0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective, the developing perspective. It's a podcast
0:00:07discussing news of note in iOS development, Apple and the like. I'm your host, David Smith.
0:00:08I'm an independent iOS and Mac developer based in Hardin, Virginia. This week I'm coming
0:00:11at you live from WWDC in San Francisco. It's issue number 54. All right, so I just got
0:00:19out of the WWDC keynote and as sort of as expected, it was an excellent show with a
0:00:25lot of interesting stuff to talk about and I figured I'd do a show right now, just you
0:00:31know, I'm recording at 12.45, I just had a quick lunch, here I am to talk about what
0:00:35they talked about, what it means and kind of my initial reactions and I think it's probably
0:00:39good to do that now before we start to get into the actual NDA stuff that they're going
0:00:44to talk about later.
0:00:45So it allows me to kind of just speak freely without having to worry about anything else
0:00:49because everything I know is public knowledge at this point.
0:00:53So first, what I thought would be interesting to say is you kind of try and-- Apple is clearly
0:00:58very intentional about what they say at a keynote.
0:01:01And what I always think is interesting is to try and understand what is the message
0:01:05they're trying to get across.
0:01:06What is the-- if they had a theme statement, if you go back to middle school English, you're
0:01:14writing a paper, you want to have a theme statement, what is Apple's theme?
0:01:18I think Apple's theme this year is,
0:01:20we make the best products in ways
0:01:23that no one else can even come close to us.
0:01:25But more importantly, we make the best products
0:01:27for the best reasons.
0:01:29And you can see this in the emphasis
0:01:31they gave both in the introductory video
0:01:33as well as throughout the presentation about them doing
0:01:37things that are bettering mankind.
0:01:39And that's a little bit of marketing,
0:01:41and that's a little bit of showmanship.
0:01:43But I think it's also kind of indicative of Apple having
0:01:48arrived at a point where they are not just making new products.
0:01:54They are so far ahead in terms of product development
0:01:58of almost all of their peers or competitors
0:02:00that they're kind of getting into the next level.
0:02:02It's kind of like if you have Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
0:02:05They're totally sorted out all of the basic levels.
0:02:08And now they're just kind of getting to a point
0:02:10that they're just trying to make awesome things more awesome.
0:02:13And they can start addressing meta concerns and problems
0:02:17and making apps for the blind or the autistic or all these
0:02:21things that aren't even on the radar for someone else who's
0:02:24still trying to deal with the basics.
0:02:27I think that's where Apple is these days.
0:02:29They have crossed over from the basic concerns into dealing
0:02:34with some of the more fundamental and impactful
0:02:38aspects of technology, which is awesome.
0:02:41And so the next I was going to talk about, OK, so what was
0:02:44this show about?
0:02:45We had a refresh to their laptop line.
0:02:48We had Mountain Lion, and we had iOS 6.
0:02:51There was no big surprise necessarily in terms of one
0:02:55more thing or anything like that, which I think is kind of
0:02:57expected at this point.
0:02:59It would surprise me if they actually did another kind of
0:03:01one more thing or something like that where that was kind
0:03:06of Steve's thing.
0:03:07And so it wouldn't surprise me that this year it's kind of
0:03:08like that was just the show, and when it
0:03:10was over, it was over.
0:03:12But let's see.
0:03:13So the laptop refresh, the first 2/3 of that,
0:03:17fairly mundane, straightforward.
0:03:19They took the current line of MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros
0:03:23and just made them a little bit better.
0:03:26They put Ivy Bridge in and USB 3.0,
0:03:28dropped the price on the MacBook Airs a little bit, which is nice.
0:03:31I think it's especially emphasized going after education,
0:03:34especially as we head towards the college season and back to school.
0:03:38Schools are wrapping up.
0:03:40Kids are starting to go to college.
0:03:41I think they really are trying to put a MacBook Air in every
0:03:45college student's backpack this fall.
0:03:49And then of course, there's the big unveil of, hey, we have
0:03:52our first Retina Mac.
0:03:53And it's a 15-inch MacBook Pro that is thin, not quite as
0:03:58thin as an Air, but thin all the same, and has many of the
0:04:03benefits of a MacBook Pro in a form factor that's more like a
0:04:06MacBook Air, and of course, it has a Retina screen.
0:04:09And at a pretty competitive price, that starts at $2,200,
0:04:13which I would say surprised me.
0:04:15I think it speaks to the power of their supply chain.
0:04:19When you compare that to some of the prices of the other
0:04:21MacBook Pros, it's not that much more, if anything.
0:04:25But it's a much, much, much, much, much more powerful
0:04:27machine, and it's doing things that are
0:04:29just kind of unheard of.
0:04:31So if I pull up the spec sheet for the MacBook Pros, you can
0:04:36see that it is just so much more powerful.
0:04:39And I mean, a retina screen is just totally crazy
0:04:42in many ways.
0:04:43But the cost is not that out of reach for a lot of people.
0:04:48The MacBook Pro starts at $1,800,
0:04:53and then this new retina one goes to $2,200.
0:04:56So it's kind of like, for that $400,
0:04:58you get an amazing machine with a gorgeous display,
0:05:01similar battery life, similar in many ways.
0:05:04But it's only $400 more.
0:05:06That's quite something.
0:05:07And it's definitely an impressive thing that they did.
0:05:10I wish they had done more than just a Retina MacBook Pro,
0:05:14though.
0:05:15Because this is just for me personally,
0:05:18but I work primarily at my office.
0:05:20I mean, I want big screens.
0:05:22I mean, it's nice.
0:05:23And I'm sort of tempted to buy it, if only just
0:05:26because it's awesome.
0:05:27But I have no real practical use for it, and I doubt I'll get one.
0:05:30Because that's just too small for the kind of things that I do.
0:05:34I have two 27-inch displays.
0:05:36And fair enough, a Retina display actually has more
0:05:38pixels than a 27-inch cinema display.
0:05:40But I was a little disappointed by that.
0:05:43And of course, as I talked about on the show, I really
0:05:46want a new Mac Pro.
0:05:48And Mac Pro didn't get updated, which makes me sad.
0:05:51So that's where we are on the new Mac Pro Pros.
0:05:58You can just see that I think it's going to sell great.
0:06:00And I think you'll see in Apple stores all over the
0:06:02country, you're going to have these great displays.
0:06:05They're going to be front and center.
0:06:06You walk in the door, you're going to see those displays,
0:06:08and they are just going to sell them like they are hot
0:06:10cakes, because it's a screen technology that no one's ever
0:06:15seen.
0:06:15And so you'll see it, and you'll be like, wow, that's
0:06:18gorgeous.
0:06:18And they'll have these great demos with HD video and
0:06:20gorgeous pictures.
0:06:21And it's a beautiful display, and more power to them.
0:06:27I really hope they at some point do a retina
0:06:30Thunderbolt display and an update to update to Mac Pro.
0:06:34We'll see.
0:06:35I was a little disappointed, but not too bad.
0:06:38So next, they jumped over into Mountain Lion.
0:06:40And so Mountain Lion was not too--
0:06:43there weren't that many new technologies
0:06:44or things that they talked about.
0:06:46I think the new, really previously unannounced stuff
0:06:48was dictation.
0:06:50So going after something like Dragon Speech or something
0:06:53like that, which I think it's nice.
0:06:55I think I'll look forward and enjoy using that.
0:06:59Not that often, but I think for a couple of small cases
0:07:02where it could be really helpful to be able to not rest my arms
0:07:05and do that.
0:07:06But it's really not going to be sitting in Xcode dictating
0:07:08comments or anything.
0:07:10And I think Facebook integration was new,
0:07:13which is great and interesting, but ultimately not
0:07:17that significant.
0:07:18A few minor updates to Notification Center.
0:07:20And then probably the most significant part
0:07:22is that they gave it a date.
0:07:23So it's going to ship in July.
0:07:25So at worst, John Siracusa has 19 days or 20 days before he
0:07:33has to launch his review.
0:07:34And at best, he has about 52 days to go.
0:07:39So it's definitely exciting.
0:07:41I think I'm looking forward to it.
0:07:43It's like 5 Live, the app I wrote for listening to the 5
0:07:47by 5 Live shows, is already updated for the Retina screen.
0:07:51But I've also updated it, or have an update ready, for
0:07:55making it notification center compliant and all those types of things.
0:07:58And that's just kind of cool.
0:07:59I think Mountain Lion is a nice boost and it is pretty wild when they can, you know,
0:08:04it seems, the thing that seems kind of odd actually is that they made the price $20 and
0:08:09I almost wonder if this is the same problem that they had back in the day with the iPod
0:08:14Touches where they couldn't give them software updates because of accounting problems or
0:08:18rules because it seems like $20 is a very strange amount of money for them to charge
0:08:23for it.
0:08:24And I say that because I think what he said is--
0:08:27it's like, I have to pull up the number,
0:08:28but Lion has sold millions of copies.
0:08:31I think it was 27 million copies.
0:08:33That's the number six in my head.
0:08:34But whatever it was, it's in the tens of millions of copies.
0:08:39And at $30 a thing, fair enough, they made whatever,
0:08:44a couple hundred million dollars, which isn't anything
0:08:47to raise your nose at.
0:08:49But in reality, and in the context
0:08:52of all of what Apple does, that's actually a relatively small amount of money.
0:08:56And it seems odd, though, that they wouldn't just make it free.
0:09:01It just seems odd to me that you say, "Okay, yeah, it's awesome.
0:09:04It's 20 bucks."
0:09:05It's like, "Well, why don't you just make it free if it's making it $20?"
0:09:08I feel like they would be better served in terms of driving everybody forward by making
0:09:14it free.
0:09:15But that's their prerogative.
0:09:17They want to make that couple hundred million dollars at the expense of slightly slower
0:09:20adoption, then that's fair enough.
0:09:24And then, which is sort of in contrast to where they started
0:09:27off talking about iOS 5 or iOS 6.
0:09:30And they started off talking about iOS 6 by
0:09:32talking about iOS 5.
0:09:33And how about 80% of users are on iOS 5.
0:09:36And that's very consistent.
0:09:37I've written many articles, if you follow my blog, about how
0:09:40quickly iOS 5 has taken off, and then how over the updates
0:09:44have really driven ridiculously fast update.
0:09:49just from regular users, moms and tops, and people who are
0:09:54just using their iPhone, they're updating at a
0:09:55tremendous pace.
0:09:56Part of that, I think, is because it's free.
0:09:58In contrast to what I was just saying about Mountain Lion.
0:10:01And then also, it's just a device that
0:10:02you're always using.
0:10:03You're constantly picking it up all day.
0:10:05So if it pops up and says, hey, there's
0:10:06something new for you.
0:10:07You're going to see that in a way that you may not
0:10:09necessarily be able to-- or be interacting with it when
0:10:12you're on your Mac or PC.
0:10:16So that was interesting.
0:10:19And I think it's nice for-- I think they love just sticking their finger in Android's eye
0:10:24every time they can and talk about how the dairy product that Google shipped, you know,
0:10:30Ice Cream Sandwich, is only at 7% in the same time it took them to get to Haiti and all
0:10:36that.
0:10:37And it's like, okay, I've talked about that for a long time, but it's just-- at some point,
0:10:42I wonder if Apple will stop doing that.
0:10:44And I guess maybe it will probably be--it will only do it if the press stopped presenting
0:10:50this as an equal race of two equals, where in reality, they are so far ahead.
0:10:58This part of me that almost feels like it's Usain Bolt running against a third grader
0:11:03in a 100-meter dash.
0:11:05At some point, that just becomes inappropriate and childish and looks just mean.
0:11:12And so I kind of wonder at some point if they'll kind of back off of that kind of rhetoric.
0:11:15But at this point, I think they're just doing it because the press still talks about, "Oh,
0:11:20Android this, Android that."
0:11:21And they're like, "Well, that's not really that interesting."
0:11:23So then, IOS 6, a few things popped out at me.
0:11:27It seems like they're--you know, the maps is new.
0:11:31There's a--the passbook stuff looks kind of cool and interesting.
0:11:33And as a user, I think that'll be cool.
0:11:36From the developer side, I didn't see that much that was like super cool and interesting,
0:11:40built-in native pull to refresh was kind of cool.
0:11:43One thing that I did see on the slide that I think I'll
0:11:45talk about probably for the rest of the episode is I think
0:11:49they confirmed the 16 by 9 iPhone for the fall.
0:11:55And I'll say that because they included one bullet on one of
0:11:59the slides that says auto layout.
0:12:02And if you're a Mac developer, you know
0:12:03exactly what they mean.
0:12:05So on the Mac, what they recently did-- and I think this
0:12:07was in Lion was the first time they did it.
0:12:09They introduced a technology called Auto Layout, which
0:12:11allows you to dynamically organize views in your view
0:12:15hierarchy.
0:12:16And then they'll adjust as you resize the screen.
0:12:19So an example of this-- or also when you
0:12:21localize it as well.
0:12:21So an example of this is you could say, I want this button
0:12:24to be in the bottom right corner of my app.
0:12:28I want it to be 50 pixels from the right and 50 pixels from
0:12:30the bottom.
0:12:31And then you would create another control and say, I
0:12:33want this one to be to the left of that control by so
0:12:37mini pixels or center it this way.
0:12:39There's all kinds of different constraints that you can build.
0:12:42And those constraints then allow you to dynamically move
0:12:46the application size and its frame.
0:12:49And it'll adjust based on all those constraints to find the
0:12:52best fit for all of them, which allows you to do--
0:12:56on the Mac, it's great because obviously, Windows get
0:12:58resized all the time.
0:13:01On iOS, though, that technology doesn't make any
0:13:06sense unless you have multiple sized screens served with a
0:13:11different amount of content in it.
0:13:13And I think that, more than anything else, is strong
0:13:16confirmation that we'll see a 16 by 9 or whatever.
0:13:20I mean, the 16 by 9 part is up for grabs, but I think we'll
0:13:22see a different physical sized iPhone screen this fall.
0:13:27Because Auto Layout would allow you to be very simply and
0:13:31very easily, rather than giving absolute
0:13:33locations to things, give relative bounds, and then
0:13:37everything moves around correctly as it's resized
0:13:39between the big screen and the small screen.
0:13:41So that's kind of one of those things.
0:13:42And I was like, oh, I definitely wanted to sort of
0:13:44say that on the show before I go into the session this
0:13:49afternoon in case they give more information about that,
0:13:52which would indicate that in a way that I couldn't talk about
0:13:54because of NDA reasons.
0:13:55But I think that's a very, very, very, very, very strong
0:13:58indication that that's what's coming.
0:14:00So anyway, that's kind of it for today's show.
0:14:03I think I'll-- like I said, I'm going to do a bunch of
0:14:05episodes throughout the week and just kind of be walking
0:14:08through other parts of the keynote.
0:14:09I'm going to probably re-watch it tonight, go through it,
0:14:12look at all the screens, kind of pausing in different
0:14:14places, and then be able to hopefully give you a lot more
0:14:19depth into the keynote.
0:14:21If not, that doesn't work.
0:14:22Then maybe I'll shorten that down.
0:14:23But hopefully I'll have some interesting things to share.
0:14:25If you have any questions, comments, concerns--
0:14:27and I always say that.
0:14:29Questions, comments, concerns, hit me up on Twitter.
0:14:30underscore David Smith but specifically this week if you have questions or
0:14:33things that you're interested about that you if you weren't able to get to WWDC
0:14:37and you're curious about things if it's I'll try as best I can to talk about it
0:14:41I know a lot of the stuff's under NDA but I'll do my best
0:14:43otherwise you can always follow the show on dev perspective hope you enjoyed the
0:14:47keynote and I will talk to you later happy coding