0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective.
0:00:03Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing news of note in iOS development, Apple, and
0:00:07the like.
0:00:08I'm your host, David Smith.
0:00:09I'm an independent iOS developer based in Herne, Virginia.
0:00:12Today is Wednesday, June 27th, 2012, and this is show number 59.
0:00:17All right, Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's get to it.
0:00:22So first topic, or minor note, I suppose, is I was going to say that it appears that
0:00:26the transition of developing perspective to its news host has been successful, there are
0:00:31a few little minor bumps along the way, but generally speaking, everything seems to be
0:00:35working. But if you run into any problems, please let me know. But I think I've pretty
0:00:39much got all the kinks worked out and everything seems to be working, which is great. And just
0:00:43sort of a small plug for the tool that I'm using to do that, which is called Octopress,
0:00:47which is a static blogging system. It's not really designed to do podcasts. But the great
0:00:52thing about a system like it is it's basically just a collection of Ruby scripts with a little
0:00:57bit of templating, it uses the liquid templating system on top of it. And basically it's just
0:01:02a series of markdown files that you can sort of do anything you want in it. And so it's
0:01:06pretty easy to just sort of hack it together to generate a podcast. So right now it even
0:01:11does this great stuff where I take my MP3 files as I record them. After I record them
0:01:16I drop it in, sort of run a script and it uploads it to S3, it sets up the new episode
0:01:21correctly and all this kind of stuff and actually integrating it into the site was pretty straightforward
0:01:26too. So that's just something that I just kind of recommend. If you're looking to do
0:01:29either just a regular blog and looking for a good platform for that, I run my main blog
0:01:34off of Octopress and now I run Developing Perspective on it too and in both cases it
0:01:39was super easy. It's definitely geared towards sort of a hacker. So if you're looking for
0:01:42something that's like totally pre-baked and maybe not perfect, but if you want the ease
0:01:47inconvenience of a static site without having to code that manually or anything.
0:01:52It's a great middle ground.
0:01:54So just need to figure out how to mention that.
0:01:57Number two, the podcast app that Apple shipped yesterday.
0:02:02So now Apple has their own official podcast app.
0:02:06I just wanted to mention it here because obviously if you're listening to this, you're a fan
0:02:09of podcasts.
0:02:10And it's an interesting thing.
0:02:12I think it's interesting that Apple is releasing an app targeted at podcasts,
0:02:17and especially because podcasts are kind of a funny thing for them in iTunes.
0:02:21Because as best I can tell, it's the only area in iTunes
0:02:26where they distribute and manage a lot of content.
0:02:29I mean, they don't host the files themselves.
0:02:31But in terms of-- they have this whole section where as best I can tell,
0:02:34they don't make any money at all.
0:02:37It's not like a lot of the things in iTunes
0:02:39where they're making money on the back end or selling content.
0:02:44There may be some free stuff.
0:02:45Like in the App Store, there's free and paid content.
0:02:48And I've heard some rumors about they may be bringing paid podcast content,
0:02:51but that seems a little funny to me.
0:02:54I don't know, it just seems odd, just given the nature of it.
0:02:57I mean, I guess if they had this option where, oh, people
0:03:00could have paid subscriptions to Developing Perspective,
0:03:02maybe I'd consider it.
0:03:03I'm not really sure.
0:03:05But it seems kind of odd.
0:03:07It's interesting that Apple is pushing all this time and energy into supporting things
0:03:13like podcasts where they don't really make any money.
0:03:15And obviously they developed this whole new app just for that purpose.
0:03:19It seems kind of cool.
0:03:20The app itself is pretty interesting.
0:03:21I would say it's reasonably well done.
0:03:25It's very good for the basics.
0:03:27And I doubt I'll end up using it as my main thing.
0:03:31It has a bunch of very odd limits.
0:03:33you can only download a 50 meg file over 3G, which maybe other apps should enforce, but
0:03:40they seem to be able to get by review without doing that.
0:03:43And it means that every now and then you'll run these really annoying things where a podcast
0:03:48is just over 50 megs and you won't be able to listen to it offline, even though you could
0:03:54download it if it was 49 megs.
0:03:56So it seems a little, it's all meant to be little arbitrary things and the design of
0:03:59of it is a little funny in the sense of like there's a tape player inside of it, which
0:04:04seems kind of funny. Just in terms of as a metaphor for podcasts, considering that I
0:04:10don't think podcasts have ever been distributed on cassette tape. Just, you know, sort of
0:04:15they were invented sort of post that era. So I don't know, maybe they should be CDRs
0:04:21or something. But anyway, I mentioned it there. You can sign up for it. One thing that's kind
0:04:25funny is if you click on the iTunes link on developing perspective dot com, it'll open
0:04:31the podcast app but it fails to actually subscribe. There's some bug in the application that I
0:04:36haven't been able to work around for. So just because of putting that out there, if you
0:04:41want to subscribe, just go to the catalog and search "developing perspective" and it'll
0:04:44work great. Alright, the next topic I was going to talk about quickly is the WWDC videos.
0:04:51We've been out for about a week now, but a couple of notes I just wanted to add and a
0:04:55couple of things I've been talking about on Twitter and things with people, but I just
0:04:59wanted to mention it here.
0:05:00So first, definitely try and make time to watch any or all of them.
0:05:05It's always a little...
0:05:06I always struggle with this myself, that I kind of be like, "Oh, I'm going to watch all
0:05:09these videos.
0:05:10Oh, they're so great.
0:05:11Let me get this one, this one, this one, this one."
0:05:13And it's really hard to actually motivate myself to actually watch them.
0:05:17And so here's a couple of the things that I do for myself to try and sort of motivate it.
0:05:22One is I use a... usually I listen in QuickTime 7 because it has a very easy playback speed control,
0:05:29though I recently discovered you can actually do this in QuickTime X or QuickTime 10, whatever it's supposed to be called, as well.
0:05:36But by allowing me to change the playback speed, so I usually listen at about 1 and 3/4 speed,
0:05:42it speeds it up and lets me get through content a lot more quickly.
0:05:46The nature of what it is, is usually what I'm trying to do with a lot of WWDC videos
0:05:51is get a quick survey of a new technology and then have all these little nuggets that
0:05:57I can pull out and use.
0:05:59It's very rare that there's a whole...
0:06:02But the new technologies, for example, in Iowa6, there's nothing that I'm like, "Okay, I need
0:06:05to understand this in and out."
0:06:07It's more like I want to sit down and listen to the past book presentations to get a sense
0:06:15of that technology and to help me to be sort of more well-rounded.
0:06:19And so by speeding them up and just kind of blasting through them quickly, you kind of
0:06:23get a good flavor of it.
0:06:24And if I ever need to go back, I certainly can, but it's not as big of a deal.
0:06:28Another thing that I also try and do is, I don't know about you, but if you go through
0:06:32a normal day, you'll often kind of have these cycles of energy.
0:06:35You know, so say like the classic one is like about two o'clock, you know, you've had lunch,
0:06:39it's kind of settling in, you kind of get a little droopy.
0:06:42One thing that's probably a good choice is to pop in a WWDC video at that point and you
0:06:47can kind of redeem that time in a productive way just by picking it up and like, "Okay,
0:06:52you know, I'll watch a video."
0:06:54If you listen at one and a half or two times speed, it's maybe half an hour, 45 minutes
0:06:59to work through it, maybe even less because a lot of them seem kind of edited down, which
0:07:03I think makes sense in terms of they're trimming them so that they're just the content that
0:07:08matches the presentation.
0:07:09There's none of the other ad libs or pauses or some of those things.
0:07:14So I put this pretty good job of editing that down.
0:07:17And you just work through them.
0:07:18And you don't feel too guilty if you don't get to a lot of them,
0:07:21but they're just definitely good resources.
0:07:23One thing I always recommend is try and listen to every one of the what's new in.
0:07:27Even if it's not necessarily that you're directly--
0:07:30like what's new in the file system is always an interesting one,
0:07:33or what's new in LLDB, what's new in LLVM.
0:07:35There's always the sort of what's new ones.
0:07:37find those to be the best kind of starting points.
0:07:40Because often what they'll do is they'll give a very quick survey,
0:07:43and then they'll give you pointers if there's other technologies that you're
0:07:45interested in that you can then go and watch the full video on just that topic.
0:07:49So just kind of a little tip there.
0:07:51All right, so the main topic I'm going to talk about today
0:07:54is the Retina MacBook Pro.
0:07:57And specifically, this is the kind of I decided to buy one episode.
0:08:00And so two episodes ago, I talked about the developer landscape
0:08:08and the various options.
0:08:10You can go MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Pro,
0:08:15and I kind of worked through it all.
0:08:16And in the end, I said, if you need to be very mobile, get a MacBook Air.
0:08:20Otherwise, a Retina MacBook Pro is a really good, solid choice.
0:08:23And at this point, I've decided to put my money where my mouth is.
0:08:26I'm trying to buy one.
0:08:28At this point, it looks like I'll be getting it through my local business rep at an Apple
0:08:31store.
0:08:32It seems the quickest way to get a hold of one.
0:08:33But otherwise, you know, it's kind of, there's the old quote, and I've heard it attributed
0:08:38to Mark Twain, but you never really know with these kind of things, that a man buys something
0:08:43for two reasons, the good reason and then a real reason.
0:08:47And I have a couple of good reasons to buy a MacBook Pro, and then maybe a couple of
0:08:50real reasons as well to kind of balance that out.
0:08:54It's definitely something where, on the good reasons side, I think there's a value in trying
0:09:01to put yourself where Apple is heading and being very comfortable and familiar with the
0:09:07technologies and approaches that Apple is pushing and directing the company towards.
0:09:14Now, that's not to say that you necessarily have to spend a lot of money and get a lot
0:09:18of technology to do that, but I feel like there's something ... It's like having a really
0:09:22solid understanding of what a retina screen on a Mac is and how that looks and how it
0:09:27feels is likely just sort of helpful as an Apple developer for being, it's almost like
0:09:35being well-rounded or being very comfortable with the technology so that you can sort of
0:09:40understand where they're heading with other technologies or things that they're doing
0:09:44and just kind of being well-informed.
0:09:46And it's a little bit funny, but it's also sort of like, when a retina iPad came out,
0:09:51I made sure I had one right away, even though I didn't really need it.
0:09:54It's this part of being a developer is being really comfortable on the platform in all
0:09:58of its variations.
0:10:00And so that's kind of a part of a reason.
0:10:03Another reason, of course, is just that it's a ridiculously fast machine.
0:10:07And that is always good in terms of productivity, in terms of getting work done, especially
0:10:11with regards to disk I/O.
0:10:13It's a pretty nuts machine in that regard.
0:10:15And it just seems to be really well put together.
0:10:18And so that's certainly a plus and a slinging in its favor.
0:10:22The SSDs are finally large enough to handle a full complement of data,
0:10:27which is kind of cool.
0:10:28Probably not if you get the base model with its 256 gigabyte SSD,
0:10:34but if you get either of the other two, the 512 or the 768 SSD options,
0:10:40it's a pretty--
0:10:42there's very few people who, unless they're doing a lot of probably video,
0:10:46for whom that would be too small of a drive to do everything on.
0:10:49So it means you don't have to play these funny games where you're
0:10:52doing sim links to your iTunes media library or these things.
0:10:57It's having a half to three quarters of a terabyte of data.
0:11:01Storage is actually pretty good and will likely do you pretty well with that.
0:11:05And so that's kind of nice that you can hit that point where you get the great
0:11:08performance and it's all on one device.
0:11:12For a long time I've been booting off of an external SSD
0:11:15uh... because my mac is so hard to change internal drive for it
0:11:19you know all these kind of weird things and think it's nice to do
0:11:21be able to move back towards one big drive
0:11:24every and i can back to time she needed super duper it now that but
0:11:28i don't need external storage i can be totally self-contained and to be display
0:11:31on the device is also
0:11:32kind of resolution but i think it you know developing on it is that is pretty
0:11:36good i've heard a lot of people
0:11:38who used to a token of twenty seven inch display
0:11:41that say
0:11:42especially if you do the like more space option
0:11:45that it's just as comfortable to work on as any single desktop
0:11:52environment is to work in, which is kind of cool.
0:11:55And then another sort of good reason
0:11:56is in terms of Mac development.
0:11:58So I do some of this right now.
0:12:00I have applications like InstaBackup.
0:12:03I have Five Live.
0:12:04I have applications like that that are on the Mac App Store.
0:12:07And actually, pretty much all my apps
0:12:10are retina-enabled at this point,
0:12:12most because they're graphically fairly simple.
0:12:15But it's also kind of--
0:12:16as I'm looking to do some more Mac development in the coming
0:12:19months, and it's just one of those things of having
0:12:22a native machine that I can do that development on and test
0:12:28it and make sure my retina graphics look great on,
0:12:30seems just a wise decision in the same way that I get--
0:12:33I have a retina and a non-retina iPad,
0:12:36even though I could just use the simulator
0:12:38and look at the retina graphics on my old--
0:12:41and then run it on my old device to get a sense of it,
0:12:44it just seems wise and better to do that actually natively
0:12:47on the device.
0:12:49And then I guess you can kind of get into in the sort
0:12:52of the jokingly kind of like the real reasons.
0:12:54It's awesome.
0:12:55It's just sort of gorgeous and beautiful.
0:12:57And Apple does a great job of creating demand and desire
0:13:01for new technology.
0:13:02And I'm certainly not immune to that.
0:13:05In some ways, I don't see that as a bad thing.
0:13:08That's part of what makes my money and my living
0:13:11is that Apple does that with their other technologies too.
0:13:14They do a great job of making me and my customers
0:13:17want to buy iPhones, and when they have an iPhone,
0:13:19they want to get apps on it.
0:13:20And that's what makes my living.
0:13:22And so that's awesome that Apple can do that.
0:13:24And it's kind of fun that they still can do that in me
0:13:27as well with you look at this technology,
0:13:30and you're like, wow, that's awesome.
0:13:31I want to have that.
0:13:32I want to play with that.
0:13:34I want to see what that's like in reality
0:13:35and in practical use.
0:13:38And I think really why I'm getting it
0:13:40is a combination of all of those.
0:13:41I don't think it's necessarily just like, oh, it's cool.
0:13:44It's kind of an expensive thing to get just because it's cool.
0:13:47But I think a combination of all of the useful attributes of it,
0:13:51doing Mac development, and just kind of feeling
0:13:53like it's good to be there, has maybe just sort of pushed me
0:13:57over in terms of, OK, that's definitely what I'm going to do.
0:13:59Who knows?
0:13:59Maybe next year I'll end up sort of relegating it to the side
0:14:03when they come up with this new awesome-- the super Mac Pro
0:14:06That's awesome and amazing.
0:14:09But later next year is a long time from now.
0:14:12And so in the meantime, I'm going to get one and probably
0:14:14make it my main machine.
0:14:15And I suspect I'll be pretty happy with it.
0:14:19All right, that's it for today's show.
0:14:20I hope that's interesting.
0:14:22As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns,
0:14:25hit me up on Twitter.
0:14:26I'm @_DavidSmith on Twitter.
0:14:28And I'll just reiterate it again that I think some of the best
0:14:32shows I've done and a lot of the feedback I've gotten,
0:14:36I've received confirms this.
0:14:37The best shows are ones where people
0:14:39are asking questions about things
0:14:40that they're curious about, things
0:14:41that they're struggling with, and I kind of address them.
0:14:44So please send me questions, send me feedback
0:14:47if you have things to discuss.
0:14:48Because I think you get the best shows that way.
0:14:50Otherwise, happy coding.
0:14:51Have a good week.
0:14:52And I will talk to you later.