00:00:00 ◼ ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development. I'm Marco Arment.
00:00:04 ◼ ► And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.
00:00:25 ◼ ► It was just announced as a recording. It was announced yesterday, I think, or the day before.
00:00:40 ◼ ► last year, clearly Apple liked how that event went and how the flow of things went and, you know,
00:01:02 ◼ ► you have until Thursday, March 22nd. So for most of you listening to this, it's probably about, you know, next Thursday.
00:01:21 ◼ ► as before, you know, there's going to be a keynote, there'll be a variety of sessions, labs, consultations,
00:01:26 ◼ ► a few events that'll happen, lunchtime seminars, like it, so far at least anyway, there's nothing
00:01:47 ◼ ► I'm just sort of talking, announcing that, making sure that you knew that, but I would be very surprised if you listened to
00:01:59 ◼ ► whether you should put your name in the hat, should you come out to San Jose if you don't get a ticket,
00:02:05 ◼ ► So I think that's probably the place that we'll discuss most, and it's probably fair to start off by saying I expect to,
00:02:17 ◼ ► Either way, whatever happens, I expect to be there. I'm putting my name into the lottery and
00:02:22 ◼ ► hopeful that I will get a ticket and be able to attend. For me, personally, it's just a, it's always a good opportunity.
00:02:33 ◼ ► I spend probably a half to two-thirds of my time in the labs talking to Apple engineers,
00:02:47 ◼ ► A time where I can go and be, you know, excited about the new technology and the new things that are coming up
00:02:53 ◼ ► in a different way, because there's a different experience. You know, when you see an API come out,
00:03:02 ◼ ► you learn a lot of cool stuff, but I also like that it's just exciting, because you guys,
00:03:07 ◼ ► you know, share, talk to somebody who has been working on this for, you know, months or years,
00:03:11 ◼ ► you know, talk about the thing they're excited about, and that kind of rubs off in a cool way.
00:03:27 ◼ ► I have found, and I know, you know, we talk about this every year, as many podcasts do,
00:03:51 ◼ ► so I do think it's worth talking about these things again every year, because they aren't always the same.
00:04:00 ◼ ► kind of thank anybody listening who happened to be at Apple who is in this area, because
00:04:06 ◼ ► this stuff used to be a lot harder and a lot worse, like, just like the arrangement of getting, you know,
00:04:12 ◼ ► the conference used to be announced somewhat late pretty often, like, sometimes, some years
00:04:17 ◼ ► it would go into April before we would even know when or if there would be a conference.
00:04:24 ◼ ► Yeah, exactly. Like, there were some bad times where, like, it started to get dangerously close to the time
00:04:31 ◼ ► you'd want to be, like, booking travel and stuff before they would even tell you what week it would be,
00:04:45 ◼ ► They also moved it to San Jose, and I know a lot of people last year were kind of wary,
00:04:55 ◼ ► I'm sure there are lots of nice parts of San Francisco, but none of them are around the Moscone Center.
00:05:05 ◼ ► we weren't seeing the good stuff in the city. We were seeing the worst parts of the city,
00:05:10 ◼ ► and just everything was just, like, dirty and very expensive, and, you know, not well run,
00:05:16 ◼ ► and just was not a very pleasant place to visit, especially considering how much money we were paying to be there.
00:05:22 ◼ ► And San Jose, you know, again, I haven't seen most of the city, but the parts I did see
00:05:37 ◼ ► There's tons of amazing, like, restaurants and coffee shops. Everything is clean and feels reasonably safe,
00:05:43 ◼ ► and there's tons of hotels right there. Like, it's just a really nice environment compared to the area around Moscone and San Francisco.
00:05:56 ◼ ► but from what I've been told from people who did, the conference center itself also seems more pleasant and nicer and everything.
00:06:02 ◼ ► There's that cool, like, outdoor space in front of it, so, like, it just seems like a nicer place to have this conference.
00:06:07 ◼ ► So, good on Apple for keeping it here again this year, which I would guess is the new permanent home of it.
00:06:13 ◼ ► And it's just really nice to be there compared to San Francisco, and it's also extra nice that we were told about it once again
00:06:20 ◼ ► with a lot of time to spare. I think this is even earlier than we learned about it last year,
00:06:25 ◼ ► and so it gives people time to do things like book flights before they're incredibly expensive.
00:06:30 ◼ ► International visitors need to get visas and possibly file their paperwork or get passports in line.
00:06:36 ◼ ► You know, you have event planning for people who are hosting events, like our friends at Relay and like us at ATP.
00:06:47 ◼ ► The AltConf is arranging it, just like last year, and so that'll be fun. Go get tickets.
00:06:52 ◼ ► And so, you know, it's really nice to have all this established with enough time and everything.
00:07:07 ◼ ► I can say for myself, just the difference in going to San Jose versus, I mean, I went to San Francisco for years,
00:07:12 ◼ ► and it was like, it was always just sort of fine. And after going for a few years, I kind of knew where to go and where not to go.
00:07:21 ◼ ► Like the area we were in San Francisco is one of these funny places where if you took like a wrong turn,
00:07:26 ◼ ► you went two blocks the wrong way, you could find yourself in some very more sketchy areas than, you know,
00:07:33 ◼ ► if you go two blocks the other way. And so it's just one of these things that you had to learn and you had to kind of be thoughtful about.
00:07:38 ◼ ► But in San Jose, I mean, I walked around the convention center. The place I stayed last year was a few blocks away.
00:07:43 ◼ ► And the whole time it was just, it just felt nice. Like, I think it wasn't particularly, it's not,
00:07:53 ◼ ► But it's like, if it has a character, its character is just like nice and friendly. Like it's just, there's nothing inoffensive,
00:08:00 ◼ ► there's nothing problematic about it. It was just nice. And so that was something that I certainly enjoyed.
00:08:05 ◼ ► And the conference itself, I think, worked well at the convention center they have there.
00:08:11 ◼ ► It, you know, logistically, it didn't feel crowded or problematic in that way compared to Moscone.
00:08:16 ◼ ► And, you know, I didn't, overall, it was definitely, it was a marked improvement, I think, over the year before,
00:08:23 ◼ ► over the previous years. And I mean, I'm sure it makes sense for them logistically to be there, given how close it is to their campus.
00:08:30 ◼ ► That, you know, I got, one thing I will say is I did notice that there was a lot more, I think there were more,
00:08:36 ◼ ► there were more Apple employees and people either attending or, you know, around during the day,
00:08:42 ◼ ► or even just around in general, that I think I ran into a lot more people who worked at Apple who were able to just,
00:08:53 ◼ ► You know, they could, or even had some friends I know who work at Apple who could be able to like,
00:08:57 ◼ ► you know, they could put their kids to bed and then come out for an evening, have a meal or a drink or something like that,
00:09:03 ◼ ► and then just go back home. And it wasn't a big deal. And that's, I think, a lovely addition about it being so close,
00:09:12 ◼ ► Exactly. Yeah, so this year I am, you know, as I said, I'm not going to seek a ticket to the conference,
00:09:24 ◼ ► starting last year, is that I'm just busy doing a lot of podcast stuff and social stuff,
00:09:31 ◼ ► and I was getting less and less use out of the tickets I was getting because there were so much other stuff
00:09:39 ◼ ► that I was there to do as well. And so I don't want to take up a slot for somebody who would actually use a ticket more than I would.
00:09:46 ◼ ► Like, I was, there were days where I would miss like, you know, three of the four time slots,
00:09:57 ◼ ► But otherwise, you know, if you are the kind of person who would use a conference ticket
00:10:01 ◼ ► and actually go to the sessions and go to the labs, then it's very, very much worth it.
00:10:07 ◼ ► Also, you know, big props to Apple for making all the videos available faster and faster each year
00:10:12 ◼ ► to the point where now they're just live streaming most of them. That, like, that's awesome.
00:10:17 ◼ ► And if you don't get a ticket, they still make the content of the conference very accessible,
00:10:23 ◼ ► and pretty quickly too. So that's pretty great. So I think one of the main reasons to go to it
00:10:29 ◼ ► is to both have the, like, the kind of like assignment that this is what you are here to do,
00:10:34 ◼ ► that way you will actually sit down and watch the sessions, as opposed to like what always happens to me is like,
00:10:39 ◼ ► I'll make a list when I see the sessions, like I want to watch this, this, this, and this, and then I don't usually.
00:10:44 ◼ ► I rarely actually get to them. So it is nice to, you know, have like that kind of assignment of like,
00:10:50 ◼ ► this is what you're here to do. And of course, access to the people in person, access to the labs, et cetera.
00:10:56 ◼ ► But if you don't get a ticket, again, not a huge problem, because you can watch all those videos
00:11:02 ◼ ► if you are more disciplined than I am, and there's a few other benefits to doing it that way, like,
00:11:06 ◼ ► you can watch them, you can like watch them whenever you want. You can pause them. You can watch them at 2x,
00:11:11 ◼ ► or at 1.5, or you can search the transcripts. Like, there are a lot of benefits to watching them on video as well.
00:11:17 ◼ ► I was trying to decide if I was going to like, if I was going to give advice to somebody who was on the fence,
00:11:22 ◼ ► and like, you know, should I go or should I not? And I think what I ended up saying is, it's like,
00:11:26 ◼ ► if you're unsure, you should probably put your name in the hat and try and get a ticket.
00:11:36 ◼ ► Like, if you're on one of those extremes, then fair enough. Like, I think in your situation, you just know,
00:11:40 ◼ ► you know for a fact that it's not a good fit for you anymore. And like, that's great, and I think you'll probably know that.
00:11:46 ◼ ► And there are many people I know who come out to San Jose during that time with no intention of, you know,
00:11:52 ◼ ► going to the conference because they just want to be there. It's, you know, it's the sort of the event that
00:11:56 ◼ ► everyone goes to, and so it makes sense to go. But if you're kind of on the fence, I feel like it's one of these things that,
00:12:01 ◼ ► if you're not sure, then just try for it. Because I think you'll, it's very unlikely that you'll regret having a ticket
00:12:06 ◼ ► if you were unsure. If you were coming from a place like, maybe, maybe not, will I get a lot out of it?
00:12:11 ◼ ► It's just a unique opportunity to, especially if you've never been, it's a nice experience.
00:12:17 ◼ ► It's, you know, just from a, you know, something to be a part of, and to, you know, to go to an Apple keynote
00:12:22 ◼ ► and see what, you know, sort of experience one of those in person. And you never know exactly what's going to be announced,
00:12:27 ◼ ► which also kind of is one of these things that, one of the reasons for me in the back of my mind too is,
00:12:32 ◼ ► you know, whether I, the information, certainly from the sessions, I can get my, you know, immediately online myself.
00:12:39 ◼ ► And in many ways, honestly, that is because of how they're doing that now, where it's so immediately available.
00:12:44 ◼ ► I think last year, I went to very few sessions comparatively. And what I found I did is I spent most of my time in the labs,
00:12:51 ◼ ► which is the kind of the irreplaceable experience. And whenever there wasn't a lab available for me that,
00:12:57 ◼ ► you know, it was useful and productive for me to go to, I just went and sat down and, you know, watched a 2X'd and skipped around
00:13:04 ◼ ► all of the sessions that I, you know, missed while I was in the last couple of sessions of labs. And, you know,
00:13:09 ◼ ► there's a very efficient, focused way to do it. And, you know, it allowed me to avoid the situation when you're,
00:13:15 ◼ ► you know, when you're trying to go to sessions of sometimes there's two things that you want to do. And like,
00:13:19 ◼ ► that way I could just watch them both and be very efficient about it. And, you know, often there'll be sections of sessions
00:13:24 ◼ ► that aren't relevant for you, but, you know, some sessions, some parts of them that are. And so it's very convenient to be able
00:13:30 ◼ ► to skip over stuff that isn't relevant. So that was something that I found. But I think in general, my advice is,
00:13:35 ◼ ► it's like, if you're coming out with or without a ticket, and that's probably also worth mentioning, there are going to be other conferences.
00:13:40 ◼ ► I know Layers has announced, which is more of a design conference, has announced that they're going to be doing something there.
00:13:46 ◼ ► There's AltConf, which is, you know, is a more traditional kind of developer conference, you know, with a variety of different
00:13:54 ◼ ► presentations done. And I'm sure there's going to be other events during the day, as well as things in the evening, you know,
00:13:59 ◼ ► there's going to be a variety of podcast live shows. And there's a lot of reason to be in San Jose, even if you don't get a ticket.
00:14:05 ◼ ► But I think it's worth trying for a ticket unless you are absolutely sure that it's not a fit for you.
00:14:10 ◼ ► Yeah, exactly. And like, one strategy I heard from people here and there is like, maybe try to go to every other one or every third one.
00:14:18 ◼ ► And sometimes you might want, you might look at like, what do we expect to be unveiled? And try to gauge from that, like,
00:14:25 ◼ ► whether or not you should go. And I think that's kind of a real hit or miss strategy, because even if you follow all the rumor cycles
00:14:34 ◼ ► about what Apple's doing this year and everything, the rumor cycles suggest that this might be a somewhat quiet year,
00:14:40 ◼ ► because a lot of stuff got delayed with that quality push that we heard about a few weeks ago.
00:14:45 ◼ ► But that doesn't mean that there won't be like, new APIs and stuff. Like, there's new APIs every year.
00:14:50 ◼ ► And you really can never know going into it, like unless you have really good info, better than all of us,
00:15:01 ◼ ► You know, whatever's happening on the consumer side or the product release side, it does not usually have a strong bearing to what's happening on the developer side.
00:15:10 ◼ ► Like, Snow Leopard, like the no features release of Mac OS, had massive developer changes under the hood.
00:15:16 ◼ ► That like, you know, that year if you were a Mac developer, you really should have been there.
00:15:21 ◼ ► You know, so like, don't try to guess like, oh well, it'll be a good year or a bad year.
00:15:26 ◼ ► Just go if you can. Especially since nowadays you aren't guaranteed to get in every year anymore.
00:15:31 ◼ ► You know, you have to just put your name in the lottery and hope for the best, and some years you might get it, and some years you might not.
00:15:36 ◼ ► And so, you know, basically go if you can, if you feel that it's worth it to you, and don't try to guess what's going to be there.
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00:16:55 ◼ ► So for a second part of this episode, something that I wanted to just briefly, more briefly touch on is...
00:17:05 ◼ ► And if you've been following my blog for any amount of time, it was, as almost all of them are, it is me unpacking some kind of numbers thing.
00:17:22 ◼ ► So this particular one is talking about Apple Watch adoption, and by that I mean the adoption of the new series of Apple Watches.
00:17:30 ◼ ► And the hope that this has given me that this fall we may see, or I guess it would be probably at WWDC, honestly,
00:17:38 ◼ ► that Apple would announce that they would be deprecating the first generation Apple Watch, what I would call the Series 0 Apple Watch.
00:17:50 ◼ ► A, well it's probably worth it to say, the reason I would love to see that happen is having spent a tremendous amount of time developing for the Apple Watch.
00:17:58 ◼ ► I mean I've spent a better part of the last couple of years with that being my primary focus, or at least all of the apps that I'm making are Apple Watch related.
00:18:07 ◼ ► There is a clear and definitive difference developing for the Apple Watch Series 0, and for the 1, 2, and 3 that came after it.
00:18:16 ◼ ► It is noticeably slower, it has worse battery life, just in many aspects it is just a distinctly worse device.
00:18:25 ◼ ► And that often makes sense, it was the device that they could get out the door, it was the first thing, they've learned lots of lessons since then, and so on.
00:18:33 ◼ ► There are so many things that I'm sure I'm sure why that first device is not as good, and as a developer I would love to see them drop it off.
00:18:41 ◼ ► And I was specifically motivated to write this blog post because for the first time last week, the Apple Watch Series 3,
00:18:49 ◼ ► so the brand new super fast, amazing, battery life lasts forever Apple Watch, crossed over and became the most popular Apple Watch overall across all the different lines.
00:19:01 ◼ ► Which is encouraging for me in so far as I think it means that we're seeing a pattern that was somewhat similar to the early versions of the iPhone,
00:19:09 ◼ ► where the subsequent versions of the iPhone sold dramatically in higher volume than the previous versions, and so would slowly start to eclipse the others in usage.
00:19:20 ◼ ► And so you have this very virtuous cycle where it may not be crazy for Apple to end of life the Series 0, even though it's only 2 or 3 years later,
00:19:30 ◼ ► because the sales and volume of the new stuff is just going so well, and that's what I'm seeing.
00:19:37 ◼ ► Right now, the Series 0 is down to about 24% of users, and the Apple Watch Series 3 is 33%, and it's only been available since September,
00:19:48 ◼ ► so it's clearly on a very fast uptake trajectory, and so that's just kind of cool to see.
00:19:55 ◼ ► And so I always love doing these kind of things where I can look at the data and have a justification for the hope that I feel,
00:20:02 ◼ ► rather than just crossing my fingers and being like, "Come on, Apple, you can do it!" You know, make my life that much easier,
00:20:11 ◼ ► Yeah, because so much of what we complain about with WatchOS, I have a feeling is held back by what that first watch can do,
00:20:26 ◼ ► and the earlier we can get rid of that as compatibility for the OS, the more the OS can do,
00:20:38 ◼ ► Now, that's not to say that they've squeezed everything out of it that they possibly could.
00:20:41 ◼ ► I don't think that's true at all, but it certainly is a pretty significant limiting factor,
00:20:48 ◼ ► and they could always do stuff like conditional inclusion of new features on it, like for example,
00:20:57 ◼ ► They could say, "Well, background audio is not allowed for non-workout apps on the original Apple Watch."
00:21:04 ◼ ► They could always do stuff like that. I don't see them doing that, honestly, but they could.
00:21:09 ◼ ► But I too just, boy, I can't wait until that goes away, because I want so badly for WatchOS to be better.
00:21:21 ◼ ► You have a lot more success on it than I do, because you make a lot more different app types,
00:21:34 ◼ ► So you get a lot of capability from the OS, and the OS is kind of working with you instead of against you much of the time,
00:21:58 ◼ ► A lot of times users are fighting at every step of the way to do stuff that seems like it should be basic,
00:22:03 ◼ ► or there's just features that are missing that you just wish were there and they're just not,
00:22:10 ◼ ► So much of watchOS and so much of its problems all revolve around the incredible extreme need it has for RAM and power management,
00:22:26 ◼ ► which affects things like backgrounding of things, power management affects things like how often things can get refreshed,
00:22:33 ◼ ► how often data can get refreshed, how often you can get background launched or background refreshed,
00:22:37 ◼ ► and anything they can do to cut off old hardware will be able to move those goalposts forward.
00:22:45 ◼ ► And I don't know that they will move them forward, but at least give them the option to.
00:22:49 ◼ ► And that helps everybody. It helps users, it helps developers, and it ultimately helps Apple.
00:22:59 ◼ ► And I don't think that's that cruel or brutal to the people who still use those watches because the watch is in daily use.
00:23:21 ◼ ► And they stopped selling that watch, what, two years ago? Or a year and a half ago or something?
00:23:27 ◼ ► - A year and a half ago, I think it was. - Yeah, so you couldn't have bought it more recently than a year and a half ago, brand new from Apple.
00:23:34 ◼ ► Maybe there's used sales and everything, but for the most part, that stopped being sold a year and a half ago.
00:23:39 ◼ ► So by the time this fall comes, that's gonna be about two years since it stopped being sold.
00:23:58 ◼ ► You can see in your graph, you can see Christmas really changes things for watch sales.
00:24:02 ◼ ► It's like a big spike of the new ones replacing the old ones and just general numbers going up, right?
00:24:08 ◼ ► - Oh yeah, I think it's like the Series 3 Apple Watch jumped in usage as a percent, maybe 8 or 9% on Christmas Day.
00:24:21 ◼ ► It's at a price point where it's certainly an expensive gift, but it's not like buying someone a MacBook Pro.
00:24:29 ◼ ► It is a very reasonable thing, and it's clearly the numbers show that I would expect they'll come out with whatever the Series 4 Watch this fall.
00:24:41 ◼ ► And so you would expect the cycle to continue of these older watches just kind of falling out of use,
00:24:47 ◼ ► or at least falling out of active use enough that they don't need to be as much of a priority or a focus.
00:24:57 ◼ ► If you extrapolate, after this Christmas, the usage of the Series 0 is probably gonna be below 10%, I bet.
00:25:19 ◼ ► I think you're right that clearly Apple doesn't have to drop support for the Series 0 Watch in order to make Watch OS more capable.
00:25:31 ◼ ► And I think, though, if they did that, it just creates the situation where, A, anytime there's confusion amongst users as to what is possible and what isn't,
00:25:42 ◼ ► I think it makes my life harder, it makes Apple's life harder, where I have a screenshot in my app of something that is capable of doing.
00:25:55 ◼ ► It really confuses everything, and so it makes it a lot simpler to say, "I'm sorry. That version just doesn't work for...
00:26:12 ◼ ► Especially if someone has been wearing their Series 0 Apple Watch every single day and since they got it years ago,
00:26:23 ◼ ► With Watch OS especially, it gets really complicated because you'll start to get into this funny place where you install iOS 12,
00:26:34 ◼ ► and then you'll be still running Watch OS 4, and so the interplay between those may become less reliable.
00:26:41 ◼ ► I think I've seen from some experience that because these two things have to play nicely together, that could be problematic,
00:26:51 ◼ ► I just hope that this is the direction they go because I think even if they didn't have to drop the Series 0 in order to make it more capable,
00:26:57 ◼ ► I think it would make it easier for them to justify it because I feel like so much of what is limiting Watch OS is battery performance.
00:27:06 ◼ ► I think there's other things going on. I think RAM, like you said, is certainly a component to it,
00:27:16 ◼ ► Things like file transfers or file downloading to the watch is ridiculously slow in most cases because it's being done over Bluetooth,
00:27:26 ◼ ► presumably for battery life reasons, that it's able to do that with using less power in theory than if it was using a Wi-Fi connection or an LTE connection,
00:27:37 ◼ ► where it's using a bigger radio to make that happen. I understand that that's definitely going to be a battery life thing,
00:27:43 ◼ ► and these Series 0 watches, at least from all reports that I have from people who still use them, the battery life on them is not good.
00:27:51 ◼ ► They are very strongly coming down, which on the plus side means I've heard from a lot of people who said they're expecting this fall to get a new Apple Watch.
00:27:58 ◼ ► That's sort of their plan because the Series 0 is getting to a point that it can't get through a day on a charge.
00:28:05 ◼ ► If you can't put your watch on the charger at night and pick it up in the morning and have it last the whole day, it's not really a watch at that point.
00:28:23 ◼ ► As someone who makes a sleep tracker, I want you to be able to wear your Apple Watch all the time and just charge it while you take a shower in the morning and have it be totally fine.
00:28:33 ◼ ► For Series 3, for me, I work out an hour a day at least and only really charge my watch when I'm taking a shower, and it works fine.
00:28:44 ◼ ► The Series 3 works fine for me, and then every now and then, maybe once a week, I charge it one other time.