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Under the Radar

135: On the Street at WWDC 2018

 

00:00:00   How do we start?

00:00:00   Oh, yeah.

00:00:01   Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app

00:00:05   development.

00:00:06   I'm David Smith.

00:00:07   And I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:08   Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes.

00:00:10   So let's get started.

00:00:11   I have to think about that for a second.

00:00:13   We are live on the streets of San Jose during WWDC.

00:00:17   We're going to do a slightly different episode this week

00:00:20   rather than what we normally do, because we

00:00:22   have the benefit and the opportunity

00:00:24   to talk to other independent developers, other than Marco

00:00:28   and I, about the things that were announced.

00:00:30   And in subsequent episodes, we can

00:00:32   unpack what we think they mean and some

00:00:33   of the implications of that.

00:00:35   But it seemed like an interesting opportunity

00:00:36   to just kind of get a first impression of what

00:00:38   is the thing that different people are most excited about

00:00:41   for what was announced yesterday as we're recording.

00:00:45   So I'm honestly curious, Dave.

00:00:47   Let's start with you, if possible.

00:00:49   What is the thing that you are most excited about?

00:00:52   Obviously, I think we got a lot of stuff.

00:00:54   There's a lot of broad, far-reaching, big and small

00:00:58   changes with the APIs and everything.

00:01:00   Is there one thing that you're most excited about,

00:01:02   or is it kind of like a broad array of diffuse things?

00:01:05   Sure.

00:01:05   I mean, I think I have a real answer and a fake answer.

00:01:08   My fake answer is that the thing I'm most excited about

00:01:11   is that there was no holistic ground-rebuilding change that I

00:01:16   have to spend my summer dealing with.

00:01:18   I was worried and excited that WatchOS, for example,

00:01:22   was going to go and do this massive overhaul of how

00:01:25   we make apps and have to rebuild all my things, which

00:01:27   would have been exciting.

00:01:28   But it also meant I wouldn't have seen my family

00:01:30   this summer, and that would have been not as exciting.

00:01:32   That would be next year.

00:01:33   It's like, maybe that's next year,

00:01:35   but this summer, that's not the case.

00:01:37   And so I'm kind of excited about that.

00:01:39   The thing I'm most excited about, honestly,

00:01:41   is just seeing them make nice, solid, incremental

00:01:45   improvements on the watch.

00:01:46   That the workout tracking stuff has gotten a lot better,

00:01:50   should be a lot neater and nicer,

00:01:52   and allow me to make an app that is more comparable to the built

00:01:56   in app, which is great.

00:01:59   And then also, just on the audio side of things,

00:02:01   that they brought parity, essentially,

00:02:04   to a lot of the things that we were able to do on the iPhone,

00:02:07   and now we can do it on the watch.

00:02:09   And I like that they are-- of all the platforms,

00:02:12   some of the platforms felt like the iPad wasn't mentioned

00:02:14   at all on stage, essentially.

00:02:16   TVOS was barely mentioned on stage.

00:02:18   But the watch and the iPhone were the show.

00:02:21   And as somebody who is focused on the watch,

00:02:24   I'm excited that the watch is continuing

00:02:26   to get focus and attention when other things potentially

00:02:29   seem to be getting slightly neglected,

00:02:31   at least for this year.

00:02:33   Yeah, I miss that.

00:02:34   The watch, especially-- I also have

00:02:35   a lot of good stuff on the watch, because it seems like

00:02:39   they read my post about why I couldn't make a podcast app that

00:02:42   was good on the watch, and it seems

00:02:43   like they fixed every single thing on that list.

00:02:45   I have to take a closer look to see if this is actually--

00:02:49   if all these things are worth the way I need them to,

00:02:51   and if they're reliable, and if there's

00:02:53   any major shortcomings.

00:02:55   But it looks pretty good at first glance.

00:02:57   And so I'm really looking forward to diving in

00:02:59   and playing with that.

00:03:00   And the nice thing, too, is they've

00:03:01   announced it as a marquee feature,

00:03:02   that background audio and audio-related things is a thing.

00:03:06   So if there are problems, if there are bugs,

00:03:09   it seems likely that you'll be able to actually get them fixed

00:03:12   and have them work on it, because they want a feature

00:03:16   of the Apple Watch publicly announced now

00:03:18   to be background audio, to be able to play podcasts

00:03:21   and audio books and long-form audio content on the watch.

00:03:24   And I mean, I think that makes sense.

00:03:26   And they dropped support for the Series 0 watch as well,

00:03:31   which I was excited about.

00:03:32   But I think--

00:03:33   Oh, I didn't know that.

00:03:33   Yeah, they dropped support for the Series 0 watch.

00:03:36   So watchOS 5 only supports 1, 2, and 3, which is fantastic.

00:03:40   And I could also see this fall, Apple's

00:03:42   going to be wanting to make as strong of a case

00:03:44   as they can for why you're going to want to buy a new watch.

00:03:48   Because all that first-generation people

00:03:49   who bought a watch who might be on the fence,

00:03:53   anything that's-- it makes me encouraged

00:03:55   that Apple is going to fix bugs and make watchOS as good as it

00:03:59   can be this summer, because this fall, they're

00:04:02   going to have to resell a bunch of people

00:04:04   on there getting a new watch.

00:04:06   That's a really interesting-- because I

00:04:08   bet cutting off the Series 0 is probably what allowed them

00:04:10   to do background full-time audio,

00:04:12   because it probably was the cutoff of not having enough RAM

00:04:16   or something to keep more than two apps running

00:04:19   in the background.

00:04:20   The challenge with background audio

00:04:21   is if you have a background audio app running,

00:04:23   and you also then want to have a workout app running,

00:04:25   then you have to have both apps that stay open.

00:04:27   Neither of them can be suspended at any time.

00:04:29   And so maybe the Series 0 just didn't

00:04:31   have enough RAM or something, or the CPU

00:04:33   would be too slammed to make that good.

00:04:36   And just in general, it was just really slow,

00:04:38   and the battery life wasn't that great.

00:04:39   And so I've been advocating for it

00:04:41   to be going away for a long time.

00:04:43   And I'm glad to see that it seems

00:04:45   a little aggressive of a schedule for them to be using,

00:04:48   but that's great.

00:04:49   I'm very glad that they were able to do that.

00:04:51   And that's the small little nugget from yesterday

00:04:54   that I was most excited about, because building watch apps

00:04:57   that now I just only have to worry with the S2 and the S3

00:05:01   chips, they are so much more capable than that first

00:05:04   generation chip.

00:05:05   So that should make my summer a lot easier.

00:05:07   And I think it's better for everybody, too.

00:05:10   You figure the vast majority of the watches that

00:05:12   are out there being used are not Series 0,

00:05:14   because the sales have gone up over time.

00:05:16   And so most of them, presumably, are now

00:05:19   these much newer models and much better models.

00:05:22   And so if you can improve the OS in key ways,

00:05:25   like background audio and various other things

00:05:27   that you can do now, for everybody, that's a clear win.

00:05:31   And everybody wins.

00:05:31   The developers win, the user wins.

00:05:33   Everybody wins except Series 0 owners.

00:05:34   But because they stopped selling the Series 0,

00:05:37   now, what, about two years ago?

00:05:39   Two years ago, yeah.

00:05:40   You know, those batteries weren't lasting that long.

00:05:43   And a lot of Series 0 owners, their battery

00:05:45   no longer holds a useful charge.

00:05:47   So their devices are naturally aging themselves out anyway.

00:05:50   So I think you're right.

00:05:53   It is a little bit aggressive, although I

00:05:54   think it's similar to what happened on the iPad,

00:05:56   with the iPad 1 versus the iPad 2.

00:05:58   But ultimately, it's going to be way better for everybody

00:06:01   that the OS gets better.

00:06:02   And it's not actually going to hurt that many people.

00:06:04   Because when I look at my numbers,

00:06:06   the number one in use chip is the S3 chip, so the Series 3

00:06:11   watch, which is now there are now more of those in use

00:06:15   than Series 0, 1, or 2.

00:06:18   Wow.

00:06:19   So they're selling really well.

00:06:21   So they didn't actually hurt that many people in doing it.

00:06:24   But it makes sense.

00:06:25   They could have done it-- they had the big slide

00:06:27   during the keynote about iOS, where they're like,

00:06:30   we go back all the way to 2013.

00:06:33   And isn't that awesome?

00:06:34   But I'm so glad on the watch they

00:06:35   didn't hold themselves to the same kind of goal.

00:06:38   Because now we can do so much more on the watch

00:06:40   than we ever could have been able to if Series 0 was

00:06:42   the baseline we had to meet.

00:06:43   And they can.

00:06:44   Like, the built-in stuff can get better, too.

00:06:46   But certainly, they can finally enable better stuff

00:06:48   for developers, too.

00:06:49   And that's just great.

00:06:50   All right, so first thing you're doing-- I mean,

00:06:52   you probably have already started.

00:06:54   A little bit.

00:06:55   First major thing you're working on-- health and fitness stuff,

00:06:58   probably?

00:06:58   Yeah, it's going to be adopting the new workout APIs

00:07:01   in Workouts++, Podometer++, adding some of the Siri

00:07:05   shortcut stuff, just in terms of for-- it seems like I can do

00:07:09   more sophisticated shortcuts for starting workouts, which

00:07:12   I could have done before.

00:07:13   But now I can do even slightly more clever stuff there,

00:07:15   as well as showing you data, like surfacing data

00:07:17   about asking Siri what's my step count,

00:07:21   and surfacing that to you.

00:07:23   Oh, that's cool.

00:07:25   And then after that, it'll go back

00:07:26   to doing background audio for podcasts and audio books.

00:07:30   Awesome.

00:07:32   All right, well, I think we're going

00:07:33   to move on to guests now?

00:07:35   Is that a solid plan?

00:07:36   Sounds great.

00:07:37   All right, well, thanks for letting us know your plans.

00:07:41   And I guess I'll go last after all the guests.

00:07:44   So anyway, before we get into guests,

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00:09:23   Hi, I'm Curtis Herbert.

00:09:25   I'm the author of the app Slopes.

00:09:28   Cool.

00:09:29   I love slopes.

00:09:30   Thanks.

00:09:31   Wait, do you actually skier snowboard?

00:09:32   No.

00:09:33   But I follow you on Twitter, and I

00:09:34   look at all your design progress and everything,

00:09:37   and your business model progress and everything.

00:09:40   As an indie developer, I think any indie developer

00:09:42   should be following you.

00:09:43   Oh, well, thank you.

00:09:44   Jeez.

00:09:46   So anyway, I'm curious, Curtis, what

00:09:49   are you looking forward to most out of the new stuff?

00:09:52   Or what is most relevant to you here?

00:09:55   So the first one, just kind of fun, is the AR stuff.

00:09:59   So I shipped AR in Slopes.

00:10:00   So for anyone who doesn't know, it's

00:10:02   a skiing and snowboarding app.

00:10:03   At the end of the day, you get a recap of all your speeds,

00:10:06   where you went on the mountain.

00:10:07   And something I added last season

00:10:08   was a virtual 3D mountain in the app itself.

00:10:11   So you can see Whistler Blackcomb,

00:10:13   and you can see where you went on the mountain and replay it.

00:10:16   And this spring, I added ARKit to it,

00:10:18   because it was in scene kit.

00:10:19   Kind of why not?

00:10:20   Low hanging fruit.

00:10:21   But it actually ended up being kind of fun.

00:10:23   It's not a compelling AR experience yet.

00:10:25   But it is something my users are really actually

00:10:28   interested in, surprisingly.

00:10:29   So I think the shared experiences with ARKit

00:10:32   will be pretty cool, because for a lot of people,

00:10:34   they might not have Slopes installed already

00:10:36   or have any data in there.

00:10:38   So if their one friend is using the app a lot,

00:10:40   and they're like, oh, look at this cool 3D view.

00:10:42   Now instead of having to crowd around a tiny iPhone,

00:10:45   I can just have a player view on the other person's phone.

00:10:48   And they can just look with their own phone

00:10:50   and kind of explore around the AR experience

00:10:52   without having to hand over the other person's phone

00:10:54   or do anything like that.

00:10:56   I don't think that's going to be a big compelling business

00:10:58   thing for me, but it's fun.

00:11:00   And I love shipping fun features.

00:11:02   And my users really like this 3D stuff.

00:11:05   So that's definitely something I'm interested in.

00:11:07   That's a really cool point.

00:11:08   Yeah, because-- and this is one of the reasons why

00:11:10   it's fun to follow you, because even though I don't ski

00:11:12   or snowboard, when you have an app like this where you can do

00:11:16   it a really basic way, like a basic data driven app,

00:11:19   just basic data display and everything, you could do that.

00:11:22   But you go all out and you make it this cool high production

00:11:25   value, app full of fun displays, nice design, fun features

00:11:29   and everything.

00:11:30   And I feel like that's one area where indies can really do well.

00:11:34   Yeah, definitely.

00:11:34   Because if you're willing to put that amount of effort

00:11:38   into something and have that kind of fun sensibility

00:11:40   and good design sensibility, and if you

00:11:42   can do it fairly easily, because still on an indie time budget.

00:11:46   Well, that still took like three or four months to write that.

00:11:49   But yes, relatively speaking, yeah.

00:11:52   A lot of late night with trigonometry.

00:11:53   It was a bit of a nightmare.

00:11:55   Yeah, yeah.

00:11:56   But it's such a cool thing.

00:11:58   I feel like that's kind of like the quintessential Apple app.

00:12:00   Yeah.

00:12:01   Of like--

00:12:01   It's a unique feature that's compelling that you

00:12:03   won't find anywhere else.

00:12:05   Yeah, it's like a maximum viable product,

00:12:08   like to use Panick's term, to do the absolute most awesome job

00:12:12   you can with what seems like it could be a simple task.

00:12:15   Yeah.

00:12:15   Yeah, it's something that you wouldn't necessarily ever

00:12:17   expect from an app.

00:12:18   But then you see it and you're like, oh.

00:12:20   Well, so at least for skiers and snowboarders, we think in 3D.

00:12:23   So like for me, it was kind of an obvious like,

00:12:25   it's not like a running app where

00:12:26   elevation matters a little.

00:12:28   But you care about the 2D top down.

00:12:30   Like for skiers and snowboarders,

00:12:31   the vertical is just as important as the latitude,

00:12:34   longitude coordinates.

00:12:36   So it makes sense in your head, but you would never

00:12:38   expect it from an app.

00:12:39   But once you see it, you're like, oh, why does every ski

00:12:42   app not do this?

00:12:43   Like this is how we think.

00:12:46   Yeah, that's awesome.

00:12:47   Yeah.

00:12:47   So yeah, that's the fun one.

00:12:49   Again, I don't think it's going to really move

00:12:50   the needle in my business or anything, but my users love it.

00:12:53   And that's kind of what I'm there for.

00:12:55   Just like what were they saying?

00:12:56   One of the cornerstones of good apps during the State

00:12:58   of the Union delight.

00:13:00   Yeah.

00:13:00   Well, and that does move the needle.

00:13:02   It does.

00:13:02   Yeah.

00:13:02   It helps me stand out.

00:13:04   Yeah.

00:13:04   Any one feature in isolation, you might say, well,

00:13:06   I don't know how much this matters.

00:13:07   But the sum of it--

00:13:08   Exactly.

00:13:08   --equaling this delightful app that people love and talk

00:13:11   about, that does very much matter.

00:13:13   That does move the needle on sales and everything.

00:13:15   Yeah, yeah.

00:13:15   The holistic picture will do it.

00:13:17   Like this one feature won't move my needle.

00:13:19   But combined with all the other 3D stuff and the cool things

00:13:21   that I do, it's almost like users expect, at this point,

00:13:24   out of slopes, that I'm going to push the envelope

00:13:26   and do these things with it.

00:13:28   So the one I'm actually interested in more from-- not

00:13:31   a business standpoint, I guess, but not a fun feature--

00:13:34   is bringing UIKit to the Mac.

00:13:37   I added Sync to my app last season,

00:13:40   so over the summer of 2017.

00:13:42   And since then, I've gotten a lot of requests for iPad app,

00:13:45   obviously.

00:13:46   But I have gotten quite a few requests for a Mac app.

00:13:49   Interesting.

00:13:50   Just to replay your data.

00:13:51   Yeah, because you have a bigger, nicer screen.

00:13:53   Yeah, you have a 27 inch.

00:13:54   Like, you want to see that 3D data, those visualizations,

00:13:58   larger.

00:13:58   And I totally get that.

00:14:00   So I was thinking of an iPad app recently,

00:14:04   and I held off once marzipan rumors broke.

00:14:06   I'm like, OK, I'm going to see what this is about

00:14:08   before I invest in it.

00:14:09   And I'm actually really thrilled now,

00:14:11   because it looks like it's going to-- arguments around WWDC

00:14:14   about what this will eventually be,

00:14:15   but I'm getting the read that this will be basically

00:14:19   your app is UIKit on the Mac, no app kit involved,

00:14:22   and it's basically your iPad app.

00:14:24   So I'm already planning on moving to an iPad app

00:14:26   as just a viewer of your Slopes data,

00:14:29   and I'm going to get a Mac app for another 5% work.

00:14:34   If everything goes well--

00:14:35   That's exactly the ratio that I always think about.

00:14:37   Because the iPad app, for me, was about 5% more work

00:14:40   than the iPhone app.

00:14:41   And if I can get a Mac app for maybe another 5% of work--

00:14:44   Oh, it's totally worth it.

00:14:45   It's low-hanging fruit.

00:14:46   And again, that's not something that I

00:14:48   think is going to move the needle on its own,

00:14:50   but I think it helps provide a more complete platform

00:14:53   experience, and that's something that users really

00:14:55   resonate with and shows them that this is somebody who's

00:14:57   dedicated to shipping a good app.

00:15:00   So I expect a lot of apps are going to have to do that.

00:15:03   But I'm excited just because now I

00:15:04   don't have to view all my data on my tiny iPhone-- well,

00:15:07   tiny iPhone X, but I can actually view it on my 5K

00:15:10   display, and that's going to be compelling.

00:15:12   I love having the iPad simulator up

00:15:14   and bringing it up full screen and seeing my 3D rendering

00:15:17   on my Mac.

00:15:18   Now I'll have that native.

00:15:19   So those two are, I think, the two

00:15:21   that I'm really looking forward to.

00:15:22   Awesome.

00:15:23   Well, thanks, Curtis.

00:15:24   And where can people find you in your app?

00:15:25   So you can find me on Twitter as @parrots,

00:15:28   the plural of the bird.

00:15:30   And you can find my app at getslopes.com.

00:15:33   Thanks a lot.

00:15:33   Yeah, thanks for having me.

00:15:36   Hi, I'm Joe Chubunsky.

00:15:37   I am a developer and designer person, indie person

00:15:41   in this community for quite a while.

00:15:43   And I host the Release Notes podcast and conference

00:15:46   and stuff of that nature.

00:15:47   So Joe, what are you most excited about for anything

00:15:52   that was announced or new changes that were happening?

00:15:55   Basically, what's top of your mind?

00:15:57   Right now, top of my mind is Siri, honestly,

00:15:59   and the workflow team and all that stuff,

00:16:01   because I think the way they've integrated is interesting.

00:16:05   And often when I come out of one of these dub-dub situations,

00:16:08   like day two is always my brain has exploded

00:16:11   and I don't know what to really think about it.

00:16:13   And so I've really seen the sessions and dig into it.

00:16:15   But I have a feeling that that's going to be a big deal,

00:16:17   more so than I'm thinking off.

00:16:19   It doesn't seem like that big a deal

00:16:21   until you start digging into the possibilities.

00:16:23   I like Apple's philosophy on this,

00:16:24   that they're putting the power into the hands of the customer

00:16:27   like they usually do instead of us, the developer, which

00:16:30   means the customer gets to choose which apps they want

00:16:32   to automate and which ones they want to use with their voice

00:16:34   and which words they use in order to trigger those.

00:16:37   And I think that's a neat approach that's

00:16:39   very different from Amazon's and from Google's approaches.

00:16:42   And I'll be interested to see how that works out long term.

00:16:45   Yeah, that's one area where I have very strong interest,

00:16:47   because not only is there this big user side of it,

00:16:50   but then there's also the API developer side of it

00:16:52   where we can make all these vocabularies and actions

00:16:55   for our apps and have them indexed

00:16:57   and have them show up in the proactive suggestions

00:16:59   and things like that on the Siri watch face.

00:17:02   There's a lot there.

00:17:03   I think this really will have a major impact on usage

00:17:07   of the devices and also what our apps can do.

00:17:09   Yeah, it's something we've wanted for so long,

00:17:11   we've been begging Apple for.

00:17:13   And it's finally here, and now it's

00:17:15   overwhelming almost, because we really

00:17:16   don't know what to expect.

00:17:18   So yeah, I can't think of an app where

00:17:20   I wouldn't want some sort of intent possible.

00:17:23   So there's a lot of possibilities there.

00:17:25   Yeah, I feel like this opens up power user levels,

00:17:29   like how good you can get, how fast you can get,

00:17:32   how productive you can get, how customizable of a workflow

00:17:35   you can build and conveniently use on iOS devices.

00:17:38   Like before, the ceiling has been kind of low on that.

00:17:41   And this doesn't blow it totally open,

00:17:44   but it makes a huge gain, I think.

00:17:46   Yeah, definitely.

00:17:47   And like I said, it would be nice also

00:17:49   to-- people won't be complaining anymore.

00:17:51   Like, Apple, please do something with Siri.

00:17:52   Well, they did something.

00:17:53   So they finally did that, and I don't

00:17:55   know how it's going to shake out.

00:17:58   But just seeing how much of workflow

00:18:00   is obviously still in there, that team,

00:18:02   and I know those guys a little bit.

00:18:03   I've met them a few times.

00:18:05   It's nice to see that that work seemed

00:18:07   to have paid off over the last year.

00:18:09   I'm very, very excited about where that might go.

00:18:11   Now, a lot of the work you do with release notes

00:18:15   is focused more on the business side of things.

00:18:17   Are there any major business or marketing type changes

00:18:19   that you're excited about?

00:18:20   Yeah, I mean, it looks like the Mac App Store-- obviously,

00:18:23   the redesign was way overdue.

00:18:26   And it looks like they did more than just redesign the store,

00:18:28   though, because a couple of these major folks like Panic

00:18:31   and Rich Siegel, I mean, he was at our conference two years ago

00:18:34   basically saying, these are all the reasons why

00:18:37   I left the Mac App Store.

00:18:38   He did that famous talk at our conference.

00:18:40   He did a talk saying, this is what it would take to get me

00:18:43   back.

00:18:43   And that list was a long list, and they

00:18:45   didn't announce all that list.

00:18:46   So they must have done something that made him more inspired.

00:18:49   And I've heard there's sandboxing changes and things

00:18:51   of that nature that we haven't really

00:18:52   heard all the details yet.

00:18:54   So anything they can do to help that sort of thing.

00:18:56   And Panic is going to be able to sell a subscription on the Mac

00:18:59   App Store and standalone on their website.

00:19:01   More flexibility for us as business,

00:19:03   I think, is a good thing.

00:19:05   And I think it's a testament to what the editorial team has

00:19:08   done with the iOS App Store over the last year,

00:19:10   that if they're going to bring that to the Mac

00:19:12   and be serious about it and staff it up properly

00:19:14   and feature apps the way they should,

00:19:16   then that might be a positive step.

00:19:19   Awesome.

00:19:19   Well, thanks a lot.

00:19:20   Where can people find you and your work?

00:19:21   You can find me at leisnotes.tv if you

00:19:23   want to check out that podcast.

00:19:24   You can always find me @josee.design.

00:19:26   And on Twitter, I'm just @jh.e, but spelling my names.

00:19:29   Yeah, not worth it.

00:19:30   You'll find me some other way.

00:19:32   Awesome.

00:19:32   Thanks a lot, Joe.

00:19:33   Yep.

00:19:35   I'm Kaya Thomas.

00:19:36   I'm the creator of WeWe2, which is an app

00:19:39   directory of children's and young adult books written

00:19:41   by authors of color.

00:19:43   Great.

00:19:43   And what are you most excited about,

00:19:46   the things we got this week, or announcements or changes?

00:19:49   For me, the most exciting thing so far was actually Create ML.

00:19:54   I've actually not really been that interested

00:19:55   in machine learning before I saw that because of the barrier

00:19:59   to entry of actually trying to figure out how to get a model

00:20:02   and train it.

00:20:03   And figuring out that part, I think,

00:20:05   is just such a steep learning curve

00:20:08   that I never really got into it.

00:20:09   And I think after seeing that demo, where she created

00:20:13   and trained a model in like two minutes, I was blown away.

00:20:16   And I actually really want to start learning more

00:20:18   about the app services that they have for machine learning.

00:20:22   Yeah, honestly, I was very excited about that as well,

00:20:24   because I don't know anything about machine learning.

00:20:26   I love to dive in and start experimenting with it,

00:20:29   playing around.

00:20:30   And I was faced with the same problem

00:20:32   they described on stage of you've

00:20:34   got to download all these different open source tools that

00:20:36   mostly are designed to run on Linux servers.

00:20:38   And it was just really cumbersome of a process

00:20:41   and a very intimidating process.

00:20:43   Exactly.

00:20:44   So intimidating.

00:20:45   I mean, when I was in school, there

00:20:46   was a machine learning class.

00:20:47   And a lot of it was straight up math.

00:20:50   And it was really intimidating.

00:20:52   So I didn't even take the course,

00:20:53   because I was like, machine learning

00:20:55   is for the PhD folks.

00:20:58   And now, with being able to do that in a playground,

00:21:00   I think it's really going to change the game.

00:21:02   And it's actually going to make machine learning more

00:21:04   accessible to different types of folks who

00:21:06   don't feel like they need that kind

00:21:08   of heavy academic understanding of what machine learning is

00:21:11   supposed to be.

00:21:12   Yeah, definitely.

00:21:12   I'm one of those people, too.

00:21:14   I don't have the academic background at all.

00:21:16   I don't understand the concepts.

00:21:17   I don't understand the algorithms.

00:21:18   Most of even the terms that people use, I don't understand,

00:21:21   because I just have never used that before.

00:21:23   And I bet a lot of developers are in that position, right?

00:21:24   Because it's a fairly recent thing.

00:21:27   And development's a pretty big, wide world and big, wide field.

00:21:30   And so I think most of us have not

00:21:32   specialized in advanced research areas like that.

00:21:35   And so to make that more accessible to all of us,

00:21:38   it probably helps a lot, right?

00:21:40   Yeah.

00:21:40   I mean, I love that.

00:21:41   I love what they've done over the years with the Swift

00:21:44   playgrounds as well.

00:21:45   There's some small updates that's coming there.

00:21:47   I think that Apple's showing that they're really

00:21:49   trying to make programming accessible to more folks

00:21:52   and make it less intimidating.

00:21:54   And I really, really appreciate that.

00:21:55   Yeah.

00:21:56   Any other changes you're excited about?

00:21:58   I'm really excited about some of the small updates to Xcode.

00:22:01   I mean, being a developer day to day, the things

00:22:04   like having in the change bar showing

00:22:08   if there's a merge conflict or showing

00:22:10   if there's upstream changes.

00:22:12   I think that's going to make a lot of people's lives easier,

00:22:14   mine included.

00:22:15   Because everyone's been in that kind of git black hole

00:22:18   where there's a merge, and you're trying to rebase.

00:22:20   And it takes hours to get out.

00:22:23   So I think doing small updates like that really matters.

00:22:27   Just focusing on the day to day life of a developer.

00:22:30   I'm really excited about some of those.

00:22:32   And multi cursor editing.

00:22:34   Oh, gosh.

00:22:36   That made me so happy.

00:22:38   Because I've done some multi cursor editing in Sublime.

00:22:41   Yeah, TextMate.

00:22:42   Seeing that come to Xcode finally is just sigh relief.

00:22:46   Yeah, there have been so many times where I've copied

00:22:49   a big list of properties or something out of Xcode

00:22:51   into TextMate, done a big multi column edit,

00:22:54   and then pasted it back over to Xcode.

00:22:55   It feels so clunky.

00:22:58   So yeah, that'll be great.

00:22:59   I forgot about that.

00:22:59   That'll be great.

00:23:00   Exactly.

00:23:01   So I think they're working on some really small incremental

00:23:04   changes that'll make a big impact on developers'

00:23:06   day to day lives.

00:23:07   Yeah.

00:23:08   All that stuff.

00:23:09   Because I feel like every year we

00:23:10   talk about the big headlining features.

00:23:12   And all these little tools and API improvements

00:23:15   that are less, kind of lower profile,

00:23:17   we often kind of forget about for a while.

00:23:19   But then they just make our lives better for the next year

00:23:21   or so.

00:23:21   Yeah, exactly.

00:23:22   And I think that seemed like the focus this year.

00:23:25   A lot of it is not necessarily about the big, big features.

00:23:29   But it's about small performance improvements.

00:23:32   These just small incremental changes

00:23:34   that are going to make the experience for developers

00:23:36   and users just much better.

00:23:38   And I really like that, actually.

00:23:40   Yeah.

00:23:41   Is there one thing that you're excited to do first?

00:23:45   As soon as you get back home, back to work,

00:23:48   what's the very first API or thing

00:23:50   that you think you might look into?

00:23:52   Oh, that's a good one.

00:23:53   Well, I already downloaded Xcode Beta.

00:23:55   Oh, you're way ahead of me.

00:23:56   Yeah, I downloaded Xcode Beta.

00:23:59   I think the most thing I'm excited to play around with

00:24:02   is ML and Playgrounds.

00:24:05   I'm going to play around with Create ML and Playgrounds

00:24:07   and see what it can do.

00:24:09   I mean, the demo that she had really

00:24:11   made me feel confident that I could actually

00:24:13   train some data and play around and actually create

00:24:16   an app that uses machine learning, potentially.

00:24:19   Well, thank you so much.

00:24:20   Where can people find you and your work?

00:24:21   Yeah, so I'm on Twitter as kthomas901.

00:24:25   And my website is kiahthomas.info.

00:24:28   And you can find me there.

00:24:29   Great, thanks, Kiah.

00:24:32   So Marco, what are you most excited about?

00:24:34   I think you came into this year with a-- it seemed like there

00:24:38   was a lot of possibility and options for things,

00:24:40   the way things could have gone that could have dramatically

00:24:43   changed what your summer looked like.

00:24:44   So what ultimately-- how do you feel about what happened?

00:24:47   And what are you most excited about?

00:24:49   Mostly I'm very excited about that I could finally

00:24:52   do Apple Watch offline playback.

00:24:54   But the funny thing is I've already written that.

00:24:56   And so I already have that pretty much ready to go.

00:25:00   So I don't think I'm actually going to need

00:25:01   to do a lot of work on that.

00:25:03   Ultimately, what I'm even more excited about than that

00:25:07   is the UIKit apps on the Mac thing, which is funny,

00:25:10   because I can't do anything about that yet either.

00:25:13   So this is not going to be a bit somewhere in those areas,

00:25:17   probably.

00:25:17   But I'm very excited that I'll be

00:25:20   able to bring my app to the Mac in a way that is probably not

00:25:25   that much more complicated than bringing it from iPhone to iPad.

00:25:28   And if it truly does work that way, which it sure

00:25:32   looks like it will, that's going to be amazing for so

00:25:35   many reasons.

00:25:35   For app developers like us, who only really have time

00:25:39   to for one major code base, to be

00:25:42   able to bring our apps to the Mac where it makes sense,

00:25:44   I think is going to be a huge benefit.

00:25:47   Because any time we can leverage the work we already

00:25:49   have in a major way to spread into a new market

00:25:53   without adding a whole ton of maintenance work and coding

00:25:56   work and everything, that always benefits us.

00:26:00   We need to be smart with our time

00:26:01   and leverage our code base as much as possible

00:26:03   without having a whole bunch of separate things to maintain.

00:26:06   So if this truly gives us that for the Mac,

00:26:08   that's going to be awesome.

00:26:09   And I'm just looking forward to it as a user of the Mac.

00:26:12   There's so many apps that I would

00:26:14   love to have quick access to on the Mac, great iOS apps.

00:26:19   And we don't have those a lot of the time.

00:26:21   And to be able to have that now more frequently

00:26:24   with less work for the developers,

00:26:25   I think is a great idea.

00:26:26   So even though that's still at least a year out,

00:26:29   I'm very much looking forward to that.

00:26:31   And I'm very happy that Apple, even though there's

00:26:33   nothing we can do about it yet, that they actually

00:26:35   told us about it so that way we can make better plans.

00:26:37   Yeah.

00:26:38   Yeah, it's lovely that we now know that it's coming.

00:26:41   And also, I think what I like about that

00:26:43   is I think it gives them more flexibility about how

00:26:45   they roll it out.

00:26:46   In theory, it doesn't even have to be next year at WWDC.

00:26:49   It could be next spring.

00:26:51   It could be whenever, because it's pre-announced.

00:26:53   It's not this thing that they have

00:26:54   to build the secrecy around and manage in the same way.

00:26:57   Or they could roll that out incrementally

00:26:59   and have a simpler version of it, or a technology

00:27:04   preview, or whatever.

00:27:05   They have a lot more options and flexibility

00:27:07   around what they actually do there

00:27:09   than if it had just been the secret project that's

00:27:12   a secret secret.

00:27:13   And it also means they can start to get feedback about it.

00:27:16   I imagine they'll start to reach out to developers who

00:27:20   will start using it ahead of time,

00:27:22   or at least getting feedback about how

00:27:23   they might want to use it.

00:27:25   They're using it themselves.

00:27:26   It seems like a really nice thing.

00:27:28   And I think I love, as a independent developer,

00:27:32   I like the leverage that that provides.

00:27:34   That suddenly, rather than needing--

00:27:39   Jumping onto a new platform can often be a tremendous amount

00:27:41   of work.

00:27:42   If it isn't a tremendous amount of work,

00:27:44   then it's just a lovely opportunity

00:27:45   that we can take advantage of.

00:27:47   And it just leverages all of the stuff we already have built

00:27:50   in a totally new platform, and with a new Mac App Store

00:27:53   that they seem to actually care about now.

00:27:55   We hope.

00:27:56   They care about it more than they had for the last five

00:27:58   years.

00:27:59   Because we're going to have gotten progressively worse

00:28:01   and worse over time.

00:28:03   At least they've reset back to caring about it now.

00:28:06   And so we'll see where they go from here.

00:28:08   But at the very least, signs of life, which is great.

00:28:11   Yeah.

00:28:12   Awesome.

00:28:13   Well, thanks a lot, everybody, for listening.

00:28:15   Best of luck to all the developers out there

00:28:17   going through all these betas and beta ones.

00:28:19   Please don't install beta one on your main phone.

00:28:21   I mean, we all know many of us will.

00:28:22   But please don't.

00:28:23   Just at least wait till beta two.

00:28:25   At least wait till beta two.

00:28:26   Yeah, beta two, you can at least kind of excuse it.

00:28:28   And it almost seems reasonable.

00:28:31   Anyway, thanks, everyone.

00:28:32   Best of luck dealing with all this new stuff all summer.

00:28:35   And we will talk to you next week.

00:28:36   Bye.

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