Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, 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, so let's get started.

00:00:10 ◼   ► So before we dive into our actual main topic for today, I just wanted to have a brief,

00:00:14 ◼   ► I guess, programming note that we are also, we've started to publish these episodes on

00:00:21 ◼   ► YouTube as well as our regular RSS syndication means, and this is mostly just an experiment.

00:00:28 ◼   ► We're not changing anything about the core show.

00:00:31 ◼   ► We're continuing on Relay, continuing to publish via RSS and MP3.

00:00:35 ◼   ► That is the main, that is the show.

00:00:37 ◼   ► But this is an experiment that we're trying.

00:00:40 ◼   ► So I just wanted to mention it in case that is a preferred mechanism for you, that if

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00:01:01 ◼   ► I think you're supposed to hit a bell.

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00:01:11 ◼   ► What's the bell?

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00:01:21 ◼   ► I mean, any of you push it three times just in case.

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00:01:28 ◼   ► do it on all of them.

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00:01:35 ◼   ► Yeah, anyway.

00:01:38 ◼   ► So our main topic today is we're going to talk through, this week there was an article

00:01:44 ◼   ► published on Bloomberg by Mark Gurman, which is, you know, the way many of these Apple

00:01:50 ◼   ► news things start.

00:01:53 ◼   ► And basically he has a tip, a lead, a rumor that Apple is working on a secret project

00:02:01 ◼   ► code named Marzipan, which is a project to create a unified system for iOS and Mac apps

00:02:12 ◼   ► to run together.

00:02:14 ◼   ► And this is something that we've talked about.

00:02:17 ◼   ► I was looking up and way back in the early days of the show, even, we were talking about

00:02:21 ◼   ► some of the challenges of being iOS developers and coming to the Mac and, you know, wishing

00:02:26 ◼   ► for there to be an easier path.

00:02:28 ◼   ► And so, you know, if this actually is a thing, which in a certain sense, like whenever I

00:02:34 ◼   ► saw this, it's like, it seems eventually this was going to happen, you know, to use the

00:02:40 ◼   ► infinite timescale argument, like this was somewhat inevitable that eventually Apple

00:02:44 ◼   ► was going to consolidate their platforms.

00:02:46 ◼   ► And if the rumor is true, and they're going to be doing it in, you know, next summer,

00:02:50 ◼   ► probably would be their goal, you know, with WWDC, iOS 12, the next version of Mac OS,

00:02:56 ◼   ► like it's going to be, if that's actually true, like this is a really interesting thing.

00:03:02 ◼   ► And I think it will create a lot of interesting opportunities for, you know, for development.

00:03:07 ◼   ► I think it would be really interesting from a learning, like the abilities that you get

00:03:14 ◼   ► from learning how to make Apple apps, that suddenly you can make them on multiple platforms

00:03:19 ◼   ► and distribute them and potentially in different ways.

00:03:21 ◼   ► I think it has a lot of implications potentially on the business side and is probably mixed

00:03:27 ◼   ► news for existing Mac developers that suddenly, you know, being a, all of the skills and things

00:03:33 ◼   ► that you have from being a Mac developer may be slightly less significant or unique.

00:03:39 ◼   ► So anyway, it seemed like an interesting thing to kind of unpack given, you know, given our

00:03:43 ◼   ► history with this topic.

00:03:44 ◼   ► - And you know, this is a huge disclaimer that this is just a rumor published in one

00:03:49 ◼   ► article literally today as we record, like an hour ago.

00:03:54 ◼   ► So this is not only like, you know, unabashedly our hot take on it and we haven't had a whole

00:03:59 ◼   ► lot of time to think about it and we have no additional information, but also it's simply

00:04:04 ◼   ► one article from Mark Gurman and his track record has been okay but not perfect.

00:04:08 ◼   ► So especially, you know, recently it seems like it's kind of getting worse honestly.

00:04:12 ◼   ► But you know, so take this all with a grain of salt.

00:04:15 ◼   ► This is a rumor.

00:04:16 ◼   ► This is not fact.

00:04:17 ◼   ► This has not been confirmed or commented on by Apple and probably won't be for some time

00:04:21 ◼   ► if ever.

00:04:22 ◼   ► So all that said, I am super excited about this.

00:04:28 ◼   ► So like to me, you know, I'm an iOS developer.

00:04:32 ◼   ► I happen to have made a couple of little Mac apps but it was like pulling teeth because

00:04:38 ◼   ► I am not an app kit expert.

00:04:40 ◼   ► I am not a Mac development expert.

00:04:42 ◼   ► Even though I have used the Mac for a very long time, I have not developed for it really

00:04:47 ◼   ► in any serious capacity ever.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I've done little toy things but that's about it.

00:04:53 ◼   ► So for me, when I program on the Mac, it feels, first of all, it feels very antiquated in

00:05:00 ◼   ► some ways.

00:05:01 ◼   ► Not everything, but in some ways because app kit is a much older API than UI kit.

00:05:06 ◼   ► It has a lot more baggage.

00:05:07 ◼   ► UI kit was created in part from the lessons they learned from app kit like 10 years earlier

00:05:12 ◼   ► or whatever it was.

00:05:14 ◼   ► So you know, app kit is very, very cumbersome for me as an iOS developer to use because

00:05:22 ◼   ► it's like take this thing that I'm familiar with and change a lot of how it works, add

00:05:27 ◼   ► a whole bunch of stuff you have to deal with, make a lot of stuff different for no good

00:05:31 ◼   ► reason by modern standards.

00:05:33 ◼   ► Maybe it was that way for some time or forever ago but now it's like if you look at what

00:05:38 ◼   ► the needs are now for these platforms, a lot of things are just different for no good reason

00:05:43 ◼   ► anymore or for legacy reasons that no longer apply or shouldn't need to apply.

00:05:49 ◼   ► And so app kit development is very slow, very cumbersome for iOS developers and because

00:05:57 ◼   ► of that, it's also just expensive.

00:06:00 ◼   ► In the time it takes and the resources it takes, if you have to hire Mac programmers,

00:06:07 ◼   ► there are way fewer of them than there are iOS programmers so it's probably more expensive

00:06:12 ◼   ► for big companies as well.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And the Mac user base is smaller than the iOS user base by a good amount.

00:06:20 ◼   ► And so the result of this has been so far that iOS developers, big and small, which

00:06:26 ◼   ► basically means all app developers these days, pretty much every major business and service

00:06:31 ◼   ► has iOS apps, almost every major developer either ignores the Mac completely as a platform

00:06:39 ◼   ► for their application or service or they treat it as a second class citizen because it has

00:06:45 ◼   ► smaller numbers of people and it's way harder and more expensive for most people to develop

00:06:50 ◼   ► for.

00:06:52 ◼   ► So this is a problem, so even if you ignore the technical arguments, even if fans of app

00:06:58 ◼   ► kit can tell us why it's better in certain ways, which it is, or why it's more advanced

00:07:03 ◼   ► in a lot of ways, which it is, or why things are done this way for good reasons, which

00:07:06 ◼   ► they are, all of that is secondary to this massive economics problem of there's tons

00:07:14 ◼   ► of people writing iOS code and who can write iOS code.

00:07:18 ◼   ► It's like this massive universal language now for mobile apps because of the market

00:07:22 ◼   ► realities of these platforms.

00:07:24 ◼   ► So every business is writing iOS apps.

00:07:27 ◼   ► But the Mac is like, if we get to it maybe someday or if you write a Mac app it's maybe

00:07:36 ◼   ► an Electron app or some other kind of wrapper or cross platform language where you're

00:07:41 ◼   ► really just writing like JavaScript or web code or something like that and it's being

00:07:45 ◼   ► run in web kit on a Mac, which is fine, like big apps like Slack are done that way.

00:07:52 ◼   ► It's fine, but it's not good and there's lots of major downsides to that kind of app,

00:07:57 ◼   ► especially like memory usage and performance and stuff like that, native integration type

00:08:01 ◼   ► stuff.

00:08:02 ◼   ► So that's not a great situation to be in and also just a lot of apps just don't have

00:08:06 ◼   ► native apps in the Mac, they just use websites.

00:08:08 ◼   ► It's like, alright, well you can log into our website and do this.

00:08:11 ◼   ► And I am a huge example of this in my own head obviously.

00:08:16 ◼   ► This is exactly how Overcast works.

00:08:18 ◼   ► I don't have a Mac app.

00:08:19 ◼   ► I have considered making a Mac app before.

00:08:21 ◼   ► There are a couple of podcast apps that have made Mac apps and usually they have killed

00:08:27 ◼   ► them.

00:08:28 ◼   ► Usually the other indie podcast apps that made Mac versions seem to stop development

00:08:34 ◼   ► afterwards.

00:08:35 ◼   ► It seemed like that was too much of a burden and it just was the last nail in the coffin

00:08:40 ◼   ► or something.

00:08:41 ◼   ► I'm afraid of that happening to me if I would do the same thing because it's a totally

00:08:44 ◼   ► different platform.

00:08:45 ◼   ► If I were to try to port Overcast to Mac today, I could very easily just copy over and use

00:08:55 ◼   ► the core library functions of things like the database, the sync engine, and most or

00:09:00 ◼   ► all of the audio engine because all those low-level frameworks have been unified for

00:09:05 ◼   ► the most part with not a lot of exceptions, at least in the way I'm using them.

00:09:08 ◼   ► But the UI would have to be completely rewritten from scratch.

00:09:16 ◼   ► You could make an argument, and many people have, that you should write custom UIs from

00:09:22 ◼   ► scratch for a completely different new platform than what you've written before.

00:09:28 ◼   ► In an ideal world, that's true.

00:09:29 ◼   ► In an ideal world, yes, I would write a whole custom Mac UI because the Mac is not iOS.

00:09:38 ◼   ► The controls are totally different, the environment's totally different, windowing is totally different.

00:09:43 ◼   ► There's all sorts of major platform differences between the two that you shouldn't just

00:09:47 ◼   ► be running an iOS app in a window on the Mac.

00:09:50 ◼   ► That's not a great way to do this.

00:09:52 ◼   ► But the reality is because developing on the Mac is such a huge investment for an established

00:10:00 ◼   ► iOS developer and because there are way more of us than Mac developers, and that's probably

00:10:07 ◼   ► going to continue to go that direction.

00:10:10 ◼   ► Because of these economic differences, the reality is not that we are choosing between

00:10:16 ◼   ► having good Mac apps and having some kind of cross-platform thing.

00:10:21 ◼   ► The reality is that we're choosing between having the cross-platform thing or no Mac

00:10:26 ◼   ► apps.

00:10:27 ◼   ► And this is not to say that the entire Mac app market will go away that exists today.

00:10:30 ◼   ► We don't know what this is.

00:10:31 ◼   ► This could be just another option.

00:10:33 ◼   ► This could be another framework, a platform that you can use to develop Mac apps with

00:10:38 ◼   ► as an alternative to AppKit.

00:10:40 ◼   ► That's how I would guess they would do it because Apple has a whole bunch of AppKit

00:10:44 ◼   ► code themselves.

00:10:45 ◼   ► They're not going to get rid of AppKit.

00:10:47 ◼   ► So I think the existing Mac market is fine.

00:10:50 ◼   ► And they would be totally fine to keep going in that way.

00:10:54 ◼   ► I don't think this is a threat to them in the short term.

00:10:57 ◼   ► In the long term it probably is, but I think in the long term it's very clear that Apple

00:11:01 ◼   ► has not been moving AppKit forward very aggressively.

00:11:05 ◼   ► They have not been investing heavily into it just like the rest of the Mac, basically.

00:11:09 ◼   ► >> And I think the biggest threat, honestly, probably to Mac developers is just the devaluing

00:11:15 ◼   ► in some ways of their unique skill.

00:11:17 ◼   ► It reminds me of people who are, say, Fortran developers or Cobalt developers.

00:11:21 ◼   ► If you have this very distinctive skill that if you are an AppKit genius, that is a unique,

00:11:29 ◼   ► marketable, valuable thing right now, that if a company decides they want a Mac app,

00:11:34 ◼   ► there's not as many people who can do an exceptional job of that.

00:11:39 ◼   ► And in a weird way that might be slightly devalued by this, just in the sense that if

00:11:43 ◼   ► it's now, it's something that is possible for a broader range of people to do.

00:11:49 ◼   ► But the thing is, it's a weird thing when you start to get into, "Well, these apps won't

00:11:54 ◼   ► be as good, potentially," which is, I think, a common reaction to this kind of thing.

00:11:58 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, people are just going to make blown-up iPhone apps."

00:12:01 ◼   ► And maybe that's true.

00:12:04 ◼   ► In many ways, it makes me think of the iPad, though, where I think for years, the iPad

00:12:09 ◼   ► and the way that it was technically structured was that while it was still UIKit in terms

00:12:15 ◼   ► of the libraries you were using, the way that you were encouraged to develop an iPad app

00:12:22 ◼   ► was that it was a completely separate visual fork in your application that you would launch

00:12:30 ◼   ► into your iPad app or you would launch into your iPhone app.

00:12:33 ◼   ► And then with the size-classing changes and the introduction of the slide-over and the

00:12:40 ◼   ► one-quarter-width iPad apps and all these things, that largely went away.

00:12:45 ◼   ► I think the encouragement started to become that it's like being an adaptable iPhone app

00:12:52 ◼   ► that is good enough and is probably sufficient for most situations and may not be optimized.

00:12:57 ◼   ► That when you are running that app on the biggest, whatever, the 12-inch iPad Pro, it's

00:13:04 ◼   ► not going to be ideal, potentially.

00:13:06 ◼   ► But it works, and it will be there.

00:13:08 ◼   ► And it's certainly better than just having the 2X iPhone app blow-up version, which was

00:13:16 ◼   ► the situation we found ourselves in before.

00:13:18 ◼   ► And I expect we would have a similar thing moving to the Mac, where if your app has an

00:13:26 ◼   ► iPad app, imagine running that iPad app on a Mac, and you're probably pretty close to

00:13:32 ◼   ► something that is very usable, workable, like would feel -- it may not feel native in the

00:13:39 ◼   ► sense of what we consider native now, but the reality is probably for an increasing

00:13:44 ◼   ► number of people, what feels native and natural is iOS, and the Mac is the foreign thing,

00:13:51 ◼   ► and it could even be reassuring and encouraging to somebody who comes to -- if they come to

00:13:57 ◼   ► the Mac and the Mac feels like iOS, like the thing they know, that may actually be a positive

00:14:03 ◼   ► rather than a negative for them.

00:14:05 ◼   ► And so I think dismissing this in any way for like, "Oh, it's going to lead to these

00:14:11 ◼   ► kind of shovelware iPhone apps that are just going to be blown up onto the screen or running

00:14:18 ◼   ► in teeny little windows," it's like, maybe.

00:14:21 ◼   ► But having something, like if suddenly there now being a million new apps available for

00:14:27 ◼   ► the Mac, that would be awesome.

00:14:30 ◼   ► That would be -- I think there's no world in which that's a bad thing, I don't think.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Like having that opportunity, I like that, as something -- maybe they won't work wonderfully,

00:14:41 ◼   ► maybe it's not perfect, but it's not like the Mac is this flourishing ecosystem that

00:14:46 ◼   ► is continuing to grow and develop and attract new developers in droves.

00:14:52 ◼   ► It's like, no, it's not.

00:14:54 ◼   ► And I think this is a -- it's easy to perhaps get stuck on the ideal sense of what you could

00:15:01 ◼   ► imagine versus the pragmatic reality of if Apple went down this road, if they made it

00:15:06 ◼   ► really easy for iOS developers to essentially just add, like, "This app can run on the Mac,

00:15:12 ◼   ► and when it's in the Mac, it has maybe a slightly different size class, but otherwise is pretty

00:15:17 ◼   ► much just the same," that's pretty cool to me.

00:15:21 ◼   ► I'm on board with that, I think that would be really interesting, and overall, it just

00:15:26 ◼   ► creates so much more opportunity and it creates such a value, an increased value in learning

00:15:30 ◼   ► how to make iOS apps or UIKit or whatever this new thing is, it's like all that skill

00:15:37 ◼   ► and development that we've developed now suddenly becomes that much more valuable and interesting.

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00:16:57 ◼   ► So you mentioned a minute ago the idea of being ideal versus pragmatic, and I think

00:17:03 ◼   ► this is the overall theme of this kind of concept, like assuming this is real or if

00:17:10 ◼   ► this happens.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Real versus pragmatic is an argument that a lot of people have trouble with because

00:17:18 ◼   ► a lot, like it seems unfair or unjust or non-ideal to, especially for people who really care

00:17:26 ◼   ► a lot, which is pretty common in the Mac fan community because that's the kind of people

00:17:31 ◼   ► who historically have loved Apple products because Apple really cared a lot.

00:17:34 ◼   ► But it's very common like mental friction to get over that like sometimes the best solution

00:17:40 ◼   ► is actually the most pragmatic one, which might not be the objectively best quality

00:17:49 ◼   ► one, or the one that you want, or the one that you think should be.

00:17:52 ◼   ► I wrote an article forever ago on my blog called "Right vs. Pragmatic" that was actually

00:17:56 ◼   ► about bathroom trash can placement, but it's a similar argument, which is like you can

00:18:02 ◼   ► make a good argument that what should happen is everyone who wants to make a Mac app should

00:18:08 ◼   ► do it like the most native original old school way, which is AppKit.

00:18:12 ◼   ► Sorry, classic Mac people.

00:18:14 ◼   ► I know this is not old school to you, but appKit is old school these days.

00:18:20 ◼   ► You can make a great argument that all Mac apps should be AppKit and should be fully

00:18:24 ◼   ► native and should be designed from scratch with the Mac in mind.

00:18:28 ◼   ► You're right, that should be the case, but the reality is different.

00:18:32 ◼   ► The reality is that the Mac is a neglected platform by a lot of people these days, including

00:18:38 ◼   ► on many levels Apple.

00:18:41 ◼   ► Apple is not able to keep up with their own apps doing very well on the Mac anymore.

00:18:47 ◼   ► Apple versions of their cross platform apps, the Mac versions like Photos, usually have

00:18:53 ◼   ► fewer features or like notes.

00:18:56 ◼   ► They usually have fewer features or they have more bugs or they don't even really take

00:19:00 ◼   ► advantage fully of the Mac itself or they're just kind of weird designs that never get

00:19:05 ◼   ► touched like reminders.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Even Apple can't keep up with their own apps, their own first party apps on this platform.

00:19:14 ◼   ► Even they are having trouble maintaining these two different platforms and justifying the

00:19:17 ◼   ► effort it takes to move the Mac forward meaningfully.

00:19:24 ◼   ► The ideal choice is everyone should invest infinitely into the Mac until everything can

00:19:27 ◼   ► be great, but that isn't one of our choices in reality.

00:19:31 ◼   ► In reality our choices are, well here's how people actually work, here's the actual economics,

00:19:35 ◼   ► actual trade offs that are involved here.

00:19:39 ◼   ► Our actual choice is between moving in a direction like this rumor which is a more unified UI

00:19:45 ◼   ► framework, more unified app platform between Mac and iOS or having the Mac continue to

00:19:51 ◼   ► languish, having a lot more apps switch to the webkit electron kind of style where everything

00:19:57 ◼   ► is non-native anyway and badly performing and a huge RAM hog which makes your Mac suck

00:20:03 ◼   ► more.

00:20:04 ◼   ► That's the alternative here.

00:20:05 ◼   ► The alternative is not that we're going to educate the world into using AppKit.

00:20:11 ◼   ► That ship has sailed.

00:20:12 ◼   ► That's not going to happen.

00:20:15 ◼   ► If these are our options, which news flash they are, I'd rather have the option that

00:20:20 ◼   ► gives us more Mac apps than the option that gives us fewer, crappier ones.

00:20:26 ◼   ► I think too it's also this creates so many interesting possibilities.

00:20:30 ◼   ► Some of them are kind of tangential, but for me I'm kind of excited about the prospect

00:20:38 ◼   ► of being able to ship iOS apps without needing a sandbox or app review potentially.

00:20:46 ◼   ► That's interesting.

00:20:48 ◼   ► Certainly all of the apps for the most part that I've ever shipped have to go through

00:20:55 ◼   ► app review, are from the app store, and that constrains and limits the types of things

00:21:01 ◼   ► that I can do, the types of risks I want to take.

00:21:05 ◼   ► I have been bit by app review enough times that there's a certain cautiousness and carefulness

00:21:11 ◼   ► that I have to adopt when I'm working on my apps.

00:21:14 ◼   ► It's kind of interesting for me to be able to use the skills I have at this point potentially

00:21:19 ◼   ► to ship apps.

00:21:21 ◼   ► I would hope anyway that if Apple did something like this, that it wouldn't be only available.

00:21:27 ◼   ► You'd only be somehow able to run these apps if they came from the Mac app store.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Hopefully you would be able to just run them independently as Mac apps with the developer

00:21:36 ◼   ► ID, code signing, that level of security that I could just sign it myself, put it out on

00:21:42 ◼   ► my website, and distribute it.

00:21:45 ◼   ► That's a really interesting opportunity and possibility and allows for new things.

00:21:50 ◼   ► That's really cool to me.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Those types of things are not the strict goal of this, but it creates these new opportunities.

00:21:58 ◼   ► I love situations that it takes something that is existing and creates new opportunities

00:22:04 ◼   ► for it.

00:22:05 ◼   ► I don't exactly know.

00:22:06 ◼   ► If tomorrow Apple announced this platform and it's like, "We've added this great new

00:22:10 ◼   ► thing," you can with relatively little effort make your existing iOS apps run nicely and

00:22:18 ◼   ► natively on the Mac.

00:22:20 ◼   ► I don't know exactly what I would do, but I would give some serious thought to what

00:22:24 ◼   ► I could do with that because there is a lot of interesting things that I think become

00:22:28 ◼   ► possible in that world and things that I could imagine wanting to try and experiment with

00:22:33 ◼   ► in a bit more of a creative way.

00:22:36 ◼   ► It's nice to not have over the back of my mind, "Well, this has to go through App Review.

00:22:40 ◼   ► This has to be conformant with all of the App Review stuff.

00:22:44 ◼   ► If I now have this alternative place that I can go and experiment, that's really cool

00:22:50 ◼   ► too."

00:22:51 ◼   ► A lot of the initial reaction has also focused on user pricing expectations and things like

00:22:58 ◼   ► devaluing Mac apps to iOS app levels.

00:23:01 ◼   ► This is certainly a reasonable concern for people to have.

00:23:06 ◼   ► I think a combination of two conflicting viewpoints either, A, it won't do that, but B, that

00:23:12 ◼   ► ship has already sailed and that already has happened.

00:23:16 ◼   ► The Mac justifies higher prices today for a lot of apps not because they were difficult

00:23:23 ◼   ► to write, but because ... I assume App Kit developers wouldn't classify it as difficult,

00:23:30 ◼   ► but you know what I mean.

00:23:31 ◼   ► Not because they were written in App Kit.

00:23:32 ◼   ► That's not why they were expensive compared to iOS apps.

00:23:35 ◼   ► And I think if you look at the actual pricing history of a lot of Mac apps, there's already

00:23:40 ◼   ► been downward pressure on pricing by quite a lot and for quite a long time, ever since

00:23:45 ◼   ► the iOS app store shipped at all.

00:23:50 ◼   ► I think that ship has already sailed to a large degree.

00:23:55 ◼   ► If there was already pressure on your app to get its price down, that pressure will

00:24:00 ◼   ► still be there.

00:24:02 ◼   ► If there wasn't already pressure on your app to get its price down, well, first of all,

00:24:05 ◼   ► you probably aren't charging enough.

00:24:07 ◼   ► But second of all, the reason why Mac apps have been able to charge good money is often

00:24:13 ◼   ► because they actually deliver meaningful value to people in a way that they are willing to

00:24:19 ◼   ► pay for.

00:24:20 ◼   ► And so that's things like apps people use to get their work done, very specialized apps

00:24:26 ◼   ► that there really aren't good alternatives for, apps that save people significant amounts

00:24:30 ◼   ► of time in their day.

00:24:34 ◼   ► The reason why app prices have been pushed down is not because Apple won't give us trials

00:24:39 ◼   ► or upgrades or whatever it is in the app store, like whatever we're complaining about that

00:24:42 ◼   ► year.

00:24:43 ◼   ► That's not the reason why prices have been pushed down.

00:24:46 ◼   ► The reason is because on iOS, there's tons of developers, so there's tons of competition,

00:24:51 ◼   ► and most developers expect to be able to make money from just good work, regardless of how

00:24:57 ◼   ► much value it delivers to the customer.

00:25:00 ◼   ► On the Mac, the apps that make money are not just any Mac apps, they're apps that I'm willing

00:25:06 ◼   ► to pay like 50 bucks for an app that helps me produce podcasts every week, because that's

00:25:09 ◼   ► my job.

00:25:10 ◼   ► I'm willing to pay good money for tools.

00:25:14 ◼   ► I think my Git app was like 80 bucks.

00:25:16 ◼   ► I consider that a great value.

00:25:18 ◼   ► Paint Code, my icon drawing app, I think was 100.

00:25:20 ◼   ► That was also a great value.

00:25:23 ◼   ► The apps that I use to get my job done or that save me significant time are valuable

00:25:29 ◼   ► and are worth paying for.

00:25:32 ◼   ► If this iOS to Mac crossover app thing happens, that will still be the case.

00:25:38 ◼   ► The only risk to pricing on the large scale, I think, is that this will bring a lot more

00:25:46 ◼   ► developers to the platform, and so there will just be more competition.

00:25:51 ◼   ► But I think history of the world has proven that that's generally a good thing, even if

00:25:57 ◼   ► it might not be good for certain people who are there now who have had the platform more

00:26:02 ◼   ► to themselves and have locked up the whole market just by the difficulty or obscurity

00:26:08 ◼   ► of the platform as part of a contributing factor.

00:26:11 ◼   ► If you now have more competition, more people can develop Mac apps, yeah, that might not

00:26:15 ◼   ► be good for the handful of people who are there already, but it's really good for the

00:26:18 ◼   ► users and for pretty much everyone else and all those new developers who can now make

00:26:22 ◼   ► careers here where they weren't before.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Those are the concerns, but I think those are either unwarranted or missing the big

00:26:32 ◼   ► picture.

00:26:33 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think too, if your business, if its sustainability is fragile to the degree

00:26:41 ◼   ► that the introduction of additional competitors makes it fall apart, you are in a bad position

00:26:49 ◼   ► to start with.

00:26:50 ◼   ► And I really have genuine sympathy for people who find themselves in that situation.

00:26:55 ◼   ► I've been in that situation.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Early days of being an iOS developer, whatever, eight years ago, it was really like I could

00:27:04 ◼   ► make good money from being in the app store just because there weren't that many other

00:27:07 ◼   ► apps in the app store.

00:27:09 ◼   ► So being one of them was great.

00:27:11 ◼   ► But eventually, that gravy train came to an end and I had to adapt and I had to move on.

00:27:17 ◼   ► And that process has been difficult and that process has not always been comfortable, but

00:27:22 ◼   ► that is the reality and it's the understanding that the position I found myself in back then

00:27:29 ◼   ► was not because of something that I was entitled to or had uniquely achieved.

00:27:38 ◼   ► It was more a circumstance of timing, of luck, of being in the right place at the right time.

00:27:44 ◼   ► And eventually, that time changed.

00:27:46 ◼   ► And I think it will be the same thing here.

00:27:47 ◼   ► It's just going to be this question of finding a way to bridge the gap.

00:27:53 ◼   ► And it's like, well, if you're an existing Mac app and you have this great head start

00:27:58 ◼   ► because you can presumably make apps that still stand out and that are still better

00:28:03 ◼   ► than an app that is not coming from somebody with that length of experience.

00:28:10 ◼   ► Even if you are still developing an iOS or whatever the equivalent framework that this

00:28:17 ◼   ► is going to be, I would imagine and expect that if you are a lifelong Mac developer and

00:28:22 ◼   ► you start developing a new Mac app with these tools, it should be better.

00:28:27 ◼   ► It should be more informed, stand out in a way that would give it an advantage.

00:28:33 ◼   ► But the reality is, you could imagine the world, people are just going to expect to

00:28:39 ◼   ► get the Mac app for free when they get the iPhone app.

00:28:42 ◼   ► And it's like, yeah, probably.

00:28:44 ◼   ► They already expect that.

00:28:45 ◼   ► They already do.

00:28:46 ◼   ► And this is just the next form of that.

00:28:49 ◼   ► And this is the next place this is going to happen.

00:28:51 ◼   ► And that's not great.

00:28:52 ◼   ► That's uncomfortable.

00:28:53 ◼   ► But I think it's also, in some ways, it's necessary for the platform to move forward.

00:28:58 ◼   ► And so it's really sad and tricky and complicated.

00:29:01 ◼   ► And I have great sympathy for people who find themselves in that situation.

00:29:05 ◼   ► But that's where this tide is rising to.

00:29:09 ◼   ► And we're just going to have to get in our boats and hope for the best.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Thanks for listening, everybody.

00:29:13 ◼   ► And we'll talk to you next week.

00:29:16 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]