Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to under the radar show about independent iOS app development. I'm Marco Arment and I'm David Smith under the radar is never longer than 30 minutes

00:00:07 ◼   ► So let's get started. So we are here live in person in my hotel room in California, but we're live to ourselves not to you

00:00:14 ◼   ► Sorry, anyway, so WVDC that we're here recording the very last day of it on Friday

00:00:20 ◼   ► So we kind of get an idea of what the whole week was like get you know

00:00:23 ◼   ► More info on a lot of the sessions and everything and what we decided to do for the format here since there's so much to

00:00:29 ◼   ► cover is that we're gonna cover approximately one maybe two platforms

00:00:34 ◼   ► or top or major topics per week for the next few weeks until we get through it

00:00:38 ◼   ► so we're gonna start today with watch OS and what's new in watch OS 3 and what

00:00:45 ◼   ► that might mean for watch developers because it seemed like you know a waste

00:00:48 ◼   ► not to when we have like the world leader in watch development right here

00:00:51 ◼   ► with David here so Dave what do you think of watch OS 3 and and what is

00:00:56 ◼   ► different and I guess we can start with like you know high level overview and

00:01:00 ◼   ► then like you know maybe move into what you think you can do now that you

00:01:04 ◼   ► couldn't do before and how this might change the business of watch apps.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Sure, because it is an interesting thing this week to for the first time have come to a

00:01:12 ◼   ► WWDC and not feel like I could reasonably address all of the things that they were

00:01:18 ◼   ► talking about like usually I'd come and it would be like everything that isn't

00:01:20 ◼   ► game related I'd try and be aware of but there's so many platforms and so many

00:01:24 ◼   ► things going on right now that it really wasn't possible.

00:01:28 ◼   ► And so this week, I've just been doing all watch all the time,

00:01:31 ◼   ► essentially.

00:01:32 ◼   ► And as I've dug into this over watching sessions and labs,

00:01:37 ◼   ► there is a--

00:01:39 ◼   ► Watch 3 is the--

00:01:42 ◼   ► it seems like it might even be the only platform this year

00:01:44 ◼   ► that is radically different, in a way that

00:01:47 ◼   ► is significant, intangible, and kind of amazing

00:01:52 ◼   ► that what they're able to do these huge improvements

00:01:57 ◼   ► on exactly the same hardware.

00:01:59 ◼   ► I'm currently wearing two watches,

00:02:00 ◼   ► which is completely absurd, but--

00:02:02 ◼   ► Totally rocking it.

00:02:04 ◼   ► You know, with a watchOS 3 on one wrist

00:02:06 ◼   ► and a watchOS 2 on the other.

00:02:07 ◼   ► And it works.

00:02:09 ◼   ► Like in the keynote when Federici shows his like,

00:02:14 ◼   ► kind of like, ha ha, old watchOS 2 apps were so slow.

00:02:16 ◼   ► Look at the spinner.

00:02:18 ◼   ► But now look at watchOS 3.

00:02:19 ◼   ► It launches immediately.

00:02:22 ◼   ► And it's good, maybe it's a good sort of like applause line,

00:02:24 ◼   ► but I was very skeptical that that would actually

00:02:27 ◼   ► be the case, that I would, if I, you know,

00:02:29 ◼   ► I'd go download the beta and it would be kind of janky

00:02:32 ◼   ► and it wouldn't quite work.

00:02:34 ◼   ► Turns out, it works exactly like they said.

00:02:37 ◼   ► And I think it's because they're being very clever

00:02:39 ◼   ► about the way they're solving this.

00:02:43 ◼   ► Rather than, what they're doing is basically just saying,

00:02:47 ◼   ► We have extra capacity on the compute and memory and energy side that after having a--having

00:02:55 ◼   ► WatchOS be out in the world for a little over a year now, we understand what our constraints

00:03:01 ◼   ► are there more concisely.

00:03:03 ◼   ► And so we're going to be able to take that and turn it into better performance and do

00:03:09 ◼   ► it in a way that is really user focused because if you add an application as a--to the complication

00:03:17 ◼   ► screen on your watch. That application is like the king. It gets all the best treatment.

00:03:22 ◼   ► It can do all kinds of things in the background and will perform incredibly well. If you put

00:03:27 ◼   ► it in the dock, which set, you know, so you say, "Hey, this is an app that is important

00:03:32 ◼   ► to me that I think I will want to reference frequently," then you don't, you're not the

00:03:37 ◼   ► king anymore. Maybe you're like the jack of spades, but you kind of used to will get a

00:03:41 ◼   ► a lot of special treatment. And if you're in neither of those places, you're just like

00:03:48 ◼   ► a peon. You'll have…

00:03:49 ◼   ► You're like a six of clubs.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. And if you try and launch one of those apps, like if I'm a watchOS 2 app,

00:03:57 ◼   ► I try and launch one of these, like an old app on watchOS 3 that isn't in the dock

00:04:03 ◼   ► or a complication. It's just like the old one. I mean, it may even be slightly worse,

00:04:07 ◼   ► I think in some ways because it seems like it's pulling resources directly and explicitly

00:04:13 ◼   ► for the dock and complication apps, but who cares?

00:04:17 ◼   ► Because if it's not an important enough app to be in your--on your watch face or in your

00:04:21 ◼   ► dock, you probably don't care.

00:04:23 ◼   ► It probably just got automatically installed behind your back from the App Store.

00:04:28 ◼   ► And that seems like a pretty good compromise for them to take.

00:04:31 ◼   ► So I'm pretty excited for it as a platform going forward to be able to make apps that

00:04:34 ◼   ► actually work.

00:04:36 ◼   ► Because as best as I've tried to put a good face on watchOS 1 and watchOS 2, they really,

00:04:43 ◼   ► I always felt like I was shipping something that wasn't good.

00:04:48 ◼   ► It was always like barely works, kind of hacky, hopefully sufficient, but never good.

00:04:54 ◼   ► And now it's nice to feel like I'm actually going to be able to do that.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, this, I think they made changes here to reflect the way people actually use

00:05:03 ◼   ► their watch.

00:05:04 ◼   ► they've had time to release this product,

00:05:07 ◼   ► see it in the market, to see things like,

00:05:09 ◼   ► okay, well the whole digital touch circle of friends thing

00:05:12 ◼   ► is not really setting the road on fire

00:05:13 ◼   ► and probably does not justify the only,

00:05:17 ◼   ► one of the two hardware buttons on the watch

00:05:19 ◼   ► being devoted solely to it.

00:05:21 ◼   ► And so they made changes there

00:05:22 ◼   ► and I think they also recognized that,

00:05:25 ◼   ► you know, when they designed the watch,

00:05:26 ◼   ► they designed it almost to be just like a mini iPhone.

00:05:29 ◼   ► And so it's like, okay,

00:05:30 ◼   ► well you're gonna have lots of apps in this thing,

00:05:31 ◼   ► you're gonna be bouncing between apps all the time

00:05:33 ◼   ► and have tons of different little apps.

00:05:35 ◼   ► And I think the reality is most people who I've talked to

00:05:37 ◼   ► who use the watch, and when I used the watch,

00:05:40 ◼   ► it was this way as well, most people use

00:05:43 ◼   ► a very small number of apps on any kind of regular basis.

00:05:47 ◼   ► Talking two or three, maybe at most, of third party apps

00:05:51 ◼   ► plus maybe a couple Apple built-in features.

00:05:53 ◼   ► But you're talking like a very small number

00:05:55 ◼   ► and many people never went past the complications

00:05:58 ◼   ► on their face as, I don't know any watch owner

00:06:01 ◼   ► routinely goes back to the honeycomb screen and picks from 40 apps that are on there.

00:06:07 ◼   ► That just isn't how people use it. And so it seems like they have shifted from that

00:06:11 ◼   ► initial guess of how the watch would be used to the way people actually use it using very

00:06:16 ◼   ► few apps and have really optimized for that. So now it's like, okay, well if you're only

00:06:20 ◼   ► going to be using two or three third party apps on a regular basis, we're going to actually

00:06:24 ◼   ► make those really good and keep those in memory. And side note, there was on the talk show

00:06:30 ◼   ► with Jon Gruber this week that they did live here with guests Phil and Craig. Craig Federighi

00:06:36 ◼   ► did a really good job of explaining this decision basically of like you know how they managed

00:06:42 ◼   ► to pull this off with watchOS and the short version is basically what you said it's like

00:06:45 ◼   ► they basically like they overshot their battery budget like they dramatically overshot like

00:06:53 ◼   ► on the conservation side before and so he basically what he basically said was like

00:06:57 ◼   ► we had extra battery and RAM.

00:06:59 ◼   ► And so we decided to spend that battery and RAM

00:07:01 ◼   ► making watch apps really awesome,

00:07:03 ◼   ► because we could.

00:07:05 ◼   ► So I think what we're gonna see from this

00:07:07 ◼   ► is people with the Apple Watch running OS 3

00:07:11 ◼   ► are going to most likely see lower battery life

00:07:13 ◼   ► than what they saw before,

00:07:14 ◼   ► if they're making use of these new

00:07:16 ◼   ► keep apps in memory kind of usage patterns.

00:07:19 ◼   ► But I don't know about you,

00:07:21 ◼   ► you're a watch power user obviously.

00:07:23 ◼   ► When I used the watch,

00:07:25 ◼   ► I would finish most days with 50% battery left.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - Oh sure, I mean, I, even beyond that,

00:07:31 ◼   ► like I wear my watch probably 23 hours a day.

00:07:35 ◼   ► - Oh that's right.

00:07:36 ◼   ► - And I have for a little over a year now,

00:07:39 ◼   ► ever since I started working on Sleep Plus Plus,

00:07:41 ◼   ► where like, if you wear, if you wanna use your Apple watch

00:07:43 ◼   ► as a sleep tracker, which I recommend,

00:07:46 ◼   ► you need to wear it both during the night

00:07:50 ◼   ► and during the day.

00:07:51 ◼   ► And I've been able to do that

00:07:53 ◼   ► without really changing my habits too much,

00:07:57 ◼   ► that all it really means is that when I get,

00:07:59 ◼   ► you know, when I'm getting ready in the morning,

00:08:01 ◼   ► like when I'm taking a shower,

00:08:02 ◼   ► when I'm getting dressed, et cetera,

00:08:04 ◼   ► I always take, whenever my watch is off,

00:08:06 ◼   ► it'll immediately go on charge

00:08:07 ◼   ► rather than just like sitting on my bedside table,

00:08:10 ◼   ► which is fine.

00:08:11 ◼   ► And similarly in the evening,

00:08:13 ◼   ► when I'm sort of getting ready for bed

00:08:14 ◼   ► and brushing my teeth, I'm doing those types of things,

00:08:17 ◼   ► I'll again put her on charge.

00:08:18 ◼   ► And it means that I'm charging my watch

00:08:21 ◼   ► maybe an hour a day at most, and a lot of times it's even less than that, but I was

00:08:27 ◼   ► still having plenty of, you know, plenty of battery to get through the day. It was very

00:08:32 ◼   ► rare that I would run into battery problems, but it does happen, certainly, but in general

00:08:38 ◼   ► I think there's a lot of budget there. And the reality too is I think I would, there's

00:08:43 ◼   ► a, I would not be at all surprised if even with these very aggressive things that they're

00:08:48 ◼   ► doing, that they will actually end up being more in some ways

00:08:51 ◼   ► battery neutral, because they're not having to relaunch the apps

00:08:57 ◼   ► completely, every single time you go to it, like, I'm sure

00:09:01 ◼   ► there's it's a, you know, like, it's definitely a scale. And,

00:09:05 ◼   ► but if I would not be at all surprised if at the end of this,

00:09:07 ◼   ► they could say, you know, we do all this great stuff. And as

00:09:10 ◼   ► long as the apps that are in your comp, that are your

00:09:12 ◼   ► complications and are in your doc are being good citizens. And

00:09:15 ◼   ► And it sounds like they have a bunch of stuff in watchOS 3 that is going to enforce good

00:09:21 ◼   ► citizenship, which I was kind of glad to see where if you do--are too aggressive on the

00:09:26 ◼   ► CPU when you're doing your background app refreshes, they'll just kill you.

00:09:30 ◼   ► And you'll get a nice, like, report in Xcode about exactly why they did that.

00:09:34 ◼   ► But it's--they're being very careful to say, if you're a good citizen and you're taking

00:09:39 ◼   ► advantage of all these new APIs, ultimately, battery life may end up being about the same,

00:09:44 ◼   ► it's marginally worse, but the reality is it goes from apps being kind of maybe slightly

00:09:50 ◼   ► useful to being actually and practically useful, that that's a very easy trade-off, I think,

00:09:55 ◼   ► to convince a customer on.

00:09:57 ◼   ► And to convince developers to write for it in the first place. I mean, like, my overcast

00:10:01 ◼   ► watch app is still WatchKit 1, because WatchKit 1 was enough of a slog to get through and

00:10:07 ◼   ► to try to make something that was good and functional, and honestly I don't believe I

00:10:11 ◼   ► I even achieved that, and my usage reflects it.

00:10:15 ◼   ► My WatchKit app is very low usage,

00:10:17 ◼   ► and part of that is because it's hard to use,

00:10:21 ◼   ► and part of that is because I never updated it to watchOS 2.

00:10:23 ◼   ► And the reason I updated it to watchOS 2

00:10:25 ◼   ► was that it was like, well, here's a bunch more work

00:10:27 ◼   ► I'm gonna have to do, and it doesn't really seem worth it,

00:10:30 ◼   ► because the resulting app on watchOS 2

00:10:32 ◼   ► is still not that compelling.

00:10:34 ◼   ► It still wouldn't be that great,

00:10:36 ◼   ► and it would be a good amount of work.

00:10:38 ◼   ► So I decided to wait, and I'll see

00:10:40 ◼   ► when watchOS 3 comes out,

00:10:42 ◼   ► then I'll probably just rewrite it for that.

00:10:44 ◼   ► And boy, am I glad I waited.

00:10:45 ◼   ► - Oh, sure.

00:10:46 ◼   ► - Because it seems like a no-brainer.

00:10:49 ◼   ► If you have any business being on the watch at all,

00:10:53 ◼   ► rewriting for OS 3 is going to be a really good idea.

00:10:57 ◼   ► - Sure, and even just on the policy side,

00:10:59 ◼   ► they've made some changes that I think

00:11:01 ◼   ► make it more compelling.

00:11:02 ◼   ► Like first of all, for example,

00:11:03 ◼   ► one of the things they've said now is,

00:11:05 ◼   ► before they said you should never be,

00:11:07 ◼   ► Like don't make a complication unless you have timely,

00:11:12 ◼   ► useful information to be displaying on the watch face.

00:11:14 ◼   ► That was like, used to be the policy decision.

00:11:16 ◼   ► Whereas now, like in the WWDC session,

00:11:19 ◼   ► they said if your app can, it probably should

00:11:23 ◼   ► have a complication, even just to launch it.

00:11:25 ◼   ► So for example, like having an overcast complication

00:11:28 ◼   ► whose purpose is just to start and adjust playback

00:11:33 ◼   ► makes it a lot more compelling as a thing

00:11:35 ◼   ► where I know for myself one of the most useful,

00:11:38 ◼   ► one of the most common things I'll use my watch for,

00:11:40 ◼   ► beyond just like, it's fitness tracking passively,

00:11:43 ◼   ► when I'm actively using it,

00:11:44 ◼   ► I'm often using it for the now playing complication,

00:11:47 ◼   ► which is now not, or sorry, the now playing glance,

00:11:50 ◼   ► which is now something that you can put in the dock,

00:11:53 ◼   ► but if instead of having to open the dock and go to it,

00:11:57 ◼   ► if I can just tap a button and then immediately,

00:12:00 ◼   ► because it's one of my complications,

00:12:01 ◼   ► so it's primed and ready and fresh,

00:12:04 ◼   ► the Overcast app pops up and I can control playback there.

00:12:08 ◼   ► It's a much more compelling use case,

00:12:10 ◼   ► because I think the thing that was difficult to send,

00:12:13 ◼   ► the old Overcast app, is in order to launch it,

00:12:16 ◼   ► you'd have to go-- you'd tap the crown,

00:12:19 ◼   ► fly around in the honeycomb for a while, tap it,

00:12:22 ◼   ► wait two or three seconds for it to launch, if you're lucky,

00:12:25 ◼   ► and then you'd get to do something.

00:12:27 ◼   ► And that's just not-- that's not better than just pulling out

00:12:31 ◼   ► my phone, swiping up, activating the control center,

00:12:34 ◼   ► and doing whatever I want to do there.

00:12:36 ◼   ► And so I think there's going to be a lot of applications where

00:12:39 ◼   ► if you can-- if there is a two-second action, that would

00:12:44 ◼   ► be useful for your application.

00:12:46 ◼   ► If there's something that a user might want to do that--

00:12:49 ◼   ► and Apple has said this many, many, many times this week.

00:12:53 ◼   ► It's like if you are building an app that someone can't

00:12:57 ◼   ► do its core functionality in two or three seconds,

00:13:01 ◼   ► you're doing it wrong.

00:13:02 ◼   ► they very clearly are saying,

00:13:04 ◼   ► and they've actually been changing a lot of their own apps

00:13:06 ◼   ► to reflect this.

00:13:07 ◼   ► Like the stock app in watchOS 2 had all this information,

00:13:12 ◼   ► and you could be like paging through like the 52 week high

00:13:16 ◼   ► and low and all the stuff that in many ways

00:13:19 ◼   ► is not really, doesn't really fit on a watch.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Like if you wanna go and do historical stock metrics,

00:13:25 ◼   ► like maybe use your phone or Mac or something.

00:13:27 ◼   ► - Use anything else besides this thing,

00:13:29 ◼   ► you have to hold your arm up

00:13:30 ◼   ► and look on a two inch screen to see.

00:13:31 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:13:32 ◼   ► their watch app they just like they took out functionality and I think that is

00:13:35 ◼   ► something that a lot of if you like I'm trying to filter my apps through as I'm

00:13:40 ◼   ► thinking about them is are there any things that I can strip out to make it

00:13:44 ◼   ► more streamlined to make it more straightforwardly exactly what someone

00:13:50 ◼   ► would want to do in two or three seconds and I think if you can that's a really

00:13:54 ◼   ► strong use case now oh yeah I mean like you know for like for overcast you know

00:13:59 ◼   ► I already had redesigned it once to take it from this mini iPhone app with this tree navigation

00:14:07 ◼   ► that many of us tried initially.

00:14:10 ◼   ► I already redesigned it to take it from that down to what is basically a single screen

00:14:15 ◼   ► with a menu to do a little bit more stuff.

00:14:17 ◼   ► I'm thinking with the watchOS 3 version, whatever I do there, I haven't really sketched

00:14:21 ◼   ► it out yet, but whatever I do there, I'm thinking I might even reduce it even further.

00:14:25 ◼   ► I recently added analytics to my watch app to see, you know, just like how often people

00:14:31 ◼   ► are using it, how often people actually like invoke commands on it, and which ones get

00:14:36 ◼   ► the most use. Like are people actually going in like editing their playlist to edit what's

00:14:40 ◼   ► next which is how I kind of designed that second version and the answer basically is

00:14:44 ◼   ► no. Like nobody's really doing that. It's close enough to zero that it's probably not

00:14:48 ◼   ► even worth having anymore. And so I'm going to completely rethink the app again for OS

00:14:53 ◼   ► and like you know what's what is the what is the best way to use the watch

00:14:58 ◼   ► and I think you're right like and obviously Apple said this anything that

00:15:01 ◼   ► takes more than about two or three seconds like you're you're better off

00:15:04 ◼   ► using your phone for that and so you know it's basically going to be really

00:15:09 ◼   ► nice to have like a basically an advanced now playing screen exactly but

00:15:13 ◼   ► I don't think it needs to be much more than that and and that will also you

00:15:17 ◼   ► know help keep me motivated to keep it updated and and everything else and you

00:15:21 ◼   ► a really important other side of this that goes beyond my single app and talking about

00:15:26 ◼   ► that is that because apps are now on the watch, apps are now going to be good.

00:15:31 ◼   ► At least we think.

00:15:32 ◼   ► It seems like I would say I'm pretty confident at this point that somehow magically Apple

00:15:38 ◼   ► has pulled this rabbit out of a hat of the exact same watch hardware is going to feel

00:15:44 ◼   ► and perform in a really compelling way,

00:15:48 ◼   ► by rather than having to wait until the next hardware.

00:15:51 ◼   ► Which as a developer, I think would have been

00:15:53 ◼   ► really discouraging if I still had to support

00:15:58 ◼   ► what felt like kind of a broken old legacy platform,

00:16:03 ◼   ► and then also be taking advantage of the new stuff

00:16:07 ◼   ► for the people with the new watch.

00:16:09 ◼   ► That would have been a really hard sell.

00:16:10 ◼   ► But I think now it's like everybody who has a watch

00:16:13 ◼   ► is gonna have a good experience.

00:16:14 ◼   ► And presumably this fall, there'll be a better watch

00:16:16 ◼   ► that will be able to do more and be better,

00:16:18 ◼   ► but the baseline is gonna be pretty good,

00:16:22 ◼   ► just for everybody.

00:16:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that will help everybody.

00:16:26 ◼   ► That will help users, that will help Apple,

00:16:28 ◼   ► it will sell more watches,

00:16:29 ◼   ► and then it'll definitely help developers,

00:16:30 ◼   ► because the story with watch OS one and two

00:16:34 ◼   ► was basically like, yeah, this watch we have

00:16:37 ◼   ► is kind of cool, but developers,

00:16:38 ◼   ► you basically can't do much with it,

00:16:40 ◼   ► because everything you do sucks.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Like, it's not possible to do anything good on watchOS 1 and 2 for third-party developers

00:16:46 ◼   ► for the most part.

00:16:47 ◼   ► And now it's possible.

00:16:50 ◼   ► And not only possible, but it seems like it might not even be very hard to do stuff that's

00:16:54 ◼   ► useful and decent and worth doing besides just taking your phone out.

00:16:57 ◼   ► And that's huge for developers because now this is a place where we can do business.

00:17:02 ◼   ► This is a place where we can make compelling apps and have real sales here, real business.

00:17:08 ◼   ► I mean, you know, paid and free aside,

00:17:10 ◼   ► you know, for this moment, like,

00:17:12 ◼   ► this is a place where we can make compelling apps now,

00:17:14 ◼   ► and I think probably for the first time we can say that.

00:17:17 ◼   ► - And I, yeah, it's entirely that.

00:17:19 ◼   ► I don't think, like, some of my apps

00:17:22 ◼   ► are entirely watch-focused.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Like, I make an app, you know, like C++,

00:17:25 ◼   ► it's completely useless unless you have a watch.

00:17:28 ◼   ► And so it's entirely dependent on it being

00:17:30 ◼   ► a compelling thing, and the number of times

00:17:32 ◼   ► that I get feedback back from people who don't,

00:17:35 ◼   ► it just like, it just wasn't worth it for them to use.

00:17:37 ◼   ► like they like the concept. They wish they could track their sleep with their watch,

00:17:40 ◼   ► but it's awkward or cumbersome. Or like the last thing they want to do when they're getting

00:17:44 ◼   ► into bed is be like staring at a spinner for four or five seconds. What they're about to

00:17:51 ◼   ► do is like, "I'm tired. I want to go to sleep." They want it to work exactly at that moment.

00:17:56 ◼   ► And so if we can now actually do that, that's a much more compelling use case for somebody.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And I think ultimately we'll keep them in the apps, which, you know, from a business

00:18:05 ◼   ► side of things, that's the thing that makes it more compelling. To be able to talk to

00:18:09 ◼   ► their friends and tell other people about it or be excited about it in general is, it

00:18:14 ◼   ► worked. Like, "Hey, look, this is what I did," and they're not frustrated with it.

00:18:18 ◼   ► It doesn't have this negativity associated with it, which I think it might do now.

00:18:22 ◼   ► Yeah. All right, we are sponsored this week by our friends at Pingdom. Start monitoring

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00:20:07 ◼   ► Now that apps have the ability to both be good and for complications to also be good

00:20:13 ◼   ► and for complications to then launch you right into an app, it seems like this is a really

00:20:17 ◼   ► good opportunity for people to make specialty watches almost. If I want to have an overcast

00:20:25 ◼   ► you know like conceptually like I now have the ability if I wanted to make like a big overcast complication and

00:20:32 ◼   ► Have that take up like a third of the screen on the watch watch face you mean no

00:20:36 ◼   ► I'm talking about like well, I mean, you know, the watch face is a different thing

00:20:39 ◼   ► Sure that I mean that I guess that's how that's how more sane people will do it

00:20:42 ◼   ► And that's probably how Apple wants you to do it

00:20:44 ◼   ► But like for me it's like oh the watch isn't very useful because I don't do you know function X Y or Z on it

00:20:49 ◼   ► Sure, but it's like oh

00:20:50 ◼   ► but if I happen to have like one or two apps

00:20:52 ◼   ► that I really love, I could basically turn the watch

00:20:55 ◼   ► into like a device of that type.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Because if the complication's always there

00:21:02 ◼   ► and the complication API has been improved now

00:21:04 ◼   ► so that you can make more useful complications

00:21:06 ◼   ► that are more functional, that can get updated more

00:21:09 ◼   ► and in different conditions, you have that possibility.

00:21:13 ◼   ► And then if I can tap that and be immediately

00:21:15 ◼   ► in an overcast screen, and then when I look back

00:21:18 ◼   ► at my watch again within eight minutes,

00:21:19 ◼   ► I'm still on that overcast screen.

00:21:21 ◼   ► Like, that to me is very compelling as a user

00:21:24 ◼   ► and as a developer, 'cause there are things that I can make

00:21:27 ◼   ► that before would be way less compelling.

00:21:31 ◼   ► And now, it basically opens up third-party apps

00:21:34 ◼   ► to take over more of the experience

00:21:36 ◼   ► and to be more like a first-class citizen,

00:21:38 ◼   ► which is kind of a theme we saw in a lot of WBC

00:21:42 ◼   ► on all the platforms this year.

00:21:42 ◼   ► But on the watch, I think the difference is most striking.

00:21:46 ◼   ► - Oh, sure, and I think there's definitely a lot of things

00:21:49 ◼   ► they're doing to de-emphasize them, which is, like you said, a pattern we've seen many

00:21:56 ◼   ► times this week, where they're de-prioritizing Apple's stuff at the benefit of third-party

00:22:05 ◼   ► things. So like you said, they're now making—it used to only be if you were a workout app,

00:22:12 ◼   ► would you still be on the screen if the user put their wrist down and raised it a couple

00:22:17 ◼   ► minutes later, which is reasonable in some ways that you could say, "Oh, I want to make

00:22:23 ◼   ► sure they always see the time as a reasonable experience." But it loses the sense of context

00:22:29 ◼   ► that the time that the user is most likely going to want to do something is probably

00:22:36 ◼   ► shortly after they've done it once before. Like in your example, it's the kind of thing

00:22:41 ◼   ► where you can imagine, "I'm doing something. I'm going for a walk. Maybe it isn't that

00:22:47 ◼   ► I want to have a walking workout, necessarily.

00:22:51 ◼   ► Maybe I'm just walking around during my day-to-day life.

00:22:55 ◼   ► But if I'm actively listening to a podcast,

00:22:58 ◼   ► I'm still probably going to be actively listening

00:23:00 ◼   ► to a podcast eight minutes later.

00:23:02 ◼   ► And so having -- every time I raise my wrist,

00:23:06 ◼   ► not even having to do anything to be able to have

00:23:08 ◼   ► that same functionality is great.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And it means that, you know, fair enough,

00:23:12 ◼   ► you have to now be a bit more thoughtful

00:23:15 ◼   ► about how you design your apps,

00:23:16 ◼   ► knowing that they'll be lingering around longer.

00:23:19 ◼   ► I mean, it's in some ways, it reminds me of when Apple changed the behavior of iOS apps

00:23:25 ◼   ► such that when you hit home, you weren't terminated anymore.

00:23:28 ◼   ► >> Right.

00:23:29 ◼   ► >> Like, it used to be one of these--like, I remember this--I'd run into this with some

00:23:32 ◼   ► apps where they weren't doing clever things to clean up between launches.

00:23:38 ◼   ► And so, they were relying on the fact that every time you hit home, the app would be

00:23:42 ◼   ► killed and it'd be restarted.

00:23:45 ◼   ► You have to be thoughtful if your app is now going to be much more long running and persistent

00:23:49 ◼   ► to make sure that you're doing that kind of state management yourself to say, you know,

00:23:55 ◼   ► and there's some good stuff in watchOS for helping with this, but it's understanding

00:23:59 ◼   ► that if a user say was in a detail view of your app, at a certain point, they want to

00:24:04 ◼   ► stay there, like for that initial period if they're going back and forth quickly.

00:24:09 ◼   ► After a little while, they might need to want to be kicked back one level, for example,

00:24:15 ◼   ► And then at a certain point, they'll probably want to go all the way back and be in sort

00:24:19 ◼   ► of the default mode of your application.

00:24:22 ◼   ► And these are things that we can do now, that we can actually be, make those kind of conscious

00:24:26 ◼   ► choices that, like as an example, like in Overcast, right, if I was, if you had some

00:24:31 ◼   ► kind of detailed view and I'm looking at it, and then you know that they've asked that

00:24:35 ◼   ► detailed view, like the episode that they were looking at the information for, they've

00:24:40 ◼   ► since started playing another episode.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Like, it's not relevant to them anymore,

00:24:46 ◼   ► to be looking at the old show, so you probably pop back,

00:24:50 ◼   ► or potentially even start showing the details screen,

00:24:53 ◼   ► be relevant for whatever they're listening to now.

00:24:56 ◼   ► And that's, I think, the thing that over and over again,

00:24:58 ◼   ► as I think of what they're doing here,

00:25:00 ◼   ► is that there is just so much intelligence

00:25:04 ◼   ► that I can actually build into my applications now,

00:25:07 ◼   ► that because I have the ability to be woken up

00:25:10 ◼   ► and be running on this regular basis,

00:25:12 ◼   ► I'm not having to do this kind of crazy. I'm launched and then I need to just like freak

00:25:17 ◼   ► out for three seconds and work out what's going on, where am I, what's the user doing.

00:25:22 ◼   ► It's like, no, I'm just keeping track on an ongoing basis of what they're doing, where

00:25:27 ◼   ► they are, what they have been doing. And I'm able to adapt in a really, with much more

00:25:33 ◼   ► finesse than this kind of, like the worst thing on watchOS 2 is when you'd launch an

00:25:38 ◼   ► app and it would launch and then it would suddenly, like a few seconds later, like radically

00:25:43 ◼   ► change.

00:25:44 ◼   ► Right.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Something big would happen because that's how long it took for the app to realize what

00:25:48 ◼   ► was going on, what was relevant.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Yeah, the stale data like popping out and yeah.

00:25:53 ◼   ► Sure, exactly.

00:25:54 ◼   ► And it's like, or you'd see like, for like a lot of my fitness trackers, you'd see like,

00:25:58 ◼   ► it would show yesterday's data for a while and then when it wakes up, it's like it shows

00:26:04 ◼   ► yesterday's data, yesterday's data, today's data.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Right.

00:26:07 ◼   ► that's just confusing.

00:26:08 ◼   ► Whereas now, it'll be updated probably every,

00:26:12 ◼   ► you know, 15, 20 minutes throughout the day.

00:26:15 ◼   ► And so I won't have that situation

00:26:18 ◼   ► where I'll ever be showing yesterday's data

00:26:19 ◼   ► because at midnight or at worst at 12, 15,

00:26:23 ◼   ► it'll switch over to be showing the new day's data,

00:26:26 ◼   ► which is a much better experience.

00:26:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I could not be happier to see this.

00:26:32 ◼   ► And even though I haven't personally

00:26:35 ◼   ► been using the watch myself recently--

00:26:37 ◼   ► - Sorry, I've been wearing two just to offset the balance.

00:26:40 ◼   ► - Exactly, yeah, you totally,

00:26:41 ◼   ► you're holding up for both of us.

00:26:43 ◼   ► Even though I'm not a watch wearer right now,

00:26:47 ◼   ► I think I'm very excited to see this as a developer,

00:26:51 ◼   ► and especially as a developer of a media playback app,

00:26:54 ◼   ► that's one of the things that is compelling

00:26:55 ◼   ► to control on the watch.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Even as a user, like I mentioned,

00:27:00 ◼   ► maybe I'll start wearing the Apple Watch

00:27:02 ◼   ► when I go out for walks, or when I go shopping,

00:27:04 ◼   ► 'cause shopping lists are a thing I use,

00:27:06 ◼   ► and doing shopping lists before on the watch was horrible.

00:27:10 ◼   ► And now through all these changes, it'll be way faster,

00:27:13 ◼   ► it'll stay on screen for the eight minutes thing,

00:27:15 ◼   ► like it'll be so much better now.

00:27:17 ◼   ► But I'm looking forward to this.

00:27:20 ◼   ► I'm very encouraged to see that Apple was willing

00:27:23 ◼   ► to change course on a number of these things

00:27:25 ◼   ► so severely really, and were able to make

00:27:29 ◼   ► such seemingly massive improvements without new hardware.

00:27:32 ◼   ► And we're even still in beta one.

00:27:34 ◼   ► this could even get better throughout the summer,

00:27:36 ◼   ► and it probably will.

00:27:37 ◼   ► So this, I'm just very encouraged to see this,

00:27:40 ◼   ► and I'm most looking forward to the changes on WatchOS

00:27:45 ◼   ► as a developer for my future business

00:27:49 ◼   ► and possible future usage of the Apple Watch.

00:27:52 ◼   ► - Exactly, and it's a really nice thing to see

00:27:54 ◼   ► the humility that Apple has in showing that,

00:27:57 ◼   ► of, yeah, we didn't get it quite right,

00:28:00 ◼   ► let's do it again, and I think it shows

00:28:03 ◼   ► a lot of commitment to the platform,

00:28:04 ◼   ► which is encouraging and useful.

00:28:08 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:28:10 ◼   ► All right, well, that's all the time we have for this week.

00:28:13 ◼   ► We will be continuing in future weeks, as we said,

00:28:15 ◼   ► with some other things from the conference,

00:28:17 ◼   ► and as we learn more with the documentation and everything,

00:28:20 ◼   ► and playing with these new APIs,

00:28:22 ◼   ► and using them not on our primary phones.

00:28:24 ◼   ► Everyone, don't use it on your primary phone.

00:28:26 ◼   ► - No, no, no.

00:28:27 ◼   ► - And don't use it on your primary watch either,

00:28:29 ◼   ► 'cause you have to upgrade your primary phone to do it.

00:28:32 ◼   ► So, but you know everybody wear two watches like David here and do it that way if you

00:28:37 ◼   ► want to see it.

00:28:38 ◼   ► It's going to be a fun summer I think.

00:28:40 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to see what we have.

00:28:42 ◼   ► So thank you everybody for listening and we will talk to you next week.

00:28:45 ◼   ► Bye.

00:28:46 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]