00:02:24 ◼ ► that the same finished, excellent, award-winning screenplay in the hands of an entirely different
00:03:11 ◼ ► One of the things that always stuck with me from college when I was taking my film classes was,
00:03:16 ◼ ► if you don't have the proper ingredients and then the proper execution of those ingredients,
00:04:22 ◼ ► And they have, you know, one thing that struck me yesterday, trying to catch up on this,
00:04:39 ◼ ► I think part of it, here's part of it, is I have a big interest in, in general, in normal
00:04:46 ◼ ► times, in national politics and national, for lack of a better term, I love the phrase,
00:05:12 ◼ ► And it was the whole experience of you were focused on the newspaper and that's it, right?
00:05:20 ◼ ► The single greatest thing in newspaper history, in my mind, as an artistic, journalistic
00:05:28 ◼ ► accomplishment was this New York Times weekend review section, where you could be heads down,
00:05:36 ◼ ► you know, like maybe you're working for NASA, you know, making the space shuttle or, you
00:05:42 ◼ ► know, go back to the 60s and you're trying to, you know, land men on the moon and you're
00:05:46 ◼ ► working 120 hours a week, but you got a break Sunday afternoon, you're going to take a break.
00:06:05 ◼ ► The weekend review for National Affairs right now would be like, it would be 700 pages long.
00:06:21 ◼ ► level so that I can spend my day obsessing over all the stuff that's typical during fireball
00:06:27 ◼ ► And trying to do that while simultaneously staying in touch with what's going on in the
00:06:39 ◼ ► I have to say, I know you're pivoting a little bit in terms of covering all the crazy, wacky,
00:06:45 ◼ ► And to me, like, you're doing it, at least for me, I can only speak for myself, but you're
00:06:50 ◼ ► doing it in a way where I actually get news from you and then I get your take on the news.
00:06:57 ◼ ► But I think it's really good how you're almost giving a summary of the important stories
00:07:03 ◼ ► mixed in with text so people don't ignore what's actually happening in the world, right?
00:07:11 ◼ ► So, but just alone, yesterday, it's like, just like, well, oh my God, look at all this stuff
00:07:27 ◼ ► Like I was reading the Verge, the Verge did an amazing roundup as they do, but I'm reading
00:07:33 ◼ ► Well, I don't know that it's ridiculous, but it is a lot, but it goes to show that Amazon
00:07:39 ◼ ► needs to be, you know, has to be taken seriously as a hardware company at this point and that
00:07:52 ◼ ► We can argue about Google's acquisition of Nest and did that, did they sort of squander
00:08:03 ◼ ► Because, you know, I've got, we have Nest thermostats here at the Daring Fireball World
00:08:33 ◼ ► And I wanted to turn the air conditioner, the temperature up so that it won't kick in and
00:09:03 ◼ ► I have a Nest account and they've, and because this was a different device, I had to sign
00:09:27 ◼ ► There is a little thing at the bottom that says, do you not migrated still using a Nest
00:09:42 ◼ ► Like a one point font at the bottom of this screen that it's a miracle that anybody could
00:09:50 ◼ ► It looks like a hair on the screen that says like, oh, tap right here if that's what you
00:09:59 ◼ ► But I can't say anything that they've done with that that wasn't there before they acquired
00:10:05 ◼ ► It doesn't seem like Google is under Google's ownership, Nest is proceeding at the pace
00:10:14 ◼ ► Whereas Eero and Ring doorbells and security things, if anything, seem to be accelerating
00:10:41 ◼ ► Now, I already know there's a lot of naysayers and cynics that'll say, well, that's because
00:10:51 ◼ ► And to be quite blunt, especially with that robot camera thing, I think Amazon or at least
00:11:29 ◼ ► And I know I don't want to devolve this conversation into it, but I know part of the controversy
00:11:34 ◼ ► with the ring stuff is their partnership with police and that they've got things where they're
00:11:58 ◼ ► older now it looks ancient Amazon Alexa listening device if you want to put it in cynical terms.
00:12:25 ◼ ► Now people are going paying money to put speakers that are connected to the internet that they
00:12:32 ◼ ► But I find it I find the whole thing incredible that people are paying money to put this in
00:12:50 ◼ ► When apps would phone home at all, like, right, even if an app just audit, you know, you downloaded
00:13:00 ◼ ► into an indie Mac app, and every time it launches, it would call to its server to see if a new
00:13:12 ◼ ► before you could even click a button to upgrade in place, you would it would just say, Hey,
00:13:20 ◼ ► You know, here's a button that would go to the website where you would download the update
00:13:31 ◼ ► I'm just saying I remember when it was controversial that it happened at all, you know, and people
00:13:36 ◼ ► you know, and people would run tools to detect, you know, little snitch, little snitch Mac
00:13:45 ◼ ► I'm sure a lot of people listen to a lot of reports where it's detected some sketchy stuff
00:13:55 ◼ ► But it's, you know, like the amount of that type of stuff that's going on now is a waterfall
00:14:04 ◼ ► And I you know, I think we're going that way with devices that are have cameras and microphones.
00:14:26 ◼ ► I think you know, 20-25 years from now, we'll look back at 2020s number of camera equipped
00:14:35 ◼ ► microphone equipped devices in our lives and laugh at how few there are compared to how
00:14:56 ◼ ► And again, it's not like they said, Hey, you can bring in cool, you can order it so friggin
00:15:06 ◼ ► Who knows how when next year that is, but it you know, they Amazon's credibility is pretty
00:15:40 ◼ ► And the idea is it's it is a in home flying drone that you can make fly around your house
00:15:49 ◼ ► And the idea is kind of genius so that let's say you go on vacation or you're just away
00:15:58 ◼ ► You know, if we go back to being able to leave the house, you instead of putting cameras
00:16:14 ◼ ► Because what you're going to it's going to look like the inside of a store with security
00:16:20 ◼ ► This idea that you could have this drone that moves all over the house and has a camera
00:16:27 ◼ ► and then you could just say, hey, go look in my go look down by the garage and the drone
00:16:49 ◼ ► didn't think we'd ever have it, but it feels maybe it's pulled five years from the future.
00:16:55 ◼ ► And when you actually see the video, you feel like it's one of those proof of concept videos
00:17:14 ◼ ► And the privacy angle is fascinating because it's actually, the camera is, it's like, if
00:17:21 ◼ ► you imagine this device is sort of like a tack, the camera's at the sharp part of the tack
00:17:28 ◼ ► and when it goes into its charging base station, the tack goes into a hole and the camera is
00:17:33 ◼ ► therefore completely, not just like a little bit covered, it's all the way at the bottom
00:17:37 ◼ ► of this cubicle charging base station so that when it's on the base station, you know, the
00:17:51 ◼ ► that, you know, it's capturing when it's flying and when it's in its base, you don't have
00:18:03 ◼ ► It's not like I'm overly like, I'm not having anything in my house, but I just feel like,
00:18:07 ◼ ► I don't think I would ever talk to an Alexa speaker or Google Home speaker, whatever they're
00:18:21 ◼ ► I don't know, I just wanted to make it clear, like, I'm probably going to get one of these
00:18:33 ◼ ► Joanna Stern has been on my show, and I know Joanna's written extensively about whether
00:18:37 ◼ ► you should or should not cover your camera, you know, with tape or with the third party
00:18:44 ◼ ► And it goes beyond the technology angle, which I tend to side on, like, I don't cover my
00:19:24 ◼ ► Like, so like, yeah, like, just it just interests me like the new peloton has a bigger screen
00:19:33 ◼ ► in front of it, the you know, the bicycle thing and the kit, you know, there's a webcam
00:19:49 ◼ ► And it's not like, you know, you could say both a you could trust us without the slider,
00:19:54 ◼ ► but we're adding the slider to because then you, you know, you can trust it completely,
00:19:59 ◼ ► And when there's a slider in front of the camera, when the lens cap is on a real camera,
00:20:09 ◼ ► And you can say, Oh, there's this path, you know, through this T whatever security chip
00:20:17 ◼ ► And even if you had malware, the malware, there's no way for it to get into the security
00:20:33 ◼ ► Like it could be like me and you or the team at Apple who wrote it and, you know, in this
00:20:43 ◼ ► And we're completely convinced that we've got a mathematical proof that there's a secure
00:21:58 ◼ ► And it's just like banging around like a drunk robot, you know, like banging into walls,
00:22:26 ◼ ► It's going to start seeing like videos, you know, ring robot flying camera videos of my
00:22:32 ◼ ► I think drones are significantly quieter than vacuum cleaners, you know, like the loudest
00:22:45 ◼ ► But the, you know, the loudest drone you might conceivably fly inside your house is going
00:23:16 ◼ ► I don't think, you know, I think that's an interesting balance where it's like, you don't
00:23:38 ◼ ► I've always really felt like I'm as a developer and as a product guy, I always like kind of
00:23:46 ◼ ► And they really, they always seem to make me being in control of what's shared or privacy.
00:23:51 ◼ ► And, you know, yeah, they had some hiccups and they had to add two factor authentication
00:23:59 ◼ ► But I to put one of the key industrial design features is that when it docks, the camera's
00:24:11 ◼ ► Here, let me take a break before we continue on the show and I will do our first sponsored
00:24:40 ◼ ► Everything you need from registering a domain name to picking the design of the site to
00:25:09 ◼ ► It really does scale all the way from the I don't even know the difference between HTML
00:25:30 ◼ ► Get started with a free trial when you decide to sign up or somebody who comes to you for
00:26:47 ◼ ► But then all summer long developers certainly use the betas because they're looking to update
00:26:53 ◼ ► their apps to both support whatever new features they think they can support for launch and
00:27:05 ◼ ► When the new OS hits, you know, fix any issues with old stuff and then add new stuff to support
00:27:33 ◼ ► So I feel like this year the big surprise is how enthusiastic the public is about widgets
00:28:07 ◼ ► You know, how surprised were you when at the end, wasn't it at the very end of the event
00:29:17 ◼ ► You know, we suffer maybe, maybe not, but it was really, really, really, really, really
00:29:32 ◼ ► And so there are, you know, because of COVID and whether it's a combination, probably some
00:29:37 ◼ ► combination of Apple's own internal systems being, uh, slowed down in some ways by remote
00:29:57 ◼ ► almost a small miracle that they're only that late compared to the usual schedule of a,
00:30:01 ◼ ► you know, September 10th, 12th ish announcement, you know, and shipping by the end of September.
00:30:08 ◼ ► And that's sort of the anchor on the calendar that ties the OS release to and the normal
00:30:21 ◼ ► And last year was weird too, you know, where they kind of locked in iOS 13 early because
00:30:37 ◼ ► It's like, I don't even know where to, how to unwind it all here, telling it, you know,
00:31:09 ◼ ► announce what they call a GM, which is like a, you know, a golden master, which is a term
00:31:36 ◼ ► But they, you know, they have the GM release, but they would announce that at the event,
00:31:55 ◼ ► And then the actual OS release comes out like 10 days later, like on a Thursday, the day
00:32:07 ◼ ► So as a, you know, and there's no rule, you know, and again, with all the, you know, you
00:32:34 ◼ ► So Apple has always given developers, you know, a week plus of time with the GM release
00:32:51 ◼ ► And if you're trying to get into the App Store for day one, you know, you have a week or
00:33:28 ◼ ► This definitely impacted us, especially for a week having customers being so upset with
00:33:42 ◼ ► Apple can improve their procedures and policies and schedules that it won't happen again because
00:33:49 ◼ ► If you look at all the other apps, look how many updates they had to scramble to get out
00:34:26 ◼ ► If you have spent a lot of time on widgets, you want to be there, and when people, users
00:34:31 ◼ ► are upgrading and want to check out widgets, you'd like, and you've spent this whole summer
00:34:42 ◼ ► Like, if your app has a layout bug in iOS 14 that's not there in iOS 13, and who cares,
00:35:03 ◼ ► You can't fix it in advance because you might have to actually have the new SDK and you
00:35:13 ◼ ► Right, and you can't even submit a build for iOS 14 until the GM of Xcode is out to submit
00:35:36 ◼ ► This was so Helter Skelter, slapdash, I don't know what to call it, where there was actually
00:35:43 ◼ ► some confusion after the event where there were two builds of Xcode off with, you know,
00:35:49 ◼ ► with these real long, crazy version numbers, but off by one and if you, and it was maybe
00:36:01 ◼ ► to download the latest Xcode but get the wrong version and they click the same thing that
00:36:06 ◼ ► somebody in California clicked and got a newer version and two people who thought they had
00:36:11 ◼ ► the same new version of Xcode, only one of them could build and ship an executable that
00:36:20 ◼ ► And as you know, it takes a long time to build an app and, you know, distribute it, right?
00:36:34 ◼ ► And then, you know, thankfully, Twitter and all of our friends in the developer community
00:36:39 ◼ ► It's sort of, you know, some aspect of this, even if you have a really good build system
00:36:50 ◼ ► And only when it comes out of the oven do you find out that you had the wrong version of
00:37:01 ◼ ► when you thought you'd have a week, losing an hour or two hours to this is a lot of time.
00:37:20 ◼ ► So with the hardware stuff, the actual products, the new Series 6 watch, the new iPad and the
00:37:34 ◼ ► I say series, like the name of the watch and every device in my house kicks in with, you
00:37:56 ◼ ► Even though the, you know, I get it that Apple is always going to want to keep hardware under
00:38:07 ◼ ► And part of that is that the actual but the release of the OS isn't part of that secrecy,
00:38:15 ◼ ► Like what would have stopped Apple from a week before not holding an event, not something
00:38:27 ◼ ► tell developers in the same way that like when they go from Beta 7 to Beta 8, just say,
00:39:01 ◼ ► I believe it or not, even with the week notice, because I'd be like, well, why didn't they
00:39:18 ◼ ► There just could have been a little bit better mitigation of like iOS 14 will be available
00:39:28 ◼ ► That's pretty, but I feel like there could have been a little bit of a way to delay that
00:41:19 ◼ ► Maybe, you know, and that they, and that part of this, we, you know, and that is, I know
00:41:38 ◼ ► conference that attracts thousands of developers from around the world and the around the
00:42:23 ◼ ► We think of it as being delayed because it came several weeks later than it usually is,
00:42:36 ◼ ► I mean, we know that they had the, whatever the name is, the San Jose Convention Center
00:42:57 ◼ ► And so they don't announce these press events until like a week before and I think part
00:43:07 ◼ ► you know, to have this, here we are in Cupertino in sunny California while this actual skies
00:43:22 ◼ ► And you know, and then my thinking along these lines is somebody would raise their hand in
00:43:31 ◼ ► You know, they're going to want to know and that the basic decision was, well, we'll just
00:43:46 ◼ ► Either way, it was definitely out of character for them and definitely, definitely very bad
00:44:21 ◼ ► And even iOS 13.1 was by the general standards of first releases of major new OSes pretty
00:44:35 ◼ ► Yeah, there's bugs, especially with widgets and you know, they're they're they're fixing
00:45:05 ◼ ► like an app can with a share sheet open if you I can I still can't get it reproducible,
00:45:11 ◼ ► but I'll be trying to use a sharing extension and then all of a sudden the share sheet is
00:45:34 ◼ ► I can switch to other apps and if I switch back, it's still there in this state and the
00:45:42 ◼ ► So if I try to share like this, a crash log with one of my teammates after the share happens,
00:45:46 ◼ ► the whole screen freezes and you literally can't tap anything and then you have to force
00:45:52 ◼ ► I've seen it in a couple apps and it's just I think it might be the app not being ready
00:46:17 ◼ ► More so on iPad, but it seems like it's gotten better, but I still run into it even with
00:46:46 ◼ ► People are nuts for this new ability in shortcuts where you can make a shortcut that just launches
00:46:58 ◼ ► So what you could do is take let's say fantastic cow and you could put fantastic cow in your
00:47:05 ◼ ► And then make a shortcut that launches fantastic cow name the shortcut fantastic cow and put
00:47:18 ◼ ► Gruber right alright either way you know put a picture of you or me and now all of a sudden
00:47:34 ◼ ► tap it and it launches fantastic cow and it's it's as though you've customized the icon
00:47:42 ◼ ► Some people are going nuts for this and having tons of fun and doing you know entire themes
00:47:49 ◼ ► you know I saw somebody posted a screenshot where they replaced the icon for all of their
00:48:01 ◼ ► Apple apps all had a picture of Tim Cook the Amazon ones had a picture of Bezos the Google
00:48:22 ◼ ► People are going nuts for it and I'm not surprised and I think the reason I'm not surprised is I
00:48:29 ◼ ► remember the 90s on the Mac and that people loved doing stuff like that and I feel like
00:48:37 ◼ ► we've been in an era where that sort of customization just isn't even technically possible
00:48:45 ◼ ► It just wasn't even possible that people and maybe it's younger people and maybe people
00:48:50 ◼ ► who weren't around for the classic Mac era or maybe I don't know maybe there was I guess
00:48:55 ◼ ► there was similar stuff for Windows back in the day you know like the way that you could
00:49:04 ◼ ► You just reminded me of you just totally gave me a flashback to college where a friend of
00:49:09 ◼ ► mine believe it or not I wasn't into Mac my whole life I was an Amiga guy you know like
00:49:16 ◼ ► his Mac he had his hard drive customized with a BMW icon and I remember when I saw that
00:49:29 ◼ ► is going on here right it's the personalization customization of your device to whatever you're
00:49:35 ◼ ► Right and I've seen I and again this is one of those things I haven't really written about
00:49:39 ◼ ► on Daring Fireball my my opinion is go everybody go do what you want to do that to have fun
00:49:45 ◼ ► with it I know some people are thinking oh my god I've seen all these screenshots they're
00:50:00 ◼ ► I've seen people thinking that you know brand managers that these companies are going to
00:50:05 ◼ ► be upset and they're going to complain like hey we spent all this time on our fancy black
00:50:11 ◼ ► square with a white U Uber logo for our Uber icon and now people are replacing it I think
00:50:19 ◼ ► they're overreacting I think that you're you know again they're not changing your phone
00:50:37 ◼ ► seriously I was looking at a lot of these screenshots going oh these are kind of terrible
00:50:41 ◼ ► but no I really I think you changed my mind I think it's like it's their device if that's
00:50:45 ◼ ► what makes them happy like putting a BMW logo on their hard drive right then let them be
00:50:52 ◼ ► I totally think so and I I just remember back in the day that my god customizing your hard
00:51:00 ◼ ► drive icon was the least of it I mean we on the mac we had extensions that did crazy stuff
00:51:06 ◼ ► I remember the trash can I know we had talked about this oh yeah Oscar the Grouch that was my
00:51:12 ◼ ► favorite man I love that Oscar but yeah we had extensions there was one called I'm gonna
00:51:19 ◼ ► forget this I actually should have done the work but remember the way that the BOS looked
00:51:25 ◼ ► this was the John Oigassi's B company and they they had it was a very mac-like interface
00:51:31 ◼ ► but their window style were the the the big difference was that their top of their windows
00:51:38 ◼ ► the title bars which we've kind of gotten away from overall but back when title bars were title
00:51:43 ◼ ► bars theirs were tab shaped as opposed to going the full width of the window and so that's right
00:51:50 ◼ ► you know and if you did they're just like they looked like folder tabs and and they would grow
00:51:55 ◼ ► to the length of the name of the thing so if you had a document named Michael and I had a document
00:52:03 ◼ ► and my copy was Michael is a big fat idiot my tab would be longer because my file name is longer and
00:52:11 ◼ ► yours would be shorter because it would just shrink to fit the name Michael but anyway there were
00:52:16 ◼ ► extensions for the mac that would you just I forget what it was called but it was it would
00:52:21 ◼ ► just turn all your windows they would just you you'd put this extension in your folder restart
00:52:25 ◼ ► and then all of a sudden you'd when you restarted all of your mac windows looked like b windows
00:52:29 ◼ ► I remember that one too and then of course remember I can't forget conflict catcher which
00:52:35 ◼ ► then managed all the extensions right his name is Greg Landweber I remember I don't remember the
00:52:40 ◼ ► name of the first version of god that name totally rings a bell right Greg Landweber and then they
00:52:45 ◼ ► he collaborated with someone and they turned it into something called Aaron I believe that's my
00:52:50 ◼ ► memory of oh Aaron Aaron that's right yeah because of Copeland right yeah yeah yeah yeah that's right
00:52:54 ◼ ► Aaron was an extension that took what they did the first version made it look like one way and one
00:53:00 ◼ ► way only exactly like B and Aaron made it so that you could style your windows to look however you
00:53:06 ◼ ► wanted them to look and you're being right and then a cannon kaleidoscope right Arlo Rose I'm
00:53:10 ◼ ► starting to like remember like the whole path of all this right well kaleidoscope though was
00:53:14 ◼ ► different though because it wasn't about changing all of your windows it was kaleidoscope or like
00:53:18 ◼ ► widgets you know they called them gadgets I think remember okay but it didn't it didn't change
00:53:23 ◼ ► window themes I forget I'm it might have been a different kaleidoscope back to Aaron though
00:53:27 ◼ ► because Aaron was cool now I'm remembering yeah but Arlo Rose had definitely had something to do
00:53:31 ◼ ► with this he might have been his collaborator on Aaron now that I think about it but anyway the
00:53:36 ◼ ► basic idea was you could get an extension and then it would customize everything make the buttons look
00:53:41 ◼ ► different the menus the colors and none of the sounds none of this was supported by Apple you
00:53:47 ◼ ► know it was all sort of hacking the the OS and then Apple sort of saw the enthusiasm people had
00:53:55 ◼ ► for this and built in into classic Mac OS something called the appearance manager where they could have
00:54:03 ◼ ► appearance manager extensions and officially supported they announced like five of them
00:54:08 ◼ ► and they were wasn't just like different colors of the same look they were radically different and
00:54:13 ◼ ► there was one called gizmo that looked like remember this I will definitely put this in
00:54:18 ◼ ► the show notes but I do gizmo looked I mean how would you describe gizmo I don't even know how
00:54:28 ◼ ► so hard to describe it was it it would take the user interface and well there were two gizmos
00:54:37 ◼ ► actually because wasn't there one that was a messaging app too but that's not the theme the
00:54:41 ◼ ► theme was like it was like sesame street style like you know you know those toys at the pediatrician
00:54:47 ◼ ► when you were at least when I was a kid there'd be like these wooden toys with like spirals and
00:54:53 ◼ ► slides and and you would just sort of move like an oh okay I know like I'm thinking like the candy
00:54:57 ◼ ► stripe stuff it would have all like the yeah the like blue and red and everything was like very
00:55:01 ◼ ► glossy and candy it was crazy it made your mac look like a circus you know every window uh and
00:55:06 ◼ ► there was one called high tech that was big platinum platinum was another platinum was the
00:55:11 ◼ ► one that wound up that was the default platinum was the default um but but but the idea was that
00:55:17 ◼ ► it would be one of several choices there the high tech one was was like what we would now call dark
00:55:22 ◼ ► mode it was a very dark almost black interface but that the the chrome was much thicker it looked
00:55:29 ◼ ► sort of like what you would think the computers would look like in the judge dread movie right and
00:55:36 ◼ ► it's there was one that was like a blueprint or a drawing board remember that one was it called uh
00:55:41 ◼ ► I want to say it was called drawing board maybe or blueprint or something like that remember that
00:55:46 ◼ ► everything was like sketches right everything looked it actually they came back to that same
00:55:50 ◼ ► look and feel with the icons for like xcode nowadays right where everything looks like an
00:55:55 ◼ ► architect's blue paper with white pencil sketch but your whole interface looked like that including
00:56:01 ◼ ► your menu bar um that's right and those things they literally they were from apple they were
00:56:07 ◼ ► going to be first party supported and there was an api where third parties would be able to write
00:56:12 ◼ ► their own extensions for it they they effectively sherlocked the third party hack to customize the
00:56:18 ◼ ► interface and then this was all getting ready to ship right when steve jobs came and next
00:56:24 ◼ ► reunified with apple and they looked i think i would love this is one of those like on my top 10
00:56:30 ◼ ► list of meetings i wish that i could have been a fly on the wall for would have been the meeting
00:56:43 ◼ ► absolutely they've got this os that they didn't even make that they you know and they you know
00:56:48 ◼ ► the next people who now were running apple but they knew they needed the company to depend upon
00:56:53 ◼ ► for years to come before mac os 10 would be ready to ship and it had all of these themes and they
00:57:00 ◼ ► just deleted them all they just shipped it at the last moment with nothing but the platinum theme
00:57:06 ◼ ► and no they they like took out the mechanism to load the other themes but yet there still was an
00:57:14 ◼ ► appearance manager subsystem so they had this whole complicated set of they they made making
00:57:20 ◼ ► interfaces so much more complicated because the right way to do an interface as a developer was
00:57:26 ◼ ► to support the appearance manager which meant not being able to make any assumptions about like
00:57:32 ◼ ► what the windows or the buttons or the menus would look like right and then they shipped one theme
00:57:37 ◼ ► and one theme only so you had to throw it all away you had to support an infinite number of
00:57:43 ◼ ► thieves for a system that wound it up wound up shipping with one theme and one theme only but
00:57:48 ◼ ► anyway this sort of thinking of a fly on the wall mac users customizing their icons oh my god that's
00:57:54 ◼ ► all we we used to spend half of our days just customizing our icons that bmw icon i'll never
00:58:00 ◼ ► forget like when i saw that that's actually what got me to go oh my gosh this mac thing is cool
00:58:05 ◼ ► like simple hard drive icon you know what we used to do we used to have there was an app called
00:58:09 ◼ ► folder icon maker and i don't remember oh man so what folder icon maker would do is let's say
00:58:19 ◼ ► i have a folder where i know i'm only going to put bb edit files i could drop bb edits application
00:58:27 ◼ ► onto folder icon maker drag and drop and folder icon maker would spit out an icon that was a
00:58:35 ◼ ► standard system folder with a bb edit badge on the folder and then i could take that icon and paste
00:58:43 ◼ ► it onto or i guess if you wanted to i think it would even just spit out a folder that already
00:58:48 ◼ ► had that icon on it and then you could badged it right so you could make folders that had badges
00:58:55 ◼ ► with whatever you wanted on them so the you know a big a common one would be to badge it with
00:59:00 ◼ ► the application you know that would be inside and in fact it it became so popular and such a
00:59:08 ◼ ► standard thing that apps would ship with inside a folder uh with a badge already on it develop you
00:59:18 ◼ ► know folder icon maker became so standard that that because that was the way back then we didn't
00:59:23 ◼ ► just ship naked apps that you put in an application folder typically an app would come in a folder and
00:59:29 ◼ ► in the folder would be certain support files right like so if photoshop read me's and things like
00:59:34 ◼ ► that right like where was where did the extensions for photoshop go they went in a folder named
00:59:40 ◼ ► extensions at the same level as the photoshop application so you're at you know the typical
00:59:47 ◼ ► way for a well-organized mac user to organize their applications would be that if you had
00:59:51 ◼ ► a applications folder inside that folder would typically be folders there'd be a bb edit folder
00:59:58 ◼ ► and in the bb edit folder was the bb edit app and the bb edit extensions and scripts and the read me
01:00:04 ◼ ► etc you know and but right all of these auxiliary files that were organized in their own right but
01:00:10 ◼ ► instead of having plain folders for all those things we would badge them all it was fantastic
01:00:15 ◼ ► fun oh we loved it absolutely oh yeah it was and that's that's that's somewhat similar to this
01:00:20 ◼ ► right you're putting an icon on something for an app that's recognizable to you or that's personal
01:00:24 ◼ ► to you uh so i think it's great fun i think it's completely harmless i think anybody who's rolling
01:00:30 ◼ ► their eyes because they think what people are making is ugly i i made tons of ugly stuff i
01:00:34 ◼ ► think it's great i think it's so great because to me it gets people involved in their own user
01:00:41 ◼ ► interface design at a recreational level and it has them thinking about it and i just think just
01:00:49 ◼ ► thinking about it period like if you just think it would if you just think it would be fun if i
01:00:54 ◼ ► could change the icon of instagram what would i change it to and the answer is anything you want
01:01:01 ◼ ► really just pick any image you want and make a shortcut and use that image as the icon and set
01:01:06 ◼ ► the shortcut to just launch instagram boom you've got a custom icon for it um it just makes people
01:01:13 ◼ ► think like an interface designer and whether that's actually something you have any aptitude for
01:01:19 ◼ ► at all it doesn't matter if you think it's fun i and i still think it it makes you a better user
01:01:28 ◼ ► just to even broaden your mind to think about it at all right even if like three weeks from now
01:01:34 ◼ ► you're like oh my god what did i do to my iphone these icons are horrible i'm going to get rid of
01:01:38 ◼ ► these shortcuts and put the real apps back but at least you suddenly have an appreciation for
01:01:42 ◼ ► how hard it is to pick a good icon right yeah i'm seeing a lot of the some of the good and some of
01:01:48 ◼ ► those are showing that that's why there's not everyone can be a user interface designer though
01:01:53 ◼ ► right but there's some that you're sort of like man but to that person they like it so what's
01:01:57 ◼ ► the harm it's fine right and i'd you know and i think it's it so like again i go back to decorating
01:02:03 ◼ ► your hardware with stickers and and people you know honestly if you went somewhere back remembering
01:02:09 ◼ ► you could go and meet people but if you just surveyed a thousand people like at a theme park
01:02:15 ◼ ► or a baseball game you know and just took a thousand random people coming through the turnstile
01:02:20 ◼ ► and ask them hey can i see your phone and you just want to see the back of their phone and you
01:02:26 ◼ ► document what case they have out of a thousand people you you easily i i honest to god think you
01:02:32 ◼ ► might get at least 900 different cases right the number of people you know there's that much
01:02:39 ◼ ► expression of personal taste in the back you know what people choose to put on their phones
01:02:45 ◼ ► the way people put stickers on their laptops i have owned a lot of laptops over the years to my
01:02:50 ◼ ► recollection i've never wanted to put a sticker on one but i don't i just don't want a sticker
01:02:55 ◼ ► on mine but i don't hold it against people who do and i totally get why people do and i've also
01:03:02 ◼ ► never gone to school with a laptop and had to worry about like hey you know three of my
01:03:10 ◼ ► classmates all have macbook airs and it's very convenient when they're closed and sitting
01:03:15 ◼ ► together to know that the one with the whatever sticker uh you know the james bond sticker is mine
01:03:22 ◼ ► you know i get it but it the software stuff is even better because at least you don't have to
01:03:28 ◼ ► worry like if you decide you don't like your custom icon for instagram you don't have like
01:03:33 ◼ ► glue to peel off right you yeah yeah and i think a lot of is interactivity right people have seen
01:03:40 ◼ ► their phones as these apps that they run and now in a way not that they're beginning an app
01:03:44 ◼ ► developer but they're sort of getting into oh i can change something on the screen that i never
01:03:49 ◼ ► used to be able to change right it's almost like a um inquisitive thing i think also and i think
01:03:54 ◼ ► that's very interesting yeah i told you know and it's you know widgets are along the same line
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01:06:17 ◼ ► all right widgets that's the new that's the other thing man oh man i i people have been asking for
01:06:25 ◼ ► this this is one of those things where it's like okay i i get it people are happy to have all these
01:06:30 ◼ ► widgets people are customizing widgets people are having fun with it people have been talking the
01:06:36 ◼ ► android people's heads have to be exploiting right because the androids had widgets on their
01:06:42 ◼ ► home screens i think since they started and if not i saw some ridiculous tweet that was like this
01:06:48 ◼ ► iphone looks like my android from 2016 or something or probably longer like 2011 or longer i don't know
01:06:55 ◼ ► is it longer yeah but uh i don't know why apple took so long to do this um but they did they've
01:07:05 ◼ ► had things called widgets and this is where it starts to get a little confusing and i'm glad they
01:07:09 ◼ ► didn't change the name i think widget is a good name for this thing uh i think the fact that it's
01:07:15 ◼ ► catching on this is one of those things too where my son uh you know we have an interesting
01:07:22 ◼ ► relationship on technology where he thinks you know because my primary interest isn't games that
01:07:28 ◼ ► i'm out of touch and i've been writing more about games recently so i've had a lot more to pick his
01:07:35 ◼ ► brain about but he even he gave me and this is seriously like within 24 hours of ios 14 getting
01:07:41 ◼ ► released he's like hey have you heard about this thing with the widgets and i'm like great yeah i
01:07:45 ◼ ► have let's you know you know this is actually what i do and he's like oh i don't know and he said it
01:07:52 ◼ ► like in a way like i don't know you don't seem to ever know about the cool stuff so i just figured
01:07:56 ◼ ► maybe you didn't know about the widgets um that's awesome i you know i don't know what they were
01:08:02 ◼ ► thinking i don't know you know there's obviously a lot of you could speak to this but i i think
01:08:08 ◼ ► apple's put a lot of care into making these things customizable but yet low energy you know and that
01:08:16 ◼ ► they're not going to suck your battery dry yeah the canvas is great i mean it's definitely great
01:08:22 ◼ ► for a designer like me and an app guy like me as a what are we going to make for the app to do and
01:08:28 ◼ ► then it's even better for the user because they get to have the best of their app on their home screen
01:08:39 ◼ ► 12 actually and we're adding some more that didn't make the cut for launch so we have 12 currently
01:08:45 ◼ ► and there's more coming so you told me that i saw i know you previewed you sent me the video you know
01:08:51 ◼ ► and it's like my first thought is that seems like too many just as a number right right yeah sure
01:09:03 ◼ ► getting into jiggle mode and then there's a big plus button at the top and that's where it says
01:09:07 ◼ ► what widgets and there's you can scroll and look through available widgets and then there's a nice
01:09:12 ◼ ► obvious you don't have to pull down to see it once you're in this mode there's a search field
01:09:17 ◼ ► you could just start typing f a n and it'll show you the fantastical widgets that are available
01:09:29 ◼ ► is to me very apt because it's like okay you can say 12 widgets for fantastical all related to
01:09:36 ◼ ► calendaring and reminders is too many but like once you see them they all sort of make sense
01:09:43 ◼ ► it's like oh yeah this one would just yeah there's of course there's three different sizes and so you
01:09:47 ◼ ► need three different ones where if you just want to see a list of what's coming next on your calendar
01:09:52 ◼ ► here's three sizes and that's three of them right there right that's right you know maybe you want
01:09:57 ◼ ► to see a whole month you want to see that five-week grid calendar month view well now you have you need
01:10:04 ◼ ► a couple sizes for that it's like looking at legos you can say well my god there's 18 different
01:10:09 ◼ ► pieces but once you look at them spread out on your table as you're putting it together it you
01:10:15 ◼ ► know you're like well of course there's different sizes because you need a long one you need a short
01:10:19 ◼ ► one you need a you know the big square one and you need the long skinny one etc that's right
01:10:25 ◼ ► yeah we were designing it we were you know we had a small one that we were like here's the funniest
01:10:30 ◼ ► part one of the features we get our biggest feature request for iphone literally the biggest is
01:10:34 ◼ ► can you put the date on the app icon in other words apple's calendar app can show the date
01:10:38 ◼ ► dynamically right changes once a day we can't do that third-party developers don't have the ability
01:10:44 ◼ ► to change the icon dynamically as you know third-party developers had the ability to put in
01:10:49 ◼ ► custom icons that you could change manually right but that's it right so when when the widgets ios
01:10:56 ◼ ► 14 widgets came about one of the first ones we did was well we're going to put a date right a small
01:11:00 ◼ ► date yeah it takes up four spaces versus one icon but now it's a date on your home screen that can
01:11:06 ◼ ► launch fantastical right we knew that that was like one that would people would love right but
01:11:10 ◼ ► as we started to go okay what other small ones can we do okay we can do an up next we could do
01:11:14 ◼ ► a calendar we can do this then we made the medium okay which which parts of that can go on the
01:11:18 ◼ ► medium we mixed and matched the large and as the design was happening i in my head said wait a
01:11:24 ◼ ► minute we're putting together all these that we think are logical but these widgets are great
01:11:28 ◼ ► because you can pick as many as you want i don't know if you know also you can stack our own
01:11:33 ◼ ► widgets or one apps or multiple apps like you can take multiple fantastical widgets and put them in
01:11:37 ◼ ► a stack and then swipe between the widgets in a single stack yeah yeah and you can actually almost
01:11:43 ◼ ► create a scrolling month that way because you can just put multiple lists and then have the list
01:11:46 ◼ ► show different calendar sets or different attributes anyway the point is as we were doing
01:11:51 ◼ ► all this it light bulb went off in my head that it's like well okay we're putting together all
01:11:55 ◼ ► these and saying these are the best 10 or 12 or 15 uh scenarios configurations well okay let's start
01:12:02 ◼ ► making the ones that then users might want to put together so you could take a small and a medium
01:12:07 ◼ ► and put them together and get your best view or two mediums to equal like a large and get your
01:12:10 ◼ ► best view or two larges and so on and so forth and that's that was the that was kind of like
01:12:15 ◼ ► then the guiding light of widgets for us was let's make all the tools that users will want
01:12:20 ◼ ► and then they can pick their favorite widgets in the layout that they want hmm yeah and i think it
01:12:24 ◼ ► really shows and to me however complex that might sound hearing it when you see it it's very
01:12:32 ◼ ► very clear and you know like and i well if you and especially if you already know what you want to see
01:12:39 ◼ ► right that's right you know and it's like oh yeah i would i would pick this piece and that piece and
01:12:44 ◼ ► snap them together and now i've got what i want which is this you know uh two icon high by three
01:12:53 ◼ ► wide thing at the top that will show me all of my agenda right there and you know i i i don't even
01:13:02 ◼ ► think i know like i don't even think we talked about it i just think it's so obvious from the
01:13:07 ◼ ► get-go that fantastic hall in particular was a candidate to go really deep into widgets right
01:13:15 ◼ ► from the get-go because of the nature of the app right it is that's right this i mean it is it
01:13:21 ◼ ► some of the analogies between digital world electronic calendaring and real world calendaring
01:13:28 ◼ ► are very different but a lot of them are sort of the same and that basic idea of what is what
01:13:34 ◼ ► what's going on for me today what do i you know i need a glanceable thing and it is sort of
01:13:40 ◼ ► foundational to all of it right it's the same as you know it's very much the same as the needs of
01:13:45 ◼ ► somebody 100 years ago who's doing it all on with a pen and paper yeah we started making fantastic
01:13:53 ◼ ► al back in like 2010 is when we started that was the skeuomorphic period if you will and one of the
01:13:59 ◼ ► things it was actually good that we started around then because i think very hard very hard about
01:14:05 ◼ ► like what's the real calendar in the real world versus a digital calendar on the device and i
01:14:10 ◼ ► think it's really important to make sure that they're different but that they serve the same
01:14:15 ◼ ► purpose which is what keeping you on time right keeping you apprised of your meetings and your
01:14:19 ◼ ► tasks and i think the digital space allows us so much more so many more tools to actually give the
01:14:28 ◼ ► user to let them be more organized things that we can take over the heavy lifting from as developers
01:14:33 ◼ ► and have the user just go okay well there's a date and a calendar and a list that that's familiar to
01:14:38 ◼ ► me but what they don't realize is all the other stuff how they're all intertwined with the app
01:14:42 ◼ ► with the calendar sets with the notifications with the accounts right there's all this stuff
01:14:45 ◼ ► that it's standing on the shoulders of but at the end of the day it's a really familiar display that
01:14:49 ◼ ► keeps them organized and that's what i think widgets do quite well right and and then the
01:14:53 ◼ ► combination effect with all of the other widgets you might have and will you know and again we're
01:14:59 ◼ ► only like a week into this right who knows where we'll be in a couple months but the basic idea is
01:15:06 ◼ ► it lets the user design their own home screen and that's right and again people are going to make
01:15:15 ◼ ► decisions that i would find distasteful or confused like why would you want that but that's not for me
01:15:24 ◼ ► to decide and i know you know that i do things that you know like if you look through my field
01:15:30 ◼ ► notes notebook here you might think well these these are the notes of a crazy person right this
01:15:35 ◼ ► is this is somebody who needs to be locked up you know because it they're not really meant to be
01:15:40 ◼ ► understood by anybody else like why would anybody write these things down um you know that's the way
01:15:45 ◼ ► you've set up your home screen it's but it really gets people thinking like an interface designer
01:15:51 ◼ ► what do you want do you want a big clock do you really need to know the time do you not wear a
01:15:55 ◼ ► watch do you want a big clock on your iphone home screen all the time but it really does sort of
01:16:00 ◼ ► i find it so exciting that people i not that that i'm using widgets so much yet but i find
01:16:09 ◼ ► the enthusiasm that so many people clearly have for this feature this explosion of enthusiasm for
01:16:16 ◼ ► it to be so exciting because i just think that it's the best of the mac mentality going back to
01:16:26 ◼ ► 1984 that computer for the rest of us that you can design your own computer stuff you know that
01:16:32 ◼ ► you're not just locked into this design that that the people who made it do you can snap your own
01:16:39 ◼ ► pieces together like legos and make a weird lego spaceship that lego would never sell as a kit
01:16:45 ◼ ► but it's your spaceship and there's a reason for it no absolutely absolutely and i it's almost like
01:16:54 ◼ ► um you know what is it this is my rifle there's others like you know this one's mine like i think
01:16:58 ◼ ► people actually end up saying that it's like this is my iphone right it is mine there's many like it
01:17:03 ◼ ► but this one's mine and then they get into that whole idea that okay this is my iphone now i don't
01:17:08 ◼ ► have to have this thing that looks like everyone else's i can make it work and look and feel
01:17:11 ◼ ► exactly the way i want it to right and it's you know like your home screen can sort of start to
01:17:16 ◼ ► take the weird shape of your weird mind you know and ultimately at some level all of us the inside
01:17:22 ◼ ► of our heads it's weird you know and oh yeah and you can start designing a little thing that
01:17:27 ◼ ► reflects it and i think it's very cool um i do think at a technical level part of hey why not
01:17:34 ◼ ► till now i think that the fact that these are all with swift ui and it has to be swift ui um
01:17:41 ◼ ► is part of that story right that this is you know this is the fruition of apple's swift ui
01:17:57 ◼ ► you know uh what about the the last thing i'll talk about on this point is that the confusion
01:18:04 ◼ ► between the old style widgets and the new widgets so they call them both widgets i touched on this a
01:18:09 ◼ ► few minutes ago the new ones are the ones that everybody is loving and having fun with and has
01:18:15 ◼ ► exuberance for and you can put them on any home screen you want and drag them around the old ones
01:18:20 ◼ ► are the ones that could only be when you swipe over to like screen zero right when you go if
01:18:26 ◼ ► call it that today they call it that's a day view right but i always think of it as if if your
01:18:30 ◼ ► screens if your main screen is screen one this was the one that's to the left it's like screen
01:18:36 ◼ ► zero and there's no apps you can't put apps on screen zero to debut whatever you want to call it
01:18:42 ◼ ► you know those widgets still exist and it's like they do i guess because they can't you know people
01:18:50 ◼ ► who are relying on them in other apps they can't you know but they're a totally they're a totally
01:18:55 ◼ ► different thing it's not like oh this is a new version of that thing the only similarity is that
01:19:00 ◼ ► they are called widgets and they basically are the same idea of a widget of information but technically
01:19:08 ◼ ► the two reason well two reasons why they still exist is just that i think they're still called
01:19:12 ◼ ► classic widgets i think that's what the name they get that's what we call them is classic widget
01:19:26 ◼ ► the new widgets can't do that um ah because the new widgets can't really be interactive
01:19:32 ◼ ► correct but the old widgets could yes or like the tesla app for the tesla car right you could tap it
01:19:39 ◼ ► and it does stuff with the car or whatever it is anything connected and the new ones cannot do that
01:19:44 ◼ ► yes there could be a tesla app or a light app or a home automation app that is a new widget
01:19:49 ◼ ► but you tap it it then opens the app and then the app still has to do something it's not an
01:19:53 ◼ ► instantaneous interaction i think those are still around because without those you lose some really
01:20:01 ◼ ► really really big functionality from the iphone and oh that's interesting i didn't think about
01:20:07 ◼ ► that i didn't think about the fact that the old ones had the interactivity i i've been thinking
01:20:11 ◼ ► about the fact that the new ones don't but the old ones did and i think and why is that i think they
01:20:16 ◼ ► just haven't gotten there yet right i hope they do because even our old widget i i still keep our old
01:20:22 ◼ ► widget our classic widget around because we actually have a calendar view that you can tap
01:20:26 ◼ ► around the days and then the list changes it's just like the fantastic helen app view and we have
01:20:30 ◼ ► you know if you tap and hold it adds to that date and it's very very interactive and we would love
01:20:35 ◼ ► to do that with the new widget so i really do hope that's coming all right let us um break here and
01:20:42 ◼ ► thank our third and final sponsor of this episode our good friends at linode i say linode i used to
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01:21:55 ◼ ► ssd storage down the line everything is great uh but while they can scale up to truly massive needs
01:22:03 ◼ ► they also have nanoed accounts that start at just five bucks a month i'll see here's a spoiler right
01:22:08 ◼ ► here use this plan uh promo code talk show 20 you save 20 bucks you get 20 credit towards your next
01:22:15 ◼ ► thing at the the five dollar a month plan that's four months free and it is a great plan like a
01:22:20 ◼ ► hobbyist level plan you'll never run up against the limits it's fantastic four months free just
01:22:26 ◼ ► by using that code talk show 20. uh also they have a new thing this year called uh object storage it's
01:22:33 ◼ ► their s3 compatible redundant highly available storage option so if you've got code that hooks
01:22:40 ◼ ► into s3 and you want to switch to linode for the storage you can do it it's api compatible super
01:22:47 ◼ ► reliable they've been it's been running all year uh big hit it's like one of their big new features
01:22:52 ◼ ► of the year anything you want to do they've got one click installs of popular apps like wordpress
01:22:57 ◼ ► uh game servers from minecraft i always mentioned become the most popular parent in your kids circle
01:23:09 ◼ ► and have all the all their friends palling around on a private server uh really great a lot of fun
01:23:16 ◼ ► makes you a big hit in the amongst the kids uh or if you play yourself even you know it's really
01:23:22 ◼ ► great and it's a great solution for you know as low as five bucks a month um anyway great company
01:23:29 ◼ ► they also are hiring you can go to uh linode.com slash careers to find out more if you are the sort
01:23:39 ◼ ► of person who is even thinking about looking at that careers page you know the sort of jobs
01:23:44 ◼ ► that linode is hiring for um but go check it out it's a great company and remember this you get a
01:23:49 ◼ ► 20 credit by using the promo code talk show 20 and the url to go to is linode.com slash the talk show
01:24:00 ◼ ► i gotta interrupt and tell you unsolicited and i'm sure you didn't know this we at flexibits
01:24:06 ◼ ► actually use linode and you're happy okay for me to say that of course and you're a happy customer
01:24:12 ◼ ► all right well there you go there you go thanks linode it's really it's a great company it's one
01:24:17 ◼ ► of the said line node too i always say line it looks like line i don't even think that's crazy
01:24:22 ◼ ► i think you kind of have to know but you know maybe i was maybe it was my dumb ability to
01:24:27 ◼ ► mispronounce almost anything that thought linux was linex for years but i don't think linode you
01:24:34 ◼ ► know i don't know they're good guys i do know that good guys and gals i love them they're they've
01:24:39 ◼ ► been really solid and good uh let's talk about the indie development ecosystem let's talk about
01:24:49 ◼ ► pricing first because that's really it right what does it mean to be an indie developer what i'm
01:24:54 ◼ ► talking about and you know i it almost seems crazy to have to define it but i'm talking about small
01:25:00 ◼ ► companies maybe it's one person maybe it's 10 20 people right maybe it's even more than 20 people
01:25:06 ◼ ► but by the scheme certainly of today's companies like apple and google and amazon small companies
01:25:12 ◼ ► that are making software and making money through the software that runs it as a profitable business
01:25:19 ◼ ► right and make times collapse that users like to pay for and use and do use and go forward
01:25:28 ◼ ► um i it's of always of great concern to me because it's it is it's not just personal in that i have
01:25:37 ◼ ► friends who do this and i want to see them survive but it's also very selfish in that what i how i
01:25:45 ◼ ► spend my day every day and what i use to do my work revolves around uh up-to-date thriving indie
01:25:54 ◼ ► software on all of the platforms i use um but it is it is counterintuitive because personal
01:26:04 ◼ ► computers are more popular than they've ever been and people of everybody is spending more time on
01:26:12 ◼ ► them than they ever did before but in a lot of ways i think it's harder to be an indie developer
01:26:18 ◼ ► and to make a make a business out of it than it ever has been before and it's so counterintuitive
01:26:23 ◼ ► but i think it's almost undeniably true do you yeah it is it is it is as much as the market has
01:26:31 ◼ ► grown and the tools have grown and the i guess customer base has grown and the opportunity has
01:26:37 ◼ ► grown it is absolutely positively a very very very very very hard thing to do part of it is that
01:26:46 ◼ ► pricing has changed so dramatically and i think you know again it's i mean let me put on my old
01:26:52 ◼ ► man hat but in the 90s software was so expensive compared to today it it's really hard to get
01:27:01 ◼ ► people's heads wrapped around it you know that you know you would buy a word processor and it would
01:27:05 ◼ ► cost 199 and that was just version two and when version three came out it would you know you could
01:27:14 ◼ ► upgrade but you'd have to have a license key for the old one and the upgrade was 129 dollars
01:27:27 ◼ ► 10.3 to 10.4 you'd have to pay like 129 dollars software was expensive i remember and it but
01:27:36 ◼ ► it made money and it kept companies afloat and the downward pressure on pricing and what consumers
01:27:44 ◼ ► think is a fair price has gotten so low and it's been for lack of a better word perverted
01:27:51 ◼ ► by how much is quote unquote free and you know monetized in different ways you know that if you
01:28:00 ◼ ► get all of facebook and twitter and instagram and you can't pay them you there's nothing there is no
01:28:06 ◼ ► way there is no pro option for facebook where i can pay ten dollars a month and get a better version
01:28:13 ◼ ► you can't even pay and you get all that for free and you want you know twenty dollars for a text
01:28:20 ◼ ► editor or whatever the name you know the the thing is people think well that's crazy this is you know
01:28:26 ◼ ► look at it this is such such as you know this this all this does is edit text files and i get all this
01:28:32 ◼ ► for free from google or amazon or whoever there's a built-in calendar app for free why would i ever
01:28:37 ◼ ► pay for a calendar app well just to just to throw one out there so fantastical is an interesting
01:28:44 ◼ ► area right like so part of it is always the the competing with the built-in apps right that's
01:28:49 ◼ ► always been true right there's you know there's always been a text editor on you know simple text
01:28:55 ◼ ► and teach text going back to the day and so you know you've always that's like a baseline
01:28:59 ◼ ► level of okay if you're going to sell a app it has to be better than the thing that's built in free
01:29:06 ◼ ► all right but but when people think that well if this one's free and yours is paid a dollar
01:29:13 ◼ ► sounds fair to me you know where do you even start if that and then again i'm not exaggerating that
01:29:18 ◼ ► there are people who think that one dollar might be a fair price for a professional calendar app
01:29:23 ◼ ► well they think one dollar might be a fair price for life like in other words the thing needs to
01:29:29 ◼ ► work as long as my iphone works or as long as ios is an ios right and it's you know it it's all
01:29:38 ◼ ► gotten more complicated too because at least on the app if we just talk about the apple ecosystem
01:29:44 ◼ ► for indie development in some ways it's this plethora of riches where we've got all of these
01:29:50 ◼ ► extra devices now like phones and it's amazing to be able to have your app on the phone too and it's
01:29:56 ◼ ► in your pocket you know right you you know it's kind of awesome like when you got started making
01:30:00 ◼ ► fantastical uh mail mid-2010 maybe you could imagine because the iphone was out but you know
01:30:06 ◼ ► you go back far enough to when you first started making apps and the idea that your app might be
01:30:11 ◼ ► in your jeans pocket all the time that's awesome right it's like that's oh yeah yeah yeah i mean
01:30:17 ◼ ► it was even in very early days for the iphone when fantastical came out so it was still it was at
01:30:21 ◼ ► that that that first initial thing where it's like okay apps are allowed and you're sort of like
01:30:25 ◼ ► not really sure what it is or what it means or what it could do but yeah no it was incredible
01:30:29 ◼ ► but you've you know but then there's an expectation where if an app can sync and let's just use the
01:30:36 ◼ ► word sync loosely because there's different ways of syncing but more or less if you can use the
01:30:40 ◼ ► same thing from your phone and on your ipad and on your mac people expect to be able to they want to
01:30:46 ◼ ► be able to but it's not really clear how you're supposed to monetize that as a developer and it is
01:30:54 ◼ ► if not three times the work it might be more than three times the work right that it's because it's
01:31:00 ◼ ► it you think like well the the ipad app is really just a bigger version of the iphone app so it
01:31:05 ◼ ► shouldn't be three times the work and there's certain data models that you can use that you
01:31:09 ◼ ► can reuse across the thing but then you've got to make sure all of the integration and syncing
01:31:15 ◼ ► works right it is it's a lot more work and yet you people expect well i paid for the iphone version
01:31:23 ◼ ► why in the world do i have to pay for the mac version yeah right they see it as one app i paid
01:31:29 ◼ ► for fantastical give me it all right yeah so fantastical used to be let's just be specific
01:31:37 ◼ ► on fantastical so the traditional way to sell apps would be you'd sell a version for a price
01:31:43 ◼ ► the user would decide okay i'll buy it and then you know you'd get a license code or in the app
01:31:48 ◼ ► store or whatever but then obviously you know whatever the mechanism is you know it unlocks it
01:31:53 ◼ ► and now you have it and then if a new version came out a year later two years later you would get
01:32:01 ◼ ► upgrade pricing for it new users would pay still pay the new price and existing users would get
01:32:05 ◼ ► some kind of discounted price and this worked for a long time in the industry you know at all levels
01:32:14 ◼ ► you know it's how everything from microsoft office to you know some 16 year old kids shareware app
01:32:23 ◼ ► you know for the mac worked and monetized um right and it doesn't work anymore because the app store
01:32:32 ◼ ► doesn't support that model and never never has and by this time i think we can safely say never will
01:32:43 ◼ ► even crazier john the mac app store launched in january of 2011 i remember this and we launched
01:32:48 ◼ ► fantastical in may 2011 and when we were developing fantastical in 2010 a little bit before
01:32:54 ◼ ► we we didn't know the mac app store was coming necessarily right so we were planning on just
01:32:58 ◼ ► selling the app directly like like we used to right so that was really a weird change for us
01:33:03 ◼ ► because now we're selling it on the mac app store and our own store and apps still weren't i would
01:33:09 ◼ ► say differently valued then i don't even want to necessarily call them devalued i i've been thinking
01:33:14 ◼ ► a lot about it since we switched the subscription i know you're going to ask me about that a bit but
01:33:18 ◼ ► like i feel like apps aren't devalued i feel like apps are valued differently than than you and i in
01:33:24 ◼ ► the old school days prior to the app store um well tell me how how do you think that they're valued
01:33:30 ◼ ► you're saying by users yeah so i think what happens is you know someone buys a phone which
01:33:36 ◼ ► the irony is that an iphone is very expensive right and iphone's not certainly a cheap thing
01:33:40 ◼ ► not that not that an android phone is necessarily cheap you can get cheap android phones but in the
01:33:51 ◼ ► it is a premium product so it shouldn't be and that's sort of why i point this out the iphone's
01:33:57 ◼ ► a premium product you pay more for it because it's premium well that means the apps on the iphone
01:34:02 ◼ ► platform are more premium therefore yes there's going to be free ones like facebook or instagram
01:34:08 ◼ ► or uber or door dash or whatever but then there's going to be also premium apps yeah there's going
01:34:14 ◼ ► to be also bad apps there's going to be free apps there's going to be hobby apps there's going to be
01:34:17 ◼ ► apps that just are overpriced and whatever but what i find interesting about the whole iphone
01:34:22 ◼ ► scene is that the iphone's a premium product that you pay more for because it's premium
01:34:27 ◼ ► but then when there's a premium app people's value of that app is that it should be free or
01:34:32 ◼ ► very very very cheap and i think the reason for that is because the software that's built into the
01:34:36 ◼ ► iphone is free and really good and third-party apps services whether it be twitter or facebook
01:34:42 ◼ ► whatever their apps aren't that bad either i mean we can get into that but i'm just saying in general
01:34:45 ◼ ► they're their apps right they do what they're supposed to do and i think that's where the the
01:34:50 ◼ ► the the um what did i say i didn't say devalued i said where the different value or uh you know
01:34:56 ◼ ► yeah i feel like it's people's people's idea of what an app should be valued is very very different
01:35:03 ◼ ► based upon what they paid for the device and what they get with it for free yeah and it's
01:35:08 ◼ ► different ways of looking at how much you pay total right like so you know one of the ways
01:35:16 ◼ ► that our phones are so expensive is it doesn't even matter which phone you start with your monthly
01:35:28 ◼ ► users pay more than users do in europe and other countries but at a basic level at least here in
01:35:34 ◼ ► the u.s for decent phone service you're paying at least forty dollars a month and probably more
01:35:41 ◼ ► right like if you're on verizon or at&t you're definitely paying more um and if you told somebody
01:35:49 ◼ ► like how long does a typical person use their phone let's say two or three years maybe that's
01:35:54 ◼ ► extending you know to three years so if you take 36 months times just 50 bucks a month that's
01:36:02 ◼ ► 1800 in phone service right and that's if you're only paying 50 bucks a month so if you told
01:36:08 ◼ ► somebody when they came in to the to the to buy their iphone that whatever the cost of the iphone
01:36:14 ◼ ► is you know average selling price 800 oh and by the way you need to pay us 1800 to have phone
01:36:20 ◼ ► service for the next three years they they they would they would look around for hidden cameras
01:36:26 ◼ ► they'd be like what are you talking about 1800 2000 for phone service for the next three years
01:36:35 ◼ ► you know you're on crack uh but that's what you're going to pay right because but but they've they've
01:36:41 ◼ ► internalized it they only pay it monthly and that you can only pay it monthly and i sort of feel
01:36:46 ◼ ► like that's what's happening with that prices in a way where you get so much for free it's just worn
01:36:52 ◼ ► it down and when you're approached with the symbol if you could really just open the books and look
01:36:59 ◼ ► at the you know be the accountant for an independent software developer and look at you know salary and
01:37:07 ◼ ► healthcare and whatever other all the other costs that go into running a company and the number of
01:37:12 ◼ ► developers and designers that you need to to pick your app you know maybe it's a game maybe it's a
01:37:17 ◼ ► utility whatever uh and then figure out how many users you'll have and multiply that by a number
01:37:24 ◼ ► to get just a baseline break even price it's way higher than people think because they're not
01:37:29 ◼ ► thinking of it in the same way that like what you pay for phone service over the life of your phone
01:37:34 ◼ ► is way higher than a lot of people would think is right even though they're actually paying it
01:37:40 ◼ ► which yeah there's no question and there's support crews we need support right because we got to be
01:37:45 ◼ ► able to reply on twitter and support and get back to customers with bugs or whatever it is right
01:37:48 ◼ ► like it is it is actually if you're going to have an app that does a lot of stuff like syncing and
01:37:55 ◼ ► multiple platforms and all the stuff we do at fantascal you need a crew you can't just do it
01:37:59 ◼ ► with one or two people you can't it's not it's not possible it's just not possible i can't mention
01:38:05 ◼ ► this person by name but i don't even think that he makes indie software anymore but there was a
01:38:11 ◼ ► well-known developer from like 15 years ago had some very popular apps and was making i think a
01:38:17 ◼ ► good business in it and but had nobody helping with support and i think i heard this story from
01:38:23 ◼ ► cable sasser our mutual friend at panic who we could talk a bit more about but cable asked him
01:38:29 ◼ ► one day well how do you do this how do you how do you ever get anything done without support and he
01:38:33 ◼ ► goes oh it's easy i hardly spend any time at all and he goes well what do you do what's you know
01:38:37 ◼ ► and cable's thinking like i think it was cable but thinking like does he have some magical
01:38:41 ◼ ► everybody's always looking for the magical bug tracking system that will actually oh my god we
01:38:46 ◼ ► switched to this and all of a sudden our support you know 20 hours of support turned into one hour
01:38:53 ◼ ► oh my god what is it he goes hey not just email everybody just emails he goes well how do you do
01:38:57 ◼ ► it and he goes oh it's easy i just open up the email and i do select all and then i hit the
01:39:01 ◼ ► delete key then i go go back to work i gave him his boy left and he's like no really what do you
01:39:08 ◼ ► do and he looked at him and he's just like no no that's that's what i do and the inbox is filled
01:39:13 ◼ ► up with support i just select all and then i hit delete and then i go back to work and i make my
01:39:18 ◼ ► next version and you know the irony is if the app is that good you could do that well if if their
01:39:24 ◼ ► emails are there they're all right but i'd never do it but you could do it i that's so fun uh
01:39:30 ◼ ► but it is it's an issue and it costs money and you know oh support is very very hard it actually is
01:39:38 ◼ ► as as we're getting bigger and as the app is getting more complicated support is actually
01:39:42 ◼ ► like the biggest problem because we want our customers to be happy so on the flip side though
01:39:45 ◼ ► there were problems with that old model of software and one of the problems was that the
01:39:51 ◼ ► only way to get when you sort of reached uh what's the word saturation market saturation where if
01:39:58 ◼ ► you've been established and you're around for a while and you know you're not getting new users
01:40:04 ◼ ► you've got a large existing user base and you're only making money from the existing users by
01:40:09 ◼ ► selling upgrades then you've got to time these upgrades in a way that they come out regularly
01:40:18 ◼ ► enough that the company's revenue is regular in some way right but like in that model when you
01:40:25 ◼ ► look when you know i worked at barebone software 20 years ago and i'm friends with so many people
01:40:30 ◼ ► in the industry but when you sell software that way you you really do have to internalize that
01:40:36 ◼ ► the graph of your company's revenue has these bizarre spikes around releases you know and you
01:40:43 ◼ ► have to internalize that like the three months before your version 6.0 is coming out you think
01:40:51 ◼ ► you know you've got it scheduled you think you're in the final beta stages you think you're about
01:40:54 ◼ ► two or three months from shipping but you've been working on it for you know 15 months and so maybe
01:41:01 ◼ ► your revenue is really low you've got to like have that gambler's mentality of knowing it's okay that
01:41:07 ◼ ► our company's revenue right now for this month is unsustainably low because we're heading towards
01:41:13 ◼ ► this big release and that's when we're going to get all these upgrades and then when the release
01:41:18 ◼ ► happens and it's a hit and you make all this money and it's like oh people love it because you added
01:41:23 ◼ ► x y and z features that they've been waiting for and they're happy to upgrade right away and
01:41:26 ◼ ► they're spreading the word and uh Gruber linked to it from daring fireball and people are upgrading
01:41:31 ◼ ► it's all great you have to then internalize that that amount of money isn't your new baseline and
01:41:37 ◼ ► you can't go out and buy a Lamborghini you know like a hundred percent you've now you've now
01:41:42 ◼ ► normalized what you need to keep the machine running to provide that level of support right
01:41:47 ◼ ► compare and contrast with say running a restaurant which is a real famously a very hard business and
01:41:52 ◼ ► a lot of them you know most of them tend to not make it and go under and that's before this whole
01:41:58 ◼ ► covid thing which is ravaged the industry but for the most part a restaurant makes money on a daily
01:42:05 ◼ ► basis that pays the money for the day that it you know there's not like all of a sudden you make so
01:42:11 ◼ ► much money on one day of the year that it funds the rest of the year right it's you know software
01:42:17 ◼ ► development in that model was a feast or famine and you you know a very brief feast and then
01:42:25 ◼ ► not really a famine but it would trickle off and then you'd come out with a new release but then
01:42:30 ◼ ► the the problem with this idea is that sometimes there are features you want to add that take
01:42:35 ◼ ► a long time and when do you absolutely when do you fit that in and then how do you time it how
01:42:43 ◼ ► do you time it to something that also apple isn't doing with widgets for example we had to get
01:42:47 ◼ ► widgets done it's a big feature apple you know would love it right and then we have to put
01:42:50 ◼ ► something else on hold right right you have to prioritize it and well wait can we charge people
01:42:55 ◼ ► for this um you know or just look at some of the stuff just mundane stuff that people shouldn't
01:43:02 ◼ ► have to worry about but if you know apple says hey 32-bit binaries are being deprecated in a
01:43:09 ◼ ► future os release now you've got to spend time moving your whole code base to 64-bit you have
01:43:16 ◼ ► to or else your app won't run how do you you can't sell that as you know the flagship tentpole
01:43:22 ◼ ► feature of version 8.0 of your app is 64-bit compatibility you know it'll actually still run
01:43:29 ◼ ► but it might be a mountain of work right it's that's right apple silicon was actually you know
01:43:35 ◼ ► the transition we're ready um what i could say about that it was actually pretty easy like it
01:43:40 ◼ ► wasn't like a lot of stress but that had to be done we still had to take time away from other
01:43:44 ◼ ► work to do that right someone has to do that and there were bugs and there are issues and we have
01:43:50 ◼ ► to get that done widgets we had to get that done um even other stuff big sir we have changes coming
01:43:55 ◼ ► for big sir got to get that done and that doesn't include new stuff that we want to do right and
01:44:11 ◼ ► the uh you know you can still double click the app and it will launch is not really considered
01:44:18 ◼ ► a feature by users and shouldn't be but at an engineering level sometimes it's surprisingly
01:44:24 ◼ ► difficult and so you know well said hence hence the overall industry shift of commercial software
01:44:32 ◼ ► where the users pay the developers to use the software shifting from buying versions and paying
01:44:39 ◼ ► for version upgrades to subscription pricing well the funny you should bring that up because if you
01:44:46 ◼ ► don't mind when i talk about subscriptions when we launched in january yeah when we launched in
01:44:49 ◼ ► january our subscription so we've been in business um next year will be 10 years so we'll say nine
01:44:59 ◼ ► we were going to do to our business and it was the biggest fear we've ever had in the sense of
01:45:04 ◼ ► this could go wrong we didn't think it would go wrong but we knew that it was the biggest change
01:45:08 ◼ ► we had made since launching the app itself and when we launched we actually knew we were going
01:45:13 ◼ ► to get attacked and people would be rude um as you know i advise a lot of companies and i've
01:45:17 ◼ ► done a lot of products in the past and i'm very very very into the scene and the industry so it
01:45:22 ◼ ► wasn't a surprise to me but we got attacked and people acted like we were the biggest jerks at
01:45:27 ◼ ► launch like it really really really is bad anyone going from a paid app or even a free app to a
01:45:34 ◼ ► subscription every developer friend of mine every company i've ever advised every company i've ever
01:45:39 ◼ ► worked with it's always very hard at a transition to a subscription users feel slighted i actually
01:45:48 ◼ ► i'm interesting is that after now that i've had like nine or ten months to debrief this i actually
01:45:52 ◼ ► empathize with users i actually get why they're upset i actually understand why they're so unhappy
01:45:58 ◼ ► i actually get why they're mad i really really really really really do but what always is is
01:46:03 ◼ ► funny and i don't understand why it happens is as you said double clicking an app to launch is sort
01:46:09 ◼ ► of a given but the amount of work that we put into our subscription transition to provide the existing
01:46:16 ◼ ► features harmoniously to continue we did have some bugs that caused some confusion and we did have
01:46:20 ◼ ► some things you know there's always rough spots and warts but we really really thought about okay
01:46:26 ◼ ► we don't want this to be painful so what do we do they're going to wake up one morning their app's
01:46:30 ◼ ► going to change it's going to look different and it's going to say oh by the way for new stuff from
01:46:34 ◼ ► now on you need to pay and we get that change is hard and i get that as a consumer you don't ever
01:46:40 ◼ ► want to see that but we gave all the existing features to users we gave them ongoing support
01:46:47 ◼ ► the app wouldn't sunset or die we gave them obviously that means i was 14 and stuff in future
01:46:52 ◼ ► development would happen and yet everyone was still super mad and attacked us and acted like we
01:46:57 ◼ ► were the biggest jerks and here's the thing i actually understand why they think that we changed
01:47:02 ◼ ► what they liked about us we changed that we were a five dollar app that now they have to pay three
01:47:07 ◼ ► dollars a month or so to keep us um but we also changed our business model we're now a premium
01:47:14 ◼ ► app with very very very not only powerful features but really product you know productive features
01:47:21 ◼ ► and we have such a big road map that okay we didn't post the road map because we really don't
01:47:25 ◼ ► want to announce future plans we definitely nod to apple for that but we have so much on our road map
01:47:31 ◼ ► john that the value of that three dollars a month that you're paying now isn't for what you got on
01:47:37 ◼ ► january 29th when we launched with version 3.0 it's for example we just launched widgets widgets
01:47:42 ◼ ► are free for everyone the premium features of widgets you have to pay for but the widgets
01:47:47 ◼ ► themselves are free for everyone not just even existing fantastic l2 users well guess what the
01:47:53 ◼ ► development from premium funds that right and yeah anyway so the point i'm just saying is is that it's
01:47:58 ◼ ► it's very interesting that subscriptions even and we're offering a free mode so it's not like
01:48:04 ◼ ► anyone is just you're locked out of the app if you don't pay but people really sure feel that way and
01:48:10 ◼ ► i don't really know what to advise except it is better for our business it is better for the
01:48:16 ◼ ► road map we have and it is absolutely better for us to be able to develop and release as soon as
01:48:21 ◼ ► we've done something rather than having to wait for a you know a 2.0 3.0 4.0 and charge every
01:48:27 ◼ ► two years or one year yeah that was definitely part of the strategy of you know and as again
01:48:36 ◼ ► bbedit i'll just toss as an example an app that's you know been in constant active development since
01:48:42 ◼ ► 1992. you know it's been a commercial product since 1993 and that is still i guess because
01:48:52 ◼ ► there still are paid updates outside the mac app store but it's always you know and rich
01:48:57 ◼ ► siegel at barebones has always had a good sixth sense knack for this but it is part of the art
01:49:04 ◼ ► is when when to know that this feature should probably be held for version 7.0 and not released
01:49:13 ◼ ► in version 6.5 because 7.0 is a paid up update and this is something worth paying for but it's ready
01:49:20 ◼ ► right it's you know and it hurts you know it's sort of like uh you know uh the difference between
01:49:28 ◼ ► writing for a paywall or writing a website that's free you know like with the difference
01:49:33 ◼ ► between me and ben thompson so everything i write i can just put on daring fireball and everybody
01:49:37 ◼ ► can read it and ben does a once a week column that's free for everybody and super popular and
01:49:43 ◼ ► it's the most popular thing he writes all week but then he does a daily update for his members
01:49:47 ◼ ► every week and we were just talking about it on dithering where it's like sometimes i'll have a
01:49:50 ◼ ► really good daily update and he'll think like oh man i wish that was free so more people could read
01:49:55 ◼ ► it but then on the other hand he knows that he's providing about that that gut feeling is providing
01:50:00 ◼ ► value to the people who pay same thing with a feature where it's like oh i wish i could have
01:50:04 ◼ ► just given this feature to everybody who's already using my app but i'm also glad that the people who
01:50:10 ◼ ► pay for it in version 9.0 or whenever it comes out feel like they're getting their money's worth for
01:50:16 ◼ ► their upgrade subscription pricing eliminates that sort of thing it's like hey the feature's ready
01:50:22 ◼ ► we're tested it it's ready to go we can release it now and you get it on a regular basis and you
01:50:28 ◼ ► don't and then you can also avoid this sort of thing and of all companies you know microsoft
01:50:35 ◼ ► is the one who's most famously been bitten by stacking too many things behind a major update
01:50:43 ◼ ► right i mean they famously almost ran the whole windows platform into the ground after windows xp
01:50:49 ◼ ► by making windows what was going to be called windows 7 i guess so ambitious you know the whole
01:50:55 ◼ ► file system will be replaced by an advanced sql database or something and all this stuff that
01:51:01 ◼ ► wound up not shipping and in the meantime they were stuck on the same very major version of the
01:51:06 ◼ ► most popular desktop operating system in history until that point for eight years or something
01:51:13 ◼ ► right you can get caught behind that sort of thinking of we're going to make version 2.0 so
01:51:20 ◼ ► awesome that everybody's going to beg us to take their money and then all of a sudden 2.0 never
01:51:25 ◼ ► ships you know because you've you've built it up into this thing whereas if you don't have that
01:51:29 ◼ ► motivation of making it so awesome that everybody will pay for it if everybody's already paying a
01:51:35 ◼ ► regular monthly subscription you just ship the features as they're ready and so you know you
01:51:41 ◼ ► don't get this amazing holy crap they added 13 amazing features all at once you get a feature
01:51:47 ◼ ► here you get a feature there you get a feature there um you know it's a different mentality
01:51:53 ◼ ► i think it's since we launched since we launched in january me as a producer director i will say
01:51:59 ◼ ► this it is such a great feeling that we can see something and be like okay we're going to do that
01:52:05 ◼ ► and if we think it's more important than something that was planned then we pivot we do it and we're
01:52:10 ◼ ► now developing fantastical and other stuff that's in development at a much better pace than we ever
01:52:17 ◼ ► did charging every two years or every one year and actually we were we were kind of crazy i don't
01:52:21 ◼ ► know i should actually look at our version history quick but we really really really didn't have
01:52:27 ◼ ► you know maybe we should have had more maybe it was bad we didn't have more but we really didn't
01:52:31 ◼ ► have a lot of upgrades right so we had fantastical one that came out in 2011 and then we had fantastic
01:52:36 ◼ ► cal2 come out in where is it um in march 2015 so it was literally four years until an upgrade from
01:52:44 ◼ ► one to two right and then that means that from two to three it was almost six years right so
01:52:50 ◼ ► it's not like we're updating or shipping every one to two years but that idea of i want to do this
01:52:55 ◼ ► really big feature oh we're going to hold it for the next major release because it's so much work
01:52:59 ◼ ► and we want to you know we have to get reimbursed for all of our work because it takes so long
01:53:02 ◼ ► now we just develop and it really is such a different road map our our road map is really
01:53:07 ◼ ► big and you know for anyone who is listening it is a either fantastical user or a fantastical hater
01:53:13 ◼ ► um we have a lot planned that you haven't seen and widgets were one of them widgets were free
01:53:17 ◼ ► we have a lot of stuff though we really do that like that that three dollars a month we we we
01:53:22 ◼ ► want to return on that investment and we're going to well and let me just say this in fantastic when
01:53:27 ◼ ► you say it was a five dollar app you're talking about the iphone app right it was the iphone app
01:53:31 ◼ ► the mac app was 50 that's right but that believe it or not that was even longer this is the crazy
01:53:36 ◼ ► part john that was even longer of an in-between versions because the um the original fantastical
01:53:43 ◼ ► one had come out like shortly after fantastic cal for mac the original fantastical one came out in
01:53:47 ◼ ► 2012 fantastic cal 2 this is going to blow your mind came out in 2013 okay so two years later
01:54:02 ◼ ► was updated with all the new stuff for seven years without an additional cost so it was like 78 cents
01:54:10 ◼ ► of year you got it you got it and my and yeah i mean you know and apple took 30 of the 78
01:54:17 ◼ ► exactly exactly and look everyone will say oh you sold all these copies or you'd sell more if it was
01:54:23 ◼ ► this yeah there's lots of ways to skin this cat and there are but we love the model we've done now
01:54:30 ◼ ► while there's still a lot of negative reviews and that is the number one thing if apple would change
01:54:35 ◼ ► anything is to change how the app store reviews work and to actually show reviews from those who
01:54:41 ◼ ► have paid versus those who are using the free mode because if someone hates us and they don't
01:54:47 ◼ ► like the subscription model guess what they they rate us down and say their subscription stinks
01:54:50 ◼ ► one star right okay if you're looking as john gruber for our app and all you see are subscription
01:54:56 ◼ ► hates but you think the app looks good you don't care right you tune it out but why if apple's
01:55:01 ◼ ► pushing the subscription model and it's better and we actually do think it's better why isn't the app
01:55:06 ◼ ► store fixing the problem of letting free users basically harm an app on their subscription model
01:55:12 ◼ ► rather than say okay here's here's a tab here's people who have actually bought the app and
01:55:17 ◼ ► subscribed even if they've canceled that's fine but you basically can leave a review for free and
01:55:22 ◼ ► just bash someone and is that really truly a reflection of the app well think about this like
01:55:29 ◼ ► apps are one of the few things where you can get caught up in that like let's say you want to decide
01:55:34 ◼ ► whether to watch a new movie you know new avengers movies coming out or something and you don't know
01:55:40 ◼ ► if it's good or not do you want to go see the reviews have you you know i don't know where you
01:55:44 ◼ ► go to read reviews now but you know wherever that is like maybe you go to metacritic or maybe you go
01:55:49 ◼ ► to rotten tomatoes or you just go maybe you have a favorite publication like you know the new yorker
01:55:54 ◼ ► and you want to read anthony lane's review um you'd never go to see what what are people saying
01:56:01 ◼ ► about this movie and then have it be riddled with complaints about how expensive the movie theater
01:56:06 ◼ ► is and you know and and it's and it's all you know and i took my kid and he wanted a bag of
01:56:11 ◼ ► twizzlers and they wanted seven dollars for the twizzlers and say this is a highway robbery and
01:56:16 ◼ ► say yeah you're right it is highway robbery a bag of twizzlers should not cost seven dollars
01:56:20 ◼ ► but that's nothing to do with the movie you know i mean like if you want to lodge a complaint
01:56:24 ◼ ► that amc theaters charges too much for a movie you you you you know it's a free country and maybe
01:56:31 ◼ ► you're right that they do charge too much you know or or the rental is too much you know if you go
01:56:36 ◼ ► to you know now that these movies can't come out in theaters and and you can pay twenty dollars to
01:56:41 ◼ ► see mulan or thirty dollars i guess it is to see mulan on disney plus um you know do you think
01:56:49 ◼ ► that's too much maybe it is too much i don't know but that doesn't get conflated with the reviews
01:56:54 ◼ ► of mulan when i go to read the review in the new york times of the new live action mulan it's it's
01:57:01 ◼ ► not 700 words about the fact that it cost 30 it's a review of the movie and the apps i think it's a
01:57:08 ◼ ► byproduct of reviews being free i really do i think it's because you can just go and just review
01:57:12 ◼ ► the app by just downloading it the barrier to entry is so easy john but then but and this gets
01:57:18 ◼ ► to a point to where people think the phone app should be cheap and maybe a mac app should be more
01:57:24 ◼ ► expensive you know and so maybe like the old dynamic in some common sense back of their brain
01:57:29 ◼ ► way the idea that fantastical from mac was 50 bucks and fantastical for iphone was five dollars
01:57:36 ◼ ► sounds about right but from your perspective making the app that that's not that's crazy
01:57:44 ◼ ► right because it yeah it is just because the computer is smaller it doesn't mean it's less
01:57:50 ◼ ► work right like the iphone app isn't easier to make it actually more work isn't it more work
01:57:56 ◼ ► because we have to create a sync engine to make them all sync and it's sometimes it is harder to
01:58:01 ◼ ► put functionality on a small screen than a big screen it's easier to get lazy as a designer and
01:58:07 ◼ ► say well we'll just add another menu over there well you can't add a menu on a screen with no
01:58:11 ◼ ► room for another menu you know design is much more challenging on the iphone absolutely whatever the
01:58:16 ◼ ► difference is even if you could somehow prove that it's somehow is less engineering work to make an
01:58:23 ◼ ► iphone app than the mac app of comparable functionality which i would dispute right there
01:58:27 ◼ ► but it certainly isn't a factor of 10 that's crazy that it's you know that no way but that's what
01:58:33 ◼ ► people think and so you know i would say fundamental to the complaints that you guys got
01:58:39 ◼ ► for fantastical in particular to me fantastical because it's intended to be a great app on the
01:58:47 ◼ ► phone and the ipad and the mac and even you know your watch you guys have a watch app right yeah
01:58:53 ◼ ► the app our apple watch app i'm really super happy with how it turned out it's very very
01:58:58 ◼ ► very productive on your wrist you get to see your tasks your events you're up next the weather it's
01:59:04 ◼ ► really powerful on your watch i just actually say we overshot because a lot of things we're trying
01:59:08 ◼ ► to do we're really pushing the limits of the watch but i just want to hype it up because really it
01:59:12 ◼ ► was it was we probably shouldn't have done it i say that and i should know that you have i don't
01:59:17 ◼ ► use apps on my watch so i didn't know for sure and i'm still wearing my review i'm you brought
01:59:22 ◼ ► my review watched where i haven't synced over my apps but uh i figured you did i need to get
01:59:27 ◼ ► fantastical on there you got to get fantastical but anyway if you basically the problem you guys
01:59:32 ◼ ► run into is that subscription deal is a great deal if you use fantastical across multiple platforms
01:59:40 ◼ ► right from mac to phone to watch and three dollars a month all of a sudden you know you can see it
01:59:46 ◼ ► and if you really only ever use the iphone app and you used to pay five dollars once in 2013
01:59:54 ◼ ► and use it forever and now you want three dollars a month to get everything it feels like a ton of
02:00:02 ◼ ► money and you know and i think the response would be but wait you there is a free mode that still
02:00:07 ◼ ► has all the features from fantastical too and people did they don't want to hear it they want
02:00:17 ◼ ► i don't think they're thinking about this right i think they're blinded by bad assumptions about
02:00:25 ◼ ► how everything works and should work but i think that the to be sympathetic to them what they want
02:00:31 ◼ ► is they want the best fantastical and the best one is that's the one you have to pay for and
02:00:37 ◼ ► all of a sudden instead of five dollars once several years ago it's three dollars a month
02:00:43 ◼ ► it's a big difference no no doubt and i i have truly started to empathize with everyone who's
02:00:48 ◼ ► upset in that here they want the best fantastical they don't want to pay what they paid they want
02:00:53 ◼ ► there's even users who have said well can't use do an in-app purchase or something smaller
02:01:01 ◼ ► then if we fragment that even if it makes those people happy now our development time has now been
02:01:06 ◼ ► split between them and the main app and again that removes what the subscription has done for us
02:01:11 ◼ ► people will call it a money grab it's not a money grab at all we know how much we need to make versus
02:01:16 ◼ ► how much we're making and what the subscription does is it gives us a reliable income revenue
02:01:22 ◼ ► stream that grows over time with subscription subscribers that stay on right and we can now
02:01:28 ◼ ► count on our revenue and just develop we don't have to worry we don't have to come up with gimmicks
02:01:34 ◼ ► to to sell right we're just we're just to be honest we're the best indie developers we've
02:01:39 ◼ ► ever been right now i'm glad to hear that i mean um let's say so speaking of other indie developers
02:01:47 ◼ ► and other models um a big new launch just last week is from our friends at panic their nova
02:01:54 ◼ ► uh they call it a code editor text editor but is you know it's it's hard to what nova is is hard to
02:02:01 ◼ ► categorize you know fundamentally i guess it's a text editor for programmers but it's sort of like
02:02:07 ◼ ► a ide and you know for example and it has extensions and stuff and you can do things like if
02:02:14 ◼ ► you have a playdate panic's upcoming little handheld game boy style video game player the ide
02:02:21 ◼ ► for making playdate games is nova and you can you know same way that you can when you're an xcode you
02:02:27 ◼ ► want to build your iphone app you do a command r to build and run and it runs you can do that in
02:02:33 ◼ ► nova to build and run your playdate game and it runs in a simulator on your mac or you can connect
02:02:39 ◼ ► it via usb and have it build and run and install it right on your actual you know playdate device
02:02:46 ◼ ► it's a very ambitious app um and it's sort of a sequel to their old uh code editor coda uh which
02:02:54 ◼ ► they complicated sold the name to and turned into panic's code editor because they knew they weren't
02:03:01 ◼ ► sticking with it long term and replacing it with nova which really is both a replacement but also
02:03:08 ◼ ► sort of a shift in direction anyway it's a great app it is a mac very very very great app by the
02:03:15 ◼ ► way very great super ambitious it is the sort of thing that is so ambitious that it less in less
02:03:21 ◼ ► talented hands is the sort of thing that could sink a company and you know 40 years from now
02:03:31 ◼ ► um but it's shipped it's here it is fantastic it is it is exuberant and if you love really
02:03:39 ◼ ► you know that term i think brent coin mac asked mac apps it is a mac asked mac app and a lot of
02:03:46 ◼ ► the news in programming editors that people use on the mac over the last five to ten years have
02:03:52 ◼ ► been things that aren't mac asked mac apps they're electron dinguses that maybe have tons of features
02:03:59 ◼ ► and maybe you listening use one and you like it and maybe it's good for all sorts of reasons but
02:04:04 ◼ ► it's not good at being a mac asked mac app and nova is very much a mac asked mac app which is great
02:04:12 ◼ ► but they have an interesting pricing model um what they're doing is they're selling it for
02:04:19 ◼ ► uh 99 and if you already own their old app coda you can upgrade for 79 so so far it sounds you
02:04:27 ◼ ► know this sounds like what we were talking about right this is the old way you get an upgrade price
02:04:31 ◼ ► if you owned coda and you pay 99 um if you're new but here's where it's sort of different is you get
02:04:39 ◼ ► from whatever day you pay you get a year of all their software updates whatever they update for
02:04:43 ◼ ► the next 12 months you get and then when that update if 12 months from the date of your buying
02:04:49 ◼ ► a license is over you no longer get software updates but your copy of nova keeps working
02:04:57 ◼ ► on your computer you just don't get software updates for it and if you want to you can sign
02:05:02 ◼ ► up to pay 49 a year after that so let's say you pay a hundred dollars today one year from today
02:05:11 ◼ ► you know your your updates from that hundred dollars are over and your 49 a year it is a
02:05:18 ◼ ► subscription that you're paying kicks in and then you keep getting whenever they introduce
02:05:24 ◼ ► software updates you just keep getting them going forward but if you don't sign up for that 49
02:05:28 ◼ ► subscription the version you had 12 months after purchase that's yours to keep keeps working
02:05:34 ◼ ► technically maybe a year later there's some new feature they have that comes out you're like i
02:05:44 ◼ ► yeah and and to be to be fair we always say it's about three dollars a month for fantastical we
02:05:51 ◼ ► could say it's 40 a year but for their 49 a year they're about four dollars a month and for a really
02:05:56 ◼ ► you know expert professional tool that they're selling four dollars a month is ridiculously
02:06:01 ◼ ► cheap yeah it's you know and again into you're like well i i don't use a text editor worth four
02:06:06 ◼ ► dollars a month well then you're not in the market you know what i mean this is a professional power
02:06:10 ◼ ► tool right you know what i mean like you can go to home depot and find you know very expensive
02:06:17 ◼ ► saws or nail guns like the best nail gun they sell you're like well why in the world would i
02:06:21 ◼ ► spend all this money on a nail gun i don't even shoot nails well what are you looking why why are
02:06:25 ◼ ► you complaining about the price you you don't shoot nails into the wall whereas if you spend
02:06:29 ◼ ► their target customer wants to buy that app right you live in it you know and it it's in it now
02:06:35 ◼ ► they're not in the mac app store and i wrote about this and some people complained about
02:06:41 ◼ ► you get the main complaints you the developer like and and panic the developers of the app
02:06:47 ◼ ► i get the secondary complaints as the person who writes about these apps from the people who don't
02:06:53 ◼ ► like the pricing model they complain to me then about you know celebrating or just mentioning
02:06:59 ◼ ► it without they they they yell at me for not complaining about the things that they complain
02:07:03 ◼ ► about um why are you supporting the things that we hate but it's you know you can't please everybody
02:07:19 ◼ ► wealthy and funded a company to make these amazing apps and gave them to the world for free i guess
02:07:27 ◼ ► because then i would bet you that would not even work either because there'd be something well
02:07:31 ◼ ► there'd be you know privacy people thinking that there's a scam right there would be but i want to
02:07:38 ◼ ► pay you i don't know there would be something well it's noteworthy that nobody's done that
02:07:42 ◼ ► right the george soros is of the world have not devoted their lives to foundations to make
02:07:48 ◼ ► fantastic independent software that they give away to people for free um i'll make a promise if this
02:07:55 ◼ ► thing blows up bigger than i think it's going to which it's not if it goes that crazy big i'll make
02:08:01 ◼ ► fantastic health free for everyone although i shouldn't say that because someone will hold me
02:08:04 ◼ ► to that so forget it that whole thing was a fallacy the difference here between a regular
02:08:08 ◼ ► what we think of a subscription versus um what panic is doing and panic is doing to give credit
02:08:15 ◼ ► to another very good independent app sketch which is an illustration app with a decided market
02:08:23 ◼ ► towards people using it to illustrate user interfaces in particular certainly that's where
02:08:28 ◼ ► i know sketch best from um has yeah they did a great job with that and they have a very similar
02:08:34 ◼ ► model and they've had you know years of success with it and um both with the app which is one
02:08:39 ◼ ► apple design awards and is very popular and ongoing and but the same sort of thing where
02:08:44 ◼ ► the difference is with most subscriptions if you cancel your subscription the app either stops
02:08:50 ◼ ► working or you lose functionality whereas with the sketch and nova model when you stop paying
02:08:58 ◼ ► what you have keeps working but you just don't get updates but even that technically even just
02:09:05 ◼ ► talking about obsolescence eventually you will run out of time and people will complain right like
02:09:11 ◼ ► hypothetically someone who has been in let's say somebody had the foresight 12 13 14 years ago to
02:09:21 ◼ ► invent this pricing model then when it wasn't really necessitated by the market forces but they
02:09:28 ◼ ► came up with this idea then and we went through the 32-bit to 64-bit transition and people who
02:09:35 ◼ ► had paid and said i don't need any new features but they would feel entitled years after the fact
02:09:42 ◼ ► to that 64-bit update well wait that's not you know that that should be included free even though
02:09:47 ◼ ► i'm not paying for updates anymore because my app won't even launch anymore and it's like well you
02:09:53 ◼ ► know pay the money right that that model is definitely to me if we could have done that with
02:10:00 ◼ ► being on the app store and how things work we looked at that model and i think for nova and
02:10:04 ◼ ► sketch it makes sense they're professional tools they're off the app store it really makes a lot
02:10:09 ◼ ► of sense but there's also a lot of bookkeeping you have to keep track of in terms of what features
02:10:13 ◼ ► work and don't if there is a bug that kills the app because of the os do you really fix it or not
02:10:19 ◼ ► you know like like there's a lot of implications and i'm not saying that it's wrong i'm just saying
02:10:24 ◼ ► nothing's perfect right but i think for nova and sketch being off the app store and being
02:10:28 ◼ ► professional tools that really is the way to go you buy the app you want to keep using it i think
02:10:34 ◼ ► most people will keep using it and keep paying for it because they're professional tools they
02:10:41 ◼ ► specifically and again i don't know i don't even know i'm not i don't know is there an ios companion
02:10:46 ◼ ► right i i you know i know i know panic had the coda editor for ios and you know but you know
02:10:53 ◼ ► pat diet coda pat panic's been very clear over the years in their annual updates that when they tried
02:10:58 ◼ ► to expand what they've made work on the mac for decades when they tried to do the same thing for
02:11:05 ◼ ► ios it did not work for them financially you know that if and and thankfully you know they didn't
02:11:11 ◼ ► bet their company on it it would have been ruinous but that the the model they have had and continued
02:11:17 ◼ ► to have to successfully sell delightful panic style software for the mac was lost money for
02:11:25 ◼ ► them on ios um definitely you know but i think this so i think it it it's a model again you know
02:11:32 ◼ ► different apps have different markets and need different things like i think what works for
02:11:36 ◼ ► fantastic help a huge part of the reason is that you guys are literally on every single apple
02:11:41 ◼ ► platform i guess you're not all right you're not you're not you don't have a tv is app or a car
02:11:45 ◼ ► play app which ironically someone on twitter asked us if we could make fantastic health for their car
02:11:50 ◼ ► well i we're what makes more sense a tv app or or a car app a car app probably i don't know if
02:11:58 ◼ ► neither makes i actually don't know if neither makes sense i i mean i have ideas already spinning
02:12:03 ◼ ► in my head of what we could do but i don't know man like i don't like i don't know if that's where
02:12:07 ◼ ► we want to it seems to me that using the siri voice assistant makes more sense in the car than
02:12:12 ◼ ► using an actual app and saying you know hey dingus when's my next appointment or what's the address
02:12:19 ◼ ► of the place i'm trying to get to etc would work um the other app i want to mention i want to mention
02:12:24 ◼ ► an app called agenda have you seen agenda oh yeah it's a and they have a similar model in the app
02:12:30 ◼ ► store and they're making it work with the app store actually yeah and so agenda is a really
02:12:35 ◼ ► again and they like they sponsored daring fireball a while back fantastic al sponsored during
02:12:40 ◼ ► fireball so you know preface this with whatever you want as a disclaimer that these are people
02:12:44 ◼ ► who sponsored my site but i'm saying good things about them simply because it's a really great and
02:12:49 ◼ ► interesting app but agenda is a very interesting hybrid of a sort of notes plus to-dos plus
02:13:16 ◼ ► that is sort of oh yeah this fits right at home on a modern uh apple system but also is very branded
02:13:23 ◼ ► and feels you know you appreciate it because you know what i'm you know fantastic al has that oh
02:13:27 ◼ ► yeah anyway their model gender is very well done very well done and their model for this sort of
02:13:34 ◼ ► new way of approaching monetization is that you don't pay for versions you pay for features and
02:13:41 ◼ ► so you pay for agenda and then you get the pay you know there's a free version you can download it and
02:13:46 ◼ ► use it and it's useful and interesting for free and then they have more features that you have
02:13:52 ◼ ► to pay for and then if you pay for them you get the paid features and as time goes on they will
02:13:59 ◼ ► add new paid features but since they came out after you paid you have to pay for those features
02:14:05 ◼ ► and if you don't if you're if the feature is um that now the pen when you use the apple pencil
02:14:12 ◼ ► can write in uh purple ink for the first time and you're like well i would never want to write in
02:14:18 ◼ ► purple ink so i'm not paying for that feature and you don't have to pay for it and then later on when
02:14:24 ◼ ► they come out with a feature that you can make the apple pencils shoot uh emojis all over your agenda
02:14:31 ◼ ► and you're like i need that and you know then you pay for that feature i just made up those features
02:14:36 ◼ ► there they're not actual features of agenda at all but that's what i'm saying you pay for the feature
02:14:41 ◼ ► and i've seen people say and it's already chimed up in my comments on nova like hey you
02:14:48 ◼ ► could say that nova can't be in the app store i didn't say they can't be in the app store i said
02:14:52 ◼ ► they're not in the app store and the exact model that that nova is using is not technically possible
02:14:59 ◼ ► in the nova in the app store no agenda proves that something sort of along those lines is possible if
02:15:07 ◼ ► you design it with app store rules and systems in mind but the other thing that people are ignoring
02:15:13 ◼ ► is that the team behind agenda is doing a lot of work to make that work behind the scenes where
02:15:17 ◼ ► they're in a ton of work ton of work and it might be worth it it may well be worth it and i hope
02:15:23 ◼ ► they're doing well because it's a great app from good people and it deserves to thrive but do not
02:15:29 ◼ ► underestimate the fact that they they are building permanent scaffolding in the app to tie features
02:15:37 ◼ ► to paid upgrades that you've paid along the way and doing it in a way that any you know they they
02:15:45 ◼ ► can't quite predict what combination of features you might have paid for but the whole app still
02:15:49 ◼ ► needs to function right i did realize actually something with nova and sketch and agenda that's
02:15:55 ◼ ► interesting about their model they're they're a pay once a year once an upgrade or whatever it is
02:16:00 ◼ ► model right you have to pay the full 49.59 whatever the subscription model lets you pay
02:16:05 ◼ ► monthly right without locking in a year so the one thing with those apps is that you do have to pay a
02:16:11 ◼ ► bigger amount up front to get in right right where with fantastical yeah it does turn off quote unquote
02:16:17 ◼ ► you go to free mode it doesn't just stop working it's just the premium feature stop working but you
02:16:21 ◼ ► do have the ability to do the 499 a month as a monthly as you go and cancel at any time and it's
02:16:27 ◼ ► just interesting because that is a lower bar to entry to try it out than the other apps as well
02:16:32 ◼ ► yeah i totally agree right and then and then the just interesting i never thought about that before
02:16:37 ◼ ► you know it it's complicated it is complicated all i if there's anything i would ask it is that
02:16:44 ◼ ► users should have sympathy for the plight of the indie developer and that uh it's it is you know
02:16:52 ◼ ► we're all in this together in terms of wanting awesome pro level indie apps you know like bb edit
02:16:59 ◼ ► and nova and fantastical and agenda and the list can go on and on you know everything from the
02:17:04 ◼ ► omni group and you know i can't start listing the apps that would qualify but we want them to keep
02:17:10 ◼ ► thriving as businesses um and it's not simple and i guarantee i've never met any of them even
02:17:18 ◼ ► the guy i was mentioning who whose support method was select all delete delete support he still
02:17:24 ◼ ► cared about his users and uh you know he wasn't trying to rip them off i've never met a indie
02:17:31 ◼ ► developer who wanted to do do do anything other than to to give their users value for their dollar
02:17:37 ◼ ► spent and appreciated it yeah and you know at the end of the day we're we're trying to work around
02:17:43 ◼ ► this ecosystem that apple has built right we're still as apple developers anyway we have the ios
02:17:49 ◼ ► we have ios ipad i'm just saying we have all these things that we still have restrictions when
02:17:54 ◼ ► we submit an app okay nova and sketch do not they're off of it but agenda does and regardless
02:18:00 ◼ ► there's still also limitations of just developer tools right that nova and that nova and sketch
02:18:04 ◼ ► have to make work it's not just as easy as do whatever you want and make the best decisions
02:18:09 ◼ ► there's also decisions that have to be made that were already made for you did you see panic's
02:18:14 ◼ ► tweet the other day where they're like i can't tell you what a relief it is to just issue a
02:18:18 ◼ ► software update when it's ready because they have a nova 1.1 update and they exactly released it on
02:18:24 ◼ ► one oh yeah and i thought of you immediately because you had just texted me the night before
02:18:27 ◼ ► that you were i think it was the night very night before and you were like i think we'll be ready
02:18:31 ◼ ► for our widgets update the next day um yep and instead you woke up and it was like well it was
02:18:37 ◼ ► approved like you literally went to bed not knowing when your software was going to literally
02:18:43 ◼ ► went to bed not knowing we even have that with test flight because you know test flight has to
02:18:46 ◼ ► be approved right right so when you have a new app just even to send to testers we can't even
02:18:51 ◼ ► have testers test our app until it's approved it's it's very restrictive and you know again
02:18:57 ◼ ► there's a lot of things we have to do because we're forced to do right uh anyway thank you
02:19:03 ◼ ► for being here michael uh it's been a pleasure it's a good conversation uh everybody thanks
02:19:09 ◼ ► like so the best place to find out more about fantastical uh what's what's the best url
02:19:16 ◼ ► flexibits.com f-l-e-x-i-b-i-t-s.com uh and you can go and find out more about fantastical
02:19:28 ◼ ► it's @macguitar m-a-c-g-u-i-t-a-r it's a throwback from the old days of mac you can play in guitar so
02:19:37 ◼ ► um that was it i don't know is nick i came up with 90 something and it just always has been
02:19:43 ◼ ► around i i have a weird mental thing as soon as you started saying i was like oh yeah he's
02:19:47 ◼ ► mack guitar but i can't remember what people's twitter avatars or names are i i you know the
02:19:53 ◼ ► only one who's i whose name i remember is syracuse because it's just syracusea everybody else i
02:19:59 ◼ ► forget like is it marco is it marco armand is it uh you know if you if you're if your avatars or
02:20:05 ◼ ► if your twitter name is anything other than your last name i i fall forget it um but that's where
02:20:10 ◼ ► people can go see you on twitter and let me thank our sponsors our great sponsors all of them repeats