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Under the Radar

1: Adapting to the Market

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0:00:00- We should do the intro.

0:00:01I suppose that's the question.

0:00:02(laughing)

0:00:04- I guess we didn't work all that out yet.

0:00:06- Didn't work that out, it's fine, it's all right.

0:00:07- All right, so this is episode one of Under the Radar.

0:00:10I'm Marco Arment.

0:00:12- And I'm David Smith.

0:00:13- You may know our other podcasts.

0:00:15David has been doing Developing Perspective for many years.

0:00:20I did Build and Analyze first,

0:00:21now I do the Accidental Tech podcast and Top Four.

0:00:24And this is gonna be a show about development, basically.

0:00:29It's kind of like the sequel, the combination of build and analyze with developing perspective.

0:00:36And in the spirit of developing perspective, never being longer than 15 minutes, David,

0:00:40how long is this show going to be?

0:00:41Never longer than 30 minutes.

0:00:43So let's get started.

0:00:44Let's get started.

0:00:45I think the place to start seems, right now, we're recording just after the Apple TV app

0:00:50store launched.

0:00:53And it went online I think on last Friday and it's had the usual fanfare and the things

0:00:59that go on with that.

0:01:00But neither one of us launched anything on day one.

0:01:04And for myself, it's the first Apple product I've ever not been in the store on day one

0:01:08for, which is interesting.

0:01:11Yeah, I'm the same way, I think.

0:01:13I mean, I was there for the watch and the Apple TV and I even got one of the early access

0:01:20developer units because I thought I might use it and it just literally sat on my desk

0:01:25and I was so busy doing other things because I was working on Overcast and trying to get

0:01:31the 2.0 update out the door. And that kind of precluded this because if I'm going to

0:01:35make an Apple TV app it has to be all about streaming because local storage with the Apple

0:01:39TV is so limited and I didn't have the streaming engine done yet. So I worked on the iPhone

0:01:45and I've been doing bug fixes on that since,

0:01:48and I have literally not even opened

0:01:51like an Xcode project with the TV.

0:01:54I haven't even seen the TV simulator.

0:01:56I have not written a single line of TV code yet.

0:01:59Have you?

0:02:00- Yeah, I got a developer kit as well,

0:02:02and I wrote a version of Pod Wrangler, my podcast client,

0:02:07for the Apple TV, and it works, and it plays.

0:02:12I didn't spend the time and energy

0:02:14get it ready for day one, though.

0:02:16But it's an interesting developer platform because it is essentially iOS, just minus

0:02:21a bunch of stuff.

0:02:23There's a couple of new things, but essentially it's just iOS UI kits with a different input

0:02:28mechanism rather than obviously being touch-based.

0:02:31It's remote control-based.

0:02:32But I used it, and it's fine and easy.

0:02:36The thing that ultimately I think slowed me down, though, is I just became...

0:02:41There's just so much else to do and so many other things that, like, if I'm trying to

0:02:46be on every Apple platform as a one-man shop, it's essentially impossible now.

0:02:51And so I looked at the Apple TV and I'm like, "It's gonna be a long time before there's

0:02:53a big market there."

0:02:56And so I just didn't prioritize it.

0:02:58Yeah, and, you know, and I feel like, you know, we're coming at this from two different

0:03:02viewpoints here.

0:03:03You know, I tend to work on a very small, I tend to work on usually one app for a span

0:03:08of years.

0:03:09I very rarely have additional apps.

0:03:12I'm not very good at splitting my time

0:03:13between multiple apps.

0:03:15I pretty much just do one thing,

0:03:16and I try to make that one app big and complicated

0:03:19and appeal to a ton of people in order to keep it going.

0:03:23Whereas the background you come from is,

0:03:26I think, much more interesting, honestly,

0:03:28because when people, and this is one of the reasons

0:03:31I wanted to do the show with you,

0:03:32and one of the reasons I wanted to call it Under the Radar,

0:03:35because when people do,

0:03:37when people think about Apple developers,

0:03:39tend to think about the handful of well-known ones who make mass consumer apps that you

0:03:46may have heard of. So apps like Tweetbot or Net News Wire or the apps from Panic that

0:03:51a lot of developers have heard of or use or are wowed by. And there's this massive number

0:03:56of developers who we don't usually hear about in this circle of Apple enthusiasts and tech

0:04:03and stuff, and I think you are a very, very good example

0:04:07of this massive market, and I think you do it better

0:04:11than most people would do it.

0:04:13And so what you do is not like the high profile,

0:04:18you know, high attention, Mac, blogger,

0:04:23long term ecosystem kind of thing.

0:04:27You do something way more pragmatic.

0:04:29And so can you maybe just go into that briefly

0:04:33for anyone who doesn't know you yet,

0:04:35who's listening to this for some reason.

0:04:37Can you go into what exactly you do and how you got there?

0:04:40- So I've been an iOS developer essentially

0:04:44since the App Store started, about seven and a bit years ago.

0:04:47I didn't quite make the day one of the App Store,

0:04:50mostly because of business approval stuff.

0:04:54But I've been developing ever since then.

0:04:55And since then, I've launched,

0:04:58I think I recently worked this out,

0:05:00something like 52 unique app concepts in the last seven years.

0:05:05So it works out to be about one every two months or so.

0:05:08It hasn't been exactly that even of a pace, but that's roughly the average.

0:05:13But I've been making a good, steady, comfortable living from it for about six and a half of

0:05:19those seven years.

0:05:21And so I have lots of different products in a lot of different areas.

0:05:25I tend to, like at this point, I have probably five or six

0:05:29that are like my main income makers,

0:05:32and they each, the biggest one of them

0:05:34only makes up a third of my income.

0:05:36So it's a very diversified type of thing.

0:05:38And that's my, the approach that I found

0:05:40that works well for me is to make lots of small bets

0:05:45and see which one pays off in the store

0:05:48rather than trying to take the approach.

0:05:50Like with Overcast, if I remember right,

0:05:51it's like you spend 18 months working on it.

0:05:54- Yeah.

0:05:55as like a big major focus.

0:05:56And like for me, the longest I've ever spent

0:05:58on a product before I launched it is probably four weeks

0:06:02or something along those lines.

0:06:03And so it's a very different kind of a focus

0:06:06where I'll put something together,

0:06:07I'll put it out in the store,

0:06:07I try and make it like good in quality

0:06:10but very straightforward and see what happens.

0:06:15And that approach means that I end up now

0:06:17with lots of different products,

0:06:19doing a lot of different things.

0:06:20And as it's, you know, I have the benefit of diversity

0:06:24in terms of stability, but the difficulty in terms

0:06:27of keeping up with things when I have such a wide

0:06:29sort of portfolio to manage.

0:06:32- And one thing I like about the way you work as well

0:06:36is that you challenge assumptions that many of us

0:06:41in the other half of this community don't challenge.

0:06:45Like you will, you make your income in part from IAD.

0:06:49I don't know anybody else.

0:06:51I don't think I have any other developer friends

0:06:53who have a meaningful presence using iAds, and you do.

0:06:57And you will challenge assumptions based on things

0:07:00like monetization, support, app concepts, design,

0:07:05all sorts of stuff that you challenge.

0:07:07And I think you benefit from that,

0:07:09because while everyone else is locked into this one way

0:07:14of thinking and trying to shape the app store into,

0:07:19like trying to educate consumers into the way

0:07:22they think the App Store should be,

0:07:24you are out there actually adapting and thriving

0:07:28in what the App Store actually is.

0:07:30- Yeah, I mean, I think I try and think of,

0:07:33when I look at the App Store,

0:07:34I guess at business in general,

0:07:36I can't change my customers.

0:07:40All I can do is react to them, for the most part.

0:07:44Using things like people who should want to pay for software

0:07:49as a statement, it doesn't make any sense to me.

0:07:52People are going to want to do whatever they want to do.

0:07:55My job as a developer, as a businessman,

0:07:56is to look at the market that I wanna work in

0:08:00and find ways to adapt my business to it.

0:08:03And I don't just use IAD or advertising.

0:08:05I make the majority of my income from advertising in IAD.

0:08:09And that's in some ways been far more stable

0:08:13than any of the more paid or subscription or patronage

0:08:16or all the other things that I have.

0:08:18The most stable income I get is from advertising.

0:08:21And I love it because advertising's great because it aligns developer and customer goals.

0:08:28My goal is to get them using the app as much as I can because the more they use it, the

0:08:32more advertising income I make.

0:08:34And if they're using the app a lot, that means they like it.

0:08:37And so for me, it was a no-brainer to get started, but it definitely is, I know what

0:08:39you mean.

0:08:40It's a bit counter to, I think, a lot of the...

0:08:43It's not necessarily pretentiousness, but there's definitely that air of you want to

0:08:50to sell an Apple-like product in the App Store, but that doesn't necessarily work because

0:08:56Apple doesn't even sell Apple-like products in the App Store.

0:09:00- Yeah, and I think this was all rooted in the community of nice, craft, Mac-independent

0:09:10developers that has existed for quite some time on the Mac before iOS and everything

0:09:14became really so big. People like Panic or Delicious Monster, people like that, Brent

0:09:20Simmons, Dave Watanabe, there's this crowd of like kind of old school, the old guard

0:09:25who have been around for a while, you know Omni Group is a big one, who have been very

0:09:28successful at this and many of them continue to be very successful at this, but there was

0:09:33this idea for so long that many people still hold that that would translate into iOS and

0:09:39that also any developer who would be able to program iOS apps would kind of think that

0:09:45that they deserved that same level of success

0:09:48if they either just got there at all

0:09:51or if they put a lot of work into something.

0:09:54And there's many problems with this

0:09:56that are way too long to discuss in a 30-minute podcast,

0:09:59one of which is that the amount of work

0:10:02you put into something does not correlate

0:10:03to the value that the market will place on it

0:10:05or the amount of money you can make from it.

0:10:08But I think it's productive to challenge this notion

0:10:12of like, well, you know, is this really the way

0:10:15the world should work?

0:10:16And regardless of whether I think it should work this way,

0:10:20if this is not the way the world works,

0:10:22like in practice, what can I do as a developer

0:10:26to succeed in this market?

0:10:29And sitting around waiting for the market to change

0:10:31to benefit you is probably not very productive

0:10:34'cause that's just unlikely to happen.

0:10:36- Yeah, and the interesting thing,

0:10:38I was wondering what you think about this

0:10:40'cause I'm seeing the spread of your app career

0:10:44in the App Store, like you're starting an Instapaper,

0:10:46which was paid up front $10, if I remember right?

0:10:49- Yeah, the whole first year it was 10 bucks,

0:10:50and I dropped it to five, yeah.

0:10:52- And then it's like following the progression,

0:10:53then I think your income started to shift in some ways

0:10:56more to subscription and in-app purchase,

0:11:00and then switching entirely to Overcast,

0:11:04where it became, it was free with in-app purchase

0:11:07for features, and then now it's entirely free

0:11:10with like patronage support,

0:11:13you've essentially followed the trajectory

0:11:17of the App Store in that way, right?

0:11:19You're starting with like the old school kind of,

0:11:23well, it's premium software, I should charge a lot of money,

0:11:26to it's still good software,

0:11:28but the way you pay for it is completely different.

0:11:31- Right, and most of that has again just been because

0:11:34I am like, I'm not like thinking I'm like,

0:11:37treading new ground and being an explorer.

0:11:40no I'm usually coming to these changes late actually.

0:11:43Like Instapaper, holding the price at $10

0:11:46for the whole first year was a mistake.

0:11:48When I dropped it to five, sales went up considerably.

0:11:50And then later on it dropped to three I think,

0:11:53I held it for a while, three or four.

0:11:54And then sales were pretty good then,

0:11:57I started experimenting and then shifting to subscription,

0:12:00that ended up making way more money

0:12:03than I thought it would and doing very well.

0:12:05And then with Overcast coming out at free

0:12:08with in-app purchase and now with patronage,

0:12:10like those have all done better than I expected them to.

0:12:13And this is all about just adapting to what the market is.

0:12:17Many people blame the market on Apple

0:12:22not implementing upgrade pricing

0:12:24or the App Store not having good enough discovery or search.

0:12:28And all of those things are valid complaints,

0:12:30but they're not the biggest problem.

0:12:32The biggest problem is there's just a huge oversupply

0:12:36of developers and apps who are all trying to compete

0:12:39for the same dollars and the same roles

0:12:41and the same time and attention.

0:12:43And so, you know, back in the olden days,

0:12:45when you'd have like Panic and Omni selling Mac apps

0:12:48for 50 bucks, that worked in part because of what they were

0:12:52and what people use Macs for and who was buying Macs,

0:12:55but also that worked in part because there just weren't

0:12:58that many developers doing it.

0:12:59If you would have had 10,000 developers trying to make

0:13:02the same handful of nice consumer high profile Mac apps, you would have had the exact same

0:13:07problem back then. It isn't that the market has gotten stupider or cheaper or anything

0:13:14like that, it's that this is now the mass market of what developers do. It wasn't.

0:13:19Back in 2006, most developers weren't working on Mac apps. Now, most developers are working

0:13:26on iOS and web apps. I think the shift from web to iOS apps is really pretty significant.

0:13:32And so if you think about it,

0:13:35that's what so many developers are working on.

0:13:38Of course there's gonna be a massive oversupply,

0:13:40and of course there's gonna be tons of competition,

0:13:42and a race to the bottom in pricing.

0:13:44And that's not because Apple is doing something wrong.

0:13:48Apple is not helping in certain ways,

0:13:50but they're not the cause of this problem.

0:13:51And again, pragmatically, it is useful to think of yourself,

0:13:56not as somebody who all you need to do

0:13:59is ship a nicely designed polished app

0:14:03and money will start flowing in.

0:14:05But as somebody who has to really fight,

0:14:08like really work hard and fight hard and be lean

0:14:12to try to attract any kind of attention

0:14:15and any kind of money from what is a very crowded

0:14:18hyper-competitive market.

0:14:20- And I think it's also the biggest trap

0:14:22that I know I struggled with for years

0:14:24was this feeling of overvaluing my own work,

0:14:29that if I spent a long time working on something,

0:14:31that everybody should then sort of,

0:14:34somehow intrinsically that makes it more valuable to people.

0:14:39That they look at something and it's like,

0:14:40whereas when people are gonna part with money

0:14:44in whatever form that is,

0:14:46or I guess part with something,

0:14:47like their attention, their money,

0:14:49they're exchanging something for that.

0:14:52Like they need to feel like

0:14:53they're getting something in return.

0:14:55And the funny thing is, I think a lot of people think that software intrinsically should feel

0:15:03valuable.

0:15:04Like, as the classic, "Oh, they will spend $5 on a latte, but they won't spend $5 on

0:15:08my app."

0:15:09And it's like, well, maybe they actually want the latte more than they want your app.

0:15:13Like your app may not actually be that valuable to them, and that's why they don't want to

0:15:17spend that money on it.

0:15:18Like you have to be able to wrap your arms around what they're actually buying with that.

0:15:23Is it entertainment?

0:15:24Is it productivity?

0:15:26Is it amusement?

0:15:29Are they exchanging goodwill for money?

0:15:31I think when you start to get into, like I have an app with a tip jar in it, or you have

0:15:36patronage in Overcast now, your extents there, you're providing a mechanism for people to

0:15:40exchange goodwill for money is really what you're doing there.

0:15:44And unless you're able to really wrap your arms around that, it's hard to really be okay

0:15:48with saying, "That's okay.

0:15:49I do advertising because for a lot of my apps, the app itself isn't particularly valuable

0:15:55to the person.

0:15:56It's useful, but it's not necessarily valuable in a way that for a lot of people, they would

0:16:01want to put money into it directly.

0:16:03Once they use it for a while and like it, they are willing to spend money, but they're

0:16:09not spending money for the functionality.

0:16:11They're spending money to be able to express the goodwill they have towards me for the

0:16:14benefit I've given them, but that's different than it being intrinsically valuable to them.

0:16:20Because when they started, they didn't see it as valuable.

0:16:22They wanted it to be free.

0:16:23And if it wasn't free, I don't think, like, my pedometer app, Pedometer++, wouldn't have

0:16:28sold at all, or at least not in large quantity that it has to this point.

0:16:32Yeah, and even as a consumer of apps now, I find myself, even as somebody who has been

0:16:37a proponent of paid apps for so long and sold one for so long, when I search for something

0:16:42in the App Store and I see the search results list,

0:16:45if I needed something that I'm not looking for

0:16:47a specific name, where I'm just looking for

0:16:49a specific type of app, so a pedometer,

0:16:51a step count or whatever, if I searched the App Store

0:16:54and the first 20 entries in the search are all free,

0:16:58and entry number 21 is four bucks,

0:17:01that one doesn't stand a chance.

0:17:03And that's just the reality of how people

0:17:06search the App Store, and it's very important,

0:17:09as you said, to recognize that.

0:17:12And to recognize that not every app

0:17:16that every developer makes is going to be worth

0:17:20a non-trivial number of customers

0:17:22spending $2 on it or whatever.

0:17:24I mean, I've seen so many apps that do things

0:17:27that I don't really need.

0:17:29So many apps that are things like coffee timers.

0:17:33Well, if a coffee timer is really good and it's free,

0:17:36I might use it, or I can just use the built-in timer

0:17:41on the device that's not as good, but it works.

0:17:44And I think a lot of people go through

0:17:45a similar kind of thought process of,

0:17:47you know, if free is such a different barrier

0:17:50than any price, and if you're looking at an app,

0:17:54the alternative isn't just every other app

0:17:56that's in the store that does that same thing,

0:17:58the alternative is also just non-consumption,

0:18:01it's not buying the app at all, not buying any app,

0:18:04and just going without that role in your life.

0:18:06And as we get more and more and more apps in the store,

0:18:10which is only, you know, that's been going on forever now,

0:18:13as we get more and more apps in the store

0:18:15and more and more demands for people's attention

0:18:16and more alternatives that they can do,

0:18:19like if they don't download your app,

0:18:20they can go check Twitter for a few minutes or play a game.

0:18:24And as we get more and more of those things,

0:18:26more and more competition for everything,

0:18:28non-consumption is also a big problem.

0:18:30And so anything you can do to address non-consumption,

0:18:34to address people just bailing out

0:18:35and abandoning this search or this idea

0:18:37they might have had that this thing they wanted to do,

0:18:39And going free is a huge hit against that.

0:18:43If you can remove that barrier of price up front,

0:18:46then it's so much easier for people to say,

0:18:48"You know what, yeah, I'll give it a try."

0:18:50- And it's, I guess, and the reality is

0:18:52that's how I think we've both been able to continue

0:18:56in the App Store at this point.

0:18:57I mean, we've been doing it for a long time.

0:18:59'Cause I, anecdotally, it seems like fewer and fewer

0:19:04smaller or more independent companies

0:19:07and where people are able to do it.

0:19:09And I do think a lot of it is that it's a lack of pragmatism,

0:19:12that a lack of just like, what is it gonna take

0:19:15to make a living in this market?

0:19:17And if you ultimately don't like the answer to that,

0:19:19if you're in your mind, you only wanna sell software

0:19:22in like a premium app store, it's like, okay,

0:19:24well you might need to do something else then,

0:19:26because that may not exist.

0:19:28- Yeah, and you need to be in the right place

0:19:29at the right time.

0:19:30If you want that, you know, if you will not budge in that,

0:19:32like so right now, so getting back for a second

0:19:34to the Apple TV, which just came out now,

0:19:37the Apple TV app store has almost nothing in it.

0:19:39it is very, very sparse.

0:19:41And if you are looking for something,

0:19:44so I got this Apple TV, I plugged it in, set it up,

0:19:47and I went right to the App Store to say,

0:19:49"Hey, what can I get here?"

0:19:50And I saw a couple of basics, you know,

0:19:52Netflix, HBO Now, whatever, and then,

0:19:54"Okay, let me try some games.

0:19:56"I got this cool thing, I'm in the mood

0:19:57"of trying new things, let me go to the App Store

0:19:59"and try some games."

0:20:01And I went and I spent, I don't know,

0:20:0210 bucks maybe total on a couple of games,

0:20:05and I didn't even think about it,

0:20:07because I'm in this buying mood,

0:20:08because I just got this new device, it's brand new,

0:20:10has me excited, and also there's hardly anything

0:20:13there to buy.

0:20:14And of the very small number of games that were there to buy

0:20:17almost all of them I think were paid,

0:20:20or at least many of them were.

0:20:21So I had no problem spending that money

0:20:24because of the context of this isn't a tremendous app store

0:20:28filled with millions of apps, most of which are free.

0:20:31This is a very, very small app store that, right now,

0:20:35that has only very few apps on it.

0:20:37And that's the reason I was able to charge 10 bucks

0:20:40for Instapaper in 2008, but then I couldn't in 2009

0:20:43'cause the App Store was too full.

0:20:44That's gonna happen with the Apple TV also.

0:20:47If this thing takes off, if this succeeds,

0:20:49and it looks like it's probably going to,

0:20:51I mean it might take a few years before it has like

0:20:53tons and tons of units out there,

0:20:55but it's probably going to succeed.

0:20:57And if that happens, or as that happens,

0:20:59the App Store is gonna be way more crowded than it is now,

0:21:03and it is going to get harder and harder to sell games

0:21:06and apps for the Apple TV for money

0:21:08once there is competition for that same role

0:21:11in people's lives.

0:21:13And so if you were gonna be the kind of person

0:21:15who wanted to sell a premium app for money,

0:21:18you just had a window to do that on the Apple TV.

0:21:21Almost no one has taken up that opportunity.

0:21:23But you just had that opportunity right now

0:21:26and it won't come again on the Apple TV probably ever.

0:21:29Like this product has now done that

0:21:31and it probably won't come again.

0:21:33And so you have to wait 'til the next big wave

0:21:35and you have to be in one of those positions where

0:21:38if you're not going to be the kind of person

0:21:42who can thrive in an ultra competitive,

0:21:44low priced environment like the web has pretty much

0:21:47always been and like the iOS app store is now,

0:21:50then you have to follow the trend and be early to things.

0:21:54Be there on day one when new things happen.

0:21:56Be able to figure out and guess which new things

0:21:59will take off which is a hugely risky process

0:22:01that you will often get wrong and it will often

0:22:03go completely to waste.

0:22:05and be there in those less competitive markets.

0:22:08But then as soon as the market becomes more competitive,

0:22:10you have to either adapt or leave.

0:22:12- Yeah, and I think the difficulty honestly with Apple TV

0:22:14and why I, well I think I agree that like the best time

0:22:16to have sold big software would have been like

0:22:19if being there on day one.

0:22:20My suspicion is the narrowness of the window

0:22:23where there's gonna have that kind of general rush

0:22:26in people being okay with buying things

0:22:29is narrow enough that I'm very skeptical

0:22:32if it would actually be financially successful

0:22:35for most people, that if they had spent a lot of time,

0:22:39made a nice big premium game or something like that,

0:22:42especially designed specifically for the Apple TV,

0:22:45the window in which they were gonna be able to sell

0:22:48into a kind of a premium group of people,

0:22:50like people who obviously were excited enough

0:22:52about the product to get it on day one,

0:22:54they're very, they've just spent, in Apple terms,

0:22:58a relatively small amount of money for it.

0:23:00They're not nearly as expensive as a lot

0:23:03other products that, you know, like an iPhone is $700 or something, whereas this is $100

0:23:07and something, or $200.

0:23:09And so that window is going to be very narrow.

0:23:12And so if your app requires that you then have big sustained sales over the next few

0:23:21months, my suspicion is that's going to be a losing proposition.

0:23:26And so that's interesting.

0:23:28And the Apple TV, I think, will be a nice,

0:23:32sort of in many ways like the watch.

0:23:34It's just an add-on to the main product that Apple sells,

0:23:38like which is the iPhone.

0:23:39It's like the iPad in many ways, the watch,

0:23:42now the Apple TV.

0:23:43These are all just add-ons to the iOS ecosystem

0:23:46that exists for the iPhone.

0:23:48- Yeah, and I think the value that you can get

0:23:53out of being there, I think you make a very good point

0:23:55about that window being fairly narrow.

0:23:57I think how narrow it is depends on how easy it is to develop for it and how many people

0:24:03realize how quickly they need to be developing for it or they want to be developing for it.

0:24:08So with the iPhone, that was very, very quick, really, because the iPhone already had a massive

0:24:13installed base.

0:24:14There was tons of pent-up demand to develop for it and people knocked the doors down to

0:24:17get there.

0:24:18Most platforms don't work that way.

0:24:21The watch, I think, has kind of fizzled out.

0:24:24The watch, I think, is kind of at a standstill right now.

0:24:25I don't know of any really interesting stuff

0:24:28that's happened on the watch in the last month, say.

0:24:30You know, it seems like not a lot is going on there,

0:24:33and we'll talk about that in future episodes, I'm sure.

0:24:35- Yeah.

0:24:36- And the TV is now out, but it's starting

0:24:38from an installed base of zero for a product

0:24:41that people are excited about, but not so excited

0:24:43that they're gonna go out and like,

0:24:45raid all the stores and deplete all the stock on day one.

0:24:47So it's gonna, that's gonna have a slower buildup.

0:24:50And so if that buildup is slower,

0:24:52also on the developer supply side,

0:24:53where fewer developers are jumping in,

0:24:55so soon, so quickly, then I think you do have

0:24:58a wider window, like I would say the biggest sales day

0:25:02for Apple TV apps this year is gonna be

0:25:03the day after Christmas, and if you are there,

0:25:06I think you can still sell a nice $10 game

0:25:09the day after Christmas in big volumes this year,

0:25:12but probably not next year.

0:25:14- We'll see, yeah, I would say I'm more

0:25:17on the skeptical side of that, but I think you're right

0:25:19insofar as that's a reasonable, it's going to,

0:25:23this next few months will be interesting for it.

0:25:26And I think the Apple TV,

0:25:28I will ultimately develop for it though,

0:25:30and which is probably a good place to wrap up,

0:25:31is to say, I expect to make apps for it,

0:25:34mostly because having a nicely rich,

0:25:38it's a checkbox that I can check

0:25:41for some of my applications to say,

0:25:43make them just that little bit more appealing to somebody.

0:25:46If someone was on the fence about downloading my app,

0:25:48and they're like, oh, it'll work for the Apple TV, awesome,

0:25:51then it's like that little, little thing.

0:25:53But it's not a priority for me insofar as I don't think

0:25:56it's gonna ever be a primary driver for my business.

0:25:58It's like same as the watch.

0:26:00I make watch apps for a lot of my apps,

0:26:01mostly just so that it's like,

0:26:02if someone, for the narrow group of people,

0:26:04for that's all they needed to go over the edge,

0:26:07then it was worthwhile for me.

0:26:08But in and of itself, it's probably not.

0:26:10- Yeah, and that could be a whole episode right there.

0:26:13And I totally agree with everything you just said

0:26:15that I'm also, I expect to launch Xcode for the first time

0:26:19make an Apple TV app probably this week. I'd like to see how easy it is to get Overcast

0:26:24to run on it. But again, it's like, it's kind of a value add, to use a business term, I'm

0:26:28sorry. It's kind of that for Overcast on iOS in general rather than like, I don't expect

0:26:34to make a lot of money on the Apple TV by itself. But anyway, we are running out of

0:26:37time this week so we want to keep the show nice and short so people can listen to it

0:26:41quickly and don't feel overloaded by it. So, let's wrap it up this week. David, thank you

0:26:46I guess? I don't know. We've never done an ending before. We don't have a song. So what

0:26:50are we going to do? Just stop?

0:26:52>>

0:26:53All right. Thanks for listening, whoever's listening to this. And hopefully we will see

0:26:57you again for the next episode.

0:26:58>>

0:26:58Yep. See you under the radar.

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