Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Welcome to Under the Radar,

00:00:01 ◼   ► a show about independent iOS app development.

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Mark Orment.

00:00:05 ◼   ► - And I'm David Smith.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes,

00:00:08 ◼   ► so let's get started.

00:00:09 ◼   ► - So this show is about independent iOS app development,

00:00:12 ◼   ► and this is a thing that did not exist

00:00:15 ◼   ► until about 10 years ago,

00:00:18 ◼   ► because this week was the 10-year anniversary

00:00:22 ◼   ► of the original iPhone SDK becoming available.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Now, App Store hadn't launched until the following summer,

00:00:29 ◼   ► but, or rather, I guess this summer,

00:00:32 ◼   ► so like a few months later.

00:00:33 ◼   ► But we had a few months before the App Store's launch,

00:00:37 ◼   ► where in March 2008, we were given the very first version

00:00:40 ◼   ► of the iPhone SDK that had been announced,

00:00:42 ◼   ► I think a couple of months beforehand,

00:00:45 ◼   ► and we were finally able, for the very first time,

00:00:49 ◼   ► to make our own native iPhone apps

00:00:53 ◼   ► without weird hacks like jailbreaking or anything else.

00:00:56 ◼   ► So it was the very first time that anybody could sign up,

00:00:59 ◼   ► get a developer account, and download the SDK,

00:01:03 ◼   ► and build their own apps that ran on their iPhones.

00:01:06 ◼   ► We couldn't distribute them until the App Store

00:01:08 ◼   ► a few months later, but this was the beginning

00:01:12 ◼   ► of mainstream iPhone app development.

00:01:15 ◼   ► And there's been a number of good comments on it this week.

00:01:20 ◼   ► Craig Hockenberry wrote an excellent blog post.

00:01:24 ◼   ► That's probably the best one to refer to.

00:01:27 ◼   ► And I kind of wanted to look back this week

00:01:30 ◼   ► and think about what this did for us,

00:01:35 ◼   ► maybe think about some alternate future

00:01:37 ◼   ► in which this didn't happen, and then, I don't know,

00:01:41 ◼   ► kind of reflect on that it's been 10 years

00:01:45 ◼   ► of being able to make iPhone apps,

00:01:46 ◼   ► and what that means to us.

00:01:49 ◼   ► So I guess the initial road I wanna go down here

00:01:54 ◼   ► is what if the iPhone didn't happen?

00:02:00 ◼   ► Like the entire iPhone, not just the SDK,

00:02:03 ◼   ► what if the entire iPhone never had happened?

00:02:07 ◼   ► Where do you think we'd be today?

00:02:09 ◼   ► - I think I would be making web apps, or web websites.

00:02:13 ◼   ► Like that's what I did before I did this.

00:02:16 ◼   ► And it's kind of a strange thing to think about,

00:02:19 ◼   ► but I would probably still be doing that.

00:02:21 ◼   ► Before I got into iPhone development,

00:02:23 ◼   ► I was a Ruby on Rails web developer.

00:02:26 ◼   ► That was my job.

00:02:28 ◼   ► And I mean, more likely than not,

00:02:30 ◼   ► that's what I would still be doing,

00:02:31 ◼   ► 'cause that's what I had gotten good at

00:02:33 ◼   ► and had kind of built up a skill set for.

00:02:37 ◼   ► And so it's a weird thought,

00:02:39 ◼   ► but I would probably still be doing that.

00:02:41 ◼   ► Like in a world where there is no kind of

00:02:43 ◼   ► mobile revolution type of situation,

00:02:47 ◼   ► and it's still just the web,

00:02:49 ◼   ► it's like I would still just be making

00:02:51 ◼   ► front ends for databases, basically,

00:02:54 ◼   ► which is what I was doing before I ever saw an iPhone.

00:02:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I'd probably have a similar outcome.

00:03:01 ◼   ► I mean, I do think that the mobile revolution,

00:03:06 ◼   ► like the smartphone revolution,

00:03:07 ◼   ► was going to happen regardless.

00:03:09 ◼   ► And so it might not have happened as soon.

00:03:13 ◼   ► It might have taken a few more years,

00:03:15 ◼   ► because there were already phones before the iPhone

00:03:17 ◼   ► that were running like the Windows Mobile Pocket Edition

00:03:21 ◼   ► and very early versions of Android

00:03:24 ◼   ► that look like the clone of BlackBerry OS,

00:03:26 ◼   ► and of course the BlackBerry itself.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Those were pretty big platforms at the time,

00:03:31 ◼   ► not big by today's standards,

00:03:33 ◼   ► but for the smartphone world of 2006,

00:03:36 ◼   ► those were big platforms.

00:03:38 ◼   ► And so I think I would probably have tried,

00:03:41 ◼   ► once those platforms got sophisticated enough

00:03:45 ◼   ► to have app development that wasn't really painful

00:03:49 ◼   ► and really limited the way it was

00:03:50 ◼   ► back in the old Palm days,

00:03:52 ◼   ► I think I probably would have tried to make apps for it,

00:03:54 ◼   ► because as soon as I got one of those phones

00:03:56 ◼   ► that I actually liked and had to use every day,

00:04:01 ◼   ► I would have had the itch to write stuff for it.

00:04:03 ◼   ► So I think I would have tried it.

00:04:06 ◼   ► But there's a huge question there

00:04:07 ◼   ► of whether it would have been able to become a career or not.

00:04:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:04:12 ◼   ► I actually spent a lot of time making apps

00:04:16 ◼   ► for Palm and Pocket OS and Windows Mobile.

00:04:21 ◼   ► That was actually my first job out of,

00:04:23 ◼   ► when I was actually still in high school.

00:04:25 ◼   ► So I have experienced the pain and joy

00:04:27 ◼   ► that was making mobile apps

00:04:29 ◼   ► back before mobile apps was a thing.

00:04:31 ◼   ► And it is kind of weird to think

00:04:33 ◼   ► that that's where my career started,

00:04:35 ◼   ► but it is weird to think if Windows Mobile

00:04:38 ◼   ► had become the thing that had progressed

00:04:42 ◼   ► and become the main thing down the road,

00:04:46 ◼   ► because that was an interesting platform to make apps for.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I think I remember I was making most of my apps for that

00:04:52 ◼   ► in Visual Basic, I think it was.

00:04:55 ◼   ► 'Cause it was all Microsoft, like in Visual Studio,

00:05:00 ◼   ► and I'd make apps.

00:05:04 ◼   ► My first job was making apps for railroad inspectors.

00:05:07 ◼   ► They used Palm devices and then Windows Mobile devices.

00:05:12 ◼   ► I think it was a Compaq, iPad, I think is what they called it.

00:05:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like that was my first mobile development.

00:05:21 ◼   ► And I went down that road for a while,

00:05:22 ◼   ► but then I just changed jobs and got into web development.

00:05:25 ◼   ► So I guess maybe I would have been well served

00:05:27 ◼   ► if the iPhone had never happened

00:05:28 ◼   ► and Windows Mobile development had grown up to be

00:05:33 ◼   ► the big revolution in mobile computing.

00:05:38 ◼   ► I guess I could have dived back into that.

00:05:39 ◼   ► But that was a really weird,

00:05:42 ◼   ► it's a really strange platform because it was sort of like,

00:05:47 ◼   ► it was sort of like developing desktop applications,

00:05:49 ◼   ► but everything was just smaller.

00:05:51 ◼   ► I don't think it had really,

00:05:54 ◼   ► it hadn't gotten to a point where it really took advantage

00:05:58 ◼   ► of the fact that it was a different thing,

00:06:01 ◼   ► that it was really the way that you would build an app

00:06:04 ◼   ► to be mobile and to be mobile first

00:06:07 ◼   ► and to be always connected, which of course, they weren't.

00:06:10 ◼   ► They were all, you'd have to develop all manner

00:06:13 ◼   ► of syncing, like physical syncing software

00:06:17 ◼   ► where you plug in your device to your computer

00:06:20 ◼   ► and let it sit for five minutes and then you'd unplug it

00:06:23 ◼   ► and you'd have whatever you had stored onto it

00:06:25 ◼   ► at that point.

00:06:26 ◼   ► But it just did not have quite the same,

00:06:30 ◼   ► I don't know, that sense of elegance and connectivity

00:06:33 ◼   ► that we just take for granted now, I suppose.

00:06:36 ◼   ► - I can totally see an alternate route for history

00:06:41 ◼   ► in which the iPhone didn't come out,

00:06:43 ◼   ► other platforms came out, whether it be Android

00:06:48 ◼   ► or Blackberry or Windows Phone or WebOS,

00:06:52 ◼   ► one of those would have become the dominant platform

00:06:54 ◼   ► and we'd have probably two like we have today.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And I think it would be, it's not hard to imagine Apple

00:07:01 ◼   ► just sitting back and missing it or sitting back

00:07:03 ◼   ► and not succeeding because maybe they tried and it failed

00:07:07 ◼   ► because that happened to Microsoft.

00:07:08 ◼   ► You can see, Microsoft is also this big web,

00:07:12 ◼   ► this big software platform company

00:07:13 ◼   ► that had a very successful OS and they just didn't,

00:07:16 ◼   ► it just didn't work out for them in mobile.

00:07:18 ◼   ► So Apple could have been there and so I don't think

00:07:20 ◼   ► this is that unreasonable a future to imagine.

00:07:25 ◼   ► And I think what we would have been doing is probably

00:07:29 ◼   ► the way a lot of Windows people look at their world

00:07:33 ◼   ► is like we'd still be using Macs as our platform of choice

00:07:38 ◼   ► for our desktops and laptops, but we'd have to be

00:07:40 ◼   ► using someone else's phone and developing apps maybe

00:07:44 ◼   ► if that's our job for other people's phone platforms.

00:07:47 ◼   ► That would just be a thing.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Just like Android developers now,

00:07:49 ◼   ► like a lot of Android developers do it from a Mac

00:07:51 ◼   ► and it would be like that.

00:07:54 ◼   ► And that might even be what we are doing.

00:07:57 ◼   ► We might be Android developers.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And it would, I think the thing about that

00:08:00 ◼   ► that would make me sad, besides that many other things,

00:08:05 ◼   ► is that I really like Apple's Objective-C language

00:08:11 ◼   ► and I'll get to, you know, Swift I would have eventually

00:08:14 ◼   ► gotten into as well and I really like Apple's frameworks.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Like one of the things that made iOS so awesome

00:08:21 ◼   ► to develop for is that you had many of Apple's

00:08:25 ◼   ► same frameworks.

00:08:26 ◼   ► You know, you had all Foundation and then you had

00:08:29 ◼   ► a lot of the same like media and other like advanced

00:08:32 ◼   ► frameworks that you had on Mac OS.

00:08:35 ◼   ► And it was always so nice, like Mac developers

00:08:38 ◼   ► always have appreciated the awesome Apple frameworks

00:08:42 ◼   ► that they got to use, but you always got to use it

00:08:45 ◼   ► on the Mac in like this like small specialized market

00:08:48 ◼   ► of Mac software.

00:08:49 ◼   ► And the iPhone let you use amazing frameworks

00:08:52 ◼   ► on the mass market platform.

00:08:54 ◼   ► Like the one, like the high profile, high market,

00:08:58 ◼   ► high value platform.

00:08:59 ◼   ► You could use these awesome frameworks.

00:09:01 ◼   ► That was never the case before.

00:09:02 ◼   ► And because you know before like, you know,

00:09:04 ◼   ► the high powered, high market platforms would be

00:09:08 ◼   ► either Windows or the web.

00:09:10 ◼   ► And Windows development was always kind of all over

00:09:12 ◼   ► the place and there were some bright spots,

00:09:14 ◼   ► but you know, not a lot.

00:09:17 ◼   ► And the frameworks were nowhere near what Apple

00:09:18 ◼   ► had going for them.

00:09:20 ◼   ► And the web, you know, the web is a mess even today,

00:09:24 ◼   ► but at least today it's a lot more capable.

00:09:26 ◼   ► Back in 2006 the web was not very capable

00:09:29 ◼   ► for making any kind of sophisticated application,

00:09:32 ◼   ► especially one that had to depend on things like

00:09:34 ◼   ► intermittent connectivity.

00:09:36 ◼   ► And so that was, you know, it was a lot worse back then.

00:09:39 ◼   ► So yeah, I think that alternate world would have been fine.

00:09:43 ◼   ► I too would probably mostly be a web developer

00:09:45 ◼   ► and maybe I'd make apps for my Windows or Android phone

00:09:49 ◼   ► as a hobby on the side.

00:09:51 ◼   ► But I think that would be the extent of it.

00:09:53 ◼   ► - And I think that's crazy about that though too

00:09:55 ◼   ► is the degree to which it isn't just so much

00:09:58 ◼   ► that the iPhone existed.

00:10:00 ◼   ► It was the advent later of the App Store

00:10:03 ◼   ► that I think really from a personal like career perspective

00:10:07 ◼   ► changed it from, I remember seeing that they announced

00:10:11 ◼   ► that there was going to be an App Store

00:10:12 ◼   ► on just deciding that like, I'm just going to try this.

00:10:16 ◼   ► And I had no background at all in this,

00:10:19 ◼   ► in Mac development at all.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Like I'd never written, I didn't really even know

00:10:23 ◼   ► Objective-C was a thing, but I just,

00:10:25 ◼   ► when they decided that that was going to be a thing

00:10:28 ◼   ► that that existed, that was the point for me.

00:10:31 ◼   ► That even when the iPhone had come out

00:10:33 ◼   ► and the iPhone SDK had come out,

00:10:34 ◼   ► if it had just been those things,

00:10:36 ◼   ► I'm not sure if I, like at the time I didn't own an iPhone.

00:10:39 ◼   ► I had a Sony Ericsson flip phone I think,

00:10:42 ◼   ► and I was perfectly happy with that.

00:10:44 ◼   ► And it was, I think even more so than the advent of the SDK

00:10:48 ◼   ► was the advent of the App Store and saying that,

00:10:51 ◼   ► we're going to create this platform by which anybody

00:10:55 ◼   ► in the world can sell applications for this hot new device.

00:11:00 ◼   ► That change was I think really the pivotal thing

00:11:03 ◼   ► for me personally.

00:11:04 ◼   ► And then if that hadn't been there, I would be,

00:11:07 ◼   ► I'm not even sure if I would have gotten into it,

00:11:09 ◼   ► developing apps for the iPhone

00:11:11 ◼   ► or getting into mobile development at all.

00:11:12 ◼   ► I'd just be staying as a web developer

00:11:14 ◼   ► where I was pretty happy at the time.

00:11:17 ◼   ► - So one other alternate feature to consider

00:11:19 ◼   ► before we move on and talk about what actually happened

00:11:21 ◼   ► with us is what if the iPhone had happened

00:11:25 ◼   ► and everything, and it succeeded,

00:11:28 ◼   ► but the SDK never did.

00:11:31 ◼   ► So the iPhone, like assume the iPhone happened,

00:11:34 ◼   ► it became as popular as it did,

00:11:36 ◼   ► which honestly I don't think would have happened

00:11:37 ◼   ► without native apps, but let's set that aside for now.

00:11:40 ◼   ► In this alternate future, the iPhone is out,

00:11:43 ◼   ► is as popular as it is today,

00:11:45 ◼   ► but we can still only make web apps for it.

00:11:48 ◼   ► How do you think that would have changed things?

00:11:50 ◼   ► - I mean, I think the big thing

00:11:52 ◼   ► that it would have struggled with is the,

00:11:56 ◼   ► like I guess we would have gotten really good

00:11:57 ◼   ► at web development and HTML5 and all that type of stuff.

00:12:01 ◼   ► But I think the biggest impediment

00:12:03 ◼   ► would have continued to be distribution.

00:12:05 ◼   ► 'Cause the blessing and the curse

00:12:07 ◼   ► of when apps were just websites,

00:12:10 ◼   ► then you have all of the sort of implications

00:12:13 ◼   ► that you had for just websites in general.

00:12:16 ◼   ► That it's, you have to get people to your app

00:12:21 ◼   ► and to find it and to use it.

00:12:22 ◼   ► And if that, I think at a technical level,

00:12:24 ◼   ► there's a lot of things

00:12:25 ◼   ► that could have been problematic about that.

00:12:27 ◼   ► You know, in terms of access to hardware or performance,

00:12:30 ◼   ► or the sophistication and the robustness

00:12:33 ◼   ► of an application you can make,

00:12:34 ◼   ► is just always, you know,

00:12:35 ◼   ► is gonna be more deep and significant

00:12:38 ◼   ► when it's a native app than when it's a web app.

00:12:41 ◼   ► But I think it would have struggled just from a,

00:12:44 ◼   ► you know, to make that a viable career or viable business,

00:12:48 ◼   ► it would have been, I think, a really steep uphill battle

00:12:52 ◼   ► compared to what we had.

00:12:53 ◼   ► That it's, well, the technical side of it,

00:12:55 ◼   ► I think is, you know, is significant.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And I think you're right.

00:12:58 ◼   ► I don't think the iPhone would have caught on

00:13:01 ◼   ► in the same way, because I don't think Apple

00:13:03 ◼   ► would have been able to add capability to it fast enough

00:13:07 ◼   ► to have the just, you know, this explosion in utility

00:13:11 ◼   ► that they were able to take advantage of

00:13:14 ◼   ► if it hadn't been for third-party developers.

00:13:16 ◼   ► But yeah, it's like if we had just been sort of stuck there

00:13:20 ◼   ► with that, without a native SDK,

00:13:22 ◼   ► I mean, either that or I guess jailbreaking

00:13:24 ◼   ► could have been a really significant thing

00:13:27 ◼   ► where if Apple had just decided,

00:13:29 ◼   ► we're not gonna do this at a certain point,

00:13:32 ◼   ► like jailbreaking may have just been a very common activity

00:13:35 ◼   ► that everyone did when they bought their iPhone

00:13:37 ◼   ► so they could get actual applications for it,

00:13:40 ◼   ► even if it wasn't, you know, endorsed by Apple or supported.

00:13:44 ◼   ► - Web development, it would be like

00:13:47 ◼   ► starting the entire platform in fifth gear.

00:13:50 ◼   ► You know, it's like you'd eventually build up speed

00:13:53 ◼   ► and momentum and have this be a robust platform,

00:13:57 ◼   ► but I don't think it would ever be as good as native apps

00:14:01 ◼   ► for a while, if ever.

00:14:03 ◼   ► And it would definitely have slowed down

00:14:05 ◼   ► how much this platform exploded,

00:14:09 ◼   ► because I think you're right,

00:14:10 ◼   ► distribution, discovery, monetization

00:14:13 ◼   ► are all way harder with web stuff,

00:14:15 ◼   ► and especially they were back then.

00:14:17 ◼   ► You know, you think it's hard to get someone

00:14:19 ◼   ► to pay for an app, try to get someone

00:14:21 ◼   ► to pay for a website in 2007.

00:14:22 ◼   ► Heck, even today, it's not an easy thing.

00:14:25 ◼   ► So, you know, I think it would have been,

00:14:28 ◼   ► it would have worked out okay,

00:14:30 ◼   ► but it wouldn't have been anything special.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Just like other platforms, you know,

00:14:33 ◼   ► if you have one that never existed,

00:14:34 ◼   ► like we'd all be using Windows and phone or whatever,

00:14:36 ◼   ► like it would have been fine, it would have been,

00:14:38 ◼   ► you know, we would have gotten by just fine,

00:14:40 ◼   ► some people would succeed,

00:14:42 ◼   ► but I don't think it would be what it was.

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00:16:11 ◼   ► So the iPhone SDK fortunately did happen,

00:16:15 ◼   ► and we didn't have to travel

00:16:16 ◼   ► to any of those alternate timelines.

00:16:18 ◼   ► That would have been horrible in various ways.

00:16:20 ◼   ► So it did happen, and I think it's kind of fun now

00:16:24 ◼   ► to spend the rest of the episode

00:16:26 ◼   ► talking about the very first things that we did.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Like how did we get started?

00:16:31 ◼   ► What were we doing 10 years ago today?

00:16:33 ◼   ► - Well, and it's slightly amazing.

00:16:36 ◼   ► I always love keeping an archive of email

00:16:38 ◼   ► and having emails that go back,

00:16:39 ◼   ► because it lets you kind of reminisce

00:16:41 ◼   ► and find things that,

00:16:43 ◼   ► while you may remember in general,

00:16:46 ◼   ► you wouldn't remember in specifics.

00:16:47 ◼   ► And right before we sat down to record,

00:16:50 ◼   ► I found the email that I got back from Apple

00:16:54 ◼   ► saying that I had successfully enrolled

00:16:56 ◼   ► in the iPhone developer program.

00:16:59 ◼   ► And the email almost to the minute was 10 years ago.

00:17:04 ◼   ► And it's kind of wild, so that Apple announced it.

00:17:08 ◼   ► And I went and I created a developer account.

00:17:11 ◼   ► I didn't have one before.

00:17:13 ◼   ► I remember, at the time, so much of the developer stuff

00:17:17 ◼   ► was all about the Mac, which fair enough.

00:17:19 ◼   ► Like it was the Apple developer connection

00:17:22 ◼   ► had all this stuff about the Mac,

00:17:23 ◼   ► and you could, you know, like it was,

00:17:25 ◼   ► all of a sudden there was this whole new thing

00:17:27 ◼   ► called the iPhone developer program

00:17:29 ◼   ► that you had to kind of navigate for.

00:17:31 ◼   ► But a lot of everything had been set up

00:17:33 ◼   ► around the Mac, and the Mac was still a big part of it.

00:17:37 ◼   ► But I went and I signed up,

00:17:38 ◼   ► and I knew absolutely nothing

00:17:40 ◼   ► about developing for this platform.

00:17:43 ◼   ► I didn't know how to do it, like what Xcode was,

00:17:46 ◼   ► what Interface Builder was.

00:17:48 ◼   ► I didn't know what Objective-C was or how it worked.

00:17:52 ◼   ► At the time, I was coming from a background

00:17:54 ◼   ► of Ruby development, and before that,

00:17:56 ◼   ► it was Java development, and before that,

00:17:58 ◼   ► it was Visual Basic development.

00:18:01 ◼   ► So I remember retain release memory management

00:18:05 ◼   ► being this just like mind-bending world

00:18:08 ◼   ► for the first like year or two,

00:18:10 ◼   ► where I was going from a world of garbage collection

00:18:12 ◼   ► to all of a sudden having to get into it.

00:18:13 ◼   ► But it all started with that, you know,

00:18:15 ◼   ► that email that I got back 10 years ago

00:18:17 ◼   ► that, you know, kicked off all the rest of this process.

00:18:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I got the same email on the same day,

00:18:23 ◼   ► March 7th, 2008, and you know, at the time, for me,

00:18:27 ◼   ► I too had very little experience.

00:18:31 ◼   ► I think I had a little more than you,

00:18:32 ◼   ► in that I had made a couple of like little hobby apps

00:18:34 ◼   ► on Mac OS, but you know, very trivial things,

00:18:39 ◼   ► and I had almost no knowledge of Objective-C

00:18:42 ◼   ► or any of the frameworks, really.

00:18:44 ◼   ► But a few months prior, I had launched Instapaper,

00:18:48 ◼   ► which at the time was a web app.

00:18:50 ◼   ► I was dying to have some kind of offline access.

00:18:54 ◼   ► And so I was very, very focused right from the beginning

00:18:57 ◼   ► on getting a specific app done and in the store for day one.

00:19:02 ◼   ► 'Cause you know, it came out in March,

00:19:04 ◼   ► they started accepting applications for the App Store

00:19:07 ◼   ► on June 26th, '08, and then the App Store opened,

00:19:11 ◼   ► I think what it was like July 5th or something like that.

00:19:14 ◼   ► - Something like that.

00:19:15 ◼   ► Unfortunately, I was not there for day one

00:19:17 ◼   ► 'cause my developer, my App Store account

00:19:19 ◼   ► took I think until October to be approved.

00:19:22 ◼   ► - Oh wow.

00:19:23 ◼   ► Yeah, 'cause that was a big, they had a big problem

00:19:26 ◼   ► back then where basically it seemed like way more

00:19:29 ◼   ► developers signed up than what Apple had expected.

00:19:31 ◼   ► And so you would register for the account

00:19:33 ◼   ► and you could download the SDK immediately,

00:19:35 ◼   ► but you couldn't actually submit anything to the store

00:19:38 ◼   ► until they approve your account,

00:19:39 ◼   ► which I think they still do.

00:19:41 ◼   ► But there was this huge backlog and a lot of people

00:19:44 ◼   ► kind of seemed like they fell on the floor.

00:19:46 ◼   ► Like it seemed like their application

00:19:48 ◼   ► just got stuck somewhere or got lost somewhere.

00:19:51 ◼   ► And a lot of people, like I was lucky,

00:19:53 ◼   ► I was approved pretty soon after submitting it,

00:19:57 ◼   ► but a lot of people were not so lucky.

00:20:00 ◼   ► And a lot of people like you had to wait months

00:20:03 ◼   ► for their applications to be approved.

00:20:05 ◼   ► And so it was a very, very, you know,

00:20:08 ◼   ► just kind of luck-driven process

00:20:10 ◼   ► on whether you were there or not.

00:20:11 ◼   ► And I also missed day one, not because I missed

00:20:14 ◼   ► the deadline to submit, but because I made the deadline

00:20:17 ◼   ► to submit to be there on day one.

00:20:19 ◼   ► But they just got way too many application submissions

00:20:20 ◼   ► and they couldn't review them on time.

00:20:23 ◼   ► So even though they said if you submit by this date,

00:20:25 ◼   ► you'll be there on day one, in reality they couldn't

00:20:28 ◼   ► keep that up because there was just a huge influx

00:20:30 ◼   ► that they probably, again, were not expecting.

00:20:32 ◼   ► So I was there like day three, I think,

00:20:35 ◼   ► or day two or three I got in.

00:20:37 ◼   ► But it was a crazy time back then

00:20:39 ◼   ► because nobody knew what to expect.

00:20:42 ◼   ► That was, I think, one of the biggest points of stress

00:20:47 ◼   ► and anxiety for me back then is like all we knew

00:20:49 ◼   ► was that the iPhone was doing great

00:20:52 ◼   ► and we're gonna make apps for it

00:20:54 ◼   ► and it's gonna be probably awesome.

00:20:56 ◼   ► But there were major questions around things

00:20:59 ◼   ► like pricing and expectations around pricing.

00:21:01 ◼   ► There were also major questions about what Apple

00:21:04 ◼   ► would require from App Review.

00:21:06 ◼   ► You know, I think a lot of us thought,

00:21:08 ◼   ► myself definitely included, a lot of us thought back then

00:21:10 ◼   ► that App Review would be a lot more strict

00:21:13 ◼   ► about interface quality.

00:21:14 ◼   ► Like we really thought that they would reject your app

00:21:18 ◼   ► if it was ugly or didn't follow

00:21:20 ◼   ► the human interface guidelines or whatever.

00:21:23 ◼   ► And in fact, that really didn't,

00:21:25 ◼   ► it was very clear from day one that that wasn't

00:21:26 ◼   ► going to happen.

00:21:27 ◼   ► But we also had no idea what to price things at.

00:21:32 ◼   ► We had the desktop software and shareware world,

00:21:36 ◼   ► so everyone was at first kind of thinking,

00:21:38 ◼   ► well I guess we can put our popular Mac productivity app

00:21:41 ◼   ► onto the iPhone for 30 bucks, right?

00:21:43 ◼   ► That sounds reasonable.

00:21:45 ◼   ► And then I remember at WWDC that year,

00:21:48 ◼   ► which was about a month before the App Store launched,

00:21:50 ◼   ► they had a demo from Sega, I think it was Monkey Ball,

00:21:55 ◼   ► some version of Monkey Ball.

00:21:56 ◼   ► And this was the only time in the entire lead up

00:21:59 ◼   ► to the App Store where anybody threw out a price in public.

00:22:03 ◼   ► Or anybody big, right?

00:22:04 ◼   ► And so what happened was, Sega was on stage,

00:22:07 ◼   ► they gave their demo and they said their game,

00:22:10 ◼   ► this high profile game was gonna be $9.99.

00:22:14 ◼   ► And I remember me and a couple of other friends

00:22:16 ◼   ► I was talking to all said, oh crap,

00:22:18 ◼   ► they've now set a price ceiling.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Like if this high profile AAA game is only $10,

00:22:25 ◼   ► no one can charge more than $10 for anything.

00:22:28 ◼   ► And that proved to be true.

00:22:30 ◼   ► In fact, it collapsed pretty quickly after that too.

00:22:32 ◼   ► But what did you think at that time?

00:22:34 ◼   ► Did you expect what we got in terms of quality and pricing?

00:22:39 ◼   ► - I'm not sure I really knew what to expect, if I'm honest.

00:22:43 ◼   ► I mean, the funny part of the story is

00:22:44 ◼   ► I didn't actually own an iPhone.

00:22:45 ◼   ► And I didn't actually own an iPhone until the following,

00:22:49 ◼   ► almost a year after I signed up to be an iPhone developer.

00:22:53 ◼   ► I think I got an iPhone for Christmas that year.

00:22:56 ◼   ► So it had been almost a full year

00:22:59 ◼   ► since I started being an iPhone developer

00:23:01 ◼   ► before I actually got an iPhone.

00:23:02 ◼   ► So I didn't have very, very big expectations

00:23:06 ◼   ► or even I didn't download apps from the app store

00:23:09 ◼   ► until I got a phone, obviously.

00:23:11 ◼   ► So I think the thing that I had in my back of my mind

00:23:15 ◼   ► was it was just the sense that there's so much interest here

00:23:20 ◼   ► that irrespective of what the pricing structure

00:23:24 ◼   ► it looks like or the quality is,

00:23:27 ◼   ► there is just such an opportunity.

00:23:29 ◼   ► There's just gonna be so much interest.

00:23:30 ◼   ► And I think that part turned out to be true.

00:23:32 ◼   ► And I think I had the similar feeling of

00:23:34 ◼   ► because I was coming to Apple development

00:23:37 ◼   ► from without much of a background,

00:23:40 ◼   ► I kind of drank all the Kool-Aid I could find

00:23:43 ◼   ► to try and immerse myself into the culture.

00:23:45 ◼   ► And it seemed like if you come in that way

00:23:48 ◼   ► that Apple is all about the polish and attention to detail

00:23:52 ◼   ► and that the apps that everyone talks about at the time,

00:23:56 ◼   ► and there's all these developers like Omni or Panic

00:23:59 ◼   ► are the ones that everyone talks about

00:24:01 ◼   ► and that sort of exemplify this,

00:24:04 ◼   ► that's what the Apple Design Awards were all about,

00:24:06 ◼   ► was promoting that kind of development.

00:24:08 ◼   ► And so I think I certainly had in the back of my mind

00:24:10 ◼   ► that that was the kind of application

00:24:14 ◼   ► that Apple was going to require,

00:24:15 ◼   ► whether that necessarily be require

00:24:17 ◼   ► in the sense of from an app review perspective

00:24:20 ◼   ► or that that's the bar that I would need to strive towards

00:24:24 ◼   ► before I was gonna be able to be successful.

00:24:27 ◼   ► The quality bar was gonna be so important and significant

00:24:32 ◼   ► to being successful.

00:24:34 ◼   ► And turns out that that wasn't actually the case.

00:24:36 ◼   ► And I mean, my first app that I launched on the App Store

00:24:39 ◼   ► was not winning any Apple Design Awards,

00:24:41 ◼   ► but it served a purpose and put something out there.

00:24:44 ◼   ► And I think so much of that early time

00:24:46 ◼   ► was just a question of,

00:24:47 ◼   ► it was just anything you could imagine,

00:24:50 ◼   ► like now if I have an idea for an app,

00:24:53 ◼   ► I go to the App Store, I search for it,

00:24:55 ◼   ► it probably already exists.

00:24:57 ◼   ► I remember sitting down and coming up with a list of,

00:24:59 ◼   ► I don't even know, it was probably 40 or 50 ideas

00:25:02 ◼   ► for things that could be apps, and none of them existed.

00:25:05 ◼   ► Like it was all this complete open world

00:25:08 ◼   ► of anything that you wanted to do, you could do.

00:25:11 ◼   ► And so I very quickly lost a little bit of the desire

00:25:16 ◼   ► to be perfect and to strive towards building

00:25:20 ◼   ► a really amazing application from a polished perspective

00:25:25 ◼   ► and to just explore the world of,

00:25:27 ◼   ► now we have this whole wide world of applications

00:25:31 ◼   ► that can be made that don't exist,

00:25:33 ◼   ► and at least at that point, that people would pay for.

00:25:36 ◼   ► You're definitely right in the sense

00:25:40 ◼   ► that there was a very quick cap put on pricing,

00:25:42 ◼   ► and then that very quickly collapsed down to,

00:25:45 ◼   ► I don't know, between one and four,

00:25:47 ◼   ► well, one in four, one in five dollars at most.

00:25:50 ◼   ► But for the first few years at least,

00:25:53 ◼   ► there was still a strong sense of,

00:25:57 ◼   ► that people would pay for applications.

00:26:00 ◼   ► And I think largely because there weren't

00:26:01 ◼   ► any advertising platforms at that point.

00:26:03 ◼   ► There wasn't any other way.

00:26:04 ◼   ► If you had a free app, it was free forever basically,

00:26:06 ◼   ► and you'd have no income from it.

00:26:08 ◼   ► And so the only people who had free apps

00:26:11 ◼   ► were large companies who want you to download their app,

00:26:14 ◼   ► and you're a customer for other reasons.

00:26:18 ◼   ► So people would still pay for apps,

00:26:19 ◼   ► even if they wouldn't give you very much.

00:26:21 ◼   ► But there's enough interest to sustain

00:26:23 ◼   ► a one-person developer.

00:26:25 ◼   ► - Well, and also, back then, when the App Store launched,

00:26:28 ◼   ► there was a huge rush.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Like I remember the first, I mean,

00:26:30 ◼   ► I guess you didn't have the phone, so you didn't do this,

00:26:32 ◼   ► but when the App Store launched,

00:26:34 ◼   ► I remember it launched midday sometime.

00:26:37 ◼   ► I was out to lunch with my friends,

00:26:39 ◼   ► and a few of us had iPhones.

00:26:41 ◼   ► And all we did the whole rest of the day

00:26:43 ◼   ► was buy a bunch of apps and try them out,

00:26:44 ◼   ► because it was novel.

00:26:46 ◼   ► It was this novelty that like,

00:26:48 ◼   ► here's this phone that we've been enjoying

00:26:49 ◼   ► for up to a year, depending on when in the year we got it,

00:26:53 ◼   ► and it could only do this small handful of things,

00:26:55 ◼   ► and we wanted to do more.

00:26:56 ◼   ► And so part of what drove that initial wave of app success

00:27:01 ◼   ► was just people wanted to do more stuff with their phone,

00:27:03 ◼   ► and so they were willing to set money on fire to do it,

00:27:06 ◼   ► 'cause it was this novel thing,

00:27:08 ◼   ► and there still were not that many apps.

00:27:09 ◼   ► I mean, the App Store launched with something like

00:27:12 ◼   ► a few thousand apps, I think, or at least 500,

00:27:14 ◼   ► and it quickly blew in from there.

00:27:16 ◼   ► So there wasn't a shortage of apps,

00:27:17 ◼   ► but there was a shortage of,

00:27:20 ◼   ► people were so starved for new stuff on their phone

00:27:23 ◼   ► that they were willing to throw money away on stupid stuff,

00:27:26 ◼   ► like the iBeer app or the lighter apps or things like that,

00:27:28 ◼   ► just because it was novel.

00:27:31 ◼   ► But the reason it got harder after that over time

00:27:34 ◼   ► is because that novelty wore off.

00:27:36 ◼   ► Now all phones can do this,

00:27:38 ◼   ► and there's a billion apps in the store,

00:27:39 ◼   ► and so there isn't that hunger anymore for,

00:27:42 ◼   ► oh my god, I guess I'll pay money for anything

00:27:44 ◼   ► my phone can do.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And in some ways, that makes things harder,

00:27:47 ◼   ► but I think that's just part of the maturing of the platform.

00:27:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I remember in the early days

00:27:52 ◼   ► that you would try and have as many app updates

00:27:55 ◼   ► as you could reasonably do.

00:27:57 ◼   ► This was back when App Review was like one to two weeks.

00:28:00 ◼   ► Because when you were in the recently updated part

00:28:04 ◼   ► of the App Store, you had a tremendous spike in downloads,

00:28:08 ◼   ► because that list didn't turn over very quickly.

00:28:11 ◼   ► And so people were always looking for new apps.

00:28:14 ◼   ► They would go to the recently updated section

00:28:16 ◼   ► of the App Store and find your app.

00:28:19 ◼   ► And I remember consciously trying to,

00:28:22 ◼   ► as soon as one update was approved,

00:28:24 ◼   ► I would submit the next one,

00:28:25 ◼   ► just to try and stay there because you got this big spike,

00:28:29 ◼   ► because the App Store was so small.

00:28:30 ◼   ► - Oh, that's great.

00:28:31 ◼   ► - Sometimes I miss those days,

00:28:33 ◼   ► but sometimes I am glad that they're past.

00:28:35 ◼   ► That I feel like it's nice that we now work

00:28:37 ◼   ► in a mature ecosystem that I can make a reliable,

00:28:41 ◼   ► dependable income from, and that I don't have

00:28:45 ◼   ► this constant sense of, if I'm not frantically

00:28:48 ◼   ► making new apps and exploiting new opportunities

00:28:51 ◼   ► that I'm missing out.

00:28:52 ◼   ► I can just make a good, basic, straightforward,

00:28:57 ◼   ► living in business from it.

00:28:58 ◼   ► So as much as I look back to those days

00:29:00 ◼   ► with warm nostalgia, I don't miss them necessarily.

00:29:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's kind of like looking back

00:29:07 ◼   ► on when you were in school.

00:29:08 ◼   ► It's like, I'm glad I did that.

00:29:09 ◼   ► That was fun, I don't wanna go back.

00:29:12 ◼   ► I'm only looking forward now.

00:29:14 ◼   ► So anyway, hey, it's been a great 10 years,

00:29:16 ◼   ► and maybe here's to 10 more.

00:29:19 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:29:20 ◼   ► - Thanks, everyone, we'll talk to you next week.

00:29:22 ◼   ► Bye.

00:29:22 ◼   ► [ Silence ]