Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development. I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:05 ◼   ► And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:10 ◼   ► So to start off with, I just briefly wanted to call out something that was a very significant

00:00:17 ◼   ► insofar as we would like big round numbers. But this last week, you published, well, you,

00:00:23 ◼   ► John and Casey published, the Accidental Podcast episode number 300, which, A, I wanted to

00:00:29 ◼   ► congratulate you on because that is just a lot of talking.

00:00:33 ◼   ► Thank you. Yes, it was.

00:00:35 ◼   ► But I think honestly, moreover, and I think this is the thing that is like a mini topic

00:00:39 ◼   ► here that I wanted to touch on is it is a lot of showing up. It is a tremendous amount

00:00:45 ◼   ► of just sticking with something, going through all manner of seasons in terms of your various

00:00:52 ◼   ► personal lives, in terms of the podcasting industry, weathering a lot of different things.

00:00:58 ◼   ► And I think there is something just noteworthy about sticking with something for that long

00:01:06 ◼   ► that is, there's just an important lesson in that. And I think it applies very strongly

00:01:10 ◼   ► to the kind of things we often discuss here where the publishing, being an independent

00:01:17 ◼   ► producer of anything, whether that is a podcast or an application or a blog or whatever that

00:01:23 ◼   ► might be, that is something that is inevitably going to go through many seasons. And having

00:01:29 ◼   ► kind of known you for essentially the whole run of ATP, it's knowing that that show goes

00:01:37 ◼   ► through seasons. It goes through periods where listenership is up and everything's great

00:01:42 ◼   ► and sometimes things slow down or it comes and goes. And just showing up every week to

00:01:48 ◼   ► do that is kind of just an impressive accomplishment and I think a good reminder. I mean, it's

00:01:53 ◼   ► kind of fun. I just love the numeracy of you just hit 300 on that and this will be episode

00:02:00 ◼   ► 150 for us. And I think there is just, it's a good reminder that so much of what we do

00:02:07 ◼   ► and I think so much of what ultimately makes something successful is just continuing to

00:02:12 ◼   ► show up. That once you've gotten through the initial period where you're kind of seeing

00:02:17 ◼   ► if something has legs, it's just continuing to push at it and work at it. Not take it

00:02:23 ◼   ► for granted, find ways to make it new and fresh. And this is something that I think

00:02:28 ◼   ► I see in the evolution of the Accidental Tech podcast. It's interesting because I know I've

00:02:34 ◼   ► been listening from the beginning because I was one of the handful of neutral listeners

00:02:39 ◼   ► before it turned into the Accidental Tech podcast and it has changed. The format has

00:02:46 ◼   ► changed. You've adapted. You do things like Ask ATP Now, which I think is a great way

00:02:50 ◼   ► to inject some kind of freshness and diversity into the topics and even just the roles within

00:02:56 ◼   ► the show is like it changes and adapts, which I think is just an important lesson to be

00:03:02 ◼   ► learned. And I have no idea if this show will ever get to 300, but I'm glad to be able

00:03:09 ◼   ► to get to 150.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Yeah, thanks. And congratulations to us as well for hitting 150. We might as well congratulate

00:03:16 ◼   ► ourselves because it's a podcast. We're the only ones here. And so, yeah, thank you

00:03:20 ◼   ► very much. I think there are lessons to be learned here as well, like lessons to teach

00:03:25 ◼   ► others. You know, doing anything every single week for six years is not easy. Doing everything

00:03:34 ◼   ► every single week for six months is not easy. There are ways to set it up so that it's

00:03:40 ◼   ► easier on you. There are ways to make it more sustainable or more challenging. And, you

00:03:45 ◼   ► know, when it comes to what we usually talk about, like indie development, our time is

00:03:50 ◼   ► very limited. Our resources are usually more limited than a big company would be. But mostly

00:03:56 ◼   ► our time is what it is. And we also need to do things like plan for or allow for breaks,

00:04:06 ◼   ► things like vacations and having some slack in the schedule or some slack in our obligations

00:04:12 ◼   ► so that if family obligations come up or some unexpected health problem comes up or something

00:04:17 ◼   ► like that, that we have slack in the schedule for that. And there are certain obligations

00:04:22 ◼   ► you sign yourself up for can be easier or harder to work into an indie life. We're

00:04:29 ◼   ► lucky in that podcasting the way we do, you know, where it's not scripted. You know,

00:04:34 ◼   ► we work basically off of an outline of things we want to talk about. But for the most part,

00:04:38 ◼   ► it's not scripted. And this applies to both ATP and Under the Radar. You know, we're

00:04:44 ◼   ► basically like, you know, bullet points are what we prepare and that's about it. And

00:04:48 ◼   ► the rest is kind of off the cuff or just recalling stories or tips from our own experience or

00:04:53 ◼   ► just BSing about something that we think, you know, that we have opinions on. But that

00:04:59 ◼   ► kind of like it's fairly low on the prep. And then you're talking for the time of

00:05:05 ◼   ► the show and then there's some editing time afterwards and that's about it. And it's

00:05:09 ◼   ► fairly easy to fit a, you know, one to three hour commitment per week. Or, you know, even

00:05:16 ◼   ► if you do like a lot of editing like I do on ATP, you know, it's maybe a six hour

00:05:21 ◼   ► commitment every week. But that's also a big part of my job. But like it's that,

00:05:25 ◼   ► like what you get out of it for such a small commitment of time is a pretty good ratio.

00:05:31 ◼   ► It's a pretty good like, you know, return on investment time wise. There's a lot of

00:05:35 ◼   ► things you can sign up for to do every week that aren't so much a good return on investment

00:05:38 ◼   ► or that need a lot more of your time. And I think it's important for indies to really

00:05:44 ◼   ► judge harshly when it comes to what is a good use of your time for things that are recurring.

00:05:52 ◼   ► You know, it's one thing, like if you want to go off on an experiment that's like

00:05:56 ◼   ► a one off thing or an exploratory thing where you're like, okay, let me try, you know,

00:06:01 ◼   ► building some crazy algorithm. Like what I'm doing with Voice Boost 2 now. Like I have

00:06:06 ◼   ► been on this crazy audio coding odyssey for the last probably two months or so or at least

00:06:12 ◼   ► one month working on Voice Boost 2 and getting all sorts of audio processing stuff down and

00:06:19 ◼   ► really experimenting with it and trying to do really sophisticated stuff if I can. And

00:06:25 ◼   ► all of that is a huge use of time. If this was like what I was doing every week, I would

00:06:30 ◼   ► say it's probably not a good use of my time. But it's okay to invest that kind of

00:06:33 ◼   ► like as a one off thing, as an exploratory thing or like a large investment in what might

00:06:38 ◼   ► be a major feature. Whereas if I'm looking at something that's going to recur every

00:06:43 ◼   ► week for the indefinite future, something like starting a podcast, starting a video

00:06:48 ◼   ► series, committing to like a writing gig once a week or something like that, right, where

00:06:53 ◼   ► you're really committed every week. That I would look at much more harshly to see

00:06:59 ◼   ► like is this really worth this time every week? Like what is this going to cost me time

00:07:04 ◼   ► wise? Possibly what am I going to have to stop doing to make time for this? That I think

00:07:10 ◼   ► you have to look at very harshly. With ATP, it works out well. You know, the ratios work.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Podcasts in general are fairly good returns on investment for how much effort and time

00:07:24 ◼   ► they take to produce versus how much value you get out of them. Things that are lower

00:07:28 ◼   ► on that list are things like giving conference talks. You know, like that's way more work

00:07:32 ◼   ► for, I think, way less benefit most of the time. And I think it's important as an indie

00:07:38 ◼   ► to find that balance between those extremes and to really think hard about how you're

00:07:43 ◼   ► going to allocate your time for recurring indefinite commitments.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think too, there is something to be said for just being circumspect when

00:07:55 ◼   ► you start something about what it's going to cost you. Like one of the things we always,

00:08:01 ◼   ► like we try and say in my household is whenever you say, saying yes to something is always

00:08:05 ◼   ► saying no to something else. And I think often it's easy to want to say yes to something

00:08:12 ◼   ► because it is in and of itself appealing. But it is often hard to actually conceptualize

00:08:22 ◼   ► what you're saying no to by saying yes to that thing. And I think in sort of intrinsic

00:08:27 ◼   ► thinking what you're saying is the sense that your time is precious, make sure that you're

00:08:30 ◼   ► spending it appropriately. And like, if you find something where you can find that great

00:08:35 ◼   ► combination of, you know, sort of good value for whatever that means to you, whether that's

00:08:40 ◼   ► financial or in terms of reputation, or in terms of other things, that like that there's

00:08:45 ◼   ► a balance between the effort that it takes. And I think especially in the ongoing basis

00:08:49 ◼   ► side, it's something that you have to be very mindful of. And I mean, reminded and slightly

00:08:54 ◼   ► of early before we I did under the radar, I did a show called Developing Perspective,

00:08:59 ◼   ► which was just me for 15 minutes. And what I found with that show, when I started it,

00:09:05 ◼   ► I tried to, I did it as a weekly thing, actually, the first month I did it as a daily thing,

00:09:09 ◼   ► but that was for a different reason. But what I read, what I very quickly found was that

00:09:15 ◼   ► and like the purpose of the show was not financial, there's no ads on it ever, it was entirely,

00:09:19 ◼   ► I guess, reputation oriented, that my goal was to try and raise my profile in the developer

00:09:26 ◼   ► community by having a podcast, having a thing that I was talking about. And what I found

00:09:31 ◼   ► though is, is it worked well, when I changed it to the two, I did it whenever it made sense

00:09:37 ◼   ► for me to do it. And it was also why it had a 15 minute time limit, is that it was very

00:09:43 ◼   ► easy for me to just sit down, record for 15 minutes, do a few rough edits, and then post

00:09:48 ◼   ► it. And the whole process maybe was 20 or 30 minutes, and I would do it whenever it

00:09:53 ◼   ► made sense. And that was a good way for me to balance that. So rather than committing

00:09:57 ◼   ► to some kind of hard, harsh schedule that I feel bad about, or I'm setting an expectation

00:10:02 ◼   ► for an audience or for other people to expect of me, it was just like, it comes when, you

00:10:08 ◼   ► know, whenever I have something to say, I will say it. And I found that that worked

00:10:11 ◼   ► well for finding that balance. But it's like being circumspect about, is this really, is

00:10:16 ◼   ► it a good use of your time? And if it is, then you can stick with something. And if

00:10:20 ◼   ► you stay at it, things can last a very long time. It's kind of amazing that you've

00:10:25 ◼   ► been doing ATP for six years. Essentially, that is entire one of my children's life

00:10:32 ◼   ► is encapsulated in that. And that is remarkable in a really kind of cool way.

00:10:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it is crazy to me, thinking about when I started the show, my son was

00:10:46 ◼   ► like one or zero. And Casey didn't even have children yet. There's entire lives that

00:10:53 ◼   ► have been started within this show. Although John was still writing Pearl. But Pearl is

00:11:02 ◼   ► forever. But like, you know, and I think there is some value to this, of the idea of whether

00:11:08 ◼   ► something is a weekly commitment, or a certain recurring commitment, or whether it's more

00:11:14 ◼   ► flexible. Like, you know, the way we do podcasts, this isn't how everybody has to do it, but

00:11:20 ◼   ► the way that we do ATP and the way we do this show is we do a show every single week. Or

00:11:26 ◼   ► rather we do a show for every single week. We don't necessarily record it during that

00:11:30 ◼   ► week. Like if we're going on vacation, we can double up the week before and then just

00:11:33 ◼   ► release the second one during that week or something. But for the most part, we're

00:11:37 ◼   ► doing a show almost every week. And same thing with ATP. And I think there is a lot of value

00:11:43 ◼   ► to that for sure. Especially in things like podcasts where you do want to like slowly

00:11:48 ◼   ► build an audience over time. And podcast audiences tend to reward regularity, people like that.

00:11:56 ◼   ► But if you do something the way you did developing perspective, where, you know, as you were

00:12:01 ◼   ► saying, like you basically did it whenever you could or whenever you felt like doing

00:12:04 ◼   ► it. Like there's room for that too. Like because the weekly commitment thing is such

00:12:09 ◼   ► a like firm, hard deadline. It's unforgiving. Like no matter what's going on in your life,

00:12:15 ◼   ► you have to do that show on this day. Like it's a fixed block. And that again, time

00:12:20 ◼   ► wise that can be very expensive. But when you move something to however you feel like

00:12:27 ◼   ► it, the bar for like how much reward do I need to get out of this gets much lower. Like

00:12:34 ◼   ► you know, so you mentioned with developing perspective, like you didn't ever run ads

00:12:37 ◼   ► on that show. Like it was not a financial thing. It was for other reasons. For you know,

00:12:40 ◼   ► audience building, reputation building, and you know, personal development, professional

00:12:44 ◼   ► development. There's, you should be doing things like that too when possible or when

00:12:50 ◼   ► you have like you know, the inspiration to do it. But it's important to then give that

00:12:55 ◼   ► like the time budget that it is worth rather than saying like oh I'm going to do this

00:13:00 ◼   ► every week. I'm going to do this, you know like I'm going to guarantee this thing.

00:13:03 ◼   ► Because then that isn't sustainable. Like if you commit to a weekly thing that takes

00:13:09 ◼   ► a good amount of time or any amount of time but then also has no direct business reward

00:13:15 ◼   ► for you or no direct upside for you or at least maybe has only a very slowly building

00:13:20 ◼   ► one. That's going to be like in within a month or two you're going to stop doing that

00:13:25 ◼   ► thing. Like you're going to burn out. You're going to you're going to flake out or just

00:13:28 ◼   ► fail or realize it's not worth it and just stop. Whereas if you if you align like the

00:13:36 ◼   ► time budget and importance budget with the upside to it, it might actually make it more

00:13:42 ◼   ► sustainable over time. Like you did developing perspective for what like two or three years

00:13:47 ◼   ► at least.

00:13:48 ◼   ► - It was a long time yeah. It was at least three I think it was three or four years.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - Yeah like you had it for a while and there were some times where you go a couple weeks

00:13:56 ◼   ► without an episode but then the show would come back and you keep going. And if you were

00:14:01 ◼   ► committed to doing it every single week, I bet at some point during that run you would

00:14:06 ◼   ► say I can't do this anymore and you would have just stopped.

00:14:10 ◼   ► - Yeah. I think that's that is very accurate. Yeah it looks like I did I think 226 episodes.

00:14:17 ◼   ► - Of the show from 2015 starting in 2011.

00:14:22 ◼   ► - Yeah exactly and so like that's why I like it's super important to to to align what you're

00:14:28 ◼   ► giving something for time wise and what you're allowing it to be obligation wise. Align that

00:14:34 ◼   ► with the reward you're getting from it because then when challenges come up on your time

00:14:39 ◼   ► or when other needs come up and you have to then stop doing it, it's not the end of the

00:14:43 ◼   ► world. You're not going to like fall out of it. You're not gonna like you know fall off

00:14:45 ◼   ► the wagon or get on the wagon. I never get that metaphor right. Whatever it is about

00:14:49 ◼   ► the wagons and like it's not gonna be like oh well it's out the window now. Might as

00:14:55 ◼   ► well stop doing it. See also you know exercise and activity rings. But anyway and you know

00:15:02 ◼   ► like I'm doing a similar thing with my YouTube videos now where I'm experimenting with YouTube

00:15:07 ◼   ► videos very rarely. It's a large time investment to get a video out for me. I'm reducing that

00:15:15 ◼   ► over time with you know both you know getting a little bit better at things, learning what

00:15:18 ◼   ► not to do, getting a little bit better equipment or having like a more permanent setup. Like

00:15:22 ◼   ► that's that those things all make all lower that that bar and make it easier to put out

00:15:27 ◼   ► a video and make it take less time. But it still takes way more time to make a video

00:15:31 ◼   ► than it does to make a podcast and anything else I do. And the videos at the moment have

00:15:36 ◼   ► no direct monetization. So the upside is not there really. And but the reason I want to

00:15:42 ◼   ► do those videos is I want to build up something over on YouTube. I want to expand my audience

00:15:49 ◼   ► and I want to build an audience there as well. And that has immense value but has a very

00:15:54 ◼   ► slow ramp over time. And so I have to like I have to really be careful with how I budget

00:16:01 ◼   ► my time for that because at the moment pouring a bunch of time and effort into my YouTube

00:16:07 ◼   ► videos is not a good use of my time. I have to you know I have to do my podcast every

00:16:11 ◼   ► week because that's a big part of my business and my income and my audience. And then I

00:16:14 ◼   ► also have overcast and I can't ignore overcast. I have to keep working on that as well. And

00:16:19 ◼   ► so I have to keep the videos kind of as a side project both time and commitment wise

00:16:26 ◼   ► because right now they are one. But maybe over time that changes but that's probably

00:16:30 ◼   ► going to be a while out.

00:16:31 ◼   ► Yeah. And I think too there's an element I find in so many things of it's separating

00:16:36 ◼   ► something from something that is like your vocation that is something that you are doing

00:16:40 ◼   ► for income to sustain yourself and to support yourself. And the pressure and expectations

00:16:45 ◼   ► on that are very specific versus something that you're doing for enrichment. And like

00:16:51 ◼   ► for you like I've dabbled in making YouTube videos myself and it's like I am glad of

00:16:55 ◼   ► the experience because I developed a skill that has come in handy other times or has

00:17:02 ◼   ► helped me to think about problems in a different way or you know like I went all of a sudden

00:17:07 ◼   ► they allowed us to do app previews like being able to know how to make a video was useful.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:17:13 ◼   ► But it's very it's like

00:17:14 ◼   ► App previews. I should probably do one of those.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Eventually I mean people like them I hear. But anyway it's like viewing something as

00:17:23 ◼   ► enrichment and like separating it as you know like is this my vocation or is this enrichment

00:17:28 ◼   ► and being like honest with yourself about that. That are you really starting this thing

00:17:33 ◼   ► with the expectation that this is going to be a substantial and important part of your

00:17:37 ◼   ► business or is this something you're doing to grow to have fun to experiment like those

00:17:43 ◼   ► types of things and it's enrichment in which case have a different set of expectations.

00:17:48 ◼   ► We are brought to you this week by Linode. Linode gives you access to a suite of powerful

00:17:53 ◼   ► hosting options with pricing starting at just five dollars a month. You can be up and running

00:17:57 ◼   ► with your own virtual server in the Linode cloud in under a minute. Whether you're just

00:18:01 ◼   ► getting started with your first server or you're deploying a more complex system like

00:18:05 ◼   ► what Dave and I run Linode is the right choice for you. They have the fastest hardware and

00:18:10 ◼   ► network and they have fantastic customer support behind it all if you need anything. It has

00:18:15 ◼   ► never been easier to launch a Linode cloud server with their support with their documentation

00:18:20 ◼   ► with their tutorials. It's just fantastic. It's so easy if you think oh I don't know

00:18:24 ◼   ► if I can run a Linode server. Trust me try it. I bet you can. They also guarantee ninety

00:18:29 ◼   ► nine point nine percent uptime for your server availability. Once your server is up they

00:18:33 ◼   ► intend to keep it that way and they have all sorts of wonderful features like block storage

00:18:39 ◼   ► is a new one that's now available. They have load balancers, managed backups and you can

00:18:43 ◼   ► do all sorts of stuff with Linode. You can host large databases, run mail servers, run

00:18:47 ◼   ► VPNs or docker containers or private git servers and so much more. They're also hiring right

00:18:53 ◼   ► now. If that interests you go to Linode dot com slash careers. So check out Linode with

00:18:58 ◼   ► their fantastic pricing options. They have one gig of ram plan starting at just five

00:19:03 ◼   ► dollars a month and of course they have lots of other plans higher than that if your needs

00:19:07 ◼   ► are higher including high memory plans. So listeners of the show can get Linode go to

00:19:12 ◼   ► Linode dot com slash radar that will support us and that'll get you twenty dollars towards

00:19:17 ◼   ► any Linode plan. So on that five dollar a month plan that could be four months for free

00:19:22 ◼   ► and with a seven day money back guarantee there's nothing to lose. So go to Linode dot

00:19:27 ◼   ► com slash radar to learn more and sign up and take advantage of that twenty dollar credit

00:19:31 ◼   ► or use promo code radar 2018 at checkout. Thank you so much to Linode for supporting

00:19:36 ◼   ► this show and relay FM. So to round out this episode I thought it would just be a good

00:19:42 ◼   ► time to touch briefly kind of I guess to an update on device and iOS and watchOS adoption.

00:19:52 ◼   ► It's been long enough now since watchOS 5, iOS 12, the new iPhones and new iPads even

00:19:57 ◼   ► everything is sort of like out in the world now and I'm able to kind of see in my own

00:20:01 ◼   ► stats what's going on there and I think it's interesting to discuss and then also probably

00:20:05 ◼   ► just to you know just set a bit of expectations for what might have been coming into this

00:20:10 ◼   ► Christmas season. So broadly I think it's good for them this is you know these are the

00:20:17 ◼   ► stats that I see in my own apps. Your apps will be different, every app is you know is

00:20:22 ◼   ► very unique depending on its user, is it a general purpose tool, is it a specialized

00:20:27 ◼   ► tool for developers, like you're going to see wildly different stats. But I think broadly

00:20:31 ◼   ► you know there's lessons to be learned either way. So broadly I see iOS 12 adoption has

00:20:39 ◼   ► been just as good as iOS 11 is for the most part. It's for me it's sitting right around

00:20:45 ◼   ► 80% for you know for my overall number which is you know is very good for two months later

00:20:53 ◼   ► I would say. It's a little bit lower in what couple of my other apps but you know 70 to

00:20:57 ◼   ► 80% seems to be very consistent you know in terms of the overall adoption. WatchOS adoption

00:21:05 ◼   ► has been equally pretty good. It's a bit more complicated with watchOS adoption because

00:21:09 ◼   ► there's sort of kind of two numbers that are interesting. There's the people who've adopted

00:21:14 ◼   ► watchOS 5 who have a you know series one watch and newer and then there's the overall number

00:21:22 ◼   ► that kind of takes into account the fact that series zero users are never going to update.

00:21:28 ◼   ► So my overall number for like people who can do watchOS 5 is about 85% which is you know

00:21:35 ◼   ► very good. That's really good. It's like if I adjusted for people who have series one

00:21:40 ◼   ► watch series zero watches and so will never update that goes about 74% for me. So which

00:21:45 ◼   ► is also pretty good. Yeah. Obviously like watch series zero adoption is getting lower

00:21:51 ◼   ► and lower every day which is obviously what is driving that. But that you know that whatever

00:21:56 ◼   ► the overall percentage of the people who are still using series zero watches are never

00:22:01 ◼   ► going to update. So you know for me right now that's about 14% so like that you know

00:22:06 ◼   ► 14% of people are never going to update. So that's just kind of going to be stuck there

00:22:11 ◼   ► until that number goes down. I would imagine too like this is probably a really good time

00:22:17 ◼   ► for watch upgrades for people because you have Black Friday in a couple days that the

00:22:22 ◼   ► watches are already on sale. They're going to be more on sale over the over the coming

00:22:26 ◼   ► weekend and so you have a lot of people buying them for themselves and then you're probably

00:22:29 ◼   ► also going to have a lot of people buying watches as gifts during the holidays for people

00:22:32 ◼   ► because it's a pretty good like adult gift object. Like it's you know it's not insanely

00:22:38 ◼   ► expensive for adults. It's not tied to a cellular contract or a two year upgrade cycle like

00:22:44 ◼   ► like phones or anything like that and way more affordable than like an iPad and so they

00:22:50 ◼   ► probably make pretty frequent gifts. Do you see like a big uptick in the holidays in the

00:22:55 ◼   ► past for like you know watch upgrades or adoption? Yes. There is a clear jump on Christmas Day.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Like it is it is a almost like I don't see as much of one in the run up to Christmas.

00:23:09 ◼   ► Like I mean there's maybe a slight like in change in inflection of like the slope of

00:23:13 ◼   ► the adoption curve. But Christmas Day like for last year the series three watch like

00:23:22 ◼   ► I mean and I do all my kind of this this kind of analysis as proportionate to the others

00:23:27 ◼   ► but like the series three watch went from about 20% the day before Christmas like 20%

00:23:33 ◼   ► of my users were using series three watches to the box on Boxing Day it was 28%. Oh my

00:23:39 ◼   ► God. Yeah that's it's a very steep just jump in terms of adoption and I think like I would

00:23:46 ◼   ► expect the same thing to happen with the series series four watches this year. I mean honestly

00:23:53 ◼   ► probably more more interesting in a lot of ways is how impressive the series four adoption

00:23:58 ◼   ► has been. The series four watch at this point is almost the so it's 18% overall of my of

00:24:08 ◼   ► my users users are using a series four watch which is basically in line with the series

00:24:14 ◼   ► two like the series three is the only one that's better but you know in a couple of

00:24:18 ◼   ► months it's almost the second most widely used device. That's really impressive for

00:24:24 ◼   ► such a short time. Yeah like it seems like the series four watch is doing really well

00:24:28 ◼   ► which in some ways is in contrast to like on the iPhone side the the 10s, 10s max and

00:24:36 ◼   ► 10r I've seen overall like a bit slower adoption like they're doing well like it's not like

00:24:43 ◼   ► they're like you know I'm having citizen you know piddling along at 0.1% of users or anything

00:24:47 ◼   ► like that like they're doing reasonably. You hear that 9 to 5 Mac this is not a news story

00:24:53 ◼   ► please don't make it one. No but they're not as crushing like the iPhone 10 when it came

00:24:59 ◼   ► out was like zooming up like it did its initial ramp I think was super steep whereas you know

00:25:05 ◼   ► the iPhone like the 10s, 10s max and 10r seem to have just kind of the normal kind of just

00:25:11 ◼   ► like slow slow build over time. Out of curiosity if you if you sum them does that because like

00:25:16 ◼   ► now like we have more options than we had like last year if you wanted to get the flagship

00:25:20 ◼   ► you got the 10 like now there's kind of three or two and a half flagships like if you if

00:25:26 ◼   ► you if you look at their sum does it look any better? Sort of I'm just kind of eyeballing

00:25:32 ◼   ► it on the ground on the chart I'm looking at and I think the thing of course last year

00:25:37 ◼   ► was the the iPhone 8 was actually really popular. Oh really? And it launched before the iPhone

00:25:44 ◼   ► 10 and so like the iPhone 8 is in my usership is the fourth most popular phone and is basically

00:25:53 ◼   ► the same as the iPhone 10 they're both around 9% of my users and so like those like those

00:26:00 ◼   ► kind of I think in a weird way like in the tech circle people maybe with would think

00:26:04 ◼   ► of the iPhone 10 as a like as a lesser phone or like it you know like it's not it's not

00:26:11 ◼   ► the one that we would we talked much about last year perhaps. The 8. But in practice

00:26:16 ◼   ► like it did very well there's a ton of those out in the world and you know is I would expect

00:26:22 ◼   ► it'll be around you know it for a long time yet too. Interesting. And I think honestly

00:26:29 ◼   ► too on the interesting note on the iPhone 8 is that it's it's a I haven't seen a big

00:26:37 ◼   ► replacement rate for that yet. So like when the 10 came out the like or so when the 10s

00:26:44 ◼   ► came out the usership of the 10 dropped and has been going down slowly like in terms of

00:26:50 ◼   ► it there's kind of I mean this is always kind of just like you kind of look at it and kind

00:26:54 ◼   ► of guess but it kind of looks that like the people who are getting the 10s a lot of them

00:26:59 ◼   ► had 10s and there's that kind of that sense of the early adopter always going to have

00:27:05 ◼   ► the latest phone kind of people whereas the 8 is just kind of slowly and sort of slow

00:27:10 ◼   ► and steady kind of on its on its path that isn't as affected by the launch of new phones

00:27:16 ◼   ► which is kind of consistent I think with it's it's the long update cycle it's the typical

00:27:21 ◼   ► user it's that type of a person that is likely is likely updating with it so you know these

00:27:29 ◼   ► are just kind of like interesting things that I'm seeing that I want that I think are kind

00:27:33 ◼   ► of worthwhile sharing just because not everyone has access to kind of you know a user base

00:27:39 ◼   ► wide enough that you can draw actual sort of inferences from it. It's interesting too

00:27:46 ◼   ► like like when I was running Instapaper Christmas was always really big for me for the first

00:27:52 ◼   ► couple of years because Instapaper business like this the app sales were really really

00:27:57 ◼   ► strong whenever people were likely to buy new iPads and and so iPad launch day and Christmas

00:28:04 ◼   ► day were my two biggest launch days of the year for the first few years but what was

00:28:09 ◼   ► interesting is that it actually tailed off that like it like in the later years of when

00:28:14 ◼   ► I when I owned it it was much less of an effect because it was a paid up for an app and so

00:28:20 ◼   ► you can only buy one per Apple ID and there was like it was increasingly like as the years

00:28:25 ◼   ► went on more and more of the iPads that would be unwrapped on Christmas day or whatever

00:28:30 ◼   ► or on launch day were upgrades as opposed to people who were getting their very first

00:28:34 ◼   ► iPad so the upgrades were not getting me any additional sales. I wonder like I mean that's

00:28:38 ◼   ► going to be true of pretty much every Apple product at this point right? Yeah and I think

00:28:44 ◼   ► the only one that this seems to kind of be slightly yeah it's like the watch I think

00:28:49 ◼   ► still has a lot of new adoption going on. Yeah. Just because I think so like my overall

00:28:55 ◼   ► like watch adoption rate is still only like 14% so like and obviously this is for a health

00:29:00 ◼   ► and fitness oriented app this is you know pedometer plus plus so maybe that's probably

00:29:04 ◼   ► skewed slightly high maybe. That's about what I have although I also skew like power user

00:29:09 ◼   ► so who knows. Sure but like you know there is still the you know 85% of people who don't

00:29:15 ◼   ► have a watch period so like there's a tremendous opening there whereas you know the number

00:29:20 ◼   ► of people who are buying iPhones for the first time is probably much lower. Yeah. Alright

00:29:25 ◼   ► well thanks for listening everybody and we'll talk to you next week. Alright. Happy Thanksgiving.

00:29:30 ◼   ► Happy Thanksgiving.

00:29:31 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]