0:00:00Hello, and welcome to Developing Perspective.
0:00:02Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing news of note in iOS development, Apple, and
0:00:06the like.
0:00:07I'm your host, David Smith.
0:00:08I'm an independent iOS and Mac developer based in Herne, Virginia.
0:00:12This is show number 146, and today is Friday, October 4th.
0:00:16Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's get started.
0:00:19All right, first a couple of more, I guess, news and sundries at the beginning.
0:00:25First, it's been lovely to see all the people who bought Developing Perspective t-shirts
0:00:29and everybody's sending me pictures and telling me about wearing them or trying to explain
0:00:32them to coworkers and friends.
0:00:34So it's been lovely to hear.
0:00:36Thank you for sending those notes.
0:00:37I really appreciate it.
0:00:38If you ordered one, you should probably have it unless you're outside of the US at this
0:00:41point.
0:00:42So if you haven't, there's probably something to follow up with with the Teespring.
0:00:45And just something else, I wanted to first thank you everybody for the amazing response
0:00:49to the previous episode.
0:00:51And when we sat down, when I sat down with my wife to do an episode, it's kind of outside
0:00:56of the norm, outside of something that I'm sort of used to doing, something that I've
0:00:58I've done before.
0:00:59And so there was certainly a little bit of apprehension about putting that out there.
0:01:02And I was just blown away and really humbled and grateful for the response to that and
0:01:07the kind words and the support that I got out of that.
0:01:11And I think generally the discussion that sort of spurned has also been really interesting
0:01:16and productive, I think.
0:01:17I'm not going to get too much into it here.
0:01:20I talked more about it on the prompt this week, which I'll have a link in the show notes
0:01:23too if you want to hear some more of my thoughts about the current state of App Store pricing.
0:01:27But it's something that kind of thing that we can always talk about because there's two
0:01:31parts or two or three parts to what we do and one of them is always going to be the
0:01:35business side of it.
0:01:36The thing that enables us to have the time available to make interesting and amazing
0:01:41products hopefully.
0:01:42So that's just an interesting discussion and I just wanted to thank you all for that.
0:01:46All right.
0:01:47So now I'm going to get into the actual topic for today's show.
0:01:51And actually there will really be two topics.
0:01:55main topic and another mini topic.
0:01:58The first I'm going to talk about is the,
0:02:01so this is related to something I did this last week,
0:02:04where I launched a very simple app called Pedometer++.
0:02:07And Pedometer++ is basically just
0:02:10an application that takes advantage of a new API
0:02:13that Apple opened up in iOS 7, and more specifically
0:02:16on the iPhone 5S with iOS 7.
0:02:19And so that lets you basically query the data
0:02:22query the data coming out of the M7 chip,
0:02:25which is a new motion tracking thing,
0:02:27very low power, battery, et cetera,
0:02:28that runs on your iPhone now.
0:02:30And it basically lets you-- the API
0:02:34is structured such that it's very easy to use it
0:02:36as a pedometer, because it tells you
0:02:38how many steps a user takes between any given interval
0:02:41time.
0:02:42And so when I saw that, and I think--
0:02:44I'm not entirely sure on this, but I
0:02:46think it was actually introduced in the GM, which
0:02:50and that happens very often, that I don't think necessarily
0:02:53all these APIs were there.
0:02:54And at least in the final state they were,
0:02:56before they announced the iPhone 5S
0:02:58and then launched iOS 7 with it.
0:03:01And so they created a kind of interesting situation.
0:03:03These have happened a couple of times
0:03:05where the App Store as it is, in some ways you could call it
0:03:10full.
0:03:12It's not necessarily full in the sense
0:03:14that there's a limited space.
0:03:17But there's very few new concepts.
0:03:18There's very few things, times you'll
0:03:20created now that is new and interesting in a way that is new in concept.
0:03:25It can be new in implementation, new in aesthetic, new in a lot of different ways, but it's
0:03:29very rarely new in concept.
0:03:31That's just the nature of there being a million apps in the store and there only being so
0:03:34many things that you can reasonably do with a phone that's four inches that you can hold
0:03:40in your hand.
0:03:41But every now and then there'll be these things that come out, that show, allow something
0:03:47totally new that you really couldn't do before.
0:03:49There were pedometers before, but most of them worked either in a way that would crush
0:03:53your battery by following the accelerometer all the time, or would do kind of inference-related
0:03:59things where they'd use significant location changes to roughly identify how much you were
0:04:06moving around.
0:04:07This was a new thing.
0:04:09And whenever I see one of these, and this is just something I want to sort of put out
0:04:12there and just as a developer, you kind of want to always be thinking about is, I think
0:04:16I think these are always the interesting things, always
0:04:18the interesting market opportunities, by far more
0:04:21than necessarily re-implementing an application that's
0:04:23been done many times, building another weather app,
0:04:25building an RSS reader, building a calculator, whatever it is.
0:04:29There's something that is-- honestly,
0:04:31I want to say at this point it's building another podcast
0:04:33client, it seems.
0:04:35The reality is when you have these new opportunities
0:04:37to build something completely new, completely from scratch,
0:04:40I usually think it's a pretty good idea
0:04:42to try and explore it at least, to understand
0:04:45exactly what's going on there.
0:04:46And the reason I do that is because suddenly you're
0:04:49competing in a very much more narrow market.
0:04:51And these types of opportunities often lend themselves
0:04:54to experimentation.
0:04:55And that's really what the goddess
0:04:56of what I want to talk about now is experimentation
0:04:59is the really important, I think,
0:05:01part of being a successful developer,
0:05:02that you want to be able to try new technologies,
0:05:04both from a learning and experience perspective,
0:05:07as well as giving yourself a bit of permission to try new things.
0:05:10And so with pedometer, this app I put out,
0:05:13very simple, surprisingly well received. I was very sort of, had no high expectations
0:05:20for it necessarily, and I put it out there and it seemed very well received. And it's
0:05:24kind of a funny story with it though, because I put it out and I had originally planned
0:05:28to have it have iAds in it so that you'd, you know, it's a free app and I wanted,
0:05:32it needed to make it free mostly because it only works on an iPhone 5S. And if you use
0:05:37it on any other phone, you'll have no data and it'll be kind of useless. And so what
0:05:41what I wanted to avoid is the situation where someone buys it and turns out doesn't work
0:05:44on their phone and they're grumpy. So I was like, it has to be free. So okay, so what
0:05:48do I do? So I'll put an ad in it. Okay, that's fine. I've done ads before, they pay pretty
0:05:51well. Life is good. I submitted it to the App Store, it gets approved. I launch it,
0:05:56everything's great. I realized though that ads aren't showing in the production version.
0:06:01They were showing in my sandboxed like ad hoc bills, but they weren't showing in the
0:06:05production version. And so it's surprising like, is I had Phil really low? What's going
0:06:09on there. Turns out, I had actually not enabled iAd in the application in iTunes Connect,
0:06:16which is just something that just, you know, I forgot in my checklist as I was going through
0:06:20the submission process and, you know, something that I've done hundreds of times, I just had
0:06:24forgotten that you had to enable it specifically for a version rather than otherwise. And turns
0:06:30out you can't change that setting unless you submit a new binary and that binary gets updated.
0:06:35So this first version, which has been pretty widely received, it's kind of had a fair bit
0:06:40of traffic and interest, suddenly has no monetization in it whatsoever.
0:06:45And it's a bit unfortunate, a bit funny.
0:06:48You know, it's one of these things like, "Whoops, what am I going to do?"
0:06:51Do I just kind of like rush out an update to turn on ads?
0:06:55But that seems a little lame.
0:06:58And also I've created this expectation in some ways that people who are using the app
0:07:01aren't, you know, if I do an update to introduce ads now, it'll kind of feel a little negative.
0:07:07Because ads aren't a great thing. I generally, I make a lot of money from them for some of
0:07:11my apps, but I don't really like ads as a mechanism. And so then this is where I started
0:07:17to think and thought it'd be kind of an interesting experiment. And I love experimenting. This
0:07:21is, I think, if anything, I think both sort of patience and persistence as a concept and
0:07:27a willingness to experiment are probably the two biggest things you need to have to be
0:07:31a successful independent, and to have
0:07:32that tolerance for failure.
0:07:35But so I ended up doing-- and this
0:07:37is an update that's currently in review in the store right now.
0:07:40I kind of had a broader vision for the application.
0:07:43And I submitted it intentionally minimalistic,
0:07:45because I had no idea if Apple would even approve it.
0:07:48Whenever Apple does this, the risk is there's this new API.
0:07:50There's this new thing going on.
0:07:52But it's hard to know what they're actually
0:07:53intending that to do.
0:07:55And so I submitted it and actually had a lot of back
0:07:57and forth with Apple in App Review
0:07:59before this actually got approved.
0:08:01And so I kind of feel a bit justified in making sure
0:08:04that version one was very simple, very stripped down
0:08:08and streamlined in that way.
0:08:12But so version 1.1 that's currently in review,
0:08:16or maybe even available once you listen to this,
0:08:19is something that's kind of interesting,
0:08:21because I expanded the functionality a lot,
0:08:22made it a bit more richly featured.
0:08:24And then I had to decide what I wanted
0:08:26to do about monetization.
0:08:28And I'm trying something new here.
0:08:29And I look forward to, over the next couple of weeks,
0:08:31being able to report back on exactly how it works.
0:08:34But what I've done-- and we'll even see if it gets approved.
0:08:36It may not.
0:08:37But I figured I'd talk about it here
0:08:39to kind of have the beginning, middle, and end of the story
0:08:42out there.
0:08:44I have in the new version a section
0:08:46of the app in the Settings area.
0:08:48But I have a tip jar.
0:08:50And essentially, the application has a little message saying,
0:08:55hey, essentially, the support and development of Podometer
0:08:58or plus plus is made possible by your support.
0:09:03If you find it useful, if you find it motivating,
0:09:06if you find it healthy, or if you find it helps your health,
0:09:08please consider supporting the app by giving a tip below.
0:09:11And I have a couple of tiers and a couple of different options
0:09:15for an app purchase where you can just give a tip.
0:09:18And I intentionally chose this model
0:09:21to see how that would play out,
0:09:24to see how customers broadly would react
0:09:24kind of a more direct appeal to them, rather than charging for features, rather than charging
0:09:29for functionality in the way that you typically do with a free in-app purchase.
0:09:34I was like, what if I just ask for people to support me directly and just trust that if it's useful,
0:09:39that enough people will put a few coins in the tip jar,
0:09:44that it will be worthwhile and interesting. And if it doesn't, well, I can always go back on that and try other options.
0:09:49options.
0:09:50Or it could be successful.
0:09:51And I think that could be a very interesting and a very
0:09:54compelling option for developers who
0:09:55want to make an application that's free and fully featured
0:10:00and accessible to as broad an audience as possible,
0:10:02but then still also be able to make money from it.
0:10:04So we'll see.
0:10:05It's in a slightly gray area in terms of in-app purchase
0:10:08and the review guidelines.
0:10:10But I think it's OK to charge this kind of thing,
0:10:12because it's not a donation to a nonprofit or some
0:10:14of the other places where they get into app review rules.
0:10:19But it will be interesting to see.
0:10:21And it will be interesting to report back there.
0:10:23But anyway, I just wanted to talk
0:10:25through that story of pedometer, because it's
0:10:27an interesting experiment that I've been doing.
0:10:30And I just encourage a lot of people to just try things.
0:10:33So I always think it's funny when-- since a lot of people
0:10:36think it's funny, I have the number of apps that I have.
0:10:38And that's a kind of a running joke that I have too many.
0:10:41But I think the reality is having so many applications,
0:10:46having tried so many things, has allowed me to make enough mistakes
0:10:50that I can hopefully make a lot of better choices.
0:10:53And then another thing, the last thing related to that
0:10:56that I wanted to loop back on, this is a topic I've mentioned
0:10:58a couple of times in the development perspective,
0:11:00is about developer health and about developer well-being.
0:11:03And it's something that is kind of funny developing a pedometer app,
0:11:07which is an application about health and fitness and activity.
0:11:09when in a typical day when I'm developing on it,
0:11:11and I'm working on it, and I'm testing it,
0:11:13and it's running on my phone, my actual phone.
0:11:16And I look at it, and I'm barely cracking 2,000 steps in a day.
0:11:21And then I start looking at research,
0:11:22and trying to understand pedometers,
0:11:24and understanding what a good activity is, and so on.
0:11:26And I see just how bad that is, just how kind of awful
0:11:30it is that I really am not out and about.
0:11:32I'm really not up and active.
0:11:34And it's been kind of sobering in some ways to look at that.
0:11:38And it's kind of a nice thing where I finally have an app that actually is motivating for
0:11:42myself in that way, where I look at it and actually I did a thing where it badges the
0:11:48app icon with your step total, which is funny because after a certain size it'll actually
0:11:53truncate and have little ellipses in the middle.
0:11:55But the reality is once you're above that number of count, you're probably good to go.
0:11:59But what I find is when I put it on my phone and I badge it there, there's this guilt that
0:12:04that I have during the day that is actually slowly, I think,
0:12:08pushing me into slightly better habits.
0:12:09I think that's just an encouraging thing
0:12:11that I wanted to mention is if you're a developer
0:12:13and you spend your entire life sitting down,
0:12:15looking in front of a computer, that is probably not
0:12:17a healthy thing.
0:12:18I've talked on episodes previously about ergonomics
0:12:20and those types of health things.
0:12:22But just one thing I wanted to mention here
0:12:25that was made so apparent to me when
0:12:27I'm starting to work on a pedometer is just
0:12:29how inactive, how sedentary my lifestyle typically
0:12:33is if I don't proactively make choices to the contrary.
0:12:37All right, so that's it for today's show.
0:12:38As always, if you have questions, comments, concerns, or complaints, go on Twitter @_DavidSmith,
0:12:43email me, david@divangprospective.com.
0:12:46Next week, and actually the next two weeks, my schedule might be a little bit off and
0:12:49a little bit atypical just because I'm going to be traveling.
0:12:53First is the Singleton symposium in Montreal, so if you're there, definitely reach out to
0:12:58me, let me know.
0:12:59I'd love to meet you.
0:13:00hear from somebody who's been listening to the show and I'll be traveling a bit
0:13:03more with other stuff later on in October. So my schedule will be a little
0:13:07bit off. I'll still try and get one episode a week exactly what that looks
0:13:10like. I don't know and maybe I'll skip a week we'll see but hopefully I'll try
0:13:14keep with it. Alright I hope you have a great weekend. Talk to you later. Bye.