0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing
0:00:04news of note, and I was development, Apple and the like. I'm your host, David Smith.
0:00:08I'm an independent iOS developer based in hernia, Virginia. This is show number 199.
0:00:13And today is Friday, October 17th. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes.
0:00:19So let's get started. So I am speaking to you the day after the second Apple event in
0:00:26fall of 2014. And it's the event that was kind of interesting going into because I think
0:00:32generally, there was not a lot of strong anticipation about it, certainly not to the same degree
0:00:38as there was for the iPhone event. I think that just speaks to the type of products that
0:00:42we're expecting them to talk about. You know, the all probably the combined sales of everything
0:00:47they announced yesterday probably would not exceed the volume of the first weekend of
0:00:52the iPhone sales would be my guess, or in that ballpark
0:00:55anyway.
0:00:56It's a much, much smaller and more niche areas
0:00:59that they're talking about, the iPads and the Retina iMacs
0:01:02and the associated products.
0:01:03But there were a couple of really exciting things,
0:01:06and there were a couple that I really
0:01:07wanted to unpack a little bit on today's show.
0:01:10So the first, and the thing that I'm perhaps honestly
0:01:12most excited about coming out of everything they said yesterday,
0:01:15which is there are a few things that I'm really excited about,
0:01:18is that WatchKit is coming next month.
0:01:22We don't really know what that's going to mean yet.
0:01:24That could mean a lot of different things.
0:01:26We still don't really know what the API is going to look like.
0:01:29I'm speaking about WatchKit as the developer
0:01:31protocols for the Apple Watch.
0:01:33And it's hard to know exactly what that's going to look like.
0:01:35It could be so many different things
0:01:37that it's hard to really get excited about
0:01:39and know what that's going to be.
0:01:41But being able to write apps for the Apple Watch
0:01:44is something that I'm very excited about.
0:01:47Partly just because I'm a little bit bored
0:01:49with doing iPhone and iPad apps.
0:01:51I've been doing them for six years now.
0:01:53And I think a watch is more different than either
0:01:57of those other types than the iPad, for example,
0:02:00was different than the iPhone.
0:02:03It's a very totally different kind of development model
0:02:05and something that I think is an interesting challenge
0:02:07that I look forward to diving into.
0:02:08And I've got my list already of the handful dozen apps
0:02:13or concepts or things that I'm thinking about that
0:02:15would be really cool to have on a watch.
0:02:17And so I'm pretty excited to be able to dive
0:02:19into that next month.
0:02:20And hopefully I'll have all the rest of my iOS 8 updates
0:02:23fairly squared away, the last lingering bugs and things.
0:02:26And I can focus on really diving in.
0:02:29And hopefully there won't be a strong NDA on it,
0:02:31so I'll be able to talk about it here.
0:02:34We'll see.
0:02:35The next thing that I think is most exciting is 8.1 came out
0:02:38yesterday-- or sorry, it was announced yesterday
0:02:41that it will be coming out on Monday.
0:02:43And I'm very excited about that, because iOS 8.0 has
0:02:48a fair few problems, and a number of which
0:02:50are very problematic for my applications.
0:02:51There's weird bugs with the keyboards
0:02:53that are causing all these help desk requests for emoji++,
0:02:57as well as just a variety of things that are just not right.
0:03:00And honestly, I was very happy to see that Craig Federighi,
0:03:04when he was doing his section, he acknowledged that.
0:03:06And obviously, he did it in a slightly marketing way.
0:03:08But he took time in their big, fancy presentation
0:03:11to the press to say, you know what?
0:03:13We've gotten some feedback about how iOS 8 has not perhaps
0:03:17lived up to our goals.
0:03:18And we're working on it, and iOS 8.1 is coming out soon.
0:03:21And I like that.
0:03:23I like that they are at least acknowledging
0:03:25that this is an issue.
0:03:26Because we talk in our community a lot about,
0:03:29oh, they need a snow leopard release of iOS,
0:03:31or there's all these problems.
0:03:33They have a QA problem.
0:03:34What's going on?
0:03:35And the reality is we can say all we want,
0:03:38but it's hard to know what's going on internally
0:03:40within Apple.
0:03:40And it's nice to hear the head of software within Apple
0:03:43saying, you know what?
0:03:45We're thinking about this.
0:03:47were very aware of this, which is reassuring.
0:03:49Because if we'd gone through that entire presentation
0:03:51and they just kind of brushed it over,
0:03:53just never acted as though it wasn't an issue, like, oh,
0:03:558.1's coming out and it's Apple Pay, and that's all they said,
0:03:59I would be a bit more worried.
0:04:00This is somewhat encouraging that they're not totally
0:04:06blind to this internally, which I was expecting was the case.
0:04:09But it's good to hear that were confirmed.
0:04:12Next, the iPads.
0:04:15I have no idea what Apple is doing with the iPad.
0:04:17It is a totally baffling product to me at this point.
0:04:22I think they are currently going to be selling
0:04:24five different models of iPad, I think,
0:04:29so that from the top end to the bottom end,
0:04:32you'll have the iPad Air 2, the Mini 3,
0:04:39which is a retina version of the old iPad with retina display
0:04:44that only adds gold and a touch ID sensor, but it's $100 more than the other one they're
0:04:48going to keep on sale, which is now retroactively called the iPad Mini 2, which is also for
0:04:55sale, but for $100 less than it used to be.
0:04:58The original iPad Air is now going to continue to be for sale for $100 less than it was before,
0:05:04and then they're also continuing to sell the original iPad Mini, which is really old.
0:05:12Now, I'm sure there's a reason for that.
0:05:15I hope that reason isn't, we don't know what we're doing,
0:05:18so we're just going to throw all of this at the wall
0:05:21and hope something sticks.
0:05:23But it seems like there's a really confusing story that's
0:05:26going on with the iPad right now that I think developers,
0:05:29like myself, are kind of struggling with,
0:05:31is there a market for building software here?
0:05:34Is there an interesting use case for the iPad?
0:05:37The iPad, from its conception, was always
0:05:41a question of answering this question of,
0:05:43is there something between the iPhone and a Mac
0:05:46where you need something bigger and more capable, potentially,
0:05:51than an iPhone, but isn't quite as flexible as a Mac?
0:05:56And the question for a while seemed like,
0:05:58maybe this is going somewhere, and there
0:06:00were some really interesting things going on in the iPad.
0:06:02And I think there's less and less of that.
0:06:04And so I think you can kind of see that reflected
0:06:07in some ways in the way Apple is marketing it now.
0:06:09Or it's just like, you want an iPad?
0:06:10We've got iPads.
0:06:11You want big ones, small ones, old ones, new ones.
0:06:14We got them.
0:06:15It doesn't have that same kind of compelling message.
0:06:17It's not the straightforwardness that we
0:06:19see in a lot of the other Apple products.
0:06:21They're all getting a little bit unfocused.
0:06:23But it's something that I'm a little bit worried about
0:06:26as a developer on the iPad side.
0:06:29That if a friend of mine's come up and says, hey,
0:06:32I think I went and get an iPad, which one should I get?
0:06:35That's actually a really complicated question.
0:06:37because it's like, do you want touch ID? Do you want small do
0:06:40you want big? How important is a retina display for you? If you
0:06:42just if you just want the cheapest thing, you can get an
0:06:45iPad, first gen iPad mini, which is great for you because it's
0:06:48cheap, but not so good for me because it runs an A5 processor
0:06:51and isn't retina. Like the fact that that device is probably
0:06:55going to be with us for now at least another two years of
0:06:58development. Because if they're continuing to sell it this year,
0:07:01this probably going to need to support iOS nine. And if it
0:07:06then it's probably going to be supported
0:07:08for another year and two years.
0:07:10What is going on?
0:07:11That doesn't seem like a great choice.
0:07:13So I don't really know what's going on there.
0:07:15I don't really have a lot of answers.
0:07:17I'm still doing some work on the iPad,
0:07:19but I'm not as excited about it as I used to be.
0:07:21And that kind of is sad, because I think there's
0:07:24a lot of opportunity there.
0:07:25And in some ways, I think the movement away from the iPad
0:07:28as a focus for developers is an opportunity.
0:07:32There's less competition.
0:07:33And so if you do really good work there,
0:07:35you could theoretically be standing out more.
0:07:38But I'm not sure what that looks like.
0:07:41And that's a weird, tenuous place to be.
0:07:44And in some ways, I think honestly, Apple's movement
0:07:46to the size classing and the way they're doing things in iOS 8
0:07:50is going to further exacerbate this.
0:07:52Because in what they're doing as they're
0:07:55march away from this concept of iPhone versus iPad layouts,
0:07:59that they're both mixed together,
0:08:01is that ultimately you're going to end up
0:08:02with a lot of iPad apps that are just blown up
0:08:05versions of iPhone apps.
0:08:06And sometimes that works, and sometimes that's fine.
0:08:09But that's also a little bit unambitious.
0:08:11And I think the size classing thing is only going to
0:08:14exacerbate and accelerate that process.
0:08:17All right.
0:08:17Now we're on to the last and the thing that I'm second most
0:08:20excited about after WatchKit's being announced.
0:08:23And this is the Retina iMac.
0:08:25Now, Retina iMac, which was announced yesterday, was
0:08:28something that we were hoping for and had kind of been
0:08:31speculated a little bit.
0:08:32But we didn't really know it was going to be out.
0:08:34was kind of this wish on my wish list for Apple events for since honestly the
0:08:39introduction of the iPhone 4 which was a WWDC many many years ago and I remember
0:08:46that that introduction and I remember seeing my first retina screen and
0:08:49thinking wow this is a this is a this is one of those breaks in technology where
0:08:58you take like a massive step forward it isn't just sort of evolutionary it's
0:09:02revolutionary. And if you were in my room with me now you could see the giant air quotes that I'm putting around those because
0:09:07revolutionary, evolutionary, heavily overused. But it's that type of a break. It's where the thing,
0:09:12you go from a technology that is so different from what it replaces,
0:09:20that it just makes the old thing look terrible. Like why would we ever do it in the past?
0:09:25And the key thing that it does has to do with once you get to a sufficiently high resolution that you can't really detail
0:09:31pixels, you can move beyond this world that used to be called--
0:09:37we're making apps to be resolution-independent.
0:09:41That was something that Apple threw around
0:09:43for a long time, especially on the Mac.
0:09:46But this vague idea that was about being
0:09:49resolution-independent.
0:09:51And I think the interesting thing,
0:09:53which is a different spin on that same concept
0:09:55with the retina display, is that you switch
0:09:57from being resolution-independent
0:09:58to being resolution-irrelevant.
0:10:00that the actual resolution that the software is running on starts to matter less and less.
0:10:06I can see this on the Retina MacBook Pro that I have sitting next to me right now that I'm
0:10:12recording this episode on, because I run this device at a resolution well above its native
0:10:18resolution, so I can get more space, more points on the screen, as it were, and it looks great.
0:10:25It just doesn't matter. The actual resolution starts to be completely irrelevant.
0:10:29And I mean, even if you consider for the kind of remarkable
0:10:32thing that I have my original iPhone 4 in my hand too,
0:10:35and I look at the iPhone 4 screen that's several,
0:10:38several years old now, and I still-- looks great.
0:10:41I can't tell any pixels.
0:10:42It looks gorgeous to me, because it's
0:10:45beyond the limits of my poor organic nature
0:10:49to be able to determine pixels below that.
0:10:53And so it looks perfect.
0:10:54And so ever since that iPhone 4 came out,
0:10:56And that original introduction, which actually kind of amusingly,
0:11:01as a side note, I remember Steve,
0:11:03I think it was Steve who said it,
0:11:04that they had to bring in special projectors for the WWDC
0:11:10keynote so that they could show high enough resolution images
0:11:13to really show off the value and to impress
0:11:16the audience with retina.
0:11:18In retrospect, those were almost certainly 4K projectors.
0:11:22Just who knows, but they're probably 4K projectors,
0:11:25given the timing, which at that time
0:11:27were probably very expensive and very fancy.
0:11:30And now Apple has a desktop computer
0:11:33with a resolution significantly higher than what
0:11:36those projectors probably had.
0:11:39That's an aside.
0:11:40But ever since then, I've wanted this computer.
0:11:41I've wanted to have a Retina iMac.
0:11:44And for me, it's because I spend all of my time making apps,
0:11:47and almost all of the apps I make are Retina.
0:11:51And so being able to have kind of that one-to-one representation of what
0:11:55I'm building on the actual computer that I'm building it on is amazing.
0:11:59I love my retina, my retina MacBook Pro, but its screen is just a little bit too
0:12:03small.
0:12:04The difference between 15 inches and 27 inches is dramatic.
0:12:08And it's dramatic in ways that aren't just, it's not just bigger.
0:12:12Like for me, the biggest difference and why 27 inches is such a perfect
0:12:16sweet spot for the way that I set up my workspace is that at 27 inches,
0:12:21If I sit at a comfortable distance from my screen,
0:12:23the computer takes up essentially all
0:12:25of my primary vision.
0:12:28You know, obviously I have peripheral vision outside
0:12:30of the monitor.
0:12:31But all of the things that are in focus
0:12:32and that my eyes are going to see
0:12:34are essentially contained within a 27-inch screen.
0:12:37And that's awesome.
0:12:38That means that I can focus my attention on one display.
0:12:41And for years, even though I have a retina, a retina MacBook
0:12:44Pro, I've run it with an external 27-inch display.
0:12:48They'll do the old 1X display because of that.
0:12:52And I have the retina display on the side, which essentially
0:12:55just runs the simulators for me so that I can do development
0:12:58with one-to-one on there.
0:13:00But the fact that the Retina iMac has come out, I'm so excited.
0:13:03I literally was sitting yesterday
0:13:06refreshing the Apple Store page, waiting for it to come up,
0:13:09so I could get my order in as quickly as I could
0:13:12and get it, hopefully, as soon as I can.
0:13:14Because it is a computer that I think
0:13:15will make me better at my job, because I
0:13:18I will be able to be more immersed into the retina world
0:13:23that my apps live in.
0:13:24And I think that will ultimately make my development process
0:13:27better.
0:13:27It's also a faster computer than the one I have currently.
0:13:30I've been thinking about getting a Mac Pro for a while,
0:13:32because my retina MacBook Pro has
0:13:34been getting a little chunky.
0:13:35It's the first generation retina MacBook Pro.
0:13:38But the reality is, I was looking at the Mac Pro,
0:13:41and performance-wise, it's great.
0:13:42But compared to just even the top of the line,
0:13:45previous generation iMac, it starts
0:13:47get a little bit dicey.
0:13:48With this, the performance gap is almost irrelevant for me,
0:13:53because I'm not doing heavy, intensive video work.
0:13:56I'm not doing things where I would actually
0:13:58see a performance difference between the two.
0:14:00And so for me, the fastest computer
0:14:02I can probably have for development
0:14:04is probably this top of the line Retina iMac
0:14:06with a gorgeous display and priced fairly competitively
0:14:09for that.
0:14:10I think it's $4,400 with the device, the configuration
0:14:12I bought, which is max all the things, which
0:14:16which is expensive for a computer, but for something that I use for my day-to-day work
0:14:19and that generates my livelihood, Sharp Tools make smooth sculptures.
0:14:24So anyway, that's yesterday's event.
0:14:27I was pretty excited about it, more than I actually thought going into it, which is always
0:14:30probably a good thing.
0:14:31I mean, you're more excited coming out than you were going in.
0:14:34I can't wait to get my Retina iMac and play with that.
0:14:36I can't wait to get my hands-on watch kit and start playing with that.
0:14:39But anyway, that's just some thoughts I had from yesterday's presentations.
0:14:44I think it's kind of an exciting time.
0:14:45What I'm kind of looking forward to
0:14:47is that the next couple of weeks,
0:14:48or the next couple of months, there
0:14:49shouldn't be any more news.
0:14:50And so we can just focus on building things.
0:14:52All right.
0:14:53If you have any questions, comments, concerns, complaints,
0:14:54I'm going to @DavidSmith on Twitter,
0:14:56david@developingperspective.com.
0:14:58Have a great weekend.