0:00:00Hello, and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing
0:00:06news of note in iOS, Apple, and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm an independent
0:00:10iOS developer based in Washington, DC. Today is February 15th. It's Wednesday, and this
0:00:17is show number 34.
0:00:19All right. Today, I'm going to be discussing Clear, which is a new app that just launched
0:00:26this morning in the App Store and talking through really the two big implications that
0:00:30I see of this app and kind of what they mean for independent developers in the App Store
0:00:36at large.
0:00:37And I think there is something to learn sort of for all of us in this, so it's kind of
0:00:39cool.
0:00:41So first off, I'm going to talk a little bit about what Clear is and how it does some things
0:00:46and how it may change kind of how people think about apps.
0:00:49And then also just talk a little bit about what its success means for other developers.
0:00:54So at its core, Clear is a very simple application.
0:00:58It is a to-do list manager.
0:01:00There are probably thousands of those in the App Store, wouldn't surprise me.
0:01:06And that's basically all it does.
0:01:08It lets you have a collection of lists, those lists, you can add items to the list, you
0:01:14can cross items off the list, you know, that's really all it is.
0:01:18It's a very traditional classic to-do list manager.
0:01:23But it does its user interaction in a very kind of novel way.
0:01:28It is entirely gesture-based.
0:01:29Really, the only thing that isn't a gesture, that isn't a gesture in the broad sense, is
0:01:37that you can tap on a certain number of items to go into things, you know, so those act
0:01:41like buttons.
0:01:42But all the rest of your operations are gesture-oriented.
0:01:45To cross something off, you slide it to the left.
0:01:47If you want to delete something, you slide it to the right.
0:01:50If you want to add an item in the bottom, you sort of pinch.
0:01:52If you want to add something to the top, you slide down.
0:01:55If you want to flip lists, if you want to clear it, you slide up.
0:01:58There's all kinds of these cool things.
0:02:00I'll have a link to the website for it in the show notes for you to look through.
0:02:04But it's a pretty clever, interesting thing.
0:02:07For me, what I really like about this application is that it's very clean, it's very simple.
0:02:12You can tell it was designed thoughtfully and meaningfully, but it isn't doing some
0:02:19crazy overly skeuomorphic design pattern where it's like "oh this should look like an actual
0:02:26piece of note paper with a pen that you're writing across it in" and it's entirely...
0:02:32it reminds me actually a lot of the Metro UI which is what's in Windows Phone 7 in the
0:02:38sense that it's a very simple, clean, stark, maybe isn't a better word for it, where you
0:02:43You have just big, large blocks of light colors with a few little garnishes, I guess you could
0:02:51say, between items and little icons here and there.
0:02:54But overall, it's very simple.
0:02:58I think that's good.
0:02:59I think it's a good response to the overly skeuomorphic view that a lot of people have
0:03:03had, especially following Apple's lead.
0:03:07And I think it shows that you don't need to have that kind of a look and feel for an app
0:03:13to look good and feel good.
0:03:15Now, I'm not saying it's easy for what they did.
0:03:18I imagine it took some very talented people a lot of time to make it look like that.
0:03:24But it's nice to see what you can do with less rather than with more.
0:03:32So those are the two things that I think are helpful in terms of thinking how that would
0:03:37may change how you think of applications that you can look at and say, you know,
0:03:40it's a reminders app, it's a to-do list manager, but they made it really simple-looking,
0:03:47and that actually worked really well. Okay, and then so the second thing I wanted to talk about,
0:03:53and this is probably what I'll talk about a little bit longer on today's show, but it'll
0:03:56probably be a pretty short show, is that it was very encouraging to me this morning that right
0:04:03now, as of about 9 a.m., clear as the number one app in the App Store.
0:04:07But that means it's the top paid, you know, it's the number one top paid app.
0:04:13It is not, let's see, and it comes out in terms of grossing at number nine, as of right
0:04:18now.
0:04:19So that's nine hours after it launched, basically, because I think it launched about midnight
0:04:24in the United States.
0:04:26And so basically what that means, what that says to me though is, this is an application
0:04:31that's not one of these, you know, it's not doing anything scammy. It's not using in-app
0:04:38purchase. It's not freemium and then trying to extract money out of people. It's not built
0:04:45by some big development house, or it's not EA or someone like that doing something. It's
0:04:54sort of a big development house, and the guys behind it are pretty well known. But it's
0:04:59It is a simple app, precisely executed, and therefore, and it has thus far been able to
0:05:06succeed. And that's incredibly encouraging to me as an independent developer. Every now
0:05:12and then, I've been kind of recently like, "Oh, man. Is the market, is the app store
0:05:19kind of going downhill?" There's all these, there's the scam and sort of copycat apps
0:05:29that have been making the rounds, you know, round and round. There's a couple of sort
0:05:34of bad stories going around of, you know, user experiences and things of, you know,
0:05:39the store being overrun, discoverability problems, all these kinds of things. And it's very
0:05:44encouraging to see, you know, it's a simple app. It does one thing well, and they're doing
0:05:49very well. You know, they're being number eight and grossing in the store is incredibly,
0:05:53I don't know exactly how much money that is, but I imagine it is probably more than I make
0:05:58in a week. So they're doing really well. And that's encouraging to me to think, like, maybe
0:06:04I could write an app like that, something simple, something impressive, and pay attention
0:06:09to the details and be rewarded for that. And more power to them. Phil, who's the head of
0:06:16marketing, I guess, for it, has done a tremendous job on the marketing side of things. It is
0:06:22It is amazing to see what he did and how he executed that in terms of building up the
0:06:29hype, building up the anticipation.
0:06:31You know you're doing it well when I think last week there was a copycat app that was
0:06:34approved in the store, which is pretty wild.
0:06:38To think that from when it was preannounced to when it was actually launched, someone
0:06:42had created a copy of it and put it in the store.
0:06:44It was ultimately pulled, thankfully, but that's kind of remarkable.
0:06:48You know you're doing something well with your hype and press machine when a developer
0:06:54has already ripped you off before you even launched.
0:06:57So that was pretty interesting.
0:07:00So that's kind of, I think, sort of my thoughts for this morning.
0:07:03And just kind of go from there.
0:07:05I mean, I think it makes me think a little bit about these sort of, I was thinking about
0:07:10the successes that the TapTapTap guys have.
0:07:13This isn't a TapTapTap app.
0:07:14It's this new thing called impending, I think, which is a combination of a couple of other
0:07:19real Mac software.
0:07:20I guess some of the guys from tap tap tap, I think there's some guys in the icon factory
0:07:25kind of working together on it.
0:07:26But I think what is interesting is it.
0:07:31So many of their apps that have been very successful are very simple in what they do.
0:07:36And they're sort of recreating built in functionality on the phone.
0:07:40So things that come to mind is obviously so clear as a to do list, which is currently
0:07:44available as reminders. And then there's things like CameraPlus, which is just a camera app.
0:07:49I say just a camera app, not to be dismissive, but that's what it does. I think of something
0:07:55like, I mean, Tweetbot is a small application that replaces essentially a native application,
0:08:02the Twitter client. And they have a calculator that did very well and things like that. There's
0:08:09There's a lot of opportunity, I think, for re-implementing main things, basic apps, you
0:08:14know, in novel, clean, impressive ways.
0:08:18And so I think that's encouraging.
0:08:19So I guess on that sort of encouraging note, I'll wrap this show up.
0:08:23Like I said, I'm going to have a lot more time to be able to focus on doing podcasts,
0:08:28so if you have any thoughts, things you want me to elaborate on, to think about, talk about,
0:08:31I'd love to do that.
0:08:32Just hit me up on Twitter.
0:08:34I'm @_davidsmith.
0:08:35And otherwise, I hope you have a good day.
0:08:37Happy coding, and I'll talk to you later.