Under the Radar 65: Getting Sherlocked
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welcome to under the radar of show about
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independent iOS app development I'm
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Marco Arment and I'm David Smith under
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the radar is never longer than 30
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minutes so let's get started so today we
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wanted to talk about sure locking which
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is a term that is often strikes fear
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into the hearts of independent
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developers but first before I get into
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the actual like our personal experiences
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with it I didn't want to take a moment
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to explain what it is and where the term
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comes from because it is an entirely
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non-obvious term so it goes back to a
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utility that was written back many many
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many years ago that I can't even
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honestly it was before my time on the
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Mac but there's utility called Watson
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that did something and then Apple came
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along and created and shipped with the
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OS an application called Sherlock which
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did everything that Watson did and
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effectively put Watson out of business
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so Sherlock he has taken on the
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connotation of any time Apple or I guess
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you could probably generalize this to
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you know the platform vendor takes a
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feature or functionality or a whole
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stock in application and copies it and
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ships it sort of by default into the
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operating system which as you would
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expect is often something that is a
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little bit scary for that developer who
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just got copied because now the thing
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that you've been working so hard on
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building the thing that hopefully had
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some kind of unique business you know
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business run around it and was useful to
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customers suddenly everyone gets for
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free and large in some ways it's like
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being the inevitable first thought is
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well I'm out of business now which isn't
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always the case but is something I think
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that we thought we wanted to unpack and
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this is top of mind for me right now
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because I kind of have expectations of
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some of the things that I'm working on
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now that will inevitably be Sherlock
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which we'll talk about a little bit
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later and so it's something that I think
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it's always worth thinking about that
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while on the plus side it's awesome that
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you know when Apple creates capabilities
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and opportunities on their platform you
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know they had a new API
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you know when they added the motion
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coprocessor to the iPhone like that was
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awesome for me I made an app
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called me have a sub susceptor and built
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this whole sort of line of business for
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myself because of that like they created
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that opportunity now if Apple went the
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you know the next step and created their
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own stuff tracker then suddenly it
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becomes you know problematic and
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something that I wouldn't be as excited
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about and that tension between these two
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things so we know what Apple chooses to
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support in terms of like creating an API
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to encourage the development in an area
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and the areas where apple says you know
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what this is so fundamental to the
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applicant you know to the use of this
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device or the use of this operating
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system that we're gonna build this in
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you know it's like if Apple didn't have
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a camera app on the iPhone that would
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even if third parties could make awesome
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camera apps like it's such a fundamental
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part of it and so you know Apple is in
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this process of gradually expanding out
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what is considered sort of default or
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what comes with it and I think we both
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you and I Marco have some experience
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with this and I think we will start off
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the for this episode is talk a little
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bit about some of our past examples so I
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was wondering if you could start us off
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by telling the story of Instapaper and
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reading lists sure yeah so this was my
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first Sherlock as a developer basically
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I made Instapaper which was a save web
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pages for reading later service back in
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something like 2008 it was really a long
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time ago might even the fall of was 7 it
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was a very long time ago I don't even
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remember right now but ever ad in that
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ballpark and yeah an insta paper was you
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know there's this this fairly successful
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app that is actually still around I
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don't I don't use it anymore but it's
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still around and basically the the idea
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of it is you know you save web pages
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sorry later and you then go into you
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know you're on a page you save it you go
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into the in paper app and you can get a
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list of everything you save and and that
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list syncs between different devices on
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the website you can save things from
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your Mac to read on your phone or our
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iPad so there's like cross-device saving
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and syncing and everything's safe for
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offline use and everything saved in this
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nice like text only customisable nice
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reading view and different parts that
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had been done before but the combin
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of those things was never done before
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and so I kind of felt like I like owned
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that concept which is kind of a naive
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place to be honestly but that's what I
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felt at the time and and then over the
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next coming couple years a couple of
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competitors did the same thing and then
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eventually Apple in say I guess I had to
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look it up in in 2011 Apple announced
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that Mac OS lion would include this
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feature in Safari called reading list
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and at first it was really simple it was
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like you get to save a bookmark to read
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later and it shows up in this list and
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it was basically like a faster version
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of bookmarks there were none of the
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other features there was no cross-device
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sync there was no textview there was no
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like you know mobile version there was
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nothing in iOS about it so at first I
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was like oh well this isn't this I even
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wear these blog posts like this isn't a
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competitor to instigate because it
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doesn't have all these things I'm not
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sure locked yet haha and then over the
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next couple of years like 2012 2008 they
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slowly added pretty much all of the
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other features they they added it to iOS
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they added sync they added offline
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downloading of the pages that you save
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they added their text view which is kind
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of a separate thing and so like anyway
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they basically slowly added all of
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instigators core features and we're
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they've kind of left it alone for the
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last couple years because I think it's
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basically a complete feature at this
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point what instapaper was it is the
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essence of that service and it's missing
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tons and tons of features that
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Instapaper has but it doesn't matter
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what matters is that it's built in and
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it's convenient and it's free and
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everyone has it by default and I kept
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talking like over those over the years
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as reading lists came out and then
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slowly got better and slowly moved more
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into a direct competitor of Instapaper
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I kept telling myself like yeah this is
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fine it's not really gonna compete with
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me it's not gonna affect my sales it
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might even help my sales people are
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gonna find it and then realize they want
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something better and come find mine and
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as far as I can tell I don't I don't
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know if any of those things were true
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in retrospect I mean I I wasn't as good
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of a business person back then not that
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I'm great now but I'm less bad now and
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so it's hard to tell whether various
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were because of other things like my
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pricing decisions at the time or
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marketing decisions or whatever else or
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whether it was because of an because of
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reading lists and and any other
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competition that was out there but the
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main one I think was reading list
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because it was built in and for a while
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like before extensions reading lists had
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way more of a privileged position than I
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did because there were buttons all over
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the OS for adding linkster to reading
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list and you couldn't do that before
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extensions you couldn't have your app
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but up here in those kind of buttons so
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and there's actually still a couple
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places I think like a nail where there's
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still no system share sheet but there's
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a couple of menus that that have like
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open copy and add to reading list so
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there's still a few few places like that
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but anyway so all that time I kept
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thinking like oh I'll be fine I'll still
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be the deluxe option and then oh well
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they're not going to copy all my
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features and basically they're really
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good at copying the features that matter
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and even if they don't copy them all
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they copy a lot that matter and they
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they often are good enough I do think
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there is a danger in sure locking that
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we often want to minimize in our heads
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or deny or try to turn around into a
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positive thing but the reality is when
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when the platform vendor that you're on
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neutralizes the main features that you
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have has an advantage by adding them
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themselves it's a pretty big deal it it
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probably does really affect your
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business there might be cases where
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that's not true but it's certainly not
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going to be a great thing now how much
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of a bad thing it'll be is probably very
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dependent on the situation and on you
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and your products in your customer base
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and in most cases I don't think it's
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going to be incredibly fatal I think
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it's very rare where it's really fatal
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but because you know you can look at the
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other side of this is you can look at
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the apps that are that come by default
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on Macs and iOS devices
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how many note-taking apps are there
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there's been a Notes app on the iPhone
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since day one of the iPhone before there
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were apps there was notes and there was
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weather and there were stocks and all
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these things and now there are
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third-party replacements for all those
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categories there's tons of them and some
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of them do really well so I don't think
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sure locking are having the platform
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the same feature that you do either
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before or after you get there I don't
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think it's fatal to your business but it
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is a large effect on your business like
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there's no denying that when Apple made
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their Notes app better a couple years
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ago and they moved it to cloudkit and
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they made it sink and add all of the
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rich text stuff to it like there's no
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denying that hurt a lot of other notes
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apps pretty badly it there they can
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still exist but it's harder for them to
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exist so like this is a a force that
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moves throughout markets that you need
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to be aware of and it is it is almost
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certainly nothing it's almost certainly
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never good for you like my whole idea
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people will find this and one upgrade to
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a better one pretty sure that's bogus
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in retrospect like it's never good for
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you the only question is how bad is it
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for you and it might not be too horrible
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but that also might change in the future
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so it's definitely something to keep a
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very close eye on yeah and I think
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there's a very what you're saying there
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I think is like the the key I think
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reality that I've come to grips with is
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debate is that something like being sure
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locked is it puts in a tremendous weight
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on the like customer demand for your
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product like it pushes it down quote you
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know substantially it also in some way
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probably creates customer interest in
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your product or in your product category
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but the relative sizes of those two
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forces are very disproportionate I think
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there's a much stronger push down then
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there is a push up and so you'll get a
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few people who are like like you were
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saying the hopeful kind of like yeah you
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know it's just like the built in one but
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better I'm looking for the better thing
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and it's a great story we tell ourselves
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oh but I think it's not just a story
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because I think it's it is true and that
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does happen but it is like for every one
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of those people there's ten people who
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now will never even consider looking for
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something else and so it's a tremendous
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offset down and it's you know I saw my
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example was perhaps slightly less
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dramatic but like I the most significant
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story locking I've ever had was for an
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app that I wrote called emoji plus plus
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which math coin custom keyboards were
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the emoji picker at the time was this
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kind of awful keyboard thing through was
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just a one big massive list of all the
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emojis you could ever find anything
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organized in this very haphazard way and
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so I decided you know what I think I
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have a better way of organizing emoji
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I'm gonna make it so that you can
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they're gonna be organized by category
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and you can quickly jump from category
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to category by moving a slider on the
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edge you know drag dragging if your
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finger up and down that and it had a few
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other kind of bonus features like you
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could add favorites and that type of
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features but the most part it was just
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this very quick easy to understand
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organized version of add emoji keyboard
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I released it it went well had a nice
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big launched and did fairly well in the
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next version of iOS there was how do you
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think was not even the next major
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version I think it was in a point
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release it was qualms he had like there
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was very quickly a new emoji keyboard in
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iOS that was roughly the same as emoji
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plus plus but turned 90 degrees and I
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have no way of saying I have no way of
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knowing if that was based on emoji plus
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plus if that was something that had been
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in works for months you know I'd have no
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visibility into that but the reality was
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now the thing that made my app unique
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and special and interesting was
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completely gone because that app was
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better than mine because and they
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believe it's still the case third-party
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keyboards are kind of you know like
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don't quite work right they take longer
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to switch to every now and then you'll
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switch to one and it doesn't work like
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there's all kinds of issues and things
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that whereas the built-in one works
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perfectly and so you know emoji plus
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plus isn't really a thing anymore
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I don't even think I still have it in
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the App Store because you know as new
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motors have been added you know I would
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nor defer to still be relevant I need to
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keep adding all these emojis but for the
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like one person who's downloading it a
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week it just doesn't make sense and so
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in that case like it just killed the app
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and in some ways I don't feel bad about
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that like I would obviously I wish the
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that line of business was still going
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and thriving it but I will say it one
◼
►
slightly upside of being you know
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Sherlock tore about being copied by
◼
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Apple is that it is a you know
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nice kind of validation of your work to
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►
you know it's like to be copied by such
◼
►
a big you know a significant
◼
►
organization that in general I quite
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respect their products like it's kind of
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►
cool that maybe something I made was
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then copied and put into iOS but you
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know nevertheless like it just
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completely killed that product in that
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►
line of business and I think that is
◼
►
just the reality more more than more
◼
►
over than not that if you know if Apple
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is gonna come in and say you know this
◼
►
is something that we want to do they
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►
certainly have the resources they have
◼
►
the ability to do that and a copy and
◼
►
replace and then more often than not
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►
it's unlike you know is it will lead to
◼
►
a like an epic shift in terms of you
◼
►
know there was the period before and
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then there's the period after and now
◼
►
the after period is almost certainly
◼
►
going to be harder it's gonna be slower
◼
►
and it's gonna be you know it's a tough
◼
►
as an uphill battle because now all of a
◼
►
sudden your customers are an ardent or
◼
►
in general not going to be going to the
◼
►
App Store to look for an app to do this
◼
►
if somehow it just if immediately it
◼
►
does exactly what they need they'll just
◼
►
stick there because there is nothing few
◼
►
things more powerful in software than
◼
►
defaults I think in it's like the more
◼
►
you in which is useful like axiom for
◼
►
software development in general that
◼
►
like what however you we ship our apps
◼
►
to our customers whatever the default
◼
►
settings are or whatever the default
◼
►
mode is the vast majority of people will
◼
►
never shift from that and so we need to
◼
►
as developers I think be thoughtful of
◼
►
that and make sure our defaults are you
◼
►
know the will be the best thing for the
◼
►
most people but on the flip side
◼
►
whatever Apple shifts ships as default
◼
►
in their OS is gonna have a tremendously
◼
►
powering effect and the vast majority of
◼
►
people are just gonna stay there and
◼
►
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that's promo code radar 2017 at checkout
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thank you so much to Linode for
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supporting this show so with all that
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in the back of my mind I recently have
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been thinking a lot about what is going
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to be happening to my Apple watch sleep
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tracker sleepless Plus which at this
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point exists in a market that without a
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Apple option which seems entirely
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unstable going forward because it is
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seems inevitable that Apple is going to
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get into these sleep tracking business
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on the Apple watch and if anything I'm
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kind of surprised that sleepless plus
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has been able to go as long as it has
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without a first party option and it's
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something that I've been wrestling with
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recently about how this app it will I
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think it's fair to say inevitably be
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Sherlock that it isn't one of these
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things where I will be surprised when
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one day a version of watch OS comes out
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it includes native sleep tracking like
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if if that day doesn't come like
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something has gone really wrong at Apple
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from development perspective because
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this is a clear obvious competitive
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disadvantage that they currently have
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compared to other fitness trackers you
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know things like Fitbit or jawbone which
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have sleep tracking built-in and while I
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love that I'm filling the gap right now
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you know with my app it seems kind of
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inevitable that they're going to that
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one day come in and do this and that's
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tricky because I want to keep making
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this app better I want to keep investing
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into it in terms of you know with time
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and energy but at the same time I don't
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want to go too far down the road if one
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day the entire purpose of the app is
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going to disappear and so recently when
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I've been kind of coming to grips with
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hasn't been working on updates for sleep
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plus plaus is this this thought of it's
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probably wise for developers to think
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through what sure locking of your app
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would look like what it would mean
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and then moreover are there any
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opportunities that being sure locked
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would present to you and sometimes that
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there won't be and sometimes it'll just
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be sadness and death but sometimes there
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might be an opportunity you know so like
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in the case of this of my apps the plus
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plus I'm thinking about it from a
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perspective of are there you know when
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Apple inevitably creates their sleep
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tracker almost certainly it's going to
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be better than mine and I like something
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has gone wrong again because what
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there's so many serve hacks and things I
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have to do on the watch to do what I do
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because you know continuously monitoring
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someone's activity level throughout that
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evening throughout the night you know is
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not something that the add the watch is
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really geared towards doing I mean has
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some good API is for it and you know I
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can make it work but I imagine Apple if
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they built it into at the OS level could
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do a much better job of categorizing
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user's activity this would be running
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all the time and could automatically cut
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and you go to sleep and when you wake up
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there's some really cool things that
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they can do there but I just can't do
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and so for me I'm starting to look
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forward to this as a one day this will
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I want to make advanced of the time I
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have now you know in terms of in a weird
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way it's like I want to gobble up all
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the possible revenue I can but
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Apple watch sleep tracking now because
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that'll inevitably kind of diminish
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dramatically and then - I'm looking
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forward to it in the sense of none
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essence I'm looking forward to it
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happening but I'm trying to develop with
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it in mind and so a lot of the features
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I'm working on now are if Apple creates
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a new a their own version that generates
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awesome data and puts that into
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healthkit what can I do with that like
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can I work on the maybe the
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interpretation and the analysis side of
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sleep tracking more than the data
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collection side and still have value to
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customers who may want to say wow my app
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my window my watch collects all this
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data but how can I interpret it and turn
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it more maybe into the way that I do
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with things like pedometer plus plus
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where it's like the phone collects this
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the step data but my app is all about
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interpreting it and making it meaningful
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and so I think this is an important
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thing for news to think of to think of
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where you know what what would being
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Sherlock two mean to me and just take an
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approach of if you view it as inevitable
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if you think that this will one day
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happen and at least keep it in back of
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I think you can be ready for it and
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it'll still be bad it'll still probably
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not be a good thing for your business
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but at least it may not be utterly
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catastrophic yeah and you know I think
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one area that you can kind of be safer
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in is by trying to figure out what types
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of needs and needs you can solve
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features you can implement design
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choices you can make that Apple wouldn't
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do or that your platform vendor wouldn't
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do you know and and so I overcast all
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these like all these like nitpicky
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detail settings and all the advanced
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audio processing and all and just to
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hold a very uh napple like design of
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just like a different style I have a
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more human style all my microcopy is
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very human and Apple either can't or
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won't do any of those things because
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like it isn't their style or they would
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have to please too many people or they
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have to serve too many markets or
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whatever else so like the Apple version
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of your app will will we know how Apple
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does things we know they kind of do like
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the middle 80% of every problem and so
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if you can better serve the edges you
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can you can still have a business even
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locking and you know and so like what
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I've seen like you know overcast is is
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you know my current project obviously
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and overcast I I started writing it
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after the Apple podcast app on iOS
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existed so like I knew I was getting
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sure locked from day one of even
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beginning to work on the app and I still
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decided to do it and part of my strategy
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there were just like I will do some
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things that they won't and and some
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people will want those things and I knew
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going in that this was gonna be an
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uphill battle I knew that was going to
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be by far and away my biggest competitor
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and it was and is and probably will be
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for the foreseeable future because of
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what you said right before the break
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like it's already installed on
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everyone's phone it's already there like
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you have to well there's like a box now
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that prompts you but anyway it's
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basically already there if you search
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for podcast on the App Store a lot of
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times Apple will just show their giant
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podcast card or they'll show an ad for
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the road app yeah like I'm at a huge
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disadvantage there but I'm still able to
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business because I work on the edges I
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work where Apple won't or areas they
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don't serve very well also when Apple
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does something like that like with the
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put you know the podcasts app or their
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Notes app or their weather app whatever
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else like how many features has the
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weather app gotten since its release in
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2007 not not a lot like when when they
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when they release an app when they do
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their version of something it tends to
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be basically a one-shot deal like they
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show their hand and then that's about it
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for a long time possibly forever so once
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you do get sure locked or if you come
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pre Sherlock like I did with overcast
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yeah then you can kind of already know
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like you know the fear before you are
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sure locked it's like what's he gonna be
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is it gonna totally crush me and a lot
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of times their version of something
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isn't that great or isn't very deluxe or
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isn't you know isn't very good like I
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mentioned earlier reading lists reading
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list is really basic and it lacks some
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pretty big things like its text mode is
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terrible you don't have customizable
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like fonts too much degree you don't you
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it's there's not really even like a good
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dark mode like reading a bed is very
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bright like it's it just isn't very good
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a great solution to this problem so like
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you know sitting it with podcasts Apple
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has been making a podcast app since the
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beginning of podcast apps and it's
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always been like ok but kind of
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confusing kind of burdened by the
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baggage of the iTunes Music Store and
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their podcast interface and like okay
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it's just like it was a known quantity I
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knew what I was going up against and
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that helped me formulate a plan for how
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I was gonna do that effectively like how
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will I do things that Apple won't do and
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that they've already shown that they
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either aren't capable or aren't willing
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to do yeah because I think that is the
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key point for us to be working it's like
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moving forward as developers is the if
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we develop our apps with this in mind
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and if we whether or not it will
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actually end up happening if we could
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assume that it's going to be inevitable
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but we see we try and predict either
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what they would do or we look at what
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they have done and see what is an
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opportunity besides that and that's just
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the reality like that is where we are
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going to be able to make the best runs
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at you know creating a business or
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making an interesting products to
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customers is you know we are undone it's
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unlikely that we are going to be able to
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uh napple over a search out Apple Apple
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like we don't have the resources or the
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skills or the brand recognition or being
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installed by default like that's just
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not going to happen but what we can do
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is look at it and say this is what
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they're going to do or this is what they
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have done in the case of like the
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podcasts app and you just say like well
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what can I do differently and just put
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our time and energy and effort into that
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being different part that is I think
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where we're going to have them the best
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traction and the highest probability of
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success and at a certain point you get
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less scared as a result as you know
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because the things that they're you know
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if Apple comes in and does something
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like you say they're going to do it in a
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very particular way and it's important
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just as I think in general it's an
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important thing for us to be sort of
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students and people who kind of
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understand and look at the app store in
◼
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the way it works and make sure we
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understand you know how the top charts
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work how keyword searching works like
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wouldn't be a student of that it's also
◼
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important to be a student of how Apple
◼
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makes their software so that we can make
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sure we're building ours such that there
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the overlap if it exists will won't be
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and the degree to which we can exploit
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ever we make only slightly overlap we're
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almost certainly like we're increasing
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the upward force and decreasing the
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downward force in our app and you know
◼
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fair enough maybe there will always be a
◼
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stronger downward force and there will
◼
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be an upward force created by Sherlock
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Inge but at the very least we can shift
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the balance between those two ever so
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slightly in our favor just by being a
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bit more thoughtful and honestly I know
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a lot people don't to hear this it is
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really really useful when someone
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searching the App Store for something
◼
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that they get on their phone for free if
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your app is free upfront whether you
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have an in-app purchase or however you
◼
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make money afterwards being free upfront
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is will do you a lot of favors if you
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have been sure locked sure yeah because
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then you're free against free and it
◼
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isn't free against page so exactly like
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that was a huge problem I have with
◼
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Instapaper that for my entire ownership
◼
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of it it was paid up front and on day
◼
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one that was fine but you know three or
◼
►
four years in that became very much not
◼
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fine and yeah anything you can do to
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reduce the friction if you can
◼
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especially you know if you're doing
◼
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system stuff if you can import data from
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the system in any way and then export it
◼
►
back outs to anything that makes it
◼
►
easier for people to try your app this
◼
►
is good business anyway that for any app
◼
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but it's particularly effective and
◼
►
necessary if you have been Sherlock buy
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stuff built into the OS it is incredibly
◼
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beneficial to you to make it very easy
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and free for people to try your app so
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they can see the difference that helps a
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lot all right and with that we are out
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of time this week so thank you very much
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for listening everybody and we'll talk