00:00:13 ◼ ► Yeah, it is the week before WBDC as we were recording, and probably as you are listening
00:00:18 ◼ ► to this, we are in that very fun period of time when it is, like, the exciting announcements,
00:00:25 ◼ ► the interesting announcements, deciding and discovering what is going to happen for the
00:00:29 ◼ ► next, like, three months of our life is going to look like, is on the very near horizon,
00:00:34 ◼ ► and it is both exciting and terrifying and, I don't know, it's, like, uncertain in a variety
00:00:45 ◼ ► Yeah, I always, like, you know, we've talked in the past about kind of the Apple seasonality,
00:00:50 ◼ ► you know, from kind of spring up to this point, this is a time to get projects done, like,
00:01:08 ◼ ► But I never get done as much as I want to get done before WBDC, and then it all just kind
00:01:13 ◼ ► And then it's like, well, here's a bunch of, you know, kind of pie-in-the-sky feature ideas
00:01:21 ◼ ► I have a whole bunch of, you know, podcasts that I was going to listen to before the keynote
00:01:27 ◼ ► And it's like, you know, once the keynote happens, like, then all these podcasts that were about
00:01:35 ◼ ► You know, it's like, there's all these, like, you know, this is like a barrier, like a huge
00:01:46 ◼ ► You know, so, you know, the big thing is the very, very strong rumors at this point of OS
00:01:57 ◼ ► If that is true, and there sure is a lot of smoke for that fire, that's going to be a lot
00:02:16 ◼ ► It can be really exciting for users and for developers to have like, oh, now our apps can
00:02:24 ◼ ► And it often prompts like a redesign across the whole app or a rewrite of the whole app.
00:02:33 ◼ ► It usually overall works out well in the long run, but in the meantime, there's a lot of work
00:02:52 ◼ ► Like I've made extra care to try and be ready for that in terms of, like you were saying,
00:03:04 ◼ ► Like I had a whole redesign and re-architecture that was working on Photometer Plus Plus that
00:03:08 ◼ ► I could like put on hold because it makes a lot more sense to tackle that next week than
00:03:14 ◼ ► And also just like personally and physically, like I've been, I took all of last week off
00:03:24 ◼ ► Like this is something I've done a few times now where I find it super helpful the week before,
00:03:28 ◼ ► the week before WWDC to go and just take a holiday because I know the summer is going to be busy.
00:03:39 ◼ ► Like I found it was super helpful even just to like realign my brain in terms of why I do what I do.
00:03:48 ◼ ► And there's a lot going on in our community that's really complicated and has difficult feelings.
00:03:52 ◼ ► But like I still love the job I have and I want to keep doing it and I want to do it well.
00:03:58 ◼ ► And so I suppose this, you know, it's like it's not necessarily very helpful to give you anyone the advice to take last week off.
00:04:16 ◼ ► But more, I think, understand in preparing yourself that it might be a very busy summer.
00:04:31 ◼ ► Because having been through these kinds of summers, it can be like it is some of my favorite experiences I've ever had have been the summer that is really busy.
00:04:49 ◼ ► And especially if I don't expect it to be necessarily, you know, there may be a summer of busy work would not be very fun.
00:05:00 ◼ ► Like you can look at it two ways with some like a big redesign that it can be, you know, it can you end up in some ways in the same place as you were before.
00:05:08 ◼ ► Or you can look at it as the opportunity to go through my app in a thoughtful, holistic way, understand like a lot of the features and pages that are built subsequent to the first time it was written, you know, we're kind of added on and potentially bolted on in ways that don't feel holistic and of a piece.
00:05:25 ◼ ► And like, I'm excited that I took, you know, or glad that I took the time off so that I feel ready and rested and excited to like get started on that.
00:05:36 ◼ ► I hope I don't, you know, come out Monday morning from the keynote and be like, huh, that's it?
00:05:41 ◼ ► Like, that would be really disappointing to me at this point because I'm like I'm pretty hyped in terms of looking forward to some good, interesting work this summer.
00:05:49 ◼ ► We don't know yet, like, you know, to what degree of a redesign will this be and what other obviously like the redesign is not going to be the only thing they announce.
00:06:02 ◼ ► Like, you know, every year they, you know, announce here's some new APIs or some new capabilities and a lot of times it's like, well, that's great if I ran like, you know, a ride sharing app or something.
00:06:13 ◼ ► But because my app is not that type of app or like it's hard sometimes to find a use for, you know, for every app to adopt things every WVC of any meaningful size.
00:06:29 ◼ ► Like, if you don't adopt the redesign, your app instantly looks old and you will start losing customers and your one-star reviews will increase over time from September forward.
00:06:40 ◼ ► Actually, I mean, thank God it's no longer from June forward since people can't leave reviews anymore on beta OSs, but it used to be bad.
00:06:47 ◼ ► But, you know, if you don't adopt it, your app basically looks abandoned and customers will eventually, you know, react poorly to that.
00:07:01 ◼ ► And one way, like, you know, we saw with iOS 7, that was obviously the biggest example of like a sweeping redesign.
00:07:07 ◼ ► One way to adopt a redesign is basically hit build and run with the new SDK and basically change nothing else.
00:07:15 ◼ ► Like, just adopt all the new UI, hope that the metrics and behaviors are the same enough that it doesn't break your UI.
00:07:23 ◼ ► Maybe go through and do a pass through the app and, you know, tweak things that are broken with the new metrics or whatever.
00:07:38 ◼ ► But the better approach that we saw, like, back with iOS 7 is, like, most apps, that kind of triggered a full redesign of the app to happen, like, over the following year.
00:07:49 ◼ ► And, you know, oftentimes a full rewrite of the app if it was, you know, based on old technology or they wanted to pay down tech debt or just do things differently.
00:07:57 ◼ ► And a redesign also, like, it isn't just, you know, the way Apple does redesigns, it's usually not just a re-skin.
00:08:05 ◼ ► It's actually, like, new interaction paradigms often or, like, new navigation hierarchies, you know, new types of widgets and types of gestures that become, you know, common in the system or expected to work a certain way.
00:08:21 ◼ ► So you get a lot of, like, surface area that, like, potential for a rewrite or potential for a sweeping redesign.
00:08:48 ◼ ► Like, I think it's going to be, like, if this is actually a sweeping redesign across all of their platforms, it's going to be a mess during the early betas.
00:09:04 ◼ ► And if they actually did it across all of their platforms, which the rumors seem to suggest, that's going to also create a lot of friction on the platforms that have less resources typically assigned to them.
00:09:23 ◼ ► I, like, you know, we're going to see, like, kind of, like, the non, like, you know, hot platforms or the ones that tend to get less developer attention from Apple.
00:09:33 ◼ ► That's, it might be a hard time on some of those platforms for a while because you're asking everyone on these platforms, including Apple, to, like, adopt a new system design that takes a lot of resources.
00:09:48 ◼ ► But, again, I think when you look at, like, the potential here, the potential is exciting.
00:10:04 ◼ ► And I think it is going to be such a funny summer to decide about, like, when you install betas and where you install betas.
00:10:18 ◼ ► No, no one, but it's the thing that's hard about this year is, like, if it's a substantial fundamental rethinking or dramatic thing, like, the bigger the change in many ways, the more important it is to really understand that as soon as you can.
00:10:35 ◼ ► And so there's going to be a tension and a temptation to go ahead and install the beta on your main phone right away.
00:10:45 ◼ ► I think my recommendation is going to be, I am, so I will have it, you know, I'm heading out to California in a couple of days.
00:10:52 ◼ ► I have a testing watch, a testing phone that I'm taking for the sole purpose of them being my, like, early testing devices.
00:11:04 ◼ ► It's not, it'll have the wrong number, obviously, but I can use it in a more holistic way rather than just it being, feeling like an iPod touch.
00:11:13 ◼ ► You know, it can actually be a phone, and I want to try and use that a little bit, do some of my phone use on it.
00:11:19 ◼ ► But I think it is going to be a summer where you're going to want to understand how it feels in practice beyond just looking at it in the simulator.
00:11:29 ◼ ► And so I think having testing devices in general is just something to, you know, think about and use as much as you can this summer because I think that is going to be useful.
00:11:41 ◼ ► But yes, I think the temptation to be on my main phone much sooner is going to be much higher.
00:11:46 ◼ ► And I think that is in some ways reasonable because the nature of these things is you have to live with them to understand them.
00:11:55 ◼ ► I think especially if you are traveling to California, do not install a beta OS on your primary device while you are away from your home.
00:12:09 ◼ ► It usually ends in tears and problems when you then try and do something that is important while you are away from home and you cannot do it.
00:12:25 ◼ ► But generally, you know, be careful out there, though it does make me think a little bit about for testing device purposes, like how important do you think it's going to be to have a testing device that can run Apple intelligence on it?
00:12:55 ◼ ► It's a real-time error monitoring and tracing platform, so you know exactly when something breaks, where it happened, and why.
00:13:02 ◼ ► So there's no more 1 a.m. slack threads or digging through endless logs trying to solve it yourself.
00:13:26 ◼ ► So you ship faster, your team isn't drowning in bug alerts, and instead of grinding through logs, your developers get back to building the product.
00:13:34 ◼ ► The good news is, new users get three months free of the team plan, which covers 150,000 errors.
00:14:05 ◼ ► My strategy for test devices will allow for this no matter what, in part because my current test phone is last year's iPhone 16 or 15, whatever it is, Pro.
00:14:16 ◼ ► So it has anyway, but what I'm going to do this year, normally my test strategy is I bring, like, some, you know, few years old iPhone, sometimes either one of my old phones or something that got cheap off of Amazon, like Refurb, which is, again, it's a great option.
00:14:32 ◼ ► I mentioned it in the past, like Amazon Refurbished and Recertified and Renewed, whatever, you know, their different terms for refurbishing, those devices can be hundreds of dollars less than new ones.
00:14:45 ◼ ► I would just say throw away the weird no-name charger and USB cable they come with because you can't trust those.
00:14:52 ◼ ► Anyway, so my strategy this year, though, is I'm going to go beta one unless there's some kind of, like, unforeseen reason why I can't.
00:15:01 ◼ ► But I'm going to go beta one on my main devices, and I'm going to, you know, over the next few days, I'm going to make a backup of my current main devices onto my test devices.
00:15:12 ◼ ► So my test devices will become the outgoing versions for stability over the summer if I need them.
00:15:25 ◼ ► And so if you only have one device, like your current phone capable of running Apple Intelligence, you can do the same strategy if you want.
00:15:33 ◼ ► The only thing is, like, you have to weigh the risk of, like, well, if you do have to go back to, like, if you have to, like, you know, start using your test phone as your main phone because your previous main phone is running a beta and is ruined, you know, you have to kind of figure, like, how do you do that?
00:15:47 ◼ ► You know, as you said, Dave, I would not recommend people do this while traveling, especially internationally.
00:15:56 ◼ ► But overall, I think – so the question, though, of, like, what do we think Apple Intelligence needs will be for the betas and for our needs?
00:16:03 ◼ ► All the rumors also are suggesting that we are finally – I know, finally after one year – but, you know, that we are getting APIs to use the on-device models in various ways.
00:16:20 ◼ ► I hope that comes true, and I hope that there are lots of capabilities that we are able to use without any needless restrictions.
00:16:27 ◼ ► So hopefully – you know, obviously these models are going to be, you know, resource-intensive to use locally, and so I'm sure there will be some restrictions on, like, maybe you can't, you know, use them in the background while the phone is on battery or, you know, stuff like that.
00:16:42 ◼ ► But hopefully those limits are as light-touch as they can be because I really think that many apps will probably find utility in at least some of the LLM and AI-based APIs locally on the phone.
00:16:58 ◼ ► So even simple stuff, like, you know, if you – so many apps have, like, a list of things that you then drill into with detail pages.
00:17:06 ◼ ► Well, if you can call the on-device summarization APIs, maybe you can do, like, kind of what Apple Mail does, and you can have, like, you know, the little description line of text on the table view or on the list of what you're going into.
00:17:20 ◼ ► Like, there's going to be, I think, little things like that that are going to become fairly ubiquitous fairly quickly.
00:17:29 ◼ ► So if there's that kind of utility in your app where you can think of, like, you know, think about what Apple's likely to unveil as an API for these AIs, it's going to be things like the writing tools.
00:18:05 ◼ ► So, like, think about in your app, like, where you can use even small, quote, AI features.
00:18:12 ◼ ► And if there's any of those for your app – I mean, there's also things like recommendation algorithms.
00:18:16 ◼ ► Like, if there's anything like that for your app that you think might be useful, even in small ways like text summarization and lists,
00:18:23 ◼ ► I would suggest plan for an Apple intelligence-capable test device for the betas, however you want to do that.
00:18:29 ◼ ► Whether you want to do it my way of making your primary the beta and using a secondary as your backup
00:18:33 ◼ ► or going out there and buying an inexpensive or a less expensive Apple intelligence-compatible phone right now,
00:18:45 ◼ ► Yeah, and I think, like, my current plan is to look – depending on what's actually announced on Monday,
00:18:49 ◼ ► it's like, if I need one, I think a M1 iPad Air is currently the cheapest device you could get that would support Apple intelligence
00:19:03 ◼ ► I think you could get it for a couple hundred dollars probably or $300, which would be the easiest way into that.
00:19:14 ◼ ► I hope we don't get a bifurcation of Apple intelligence again where it's like if you want Apple intelligence 1,
00:19:22 ◼ ► But if you want Apple intelligence 2, you need this new set of, you know, higher spec devices.
00:19:30 ◼ ► But I suppose at this point, like I said, I'm just waiting to see what's announced on Monday,
00:19:34 ◼ ► see if there's new restrictions, see if there's any opportunities that are specific and dramatic for Apple intelligence.
00:19:40 ◼ ► But it's just a new wrinkle that is interesting to have to walk through because it is very tied to modern hardware
00:19:47 ◼ ► in a way that you can usually get away with older hardware for a testing device, you know, just for iOS features themselves.
00:19:53 ◼ ► You know, I don't need – my typical testing watch right now or phone right now is, I think, two generations behind the fastest one.
00:20:21 ◼ ► I think we have a sense of what WWDC itself in terms of, you know, Monday, there's the small in-person gathering at Apple Park.
00:20:27 ◼ ► But otherwise, you know, from the vast majority of people, you're just going to be watching it online.
00:20:34 ◼ ► And I think the only thing I'd say is I think a flow that I've gotten into with this new cycle is I feel like Monday,
00:20:46 ◼ ► And so most of what I'm doing is just writing down little notes to myself of, like, things to look at later.
00:20:52 ◼ ► And later is, in this case, Tuesday, where Tuesday is the day that I go through the list of all the things that I bookmarked or wrote a note about to go and look at subsequent.
00:21:01 ◼ ► Tuesday is sort of, like, for exploring those, understanding them, maybe playing around a little bit.
00:21:05 ◼ ► And then I find Wednesday is when I start to really start prototyping and building stuff out.
00:21:15 ◼ ► This year, there are these new things called group labs, which sort of sound a little bit like the thing they tried with Slack a few years ago where it's a – but now it's in real time and kind of video-based.
00:21:29 ◼ ► But I'm slightly unclear, but it seems like you can sign up for these, like, big WebEx sessions where you can submit questions and have them answered in a group setting, which in some ways is helpful.
00:21:42 ◼ ► So if you are trying to work on something that you were going to a group lab that's earlier in the week, you may need to shift up your schedule in terms of the exploration and building part because I think my best questions typically are coming from when I've actually tried to build something.
00:21:57 ◼ ► And not, like, deeply integrating it into my app, much more, you know, file a new project, try to build something, try to build out the simplest version of the idea that you have, and see where the limitations are, see where the rough edges are.
00:22:10 ◼ ► And then either in a group lab setting or in a one-on-one lab, you know, ask your questions because I think that's going to be much more successful and productive if you've actually tried the API, you've explored it, you've found the issues, you've found where –
00:22:24 ◼ ► Very often I find I have a situation where I've had an idea for a feature, I start trying to build it, and I find that I'm – my conceptualization of how the feature should work is running into issues or limitations within the API.
00:22:38 ◼ ► So either I'm not using the API correctly or there's a bug or issue with the API, and a lab is a great venue for having that discussion.
00:22:46 ◼ ► But generally that's sort of the flow that I do, and I will say, as I've said many times, the new video format is amazing, and I love it, and I hope it's the same this year where we just get lots of videos that are short and sweet and are easy to kind of jump around with.
00:23:01 ◼ ► I watch most of them very quickly, not trying to really understand and follow along everything in detail.
00:23:08 ◼ ► Like I'm skimming initially just to try and have a lot of surface area that I've been exposed to.
00:23:13 ◼ ► And then again, I'm like adding a second level of things where I'll go back and rewatch at 1x, paying close attention, taking notes like in a more detailed fashion.
00:23:22 ◼ ► But early and initially, like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, those early days of the week, I'm just trying to gather as much as I can and try and understand as much as I can so I can ask good questions when the labs are going on and just so that I can be as prepared for it in that way.
00:23:44 ◼ ► I have a lot of time to do the actual work, but the thing that is rare and sparse is access to Apple engineers.
00:23:51 ◼ ► And so I'm just trying to be as prepared as I can in the short term rather than necessarily worrying about how this is actually going to be architected in practice.
00:24:02 ◼ ► Yeah, that's a good strategy because, you know, like in many ways, the timing of WVC labs is weird and not ideal because like, you know, you get all this new stuff.
00:24:13 ◼ ► But you can't as you're saying like you kind of have to rush to see like, am I going to have any issues or questions with this, you know, because you only have the labs for the few days after the keynote after you get the beta one.
00:24:26 ◼ ► And then, you know, in terms of like filing bugs that you want to be fixed, you know, you basically have a month or so like, you know, for the most part, like if you unless a bug is really, really bad that like so bad that it'd be like a showstopper.
00:24:58 ◼ ► Like the best way to get bugs fixed is find them in the next two weeks, post them on social media with bug with feedback numbers for Apple people and spread the word as much as you can.
00:25:10 ◼ ► And then when new betas come out, if they're not fixed yet, do it again, post it, file it again, post it again, spread the word again.
00:25:24 ◼ ► So that's like if you're going to do things like, you know, if some API that you use is now deprecated in the new OSs and you need to go back and like, you know, adopt some new changes to avoid these deprecation warnings, that's something better done like in July.
00:25:41 ◼ ► What you need to do the first month is play with the new stuff and file bugs about the new stuff.
00:25:51 ◼ ► It kind of sucks that this is the way that you have to, you know, file your bugs in a very short span for them to be fixed.
00:26:00 ◼ ► So, yeah, as you're right, like this is a good time to like build fresh test things like test harnesses, little test projects using the new APIs the way you're you expect to have to use them.
00:26:20 ◼ ► Yeah. And I think maybe a good place to wrap this up is also just to say it's going to be interesting.
00:26:30 ◼ ► But I was thinking about the actual connection part, like the the the way that we connect as a community, whether that be, you know, filing your bugs and shouting about them on social media or in person.
00:26:40 ◼ ► And I will say that Apple is a really great site that I noticed where they have a bunch of community events and many of them.
00:26:48 ◼ ► So don't feel like if you want to connect about WDC, you're excited about it, you want to talk about it with like minded people who are interested in this sort of thing.
00:27:01 ◼ ► There are lots of events that seem to be all over the world that people are doing, you know, keynote watch parties and that sort of thing.
00:27:07 ◼ ► I will say my annual warning, if you are coming out to Cupertino for the first time, it is forecast, I believe, to be extremely hot and sunny and warm and dry.
00:27:29 ◼ ► So like Apple Park is just a really fun place to be and to be in a group of people who care about the thing that you're excited about.
00:27:37 ◼ ► And you just watch the keynote and you get to talk about it right that minute with other people who are interested in it, with some of the engineers who worked on it, who are often extremely excited and delighted to talk to you about it because they've been sequestered away for so long working on these features.
00:27:56 ◼ ► So, you know, find some shade, wear some sunscreen and drink plenty of water and then just enjoy yourself.
00:28:00 ◼ ► And I think whether that's you're going to Apple Park, whether you're at home, like, I don't know.
00:28:09 ◼ ► It's been a really complicated year to get to here, you know, in terms of it's we've had some very difficult feelings we've had to navigate through and many of those are not resolved.
00:28:18 ◼ ► But they nevertheless, like there are some fundamental aspects to next week that are exciting, interesting, fun, and I look forward to it.
00:28:27 ◼ ► And I think that's, you know, I'm glad that I was able to work myself and my feelings around to the place that I am.
00:28:33 ◼ ► You know, I do have excitement and it's a bit more clear eyed perhaps this year, a little bit less, you know, just sort of blind enthusiasm than I've maybe had in some years gone by.
00:28:44 ◼ ► But I'm nevertheless enthusiastic and excited and, you know, this is the part of the job I enjoy.
00:28:49 ◼ ► I like making new stuff and boy, do I expect there's going to be new stuff to make starting next week.
00:28:56 ◼ ► Yeah, I am, you know, as you mentioned, there's been a lot of complicated feelings and a lot of kind of ugliness and some of the some of the stuff around the around the developer relationship right now.
00:29:07 ◼ ► But this is a good time to enjoy the fun tech stuff and we'll get back we'll get back to that stuff as we need to over time.
00:29:15 ◼ ► But this is this is now like we're about to get a whole bunch of new tech progress, APIs, redesign, hopefully like some, you know, nice like async and Swift UI stuff.