0:00:00Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development.
0:00:04I'm Marco Arment.
0:00:05And I'm David Smith.
0:00:06Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.
0:00:10So as we're recording this, it's sort of the middle of June in 2020.
0:00:16So if you're looking back at this and you hear that the year is 2020, you may have some
0:00:21sense of the unprecedented year we've been having.
0:00:30That seems to be the term that's been thrown around a lot.
0:00:33And it's like, I don't even know where to begin for all the things that are happening
0:00:37that are not normal, are atypical, are significant, are emotional, are frustrating.
0:00:44And so as the year starts out and we start to have the coronavirus outbreak and it totally
0:00:50upends everything and causes widespread sickness and tragedy, and as right as we get to the
0:01:02point where we start to perhaps slightly see the end of this and things open up, there's
0:01:08all of the awfulness going on.
0:01:20The issues around racism in the US and police brutality and the way those things are reacted
0:01:25to and the protests around that, and all of these things come together.
0:01:29And it's worth saying, I think, Marco and I, we are firmly against racism and all of
0:01:36its guises as structural and personal and all of the awful things that are happening
0:01:41there.
0:01:42But as a result of all of those things, at least I can speak for myself, there is just
0:01:48this general sense of difficulty and challenge.
0:01:53As it relates to my work, it's been very difficult in this last six months to be productive,
0:01:58to get the normal amount of work done that I would hope to do or expect myself to do
0:02:04or want to do.
0:02:07It's really hard to want to focus or be able to focus on the things that relate to my job
0:02:13when it feels like everything around you is falling apart and going crazy and everything's
0:02:19awful.
0:02:20And it seemed like a topic, though, that is probably worth just discussing and talking
0:02:25through some observations around what the impacts of having these external factors in
0:02:31the world that are big and significant and weighty can have on you emotionally and how
0:02:36they can relate to your productivity and your work.
0:02:39And then also, on the more positive side, is hopefully to talk about some of the strategies
0:02:43and things that you can do, that I've done, that Marco's done, that have helped.
0:02:49Many of these things, when something is happening outside in the world more generally, there's
0:02:55only so much that we can do to affect change to that and to eliminate it.
0:03:01It isn't like I'm sitting in a chair that's uncomfortable and if I go and get a new chair,
0:03:06suddenly my work environment can be more productive or more comfortable.
0:03:11These are situations that are broad and wide in the world.
0:03:15There aren't these simple and easy quick fixes, but there are certainly strategies and things
0:03:18that we can do to mitigate the effect on us and to help us both emotionally and for our
0:03:24mental health as well as our productivity and our ability to continue doing our jobs
0:03:29in the midst of things that make that really difficult.
0:03:33Yeah, because ultimately, as Dave said, this has been a really messed up year so far.
0:03:40And the major factors, basically being COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests against
0:03:46police brutality, that's not likely to go away quickly.
0:03:52These problems aren't just going to be solved tomorrow and everything will go back to "normal."
0:03:56That's not going to happen.
0:03:57Any return to something closer to normal is going to just take time.
0:04:01It's going to be a gradual process and it's already been months.
0:04:06I mean, we talked about doing this episode months ago and we kept having other things
0:04:10to talk about, but it's already been months that we've been quarantined and going through
0:04:15the COVID-19 pandemic and all those things.
0:04:20This is such a not normal time that I personally, I know many people out there have had to do
0:04:27that trouble.
0:04:28I personally have had a lot of trouble getting any work done whatsoever.
0:04:33And I think that's okay.
0:04:36When we first started out with the quarantine, certainly one of the fastest issues we had
0:04:43to face was what do we do about school?
0:04:45We both have children.
0:04:47You had a different situation than I do.
0:04:50My situation was my kid went to a public school.
0:04:53He goes to a regular school and his school was closed.
0:04:58So everyone started doing basically web remote teaching and web remote learning.
0:05:03So he has to do video chats and fill out worksheets and everything.
0:05:08That's been difficult for everyone, for the teachers, for the students, for the parents,
0:05:13because nobody was prepared for that.
0:05:14It's a hugely different shift in how things have to work.
0:05:18Everybody has to do things they haven't done before in ways they haven't done before.
0:05:23It was extremely disruptive.
0:05:26The question certainly arose of how much work should your children be doing during this
0:05:33time?
0:05:34How much should you try to stick with school?
0:05:36For some people, school is what makes their kids feel normal.
0:05:42So they try to do as structured of a day as possible for their kids.
0:05:47For other people, their kids don't thrive in a school environment and school is stressful.
0:05:55Moving it to home and trying to reproduce as much of the school day as possible at home
0:05:59was a source of stress for a lot of people, not a source of normalcy and structure.
0:06:05So you had to make a judgment call based on who you knew your kid to be of like, "Do
0:06:10we make them work a lot or do we make them work just what they need to do bare minimum
0:06:16and let them chill for the rest of the time?"
0:06:19And I think back, nobody looks back on periods of disasters or tragedies or wars or things
0:06:28like that.
0:06:29No one looks back on that time later and says, "I wish I was more productive during that
0:06:34time."
0:06:36These are serious times where serious stuff is going on, much of which is negative.
0:06:41And it's okay during that time to not overwork yourself or your kids or whatever, your employees.
0:06:49It's totally okay to not overwork people.
0:06:52In fact, you should be doing the opposite.
0:06:53You should be underworking yourself during this time because there's a lot to process
0:06:57and deal with in the world right now.
0:06:59There are major shifts happening all around us.
0:07:02There are major, you know, heavy dark times happening and many things have become more
0:07:09difficult or more time consuming for us to handle at home or at work.
0:07:14And so we need to leave space to breathe and to relax and to process this and to have some
0:07:22time off.
0:07:23And the good thing is that what most of us do, I think one of the unintentional positive
0:07:31side effects of the quarantine period has been that a lot of the stuff that we used
0:07:36to do day to day that we told ourselves we had to do, we actually don't have to do.
0:07:42Or we can get away with doing a lot less of it.
0:07:45And so I think we can apply a lot of that to our indie lives as well.
0:07:51Indie life has been largely, for me, about trying to do as little work as possible, trying
0:07:58to commit to as little time requirement as possible.
0:08:02I don't want to create a job for myself where I have to wake up and do six hours of work
0:08:06every single day, otherwise the job falls apart.
0:08:09It's more bursty where if I want to go a day without doing any work whatsoever, that's
0:08:15okay.
0:08:16The work will wait or the app will run itself to some degree.
0:08:20If I want to have a week where I do nothing, if I want to go on vacation, which is always
0:08:26a healthy thing, we've talked about that, I want to have a business where it can take
0:08:30a week of me not putting much or any time into it.
0:08:34With the quarantine, I think what we've seen is we need even more slack in the system than
0:08:42we initially thought for certain large scale disasters like this.
0:08:47And I've been fortunate that my, like, for the whole first month, I didn't really do
0:08:53anything.
0:08:54I got almost no work done for like a month.
0:08:57And nothing bad happened to my business.
0:09:00It was fine.
0:09:01My business, like, my app is in a stable-ish state.
0:09:04Everything was fine.
0:09:05Usage went down, money went down a little bit, but it wasn't like fatally so.
0:09:10And so everything was just running kind of in like, you know, stable mode waiting for
0:09:16whenever I want to work on it next.
0:09:18And it's really great to put yourself in a position where you can have that kind of slack
0:09:22in your business, where you can have that kind of like built in buffer on everything
0:09:26and be like, "All right, it's okay if I don't work for a little while."
0:09:30And you know, the business won't die.
0:09:33My app won't stop working.
0:09:35You know, everything will be fine.
0:09:37And all those like feature updates that you want to do or redesigns or whatever, you know
0:09:41what, maybe those can wait.
0:09:43Does it really matter if you redesign the app this year or next year?
0:09:46You know, does it really matter if you add this feature that 10% of your people are asking
0:09:50for now or in a year from now?
0:09:54Probably not.
0:09:55All right.
0:09:56So ultimately, I think it's very valuable to let yourself recognize that these are not
0:10:02normal times and give yourself the room to breathe and give yourself time off and not
0:10:09to beat yourself up over it.
0:10:11Because again, like I think in five years from now, no one's gonna be looking back at
0:10:16this time and saying, "Wow, I really wish I added two more features during the quarantine."
0:10:20Yeah.
0:10:21And I feel like so much of these, like it makes me think of one of the best analogies
0:10:26I ever have, or the analogy that I find useful for myself in terms of understanding my capacity
0:10:35for doing things is to think of like my life is like this, I have a box, and I can choose
0:10:42which things I put into that.
0:10:44And it's like, I can put in sleep, and I can put in exercise, and I can put in eating,
0:10:47I can put in relationships, I can put in work, I can put in all of the various like homework,
0:10:52whatever those things are that I need to do.
0:10:55But the size of the box is sort of outside of my control.
0:11:01And in many ways, you have situations like this where suddenly I feel like the box got
0:11:05smaller, and it got smaller because of the emotional strain and the uncertainty and the
0:11:11difficulty that sort of surrounds what we're doing.
0:11:14And it's like at a certain point, you have to decide, "Well, what are you going to take
0:11:17out?
0:11:18What are you going to not, what are you going to take out of the box because the box is
0:11:22too small?
0:11:23It can't hold as much as it used to."
0:11:25And that calculus is really complicated, but it's one of those things.
0:11:30There is no way to change that.
0:11:33Like you can't just like say, sort of like the old thing of, "Oh, I wish I had 25 hours
0:11:37in a day."
0:11:38It's like, you can't.
0:11:40Like they're sort of trying to sort of fake it by working extra hours.
0:11:46It's like all you're doing is you're taking away from sleep, probably, or you're taking
0:11:50away from relationships, or you're taking away from something else.
0:11:53Like ultimately, everything has to balance out.
0:11:56And I think what's, it certainly is, everyone's situation is different.
0:12:00And I think it is certainly one of the great things that I'm very appreciative of, of the
0:12:04kind of the typical sort of software development lifecycle is such that it is one that has
0:12:11a lot of slack in it.
0:12:12That it is a situation where if I need to take out several units of software development
0:12:17so that I can make sure that I don't have to take out any of my, you know, sort of sleep
0:12:22or wellbeing or relationships or connection, I can leave all those in the box and I can
0:12:26take out some work right now.
0:12:28Like that is a tremendously fortunate place to be.
0:12:30And obviously that's dependent on the kind of work you do.
0:12:32And even if you are an independent developer, if you're doing a lot of consulting work or
0:12:35something like that, where even if it's, you know, even sort of in the most specific cases,
0:12:39if it's like hourly consulting, that there's like a very fixed number of hours that you
0:12:42need to be sitting down working on a project.
0:12:45Like maybe you don't have that flexibility to be able to do that.
0:12:48But there's a certainly is important to understand that ever all of these things are going to
0:12:53be this necessary trade off that like, whatever, you know, you have to decide what are the
0:12:58things that you're going to allow you, what you're going to choose to put into the box
0:13:01and understand that when things are all turned upside down, like that calculus and that choice
0:13:08is going to be harder.
0:13:10And unfortunately, most of the things that you can do to kind of try if you want to try
0:13:15and keep your productivity normal in an unnormal time, are going to ultimately probably make
0:13:21it worse in the long term.
0:13:23That if you take like, it's very, very normal right now to feel emotional in big ways.
0:13:30And that can be all kinds of different emotions.
0:13:32But like, it's going to be just general latent emotional state right now, at least for myself
0:13:36is very much higher than, you know, it was perhaps a year ago.
0:13:42And so, like, understand that, but like, if I don't, if I decided to, like, instead of
0:13:47taking out work, if I took out sleep, or exercise or diet or those types of things, and it's
0:13:54like left, left all my work in there, my emotional state is all is necessarily going to suffer.
0:14:00And ultimately, like, that's, it's going to be counterproductive that I'm going to eventually
0:14:04not be able to do that, especially in a situation like this, where it isn't a short term fixed
0:14:09duration, like sprint, it's this very open ended, who knows how long situation.
0:14:16And so it's like, you have to be have to be planning and making choices that allow us
0:14:19to be as best like the best situation that we can do for as long as we can.
0:14:24And like, it's also really something that's also probably worth saying is, it's also really
0:14:29a common thing, at least for myself to not know what I should be doing.
0:14:32That it's easy, you know, like, for me to, like, have a nice picture of like, I have
0:14:37this box, and I have these different boxes that I want to put inside of it.
0:14:39And I can kind of sit there and I can play the play the Jenga game of what I want to
0:14:43put in and what I want to take out.
0:14:45The reality is, is very often I often just feel like I don't know what I'm doing, and
0:14:48I don't know what to do.
0:14:49And I think in those situations, it's certainly like there are things that I find that the
0:14:56easiest things to start with are the things that you know, will sort of build you up into
0:15:00things that will encourage you and improve your physical and mental health.
0:15:05And putting those things in first, and then seeing what you have left to make decisions
0:15:11with is a great place to, I think, start kind of just filtering through these big feelings
0:15:15and dealing with like, what do you do when everything's going crazy?
0:15:19It's like, start with the things that you know kind of make it better for you.
0:15:23And if ultimately, like, other things fall out and things don't get put back in the
0:15:28box, like, that's totally fine.
0:15:30And that's totally normal.
0:15:31Yeah, totally.
0:15:32We are sponsored this week by Linode.
0:15:35Whether you're working on a personal project or managing your enterprise's entire infrastructure,
0:15:39Linode has the pricing, support, and scale you need to take your project to the next
0:15:43level.
0:15:44They have 11 data centers worldwide so far.
0:15:46They just opened up a new one recently in Sydney, Australia.
0:15:49All of them feature their enterprise-grade hardware, their new S3-compatible storage
0:15:53option, and their next generation network.
0:15:55And Linode delivers the performance that you need at a surprisingly good price.
0:16:01You can get started today on Linode with a $20 credit for our listeners.
0:16:04You can get access to everything they offer.
0:16:06Their plans start at just $5 a month.
0:16:09They have all sorts of plans above and beyond that, depending on what your needs might be.
0:16:12So things like dedicated CPU plans, GPU compute plans, block storage, object storage, all
0:16:18sorts of amazing features at Linode.
0:16:20They have one-click installs of popular apps like WordPress or a LAMP stack or Minecraft
0:16:25servers, so much more.
0:16:27I've been a customer of Linode myself for eight years now, and I love being a Linode
0:16:31customer.
0:16:32They've been a great value the entire time I've been with them.
0:16:35They are always continuing to become a great value over time.
0:16:38Their support is great.
0:16:40I have something like 30 servers there, and I've never had any major problems with them.
0:16:45I've used a lot of hosts in my day, and there's a reason I've stuck with them for the longest,
0:16:48because they're just the best.
0:16:50Go to linode.com/radar and use promo code undertheradar2020 when creating a new Linode
0:16:56account, and you will get a $20 credit towards your next project.
0:17:00They're also hiring right now, linode.com/careers, if that interests you.
0:17:04Otherwise, once again, linode.com/radar, promo code undertheradar2020 for that $20 credit.
0:17:11Our thanks to Linode for their support of this show and all of Relay FM.
0:17:16One thing I've been helped by a lot during this time is that, as developers, we know
0:17:22that there's some work that's just not very fun to do that we have to do.
0:17:28Fixing some kind of obscure, deep crash in something that affects 1% of your people,
0:17:33that's not fun.
0:17:35Or adopting some new Apple technology that you kind of have to, but you haven't been
0:17:39looking forward to.
0:17:40Like, "Oh, great, they deprecated this entire old API, and I have to replace it with this
0:17:44new thing."
0:17:45There's certain kind of just grunt work involved here.
0:17:47There's also fun stuff.
0:17:48Everyone loves starting a new project.
0:17:50New stuff is always fun.
0:17:52People love starting new projects.
0:17:53I can absolutely confirm this.
0:17:55Yes.
0:17:56Well, new projects, new features, new apps, new little fun stuff, that's like the ice
0:18:03cream of development.
0:18:04It's like, everyone loves that part.
0:18:06Starting the new stuff is great.
0:18:08Grinding away at maintenance or old stuff is less fun.
0:18:12You mentioned before, trying to figure out what you want to do during this time.
0:18:16One thing that helped me a lot is I wrote the entire ATP CMS in this time.
0:18:22It's been a large project.
0:18:23It's still ongoing because I'm building the membership stuff now.
0:18:26It's still ongoing.
0:18:28Starting a new project, even though I've also been doing overcast work at the same time,
0:18:32but just a lot less of it.
0:18:34I've been focusing much more on the ATP stuff for now because I needed something to get
0:18:40me out of the unproductivity funk that I was in for a month or more at the beginning of
0:18:45the project.
0:18:47I knew that working on a bug fix version of overcast is not going to do that.
0:18:54Working on a brand new, totally different kind of project that was a lot of fun and
0:18:58it's smaller scope, easier in a lot of ways, that really got me going again.
0:19:05I wouldn't say I'm in a great state of mind in the middle of all this, but my state
0:19:11of mind was dramatically improved once I got going on that project.
0:19:16I broke the funk.
0:19:18I broke the inactive depression period.
0:19:22I shoved myself into this project that made me very happy.
0:19:26You mentioned exercise a minute ago and I'm sure we're going to talk more about it
0:19:30in a second, but one of the reasons why you want to exercise is that you feel good after
0:19:34you do it.
0:19:35For me, I also feel that same kind of satisfaction when I've exercised my brain.
0:19:42For a month, I didn't do that.
0:19:46Once I started exercising my brain again by having these solid coding productivity days,
0:19:52I felt significantly improved on those days.
0:19:55I've tried to keep that going as much as I could because, again, at times like this,
0:19:59take whatever you can get.
0:20:00I think favored projects are doing the work that you enjoy.
0:20:06There's just work that we enjoy as developers.
0:20:09There's reasons why we got into this business in the first place.
0:20:12There's certain kinds of problems, certain kinds of tasks that are interesting and fun.
0:20:17I definitely agree that this is a tremendously good opportunity to try as best you can to
0:20:24work on that.
0:20:26If you have the ability and the flexibility to do that, pick up a feature or a project
0:20:31or an idea that you are excited about.
0:20:34Honestly, if you have any excitement about anything when it feels like the world's falling
0:20:39apart, go with that.
0:20:44Don't let that spark go out.
0:20:46Fan that flame as much as you can and take advantage of it.
0:20:52I find it's very hard to force your mind to do something it doesn't want to do or it doesn't
0:20:59feel like you're excited or interested in doing.
0:21:01Eventually that grunt work, that deep bug fix that you're trying to find that affects
0:21:07a few numbers of people, eventually you're probably going to have to do it.
0:21:12Maybe not, who knows?
0:21:13Maybe it's actually not as big of a deal as you thought.
0:21:15But the reality is, if you have something that's exciting to you, go for it.
0:21:19That was the entire reason I just finished building this whole map, built an entire mapping
0:21:22system for the Apple Watch from scratch because it just wedged in my brain.
0:21:29I was like, "I'm excited about this.
0:21:31I'm going to work on it."
0:21:32I did and I felt productive.
0:21:34Just like you said, there is something good and wholesome about building something and
0:21:41being productive and having that sense that you accomplish something that is a positive
0:21:45for your mental health and a positive for your ability to get back into the groove and
0:21:51maybe be able to tackle less favorite projects.
0:21:53But I think it's a great opportunity to think of that and to find things that you
0:22:00have that kind of interest for.
0:22:02This is the perfect opportunity to do that.
0:22:03Whatever that might be, that can be small, that could be big, it can be learning something
0:22:07that you've been wanting to learn for a while but have been putting off.
0:22:10Maybe now is an interesting time to do that.
0:22:13It's just going to be very different for everyone but that's definitely something that I've
0:22:16been doing.
0:22:17It's certainly something that I'm continuing to do.
0:22:21I have my list of features that are my grown-up, "One day I'll need to deal with this bug
0:22:27feature."
0:22:28But the reality is I'm having much more fun and much more actual productivity building
0:22:34new stuff that I think is interesting.
0:22:36Every time I pick up one of those features or these bugs that I need to track down, I
0:22:40end up spending four hours doing nothing.
0:22:42I'm just running around hitting dead ends and my productivity and my ability to do that
0:22:47kind of work right now is just limited.
0:22:49I feel like that's the work you have to do when you're in a prime state where everything
0:22:53is going right and everything is good.
0:22:56If you're not in a prime state because everything around you is not so good, that's not the
0:23:01time to worry about those features.
0:23:02As best you can, just put them off.
0:23:05So many other things that I think we can do outside of the work itself too.
0:23:11Exercise is great just in terms of being active is just good for our well-being.
0:23:17I think especially now, it is something that is so hard to be outside that whatever fitness
0:23:25looks like for you, you can do some amount of exercise in any amount of space.
0:23:29You don't need a huge amount of space or equipment or a situation to just be up and active and
0:23:33get your blood flowing.
0:23:35That has just tremendous positive effects on you.
0:23:39I think another related thing is just the importance of taking breaks.
0:23:44Fitness and exercise is a great break to take.
0:23:46That's a nice short thing to say, "In the middle of the day, I'm going to stop and
0:23:50I'm going to do 100 jumping jacks," or whatever it might be.
0:23:54Do 10 push-ups.
0:23:55It doesn't actually matter what you're doing, but taking breaks from your work and
0:24:00exercise is a great place to do that.
0:24:02That can be a short thing or a long thing, but just giving yourself permission that you
0:24:07don't need to be nose to the grindstone the whole time.
0:24:11Even better is perhaps if you can take those breaks and combine exercise and nature, like
0:24:16going for a walk outside, going for a run, going for a bike ride, whatever is appropriate
0:24:20for your situation.
0:24:22I find that just being outside and being around nature is just very soothing in general.
0:24:29Something that I think is a very apt and effective thing, if that's something that's possible
0:24:34for you to do right now, it's a great way to take a break and reset and just lower the
0:24:41– I feel like it lowers my anxiety when I'm just out in nature.
0:24:46It's certainly a strategy that I've been using a lot recently to try and help.
0:24:51Yeah, I've been doing all that as well because there are real reasons for this.
0:24:57There's actual body chemistry and body health improvements that happen when you get any
0:25:03exercise or when you get sunlight and fresh air.
0:25:07This is not just mumbo jumbo, hippie stuff.
0:25:10This is actually real science.
0:25:13Your body actually is healthier and happier when you have exercise and fresh air and sunlight.
0:25:20Do what you can.
0:25:21Again, it's like because we're in a hard time, we keep saying just do what you can
0:25:25to improve things for yourself and to get through it.
0:25:28This is part of that.
0:25:29Give yourself the best chance to feel good, as good as you can, by indulging yourself
0:25:36in the things that you like, the work that you like, the activities that you like, and
0:25:41by giving your body the chemistry it needs to be happy through things like exercise and
0:25:45sunlight.
0:25:46Yeah, and I think also, I think it's a very, very useful thing to keep in mind, as you
0:25:53were saying earlier, if you just didn't work on your app for a year, how bad would
0:25:58that actually be?
0:25:59Would you go out of business?
0:26:00Would everyone immediately stop buying it?
0:26:03Possibly if you're in a rough state, but probably not.
0:26:06Most apps could take a long time without major updates and be fine business-wise.
0:26:11You do the updates usually because you want to or because you want to remain competitive
0:26:15or whatever, but you don't actually have to do that as much as you might think.
0:26:21That's something to keep in mind as well.
0:26:22Finally, I think the timing of this, assuming that the rest of the year might be closer
0:26:27to normal, which granted is not a safe assumption, but assuming that the worst is probably behind
0:26:33us, this is actually a really good time for this in the year because we've talked about
0:26:38before the seasonality of being an app developer and how right before WWDC, for the few months
0:26:44before it, is a great time to not be doing a whole bunch of major changes to your app
0:26:50because the whole world that we rest on is about to shift when WWDC happens and then
0:26:56we have the summer of betas and the fall of releases and new hardware.
0:27:01This has always been a good time of year for us to do more exploratory work or try new
0:27:06projects or back off and do something fun while we wait for WWDC.
0:27:11The timing of this is actually really good.
0:27:14As we lead into WWDC in a couple of weeks now, I think it'll be interesting to see,
0:27:19first of all, how big of a year does this end up being for Apple because they've had
0:27:22challenges too because they've also been quarantined and slowed down and delayed probably in a
0:27:27lot of ways.
0:27:28We don't know how big of a year it's going to be for the APIs and for the platforms and
0:27:32later on for the hardware, but it's interesting to think we've had all this time that we could
0:27:37have been doing all this exploratory stuff and for the next few weeks we still can with
0:27:41basically no burden from Apple on you better hurry up and adopt this thing because right
0:27:46now we don't know what that is yet.
0:27:48Honestly, I'm just excited about seeing what gets announced.
0:27:54One of my favorite things is coming up with finding a favorite project or finding something
0:28:00interesting.
0:28:01WWDC is ground zero for that.
0:28:04Here is Apple coming up and saying, "Here's all this new interesting stuff that we think
0:28:08you should try and explore."
0:28:09It's like, "Hooray!"
0:28:12I'm really just looking forward to doing that.
0:28:16It wouldn't surprise me at all if this is a year where it works well to be a bit more
0:28:22exploratory and enjoy that.
0:28:26Especially if there's some new thing that you think is really cool and interesting,
0:28:29go for it.
0:28:30If you're excited about it, it's a great time to dive into that.
0:28:35I do hope that there is also something I will say that is slightly comforting to me about
0:28:41the thought of a WWDC keynote that has been such a fixture in my life for so long that
0:28:47there is something normative about it that it makes me hopeful that it will be an experience.
0:28:54I know what to expect and I know what comes next.
0:28:56Hopefully, we're getting into a more stable place and that will be a great opportunity
0:29:01to hopefully have this mid-year reset and kind of re-decide what I want to work on the
0:29:06rest of the year and just see where it goes.
0:29:08I'm very much looking forward to it as well for all the same reasons.
0:29:12As you said, the fun part of development so often is that new stuff, new projects.
0:29:19Go to Xcode, file a new project, and try something totally new.
0:29:24Beta season is an especially fun time to do that.
0:29:27I'm looking forward to the escape that will provide and to the little opportunities for
0:29:33satisfaction that we've got afterwards.
0:29:36Hopefully it's a good year.
0:29:37The show will be after the keynote so we will know a lot more about it and we'll do it
0:29:40about that.
0:29:41We will talk to you then and have a wonderful two weeks, everyone.
0:29:44Thanks for listening.
0:29:45Thank you.
0:29:46Bye.
0:29:46[BLANK_AUDIO]