, I mean, it's funny, there's lots of things that they have in the main messaging

00:18:49 ◼   ► to talk about of all the wonderful things they do.

00:18:51 ◼   ► And if you listen to other Relay shows, which I imagine you do, you'll have heard many of

00:18:54 ◼   ► those messages of the work they do overseas, the work they do in research, the work they

00:18:58 ◼   ► do just in terms of providing this care to families and no cost to the families.

00:19:03 ◼   ► And so that they can just focus on getting healthy and getting well.

00:19:06 ◼   ► And maybe my style is not to get into the details and more just to say that if you're

00:19:11 ◼   ► listening to the show, if it's something that you have the means and the ability to

00:19:15 ◼   ► support, it's something that we would encourage you to do so.

00:19:18 ◼   ► And so if you go to stjude.org slash Relay, you'll have the ability to contribute to that,

00:19:23 ◼   ► this campaign.

00:19:24 ◼   ► If you have an organ work at a company that does matching and things like that, there's

00:19:28 ◼   ► information about how to help and support there.

00:19:30 ◼   ► But overall, I think it's just one of those, it's a time of the year where, you know, it's

00:19:35 ◼   ► it's helpful to think about other people and the ways in which we can help them.

00:19:39 ◼   ► And, you know, sometimes the summer has been very focused on how I can help my customers.

00:19:42 ◼   ► And this is a different aspect where, but I also, I do have the means.

00:19:46 ◼   ► I do have the ability to change and to impact and to help help people.

00:19:50 ◼   ► So I'd encourage you, if you are in a similar situation, to go to stjude.org slash Relay

00:19:55 ◼   ► and support right there.

00:19:56 ◼   ► So the other benefit that I think I wanted to talk about, and I think you've alluded to

00:20:01 ◼   ► this a little bit of this redesign, is something that I kind of guessed might be the case, but

00:20:07 ◼   ► I wasn't sure how the degree to which this would be, is how helpful it has been to pay

00:20:14 ◼   ► down a lot of tech debt in terms of the UI, the structure, the just the overall workings

00:20:23 ◼   ► of my apps, having to go through this.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Like, I'm not sure I would have chosen to spend three months in, you know, in the case of

00:20:30 ◼   ► pedometer plus plus, essentially redoing the entire UI layer, like very little, very few

00:20:36 ◼   ► parts of it are reused from the, you know, the iOS 18 version.

00:20:40 ◼   ► But the net result of that now having done that work, you know, having sort of survived that

00:20:46 ◼   ► process is my Swift UI is now nice, modern, like performant, good Swift UI that the first

00:20:56 ◼   ► version of it definitely wasn't, you know, Swift, I adopted Swift UI essentially from the

00:21:03 ◼   ► beginning.

00:21:03 ◼   ► And as a result, a lot of my Swift UI code, like as I've been looking through the iOS 18

00:21:10 ◼   ► and comparing it to the iOS 26, was just bad.

00:21:13 ◼   ► Like, there's all kinds of issues and, you know, semantics and idiomatic things that I'm

00:21:18 ◼   ► doing that I'm like, oh, that's bad.

00:21:21 ◼   ► But like, I was never going to just, you know, whole cloth, delete it and restart again.

00:21:25 ◼   ► And so what's been really interesting, and it's like, I see, you know, you mentioned

00:21:30 ◼   ► the similar kind of thing, like your overcast is in such a better place in terms of its ability

00:21:36 ◼   ► to move forward and your inertia and your like, or maybe even like the, rather than even just

00:21:41 ◼   ► inertia, like the lack of friction that you come into having, being able to apply modern

00:21:46 ◼   ► best practices to your application is just really cool.

00:21:50 ◼   ► Like, it's something that I've been noticing, even in the work that I've done since I submitted

00:21:54 ◼   ► on Tuesday night, that it's, I'm noticing that it's, you know, when I'm doing work on

00:21:59 ◼   ► something that's an iOS 26 view, you know, in the app, it's like, oh, this is great.

00:22:03 ◼   ► It's nice and clean.

00:22:04 ◼   ► It's very well factored, like all the good things.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And if I go look in the iOS 18, I'm like, ooh, what was, you know, what was Dave of five

00:22:11 ◼   ► years ago or four years ago, whatever it was thinking?

00:22:13 ◼   ► Like, just weird stuff that I'm doing that I know now know better and now know the kind

00:22:18 ◼   ► of bugs or kind of weird behaviors or maintenance headaches or things that those are going to

00:22:23 ◼   ► cause.

00:22:23 ◼   ► And so that's sort of an additional side effect and a side benefit of all the summer

00:22:29 ◼   ► of work.

00:22:29 ◼   ► It's just like, I feel really good going into this fall, feeling like the apps are in good

00:22:34 ◼   ► places.

00:22:35 ◼   ► Like they have this really nice, clean baseline that I wouldn't have chosen necessarily, but

00:22:41 ◼   ► can certainly benefit from now.

00:22:43 ◼   ► And I think it's, I hear the same thing.

00:22:45 ◼   ► I imagine it's a similar thing with Overcast where you're in this place of like, yeah,

00:22:49 ◼   ► this isn't necessarily the path and journey and timeline that I would have chosen to have

00:22:54 ◼   ► done a top to bottom, like spick and span refresh and reevaluation of everything.

00:22:59 ◼   ► But having now been forced to do that, there's some upside as well.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:23:04 ◼   ► I mean, there's never a good time to rewrite stuff that already works.

00:23:08 ◼   ► A good time will never come around because that is historically in software development

00:23:14 ◼   ► considered a huge, a huge cost and usually a huge strategic mistake.

00:23:19 ◼   ► But, you know, sometimes it is forced upon you.

00:23:23 ◼   ► You know, in my case with my app, like my old app before the rewrite was also, it was all

00:23:31 ◼   ► Objective-C.

00:23:31 ◼   ► It was all UIKit.

00:23:33 ◼   ► And it was, you know, it had a 10-year-old, it had 10 years of tech debt, basically.

00:23:39 ◼   ► And so I adopted a whole bunch of modern stuff at once.

00:23:43 ◼   ► I went with Swift, Swift Concurrency, and Swift UI all at the same time.

00:23:49 ◼   ► It leapfrogged me ahead of where I was, mostly because of how far behind I was.

00:23:57 ◼   ► I had a long way to leapfrog.

00:23:59 ◼   ► But that dramatically changed, you know, I was able to do all these, you know, modern

00:24:05 ◼   ► things much more quickly once it was done.

00:24:07 ◼   ► But it was a heck of a process to get there.

00:24:09 ◼   ► And it's not something I would recommend to anyone, except that the alternative, if I hadn't

00:24:14 ◼   ► done the rewrite, the alternative would have been the end of Overcast.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Especially now with the big UI redesign, I don't know if I could have done this redesign

00:24:23 ◼   ► with the old code base in the time and with the energy that I had.

00:24:28 ◼   ► You know, because it was, oftentimes this summer this was demotivating.

00:24:32 ◼   ► Because like when I just couldn't get a design that I liked, or I couldn't get the design components

00:24:37 ◼   ► to work, or that, you know, I would run into bugs or limitations.

00:24:41 ◼   ► What you said earlier, though, I think really helped, which is like, a lot of the limitations

00:24:45 ◼   ► or bugs with Liquid Glass, we actually have no way to work around.

00:24:50 ◼   ► We have no, we have very little customization over a lot of the behaviors.

00:24:53 ◼   ► We have, like there are certain system APIs that just still don't work right.

00:24:57 ◼   ► There are like animation glitches and bugs that are shipping as iOS 26.0.

00:25:03 ◼   ► And we can't work around a lot of them.

00:25:04 ◼   ► And in a way, I mean, that's very frustrating.

00:25:07 ◼   ► And some of that's going to become our problem when our users, you know, complain to us about

00:25:11 ◼   ► it.

00:25:11 ◼   ► But in a way, it's kind of freeing, like, oh, yeah, this, this component, you kind of can't

00:25:16 ◼   ► use it yet.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Like, okay, then I won't.

00:25:19 ◼   ► Great.

00:25:19 ◼   ► Okay, I'll do something else.

00:25:21 ◼   ► And like, instead of like, there being, okay, well, you can do these ridiculous workarounds

00:25:26 ◼   ► that are really complicated and time consuming, and will be a maintenance nightmare.

00:25:29 ◼   ► Like, no, you can't.

00:25:30 ◼   ► So in a way, it's actually kind of freeing to be like, okay, these are the three options

00:25:35 ◼   ► I have.

00:25:35 ◼   ► I have no other options.

00:25:36 ◼   ► So pick one and move on.

00:25:39 ◼   ► And that's what I had to do a lot of the time.

00:25:41 ◼   ► And it has, you know, in time, you know, in a lot of those times, it kind of was a painful

00:25:48 ◼   ► pill to swallow at the moment.

00:25:49 ◼   ► But the result is my app is done on time.

00:25:53 ◼   ► And there are certain decisions that were out of my hands.

00:25:56 ◼   ► But that also means they were off my plate.

00:25:58 ◼   ► That helped a lot.

00:26:00 ◼   ► During this, honestly, like, at the end of the day, like, I'm actually glad that there

00:26:04 ◼   ► was less customization I could do.

00:26:06 ◼   ► I had fewer options.

00:26:07 ◼   ► And I was left to just use a lot of stock stuff.

00:26:10 ◼   ► And now, I have less code.

00:26:13 ◼   ► Like, the more stock components I used unmodified, the less code I actually have.

00:26:18 ◼   ► And that'll help with maintenance and feature development over time.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Yeah, no, and exactly that experience was mine.

00:26:24 ◼   ► It's like, I was just so many places.

00:26:26 ◼   ► What I found the best pattern this summer was just to use stock stuff as simple and basic

00:26:33 ◼   ► as it can be, relying on the fact that often when you would do that, if you do that in iOS

00:26:38 ◼   ► 18, it would feel old and kind of basic.

00:26:42 ◼   ► Whereas the advantage we have now is that if you use the stock stuff, the stock stuff is totally new.

00:26:47 ◼   ► And so it feels fresh and interesting.

00:26:49 ◼   ► And rather than trying to go, you know, end up with this situation where you're trying to create

00:26:55 ◼   ► your own thing that fits well with iOS 26, it's like way simpler and way better to just use the

00:27:02 ◼   ► basic stuff, sort of just lean into it and understand it's not going to be perfect for whatever

00:27:07 ◼   ► definition of perfect in this case would be.

00:27:10 ◼   ► It's going to just be fine and it will get better and I'm sure it will.

00:27:13 ◼   ► Like, I don't think that there is a scenario where like this is the best, you know, in many

00:27:18 ◼   ► ways, this is the worst shipping version of iOS 26 that we will ever have.

00:27:23 ◼   ► I hope so.

00:27:24 ◼   ► On Monday when it comes out to the public, like that will, I expect to be the worst version

00:27:28 ◼   ► that's ever going to be and it will get better and it will change and all the bugs we filed

00:27:32 ◼   ► over the summer that have, you know, gone unfixed or unchanged and things like that are

00:27:37 ◼   ► just, they will gradually get better.

00:27:39 ◼   ► Like, I think that's, history would teach us that and I think, you know, I think both

00:27:43 ◼   ► of us had this, some points in the summer where it was just good to remind ourselves of that

00:27:48 ◼   ► kind of thing that, you know, in this case, the, any of focusing on trying to have the perfect

00:27:53 ◼   ► and the best was not going to be productive, was not going to get us to the place that we

00:27:57 ◼   ► are now where we, you know, we have, have our apps, we're ready, we can do it and they're

00:28:02 ◼   ► as good as we can make them, not as good as we could imagine them being.

00:28:06 ◼   ► And that is a difference and it's a subtle difference, but in this case, that's what

00:28:09 ◼   ► we have and it's cool.

00:28:11 ◼   ► And I think, you know, as we, it's nice, I think, to, regardless of what the end result

00:28:16 ◼   ► is, I think both of us, I don't know, it's funny to say, but I'm, I'm proud of you for

00:28:20 ◼   ► the summer you had and hopefully I have reason to be proud of my own work as well.

00:28:24 ◼   ► But like, we got there, you know, and that is doing difficult things has made us better

00:28:29 ◼   ► developers, made us better designers, made us more thoughtful, you know, communicators

00:28:34 ◼   ► or understanders of things.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Like that's what this summer has done.

00:28:38 ◼   ► And whether the, this design work is ultimately going to be something that it's, you know, in

00:28:44 ◼   ► history, it was looked at if whether iOS 26 was, you know, a positive thing or a negative

00:28:48 ◼   ► thing.

00:28:48 ◼   ► I know I've become a better developer having, you know, gone through this process.

00:28:52 ◼   ► And so I can take that with me and whatever, you know, iOS 27, iOS 28, iOS 29, whatever

00:28:57 ◼   ► these, the future is going to hold, I can go into that being a better developer, which

00:29:01 ◼   ► is ultimately something that, you know, I value even more so.

00:29:05 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:29:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:06 ◼   ► And, and me too.

00:29:07 ◼   ► And good luck out there, everybody, with all of your iOS 26 updates hitting the store and,

00:29:12 ◼   ► and getting into your customers' hands.

00:29:15 ◼   ► I hope it goes for well for you as it has so far for, for me and Dave and best of luck.

00:29:20 ◼   ► Hey, we got through it.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Let's celebrate.

00:29:22 ◼   ► Thanks for listening, everybody.

00:29:23 ◼   ► We'll talk to you in two weeks.

00:29:25 ◼   ► Bye.