0:00:00- Welcome to Under the Radar,
0:00:01a show about independent iOS app development.
0:00:04I'm Mark Orment.
0:00:05- And I'm David Smith.
0:00:06Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes,
0:00:08so let's get started.
0:00:09- So this show is about independent iOS app development,
0:00:12and this is a thing that did not exist
0:00:15until about 10 years ago,
0:00:18because this week was the 10-year anniversary
0:00:22of the original iPhone SDK becoming available.
0:00:26Now, App Store hadn't launched until the following summer,
0:00:29but, or rather, I guess this summer,
0:00:32so like a few months later.
0:00:33But we had a few months before the App Store's launch,
0:00:37where in March 2008, we were given the very first version
0:00:40of the iPhone SDK that had been announced,
0:00:42I think a couple of months beforehand,
0:00:45and we were finally able, for the very first time,
0:00:49to make our own native iPhone apps
0:00:53without weird hacks like jailbreaking or anything else.
0:00:56So it was the very first time that anybody could sign up,
0:00:59get a developer account, and download the SDK,
0:01:03and build their own apps that ran on their iPhones.
0:01:06We couldn't distribute them until the App Store
0:01:08a few months later, but this was the beginning
0:01:12of mainstream iPhone app development.
0:01:15And there's been a number of good comments on it this week.
0:01:20Craig Hockenberry wrote an excellent blog post.
0:01:24That's probably the best one to refer to.
0:01:27And I kind of wanted to look back this week
0:01:30and think about what this did for us,
0:01:35maybe think about some alternate future
0:01:37in which this didn't happen, and then, I don't know,
0:01:41kind of reflect on that it's been 10 years
0:01:45of being able to make iPhone apps,
0:01:46and what that means to us.
0:01:49So I guess the initial road I wanna go down here
0:01:54is what if the iPhone didn't happen?
0:02:00Like the entire iPhone, not just the SDK,
0:02:03what if the entire iPhone never had happened?
0:02:07Where do you think we'd be today?
0:02:09- I think I would be making web apps, or web websites.
0:02:13Like that's what I did before I did this.
0:02:16And it's kind of a strange thing to think about,
0:02:19but I would probably still be doing that.
0:02:21Before I got into iPhone development,
0:02:23I was a Ruby on Rails web developer.
0:02:26That was my job.
0:02:28And I mean, more likely than not,
0:02:30that's what I would still be doing,
0:02:31'cause that's what I had gotten good at
0:02:33and had kind of built up a skill set for.
0:02:37And so it's a weird thought,
0:02:39but I would probably still be doing that.
0:02:41Like in a world where there is no kind of
0:02:43mobile revolution type of situation,
0:02:47and it's still just the web,
0:02:49it's like I would still just be making
0:02:51front ends for databases, basically,
0:02:54which is what I was doing before I ever saw an iPhone.
0:02:59- Yeah, I think I'd probably have a similar outcome.
0:03:01I mean, I do think that the mobile revolution,
0:03:06like the smartphone revolution,
0:03:07was going to happen regardless.
0:03:09And so it might not have happened as soon.
0:03:13It might have taken a few more years,
0:03:15because there were already phones before the iPhone
0:03:17that were running like the Windows Mobile Pocket Edition
0:03:21and very early versions of Android
0:03:24that look like the clone of BlackBerry OS,
0:03:26and of course the BlackBerry itself.
0:03:28Those were pretty big platforms at the time,
0:03:31not big by today's standards,
0:03:33but for the smartphone world of 2006,
0:03:36those were big platforms.
0:03:38And so I think I would probably have tried,
0:03:41once those platforms got sophisticated enough
0:03:45to have app development that wasn't really painful
0:03:49and really limited the way it was
0:03:50back in the old Palm days,
0:03:52I think I probably would have tried to make apps for it,
0:03:54because as soon as I got one of those phones
0:03:56that I actually liked and had to use every day,
0:04:01I would have had the itch to write stuff for it.
0:04:03So I think I would have tried it.
0:04:06But there's a huge question there
0:04:07of whether it would have been able to become a career or not.
0:04:12- Yeah, I don't know.
0:04:12I actually spent a lot of time making apps
0:04:16for Palm and Pocket OS and Windows Mobile.
0:04:21That was actually my first job out of,
0:04:23when I was actually still in high school.
0:04:25So I have experienced the pain and joy
0:04:27that was making mobile apps
0:04:29back before mobile apps was a thing.
0:04:31And it is kind of weird to think
0:04:33that that's where my career started,
0:04:35but it is weird to think if Windows Mobile
0:04:38had become the thing that had progressed
0:04:42and become the main thing down the road,
0:04:46because that was an interesting platform to make apps for.
0:04:49I think I remember I was making most of my apps for that
0:04:52in Visual Basic, I think it was.
0:04:55'Cause it was all Microsoft, like in Visual Studio,
0:05:00and I'd make apps.
0:05:04My first job was making apps for railroad inspectors.
0:05:07They used Palm devices and then Windows Mobile devices.
0:05:12I think it was a Compaq, iPad, I think is what they called it.
0:05:16Yeah, I feel like that was my first mobile development.
0:05:21And I went down that road for a while,
0:05:22but then I just changed jobs and got into web development.
0:05:25So I guess maybe I would have been well served
0:05:27if the iPhone had never happened
0:05:28and Windows Mobile development had grown up to be
0:05:33the big revolution in mobile computing.
0:05:38I guess I could have dived back into that.
0:05:39But that was a really weird,
0:05:42it's a really strange platform because it was sort of like,
0:05:47it was sort of like developing desktop applications,
0:05:49but everything was just smaller.
0:05:51I don't think it had really,
0:05:54it hadn't gotten to a point where it really took advantage
0:05:58of the fact that it was a different thing,
0:06:01that it was really the way that you would build an app
0:06:04to be mobile and to be mobile first
0:06:07and to be always connected, which of course, they weren't.
0:06:10They were all, you'd have to develop all manner
0:06:13of syncing, like physical syncing software
0:06:17where you plug in your device to your computer
0:06:20and let it sit for five minutes and then you'd unplug it
0:06:23and you'd have whatever you had stored onto it
0:06:25at that point.
0:06:26But it just did not have quite the same,
0:06:30I don't know, that sense of elegance and connectivity
0:06:33that we just take for granted now, I suppose.
0:06:36- I can totally see an alternate route for history
0:06:41in which the iPhone didn't come out,
0:06:43other platforms came out, whether it be Android
0:06:48or Blackberry or Windows Phone or WebOS,
0:06:52one of those would have become the dominant platform
0:06:54and we'd have probably two like we have today.
0:06:58And I think it would be, it's not hard to imagine Apple
0:07:01just sitting back and missing it or sitting back
0:07:03and not succeeding because maybe they tried and it failed
0:07:07because that happened to Microsoft.
0:07:08You can see, Microsoft is also this big web,
0:07:12this big software platform company
0:07:13that had a very successful OS and they just didn't,
0:07:16it just didn't work out for them in mobile.
0:07:18So Apple could have been there and so I don't think
0:07:20this is that unreasonable a future to imagine.
0:07:25And I think what we would have been doing is probably
0:07:29the way a lot of Windows people look at their world
0:07:33is like we'd still be using Macs as our platform of choice
0:07:38for our desktops and laptops, but we'd have to be
0:07:40using someone else's phone and developing apps maybe
0:07:44if that's our job for other people's phone platforms.
0:07:47That would just be a thing.
0:07:47Just like Android developers now,
0:07:49like a lot of Android developers do it from a Mac
0:07:51and it would be like that.
0:07:54And that might even be what we are doing.
0:07:57We might be Android developers.
0:07:58And it would, I think the thing about that
0:08:00that would make me sad, besides that many other things,
0:08:05is that I really like Apple's Objective-C language
0:08:11and I'll get to, you know, Swift I would have eventually
0:08:14gotten into as well and I really like Apple's frameworks.
0:08:18Like one of the things that made iOS so awesome
0:08:21to develop for is that you had many of Apple's
0:08:25same frameworks.
0:08:26You know, you had all Foundation and then you had
0:08:29a lot of the same like media and other like advanced
0:08:32frameworks that you had on Mac OS.
0:08:35And it was always so nice, like Mac developers
0:08:38always have appreciated the awesome Apple frameworks
0:08:42that they got to use, but you always got to use it
0:08:45on the Mac in like this like small specialized market
0:08:48of Mac software.
0:08:49And the iPhone let you use amazing frameworks
0:08:52on the mass market platform.
0:08:54Like the one, like the high profile, high market,
0:08:58high value platform.
0:08:59You could use these awesome frameworks.
0:09:01That was never the case before.
0:09:02And because you know before like, you know,
0:09:04the high powered, high market platforms would be
0:09:08either Windows or the web.
0:09:10And Windows development was always kind of all over
0:09:12the place and there were some bright spots,
0:09:14but you know, not a lot.
0:09:17And the frameworks were nowhere near what Apple
0:09:18had going for them.
0:09:20And the web, you know, the web is a mess even today,
0:09:24but at least today it's a lot more capable.
0:09:26Back in 2006 the web was not very capable
0:09:29for making any kind of sophisticated application,
0:09:32especially one that had to depend on things like
0:09:34intermittent connectivity.
0:09:36And so that was, you know, it was a lot worse back then.
0:09:39So yeah, I think that alternate world would have been fine.
0:09:43I too would probably mostly be a web developer
0:09:45and maybe I'd make apps for my Windows or Android phone
0:09:49as a hobby on the side.
0:09:51But I think that would be the extent of it.
0:09:53- And I think that's crazy about that though too
0:09:55is the degree to which it isn't just so much
0:09:58that the iPhone existed.
0:10:00It was the advent later of the App Store
0:10:03that I think really from a personal like career perspective
0:10:07changed it from, I remember seeing that they announced
0:10:11that there was going to be an App Store
0:10:12on just deciding that like, I'm just going to try this.
0:10:16And I had no background at all in this,
0:10:19in Mac development at all.
0:10:21Like I'd never written, I didn't really even know
0:10:23Objective-C was a thing, but I just,
0:10:25when they decided that that was going to be a thing
0:10:28that that existed, that was the point for me.
0:10:31That even when the iPhone had come out
0:10:33and the iPhone SDK had come out,
0:10:34if it had just been those things,
0:10:36I'm not sure if I, like at the time I didn't own an iPhone.
0:10:39I had a Sony Ericsson flip phone I think,
0:10:42and I was perfectly happy with that.
0:10:44And it was, I think even more so than the advent of the SDK
0:10:48was the advent of the App Store and saying that,
0:10:51we're going to create this platform by which anybody
0:10:55in the world can sell applications for this hot new device.
0:11:00That change was I think really the pivotal thing
0:11:03for me personally.
0:11:04And then if that hadn't been there, I would be,
0:11:07I'm not even sure if I would have gotten into it,
0:11:09developing apps for the iPhone
0:11:11or getting into mobile development at all.
0:11:12I'd just be staying as a web developer
0:11:14where I was pretty happy at the time.
0:11:17- So one other alternate feature to consider
0:11:19before we move on and talk about what actually happened
0:11:21with us is what if the iPhone had happened
0:11:25and everything, and it succeeded,
0:11:28but the SDK never did.
0:11:31So the iPhone, like assume the iPhone happened,
0:11:34it became as popular as it did,
0:11:36which honestly I don't think would have happened
0:11:37without native apps, but let's set that aside for now.
0:11:40In this alternate future, the iPhone is out,
0:11:43is as popular as it is today,
0:11:45but we can still only make web apps for it.
0:11:48How do you think that would have changed things?
0:11:50- I mean, I think the big thing
0:11:52that it would have struggled with is the,
0:11:56like I guess we would have gotten really good
0:11:57at web development and HTML5 and all that type of stuff.
0:12:01But I think the biggest impediment
0:12:03would have continued to be distribution.
0:12:05'Cause the blessing and the curse
0:12:07of when apps were just websites,
0:12:10then you have all of the sort of implications
0:12:13that you had for just websites in general.
0:12:16That it's, you have to get people to your app
0:12:21and to find it and to use it.
0:12:22And if that, I think at a technical level,
0:12:24there's a lot of things
0:12:25that could have been problematic about that.
0:12:27You know, in terms of access to hardware or performance,
0:12:30or the sophistication and the robustness
0:12:33of an application you can make,
0:12:34is just always, you know,
0:12:35is gonna be more deep and significant
0:12:38when it's a native app than when it's a web app.
0:12:41But I think it would have struggled just from a,
0:12:44you know, to make that a viable career or viable business,
0:12:48it would have been, I think, a really steep uphill battle
0:12:52compared to what we had.
0:12:53That it's, well, the technical side of it,
0:12:55I think is, you know, is significant.
0:12:58And I think you're right.
0:12:58I don't think the iPhone would have caught on
0:13:01in the same way, because I don't think Apple
0:13:03would have been able to add capability to it fast enough
0:13:07to have the just, you know, this explosion in utility
0:13:11that they were able to take advantage of
0:13:14if it hadn't been for third-party developers.
0:13:16But yeah, it's like if we had just been sort of stuck there
0:13:20with that, without a native SDK,
0:13:22I mean, either that or I guess jailbreaking
0:13:24could have been a really significant thing
0:13:27where if Apple had just decided,
0:13:29we're not gonna do this at a certain point,
0:13:32like jailbreaking may have just been a very common activity
0:13:35that everyone did when they bought their iPhone
0:13:37so they could get actual applications for it,
0:13:40even if it wasn't, you know, endorsed by Apple or supported.
0:13:44- Web development, it would be like
0:13:47starting the entire platform in fifth gear.
0:13:50You know, it's like you'd eventually build up speed
0:13:53and momentum and have this be a robust platform,
0:13:57but I don't think it would ever be as good as native apps
0:14:01for a while, if ever.
0:14:03And it would definitely have slowed down
0:14:05how much this platform exploded,
0:14:09because I think you're right,
0:14:10distribution, discovery, monetization
0:14:13are all way harder with web stuff,
0:14:15and especially they were back then.
0:14:17You know, you think it's hard to get someone
0:14:19to pay for an app, try to get someone
0:14:21to pay for a website in 2007.
0:14:22Heck, even today, it's not an easy thing.
0:14:25So, you know, I think it would have been,
0:14:28it would have worked out okay,
0:14:30but it wouldn't have been anything special.
0:14:32Just like other platforms, you know,
0:14:33if you have one that never existed,
0:14:34like we'd all be using Windows and phone or whatever,
0:14:36like it would have been fine, it would have been,
0:14:38you know, we would have gotten by just fine,
0:14:40some people would succeed,
0:14:42but I don't think it would be what it was.
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0:16:11So the iPhone SDK fortunately did happen,
0:16:15and we didn't have to travel
0:16:16to any of those alternate timelines.
0:16:18That would have been horrible in various ways.
0:16:20So it did happen, and I think it's kind of fun now
0:16:24to spend the rest of the episode
0:16:26talking about the very first things that we did.
0:16:29Like how did we get started?
0:16:31What were we doing 10 years ago today?
0:16:33- Well, and it's slightly amazing.
0:16:36I always love keeping an archive of email
0:16:38and having emails that go back,
0:16:39because it lets you kind of reminisce
0:16:41and find things that,
0:16:43while you may remember in general,
0:16:46you wouldn't remember in specifics.
0:16:47And right before we sat down to record,
0:16:50I found the email that I got back from Apple
0:16:54saying that I had successfully enrolled
0:16:56in the iPhone developer program.
0:16:59And the email almost to the minute was 10 years ago.
0:17:04And it's kind of wild, so that Apple announced it.
0:17:08And I went and I created a developer account.
0:17:11I didn't have one before.
0:17:13I remember, at the time, so much of the developer stuff
0:17:17was all about the Mac, which fair enough.
0:17:19Like it was the Apple developer connection
0:17:22had all this stuff about the Mac,
0:17:23and you could, you know, like it was,
0:17:25all of a sudden there was this whole new thing
0:17:27called the iPhone developer program
0:17:29that you had to kind of navigate for.
0:17:31But a lot of everything had been set up
0:17:33around the Mac, and the Mac was still a big part of it.
0:17:37But I went and I signed up,
0:17:38and I knew absolutely nothing
0:17:40about developing for this platform.
0:17:43I didn't know how to do it, like what Xcode was,
0:17:46what Interface Builder was.
0:17:48I didn't know what Objective-C was or how it worked.
0:17:52At the time, I was coming from a background
0:17:54of Ruby development, and before that,
0:17:56it was Java development, and before that,
0:17:58it was Visual Basic development.
0:18:01So I remember retain release memory management
0:18:05being this just like mind-bending world
0:18:08for the first like year or two,
0:18:10where I was going from a world of garbage collection
0:18:12to all of a sudden having to get into it.
0:18:13But it all started with that, you know,
0:18:15that email that I got back 10 years ago
0:18:17that, you know, kicked off all the rest of this process.
0:18:21- Yeah, and I got the same email on the same day,
0:18:23March 7th, 2008, and you know, at the time, for me,
0:18:27I too had very little experience.
0:18:31I think I had a little more than you,
0:18:32in that I had made a couple of like little hobby apps
0:18:34on Mac OS, but you know, very trivial things,
0:18:39and I had almost no knowledge of Objective-C
0:18:42or any of the frameworks, really.
0:18:44But a few months prior, I had launched Instapaper,
0:18:48which at the time was a web app.
0:18:50I was dying to have some kind of offline access.
0:18:54And so I was very, very focused right from the beginning
0:18:57on getting a specific app done and in the store for day one.
0:19:02'Cause you know, it came out in March,
0:19:04they started accepting applications for the App Store
0:19:07on June 26th, '08, and then the App Store opened,
0:19:11I think what it was like July 5th or something like that.
0:19:14- Something like that.
0:19:15Unfortunately, I was not there for day one
0:19:17'cause my developer, my App Store account
0:19:19took I think until October to be approved.
0:19:22- Oh wow.
0:19:23Yeah, 'cause that was a big, they had a big problem
0:19:26back then where basically it seemed like way more
0:19:29developers signed up than what Apple had expected.
0:19:31And so you would register for the account
0:19:33and you could download the SDK immediately,
0:19:35but you couldn't actually submit anything to the store
0:19:38until they approve your account,
0:19:39which I think they still do.
0:19:41But there was this huge backlog and a lot of people
0:19:44kind of seemed like they fell on the floor.
0:19:46Like it seemed like their application
0:19:48just got stuck somewhere or got lost somewhere.
0:19:51And a lot of people, like I was lucky,
0:19:53I was approved pretty soon after submitting it,
0:19:57but a lot of people were not so lucky.
0:20:00And a lot of people like you had to wait months
0:20:03for their applications to be approved.
0:20:05And so it was a very, very, you know,
0:20:08just kind of luck-driven process
0:20:10on whether you were there or not.
0:20:11And I also missed day one, not because I missed
0:20:14the deadline to submit, but because I made the deadline
0:20:17to submit to be there on day one.
0:20:19But they just got way too many application submissions
0:20:20and they couldn't review them on time.
0:20:23So even though they said if you submit by this date,
0:20:25you'll be there on day one, in reality they couldn't
0:20:28keep that up because there was just a huge influx
0:20:30that they probably, again, were not expecting.
0:20:32So I was there like day three, I think,
0:20:35or day two or three I got in.
0:20:37But it was a crazy time back then
0:20:39because nobody knew what to expect.
0:20:42That was, I think, one of the biggest points of stress
0:20:47and anxiety for me back then is like all we knew
0:20:49was that the iPhone was doing great
0:20:52and we're gonna make apps for it
0:20:54and it's gonna be probably awesome.
0:20:56But there were major questions around things
0:20:59like pricing and expectations around pricing.
0:21:01There were also major questions about what Apple
0:21:04would require from App Review.
0:21:06You know, I think a lot of us thought,
0:21:08myself definitely included, a lot of us thought back then
0:21:10that App Review would be a lot more strict
0:21:13about interface quality.
0:21:14Like we really thought that they would reject your app
0:21:18if it was ugly or didn't follow
0:21:20the human interface guidelines or whatever.
0:21:23And in fact, that really didn't,
0:21:25it was very clear from day one that that wasn't
0:21:26going to happen.
0:21:27But we also had no idea what to price things at.
0:21:32We had the desktop software and shareware world,
0:21:36so everyone was at first kind of thinking,
0:21:38well I guess we can put our popular Mac productivity app
0:21:41onto the iPhone for 30 bucks, right?
0:21:43That sounds reasonable.
0:21:45And then I remember at WWDC that year,
0:21:48which was about a month before the App Store launched,
0:21:50they had a demo from Sega, I think it was Monkey Ball,
0:21:55some version of Monkey Ball.
0:21:56And this was the only time in the entire lead up
0:21:59to the App Store where anybody threw out a price in public.
0:22:03Or anybody big, right?
0:22:04And so what happened was, Sega was on stage,
0:22:07they gave their demo and they said their game,
0:22:10this high profile game was gonna be $9.99.
0:22:14And I remember me and a couple of other friends
0:22:16I was talking to all said, oh crap,
0:22:18they've now set a price ceiling.
0:22:20Like if this high profile AAA game is only $10,
0:22:25no one can charge more than $10 for anything.
0:22:28And that proved to be true.
0:22:30In fact, it collapsed pretty quickly after that too.
0:22:32But what did you think at that time?
0:22:34Did you expect what we got in terms of quality and pricing?
0:22:39- I'm not sure I really knew what to expect, if I'm honest.
0:22:43I mean, the funny part of the story is
0:22:44I didn't actually own an iPhone.
0:22:45And I didn't actually own an iPhone until the following,
0:22:49almost a year after I signed up to be an iPhone developer.
0:22:53I think I got an iPhone for Christmas that year.
0:22:56So it had been almost a full year
0:22:59since I started being an iPhone developer
0:23:01before I actually got an iPhone.
0:23:02So I didn't have very, very big expectations
0:23:06or even I didn't download apps from the app store
0:23:09until I got a phone, obviously.
0:23:11So I think the thing that I had in my back of my mind
0:23:15was it was just the sense that there's so much interest here
0:23:20that irrespective of what the pricing structure
0:23:24it looks like or the quality is,
0:23:27there is just such an opportunity.
0:23:29There's just gonna be so much interest.
0:23:30And I think that part turned out to be true.
0:23:32And I think I had the similar feeling of
0:23:34because I was coming to Apple development
0:23:37from without much of a background,
0:23:40I kind of drank all the Kool-Aid I could find
0:23:43to try and immerse myself into the culture.
0:23:45And it seemed like if you come in that way
0:23:48that Apple is all about the polish and attention to detail
0:23:52and that the apps that everyone talks about at the time,
0:23:56and there's all these developers like Omni or Panic
0:23:59are the ones that everyone talks about
0:24:01and that sort of exemplify this,
0:24:04that's what the Apple Design Awards were all about,
0:24:06was promoting that kind of development.
0:24:08And so I think I certainly had in the back of my mind
0:24:10that that was the kind of application
0:24:14that Apple was going to require,
0:24:15whether that necessarily be require
0:24:17in the sense of from an app review perspective
0:24:20or that that's the bar that I would need to strive towards
0:24:24before I was gonna be able to be successful.
0:24:27The quality bar was gonna be so important and significant
0:24:32to being successful.
0:24:34And turns out that that wasn't actually the case.
0:24:36And I mean, my first app that I launched on the App Store
0:24:39was not winning any Apple Design Awards,
0:24:41but it served a purpose and put something out there.
0:24:44And I think so much of that early time
0:24:46was just a question of,
0:24:47it was just anything you could imagine,
0:24:50like now if I have an idea for an app,
0:24:53I go to the App Store, I search for it,
0:24:55it probably already exists.
0:24:57I remember sitting down and coming up with a list of,
0:24:59I don't even know, it was probably 40 or 50 ideas
0:25:02for things that could be apps, and none of them existed.
0:25:05Like it was all this complete open world
0:25:08of anything that you wanted to do, you could do.
0:25:11And so I very quickly lost a little bit of the desire
0:25:16to be perfect and to strive towards building
0:25:20a really amazing application from a polished perspective
0:25:25and to just explore the world of,
0:25:27now we have this whole wide world of applications
0:25:31that can be made that don't exist,
0:25:33and at least at that point, that people would pay for.
0:25:36You're definitely right in the sense
0:25:40that there was a very quick cap put on pricing,
0:25:42and then that very quickly collapsed down to,
0:25:45I don't know, between one and four,
0:25:47well, one in four, one in five dollars at most.
0:25:50But for the first few years at least,
0:25:53there was still a strong sense of,
0:25:57that people would pay for applications.
0:26:00And I think largely because there weren't
0:26:01any advertising platforms at that point.
0:26:03There wasn't any other way.
0:26:04If you had a free app, it was free forever basically,
0:26:06and you'd have no income from it.
0:26:08And so the only people who had free apps
0:26:11were large companies who want you to download their app,
0:26:14and you're a customer for other reasons.
0:26:18So people would still pay for apps,
0:26:19even if they wouldn't give you very much.
0:26:21But there's enough interest to sustain
0:26:23a one-person developer.
0:26:25- Well, and also, back then, when the App Store launched,
0:26:28there was a huge rush.
0:26:29Like I remember the first, I mean,
0:26:30I guess you didn't have the phone, so you didn't do this,
0:26:32but when the App Store launched,
0:26:34I remember it launched midday sometime.
0:26:37I was out to lunch with my friends,
0:26:39and a few of us had iPhones.
0:26:41And all we did the whole rest of the day
0:26:43was buy a bunch of apps and try them out,
0:26:44because it was novel.
0:26:46It was this novelty that like,
0:26:48here's this phone that we've been enjoying
0:26:49for up to a year, depending on when in the year we got it,
0:26:53and it could only do this small handful of things,
0:26:55and we wanted to do more.
0:26:56And so part of what drove that initial wave of app success
0:27:01was just people wanted to do more stuff with their phone,
0:27:03and so they were willing to set money on fire to do it,
0:27:06'cause it was this novel thing,
0:27:08and there still were not that many apps.
0:27:09I mean, the App Store launched with something like
0:27:12a few thousand apps, I think, or at least 500,
0:27:14and it quickly blew in from there.
0:27:16So there wasn't a shortage of apps,
0:27:17but there was a shortage of,
0:27:20people were so starved for new stuff on their phone
0:27:23that they were willing to throw money away on stupid stuff,
0:27:26like the iBeer app or the lighter apps or things like that,
0:27:28just because it was novel.
0:27:31But the reason it got harder after that over time
0:27:34is because that novelty wore off.
0:27:36Now all phones can do this,
0:27:38and there's a billion apps in the store,
0:27:39and so there isn't that hunger anymore for,
0:27:42oh my god, I guess I'll pay money for anything
0:27:44my phone can do.
0:27:45And in some ways, that makes things harder,
0:27:47but I think that's just part of the maturing of the platform.
0:27:50- Yeah, I mean, I remember in the early days
0:27:52that you would try and have as many app updates
0:27:55as you could reasonably do.
0:27:57This was back when App Review was like one to two weeks.
0:28:00Because when you were in the recently updated part
0:28:04of the App Store, you had a tremendous spike in downloads,
0:28:08because that list didn't turn over very quickly.
0:28:11And so people were always looking for new apps.
0:28:14They would go to the recently updated section
0:28:16of the App Store and find your app.
0:28:19And I remember consciously trying to,
0:28:22as soon as one update was approved,
0:28:24I would submit the next one,
0:28:25just to try and stay there because you got this big spike,
0:28:29because the App Store was so small.
0:28:30- Oh, that's great.
0:28:31- Sometimes I miss those days,
0:28:33but sometimes I am glad that they're past.
0:28:35That I feel like it's nice that we now work
0:28:37in a mature ecosystem that I can make a reliable,
0:28:41dependable income from, and that I don't have
0:28:45this constant sense of, if I'm not frantically
0:28:48making new apps and exploiting new opportunities
0:28:51that I'm missing out.
0:28:52I can just make a good, basic, straightforward,
0:28:57living in business from it.
0:28:58So as much as I look back to those days
0:29:00with warm nostalgia, I don't miss them necessarily.
0:29:05- Yeah, it's kind of like looking back
0:29:07on when you were in school.
0:29:08It's like, I'm glad I did that.
0:29:09That was fun, I don't wanna go back.
0:29:12I'm only looking forward now.
0:29:14So anyway, hey, it's been a great 10 years,
0:29:16and maybe here's to 10 more.
0:29:19- Yeah.
0:29:20- Thanks, everyone, we'll talk to you next week.
0:29:22Bye.
0:29:22[ Silence ]