00:10:44
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And I would say most of those kind of didn't go anywhere.
00:10:47
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And I think many of them were in those early days.
00:10:49
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There's that early period where I was just coming up with things that I could think of I could do on the watch.
00:10:55
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Rather than necessarily potentially that I should do on the watch.
00:10:58
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And I think learning to know the difference between could and should on watchOS has been kind of a really interesting journey.
00:11:05
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I think both for Apple as well as for third-party developers.
00:11:09
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But there's definitely been a couple that have kind of hit on.
00:11:11
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And a couple that continue to have some legs.
00:11:16
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And for most of them, they didn't go anywhere to start with.
00:11:20
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And the ones that have had the most attachment so far have typically been the health and fitness-related things.
00:11:29
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And often, honestly, the ones where the primary experience is on the phone.
00:11:35
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And the watch aspect of it is important but isn't necessarily essential.
00:11:40
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So I'm thinking of like Sleepless Plus as an example where it's like the most people's interaction with that app is actually on the iPhone.
00:12:06
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But if you want to actually have a standalone sort of watch experience, it's really tricky.
00:12:12
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And I think the market for those kind of standalone watch experiences is where like things get really interesting for me as I'm kind of embarking on this journey for like making an app that is really focused on the watch.
00:12:22
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And is all about the watch's experience because it's just harder, I think, to find a business model and to find a justification that kind of works for that.
00:12:31
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Because like, you know, the other apps like C++ and Podometer, like their primary sort of business case is that they are, you know, sort of free with ads with an in-app purchase to hide the ads.
00:12:45
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That kind of classic model that I -- in general I've kind of settled on and I kind of like in that it allows you to make something free so you have kind of a broader audience.
00:12:55
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It rewards use because the more they use it, the more they see the ads in it so that it kind of has a nice virtuous cycle.
00:13:02
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And if people don't like ads or want to support the app, they can, you know, buy an in-app purchase and everyone wins.
00:17:59
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I can probably talk about after we talk about something that we do like right?
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00:19:36
◼►
So I'm curious before you get on to what you're actually doing here.
00:19:40
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I'm curious, has the introduction of the App Store last summer on the watch made any noticeable difference for you?
00:19:48
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It's a slightly tricky thing to measure in terms of its, like, I think the reality, I mean the short answer is yes, but not dramatic, but meaningful.
00:20:01
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Maybe it's like, I don't know, it's kind of in that middle ground where there's a way if you go into your sales reports in App Store Connect, you can pull up the source or that is essentially like the source device of a purchase or download.
00:20:17
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And if I go in there, there's a way to see essentially which ones I think came from the watch App Store.
00:20:23
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It says watchOS, and so the only thing I can imagine is that this is the watch App Store, but there's not actually like said anywhere explicitly as far as I can tell.
00:20:31
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And, you know, for pedometer and Sleepless Plus, I definitely have seen, like, you know, it's like something like, you know, maybe like 10% of my downloads on some days will come from that.
00:20:44
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And it's usually, you know, coincides with if the app is being featured in that App Store, because I think that App Store is very much, you know, like, really it shows like three apps at a time or four apps at a time in a prominent way.
00:20:58
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And so if you're one of those, and someone happens to be there and your app happens to be free, then it seems certainly like a tool for discovery.
00:21:07
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I don't think like, I don't think I have a good way of knowing if people are searching for my apps and then finding them in that App Store because searching on the watchOS App Store is kind of a complicated journey that the user has to go on.
00:21:21
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So it isn't necessarily quite as strong there. But I will say that it does seem like, you know, the App Store is definitely being opened.
00:21:28
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And I do happen to be fortunate enough to be featured there, that while you're featured, you know, it can account for some a meaningful and measurable amount of downloads that it isn't something that is completely kind of like falling off into nothingness.
00:21:43
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I suspect that this will, it's an area that will, you know, sort of have a slow growth over time, especially as the watch becomes more and more independent, that the App Store and that being a place that people think to go to get an app might increase.
00:22:01
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And if it is now, and if you say it is, you know, on a good day 10%, like that still seems meaningful. If not like, you know, it's not like, oh my goodness, it's totally overrun my iOS App Store downloads. That's where everyone's getting my apps now.
00:22:15
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It's like, I don't expect that to ever be the case. But like, it's meaningful. I'm glad it's there. And I think it's hopefully just like the start of that, of like that training and that experience for customers that that's where they go.
00:22:27
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That's great. Honestly, that's those numbers are significantly better than what I would have guessed.
00:22:32
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Yeah, which I mean, that was surprised too. And it's one of those like, it's coming from like a weird reported in App Store Connect. So like, I hope I'm interpreting this data right. But it seems like that's that is where it's coming.
00:22:44
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So it's, I'm hopeful that's actually sort of the start of something new rather than kind of the just blip or a misunderstanding something there.
00:22:56
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So, I guess all of the like the economics questions and things ultimately kind of lead me to think that, ultimately, I think if you want to be a sustainable watch app, I think the reality is, like you have to be a subscription.
00:23:10
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And subscriptions are kind of meaning they're a hot topic in iOS development recently, where, you know, it's Apple seems to be pushing for them, a lot of apps are kind of shifting towards them, there's some reluctance and resilience sort of, you know, negative feedback that a lot of times, you know, in an app, especially when an app switches to subscription, it can often be really problematic.
00:23:32
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And, you know, users can be upset. But in this case, like I, I feel good about the fact that I have tried every other for every other possible approach, and none of them have proved viable.
00:23:46
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And so it seems the appropriate thing to try. And I think for certain types of apps on the watch, I feel like a subscription makes perfect sense, especially because subscriptions often that are associated with like accessing data or pulling information, which you know, it's so like, watch this, my new app includes a lot of, you know, different complications of different kinds, including things like weather apps, or like weather data that you can display in a complication.
00:24:15
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And like something like that is only viable in the context of a subscription, because I've made a weather app before, and ultimately, I had to pull it from the store, because the economics didn't balance out where my data costs were exceeding my sort of new user income.
00:24:29
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And it's just like, I was paying, you know, paying every month for the privilege of having this app, which was not a viable thing. And so a subscription is the obvious answer for a situation like that, where, you know, if people want to access weather data, that they pay for that weather data on a regular basis.
00:24:44
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And that just sort of nicely balances itself out. It hopefully also allows like the, you know, you, my hope for this app, and it's a niche in the sense of like, if you have to want you to have an have an Apple Watch and then want to make it more custom to be able to have more control over what your complications look like, to have more control over the aesthetics of that or want, you know, Apple Watch experiences that are more customizable or unique or specialized than, you know, just like the built in workouts that you're doing.
00:25:13
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Or just like the built in workouts app, for example, like I have a whole bunch of different workout modes. And if you're interested in heart rate training, or intervals, or different kind of metric displays, like I have those for you. And if you care about them, that's great. But most people probably still use just the built in workouts app and like, that's okay.
00:25:29
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And a subscription seems like a great answer for those kind of people to where if you have like a narrow but passionate and engaged user base, who gives you a regular amount, you know, it gives you a significant amount of money on a regular basis, like you have a business, that's really all you need.
00:25:45
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Like, I love the thought that a subscription, you know, you only if you only have, say only it's like, if you're able to get a few 1000 people to be subscribers, like you very quickly have a sustainable, like justifiable business.
00:26:01
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And the concept of getting, you know, hundreds of 1000s of people, we kind of daunting and scary, but getting a couple 1000, like doesn't seem nearly as crazy to me doesn't seem nearly as this intractable hard marketing problem.
00:26:16
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You just have to like, you can find that few 1000 people who really care about it, who really get what you're trying to do and really are engaged, like you have a business. And so like, that's kind of my hope is that it's for this kind of an app where it's a bit, you know, it is something that is like the normal that the traditional iOS business models just don't really seem to work or be viable, that going subscription, and, you know, appealing to a group of people who hopefully you can kind of you can draw in because it's doing something that's not going to be a good thing.
00:26:45
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because it's doing something for a device
00:26:47
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and the way they wish they use the device that they really