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 Marco Arment.

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.

00:00:10 ◼   ► So this week was exciting.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It was the iPhone event,

00:00:14 ◼   ► I guess the fall Apple event,

00:00:17 ◼   ► as they would technically call it.

00:00:19 ◼   ► And it was an interesting one in some ways,

00:00:21 ◼   ► because I feel like we knew a lot more than normal

00:00:24 ◼   ► going into it about what to expect,

00:00:26 ◼   ► which as a customer and as an Apple fan

00:00:30 ◼   ► can give me some slightly mixed feelings

00:00:33 ◼   ► in terms of going into an event

00:00:34 ◼   ► not really knowing what to expect,

00:00:36 ◼   ► or knowing what to expect.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Whereas as a developer,

00:00:40 ◼   ► I was very relieved in some ways

00:00:42 ◼   ► to be going into the event

00:00:43 ◼   ► with some amount of knowledge and expectations

00:00:46 ◼   ► about what to expect.

00:00:48 ◼   ► And so I could sort of plan a little bit accordingly.

00:00:51 ◼   ► And while I tend to at this point,

00:00:54 ◼   ► I don't tend to build new features

00:00:56 ◼   ► or go down the road too far of building things,

00:01:00 ◼   ► just based on the rumor,

00:01:01 ◼   ► I do start to think about it and sketch things out

00:01:04 ◼   ► and kind of get an understanding of like,

00:01:06 ◼   ► well, if that rumor turned out to be true,

00:01:07 ◼   ► what would I actually do?

00:01:09 ◼   ► And so this year was a great example of that,

00:01:14 ◼   ► where it's sort of like,

00:01:15 ◼   ► think on the rumor and then build on the news,

00:01:17 ◼   ► and Tuesday we got the news.

00:01:20 ◼   ► This is where we can actually,

00:01:21 ◼   ► we know what the fall's gonna look like.

00:01:23 ◼   ► I mean, from a hardware perspective,

00:01:25 ◼   ► we pretty much know now what our hardware landscape

00:01:28 ◼   ► will look like for another year.

00:01:30 ◼   ► We know all of the final things that are in iOS 11

00:01:33 ◼   ► and watchOS 4 that we're not gonna deal with.

00:01:37 ◼   ► Presumably this year,

00:01:38 ◼   ► we'll have additional point releases

00:01:40 ◼   ► and Apple has introduced more

00:01:43 ◼   ► in their point releases recently,

00:01:44 ◼   ► but that's way too much to even worry about it now.

00:01:47 ◼   ► But we got a lot of stuff to think about

00:01:50 ◼   ► and a lot of changes I think

00:01:51 ◼   ► that we're both going to have to be making

00:01:53 ◼   ► to our apps this year.

00:01:55 ◼   ► I mean, at the very least,

00:01:57 ◼   ► diving into updating apps for the iPhone 10

00:02:01 ◼   ► is just a world of complication,

00:02:04 ◼   ► both in terms of gestures that now don't really work,

00:02:09 ◼   ► the layout issues, the new status bar stuff,

00:02:12 ◼   ► and just from a design perspective.

00:02:15 ◼   ► It is a, at least in my experience

00:02:17 ◼   ► from when I was playing with it,

00:02:18 ◼   ► unless you have an app that's naturally very tall,

00:02:22 ◼   ► it feels kind of odd to stretch things out

00:02:25 ◼   ► to fill the space,

00:02:26 ◼   ► 'cause it's pretty narrow and very tall.

00:02:29 ◼   ► So I don't know, it's gonna be a busy fall I think.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I mean, the design changes alone.

00:02:35 ◼   ► Even if you can get past

00:02:36 ◼   ► some of the weird technical details of it,

00:02:38 ◼   ► just the design of trying to make a UI

00:02:41 ◼   ► that is not only usable on this phone,

00:02:44 ◼   ► but looks nice on this phone,

00:02:46 ◼   ► while also scaling to the old phones

00:02:49 ◼   ► that are still being sold in great volume

00:02:52 ◼   ► and all the way down to the iPhone SE size,

00:02:55 ◼   ► that's a real challenge,

00:02:57 ◼   ► and it's gonna take us developers and designers a long time

00:03:01 ◼   ► before we really understand

00:03:03 ◼   ► how to use this new phone's display.

00:03:05 ◼   ► 'Cause keep in mind, Apple tells you,

00:03:07 ◼   ► don't try to even hide the notch or the rounded corners.

00:03:10 ◼   ► You basically embrace it, make your stuff flow around it.

00:03:14 ◼   ► Anything that has to operate in landscape

00:03:17 ◼   ► has additional challenges on how you flow around that.

00:03:20 ◼   ► But just in general, I think what we're seeing is

00:03:24 ◼   ► you're gonna have to pull things away

00:03:26 ◼   ► from the edges basically.

00:03:27 ◼   ► It's gonna be harder for anything to go edge to edge

00:03:30 ◼   ► and have that not be a problem somewhere.

00:03:32 ◼   ► So pulling things in from the edges,

00:03:35 ◼   ► but while also leaving enough space in the UI,

00:03:38 ◼   ► or rather using enough space in the UI

00:03:41 ◼   ► to make sure it still fits on the iPhone SE

00:03:45 ◼   ► and the other smaller phones,

00:03:46 ◼   ► that's gonna be a major challenge.

00:03:48 ◼   ► I bet even Apple hasn't really had time

00:03:51 ◼   ► to fully optimize the OS or their apps

00:03:53 ◼   ► to strike that balance yet.

00:03:55 ◼   ► It's going to take them a while,

00:03:56 ◼   ► and it's gonna take us a while.

00:03:58 ◼   ► I think the best thing we can do going into this

00:04:00 ◼   ► is not only keep an open mind,

00:04:03 ◼   ► and also I would also suggest

00:04:06 ◼   ► don't make any major irreversible decisions

00:04:08 ◼   ► until you've actually used the hardware,

00:04:10 ◼   ► which is gonna be a while out still.

00:04:13 ◼   ► But we have to get to know the hardware as well

00:04:15 ◼   ► before we know what's good on it

00:04:17 ◼   ► and what works really well and what doesn't.

00:04:21 ◼   ► The more you can move away from extremely custom UI

00:04:25 ◼   ► or complicated UI kit hackery or fanciness,

00:04:29 ◼   ► the more you can move away from that the better.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Apple is rewarding people who stuck to the stock stuff

00:04:35 ◼   ► by making it easier on them.

00:04:37 ◼   ► And most of the work I'm going to have to do

00:04:40 ◼   ► is gonna be around moving around my custom stuff again

00:04:43 ◼   ► and rehacking things that might need to be rehacked

00:04:46 ◼   ► and rethinking complex things that I've done.

00:04:49 ◼   ► Geez, I don't even know what I'm gonna do

00:04:52 ◼   ► with Overcast's Now playing screen,

00:04:54 ◼   ► because not only do I have the big challenge

00:04:57 ◼   ► of fitting the height between these two very different models

00:05:00 ◼   ► but also the whole idea of my sliding up cards

00:05:03 ◼   ► doesn't work so well if I can't black out the status bar

00:05:06 ◼   ► and have it look right.

00:05:07 ◼   ► So that's gonna be a problem that I might have to rethink

00:05:10 ◼   ► and make everything full screen again.

00:05:12 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:05:14 ◼   ► I have a lot of work to do.

00:05:15 ◼   ► I imagine everyone else does too.

00:05:17 ◼   ► But it should be very, very interesting

00:05:20 ◼   ► as we all, Apple included and us,

00:05:23 ◼   ► figure out how to design for this phone

00:05:26 ◼   ► while also not ruining the old phone designs.

00:05:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think the thing that is most frustrating to me

00:05:32 ◼   ► is the delay in physically getting our hands on one.

00:05:36 ◼   ► I have all these ideas.

00:05:38 ◼   ► I have all these things that I want to try

00:05:40 ◼   ► and things that I want to do with my,

00:05:44 ◼   ► or try out with my designs.

00:05:45 ◼   ► And you really can't know how it's going to feel, I think,

00:05:49 ◼   ► until you actually have it in your hand.

00:05:51 ◼   ► I mean, and so there's gonna be this weird period

00:05:54 ◼   ► where I want to do a lot of work.

00:05:55 ◼   ► I want to get ahead and I want to have things ready

00:05:59 ◼   ► in my app so that when people download,

00:06:02 ◼   ► when they get their new phone and download my apps,

00:06:03 ◼   ► that they look great on day one.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Like that would be a great goal, but it's gonna be awkward.

00:06:08 ◼   ► I mean, I've even taken to,

00:06:10 ◼   ► I mean, it's only been a couple of days,

00:06:11 ◼   ► but I've started,

00:06:12 ◼   ► as I've been doing my initial bits of this work,

00:06:14 ◼   ► I've taken to using a plus test phone

00:06:19 ◼   ► and then adjusting the view port of the app

00:06:23 ◼   ► as it runs inside of the app,

00:06:25 ◼   ► as it runs on the plus phone

00:06:27 ◼   ► so that it's the same dimensions as the iPhone 10 will be.

00:06:32 ◼   ► So it just has a black border around the top and side.

00:06:35 ◼   ► - Wait, how are you doing this?

00:06:37 ◼   ► - So when I add my root view controller

00:06:42 ◼   ► to the, when I add my root view controller

00:06:46 ◼   ► to the main window in my app delegate,

00:06:49 ◼   ► I put the, its view inside of a wrapper view

00:06:52 ◼   ► that is shrunk, that then shrinks it down inside.

00:06:57 ◼   ► - That's awesome.

00:06:57 ◼   ► - So that there's a view that is the entire screen.

00:07:02 ◼   ► And then I put the actual content view

00:07:04 ◼   ► and everything inside of a view that's inside of that,

00:07:07 ◼   ► which is a terrible hack and doesn't really work.

00:07:10 ◼   ► Like a lot of, like, if you do anything modally,

00:07:13 ◼   ► it'll bypass this and so on.

00:07:14 ◼   ► But like, it gets to a point where it's like,

00:07:16 ◼   ► I'm starting to do these kinds of tricks and hacks

00:07:19 ◼   ► to get a sense of it,

00:07:21 ◼   ► because I think that's the thing

00:07:23 ◼   ► that is gonna be so weird to get a feel of.

00:07:25 ◼   ► And then to deal with this, you know, these,

00:07:29 ◼   ► I think the swipe up gesture

00:07:31 ◼   ► is going to mess up a lot of apps.

00:07:33 ◼   ► Like, I mean, I would obviously like the biggest example,

00:07:36 ◼   ► I mean, for you, it's like swiping up,

00:07:39 ◼   ► you're now playing, you know, Control Center thing.

00:07:43 ◼   ► - That's a problem.

00:07:44 ◼   ► - Like, it's not gonna work, really, in a lot of ways.

00:07:47 ◼   ► - Well, it will work, but it will be a lot more error prone.

00:07:50 ◼   ► And that's, so basically, I shouldn't do it anymore,

00:07:52 ◼   ► or I should find a significantly different way to do it.

00:07:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that reminds me of

00:07:58 ◼   ► when they introduced Control Center, even.

00:08:00 ◼   ► I remember at the time,

00:08:01 ◼   ► I had a weather app called Check the Weather,

00:08:04 ◼   ► which one of its key features

00:08:06 ◼   ► was that you would swipe up from the bottom

00:08:08 ◼   ► to access the radar, like in the weather app.

00:08:12 ◼   ► And it's like, all of a sudden I was like,

00:08:13 ◼   ► well, there goes that feature, because like,

00:08:16 ◼   ► I was using almost exactly the same gesture

00:08:18 ◼   ► that Control Center started to use.

00:08:21 ◼   ► And so then I needed to move away,

00:08:22 ◼   ► and I did it to, I think, where you pushed a button,

00:08:24 ◼   ► like when you tapped on it,

00:08:25 ◼   ► it expanded rather than swiping up.

00:08:28 ◼   ► But in this case, too, like, I even was thinking

00:08:31 ◼   ► there's gonna be so many situations where,

00:08:35 ◼   ► like, inadvertent or accidental taps,

00:08:37 ◼   ► I think are going to happen in apps,

00:08:38 ◼   ► because you push the home button on your phone

00:08:42 ◼   ► on a very consistent, regular basis.

00:08:45 ◼   ► It isn't something, like Control Center,

00:08:46 ◼   ► you access often, but not all the time,

00:08:50 ◼   ► but you probably push your home button

00:08:52 ◼   ► thousands of times a day,

00:08:53 ◼   ► and so putting any kinds of active controls

00:08:56 ◼   ► anywhere near the bottom of the screen

00:08:59 ◼   ► is gonna be really problematic.

00:09:00 ◼   ► I mean, I even think about how most,

00:09:03 ◼   ► like, certainly some of my apps,

00:09:05 ◼   ► and I know many apps will have,

00:09:07 ◼   ► if you're advertising-based,

00:09:08 ◼   ► you'll put the ad in a banner at the bottom of the screen,

00:09:11 ◼   ► which is kind of awkward now when there's this,

00:09:17 ◼   ► I mean, in some ways it's good,

00:09:18 ◼   ► in the sense that I imagine there'll be

00:09:19 ◼   ► a lot of accidental taps if you have an ad

00:09:23 ◼   ► just above the safe area now,

00:09:25 ◼   ► because you're gonna reach your thumb down

00:09:28 ◼   ► to grab the grabber to slide up to go home,

00:09:32 ◼   ► which is what you have to do to leave the app.

00:09:35 ◼   ► You're putting your thumb awfully close to things,

00:09:37 ◼   ► and so it's gonna be a really awkward

00:09:41 ◼   ► and nuanced time to kind of work that out.

00:09:45 ◼   ► And then, like, on the flip side,

00:09:47 ◼   ► it's all these weird, all this,

00:09:50 ◼   ► in some ways it's like my own fault,

00:09:52 ◼   ► but I think about the number of,

00:09:54 ◼   ► now I'm gonna have to go searching through some of my apps

00:09:55 ◼   ► looking for the number 20,

00:09:58 ◼   ► which, since the beginning of time,

00:10:00 ◼   ► has been the height of the status bar,

00:10:03 ◼   ► which is now no longer the height of the status bar.

00:10:06 ◼   ► And so anything that I've ever done

00:10:08 ◼   ► that has any kind of assumptions that the status bar is 20,

00:10:12 ◼   ► or honestly, more often it's 64,

00:10:15 ◼   ► which is the height of a nav bar

00:10:17 ◼   ► plus the height of the status bar.

00:10:19 ◼   ► I'm sure there are, if I do find and replace

00:10:22 ◼   ► in my projects for 64,

00:10:25 ◼   ► it's gonna come up all over the place,

00:10:26 ◼   ► because it's one of those things that it's,

00:10:28 ◼   ► while it's, it was me being lazy,

00:10:31 ◼   ► it has been, it's worked fine for, you know,

00:10:33 ◼   ► whatever, nine years, so it's fine,

00:10:37 ◼   ► but there's gonna be so many of these little things

00:10:39 ◼   ► that are just gonna, it's gonna be rough.

00:10:41 ◼   ► And I mean, the weird thing too is,

00:10:43 ◼   ► it's hard to know how big of an audience

00:10:46 ◼   ► this phone is going to have.

00:10:48 ◼   ► It's a much more expensive phone,

00:10:49 ◼   ► it's a much, in some ways it's sort of,

00:10:52 ◼   ► it's a bit more exclusive in that regard.

00:10:54 ◼   ► It's not, it doesn't seem to be intended to be the,

00:10:57 ◼   ► like the default choice for people,

00:11:00 ◼   ► but at the same time, it's also like the best phone.

00:11:03 ◼   ► And so I'm very curious to see,

00:11:07 ◼   ► as a percentage of my user base,

00:11:09 ◼   ► how big of a proportion this screen size

00:11:13 ◼   ► and these, all these weird considerations

00:11:16 ◼   ► we're gonna have to do, is going to have to,

00:11:18 ◼   ► it's gonna actually be in practice.

00:11:19 ◼   ► Is it going to be something where 20 or 30% of users,

00:11:22 ◼   ► eventually, a year from now,

00:11:24 ◼   ► will it be 20% of users are using this screen,

00:11:27 ◼   ► or is it going to be 2% of people?

00:11:30 ◼   ► And while I'll obviously wanna make my apps work well

00:11:33 ◼   ► on that screen, it's gonna be a little weird if,

00:11:38 ◼   ► you know, it's putting a huge amount of effort

00:11:40 ◼   ► into something, if it is a very marginal device.

00:11:43 ◼   ► Even if I use it on my, you know,

00:11:44 ◼   ► and maybe in some ways even I'm more worried

00:11:46 ◼   ► that I expect to get one and use one as my daily phone.

00:11:50 ◼   ► And if I, you know, then I'm sort of becoming blind

00:11:54 ◼   ► to the situation of how people use my apps

00:11:57 ◼   ► when they're using it on whatever is

00:11:59 ◼   ► the most popular screen configuration,

00:12:01 ◼   ► which, you know, right now is like the iPhone 7 size,

00:12:05 ◼   ► you know, which is shared between the 6,

00:12:07 ◼   ► the 6s and the 7, at least in my apps,

00:12:09 ◼   ► like that seems to be by far the most popular.

00:12:13 ◼   ► And, you know, in some ways I think maybe I need

00:12:15 ◼   ► to make sure that I keep going back and revisiting

00:12:18 ◼   ► that in daily use just to make sure

00:12:19 ◼   ► that I'm not going down roads that are like awesome

00:12:22 ◼   ► and cool on the fancy new phone.

00:12:24 ◼   ► But I started to ignore, you know,

00:12:27 ◼   ► the broader range of my users.

00:12:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's always been a concern I've had

00:12:30 ◼   ► with like whether I pick the, you know,

00:12:32 ◼   ► 4.7 or the 5.5 inch phone for my own personal phone.

00:12:36 ◼   ► And the decision I've made so far ever since the iPhone 6

00:12:39 ◼   ► is I always pick the 4.7, not only because

00:12:41 ◼   ► I personally preferred it, but also because

00:12:43 ◼   ► it was the most common screen size among my users.

00:12:45 ◼   ► And because it was between the two other ones

00:12:48 ◼   ► that also kind of helped that it was like,

00:12:49 ◼   ► well, if I design for this, it'll look decent on the Plus.

00:12:55 ◼   ► And because it'll just be basically this size

00:12:56 ◼   ► blown up a little bit.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And then I can, you know, whenever I do

00:13:00 ◼   ► my simulator development, I usually simulate it

00:13:02 ◼   ► on the SE size, so that way, 'cause I see that a lot too,

00:13:05 ◼   ► so I can at least make sure like nothing's getting clipped

00:13:07 ◼   ► on the small screen.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Now though, that's out the window.

00:13:09 ◼   ► Now it's like, well, you still have to do those,

00:13:11 ◼   ► you still have to maintain those three screen sizes.

00:13:13 ◼   ► But now there's this fourth one that not only

00:13:15 ◼   ► is a different screen size, but is also

00:13:17 ◼   ► a very different aspect ratio, and also has these

00:13:20 ◼   ► weird gesture and screen and notch areas

00:13:23 ◼   ► and different behaviors.

00:13:24 ◼   ► So it's totally different.

00:13:26 ◼   ► I mean, I would honestly like this solution

00:13:29 ◼   ► that this might be like the day phone, night phone thing

00:13:32 ◼   ► where UI designers actually keep using both phones

00:13:37 ◼   ► on a regular basis, just so you can not lose track

00:13:40 ◼   ► of the app you're responsible for the design for

00:13:44 ◼   ► on phones that a lot of people are using.

00:13:47 ◼   ► 'Cause you can't just ignore the iPhone 10.

00:13:49 ◼   ► You have to optimize for that.

00:13:51 ◼   ► And I would say anybody, any developer out there,

00:13:53 ◼   ► if you have the means to buy new phones on a regular basis,

00:13:57 ◼   ► you really need to get an iPhone 10 for yourself

00:14:00 ◼   ► to test your apps on and to redesign your apps for.

00:14:05 ◼   ► Because that's very important, and it's gonna only

00:14:07 ◼   ► get more important over time.

00:14:09 ◼   ► But yeah, also you can't lose track of the phones

00:14:12 ◼   ► that the rest of your user base are gonna be using

00:14:13 ◼   ► for quite some time.

00:14:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's a, yeah, it is such a funny tension.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Like I like in some ways that these challenges,

00:14:23 ◼   ► not when they come up, but it feels like we've gone

00:14:27 ◼   ► through several of these transitions over the years

00:14:29 ◼   ► where we have to adapt to something new.

00:14:31 ◼   ► And learning from those experiences,

00:14:34 ◼   ► like I expect our initial passes at trying to make

00:14:38 ◼   ► our apps look good on this new phone

00:14:41 ◼   ► are almost certainly going to be wrong initially,

00:14:45 ◼   ► or at least slightly misguided,

00:14:47 ◼   ► that in practice we find we do things differently.

00:14:49 ◼   ► I mean, I remember when the plus models came out,

00:14:52 ◼   ► there was a lot of talk and focus around having this kind

00:14:55 ◼   ► of rich and different landscape experience.

00:14:58 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:14:59 ◼   ► - Which was something that like, you know,

00:15:00 ◼   ► it's like, and you know, Apple was saying,

00:15:02 ◼   ► oh, and they had this, their keyboard,

00:15:04 ◼   ► it has all these extra buttons,

00:15:05 ◼   ► and maybe this is something that we should do to try

00:15:07 ◼   ► and like that plus phone was gonna be a commonly used

00:15:11 ◼   ► in landscape.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Turned out, as best I can tell, that's not the case.

00:15:14 ◼   ► And I believe in iOS 11, they actually got rid of a lot

00:15:17 ◼   ► of the landscape plus sized stuff on the keyboard even.

00:15:21 ◼   ► Like that turned out to be a dead end

00:15:23 ◼   ► that didn't really happen anywhere.

00:15:25 ◼   ► And like, I'm sure there are gonna be similar things

00:15:28 ◼   ► with the iPhone 10 that we have to navigate

00:15:31 ◼   ► where right now, everyone, you know, right now it's all,

00:15:33 ◼   ► oh, embrace the notch and, you know, make your app,

00:15:36 ◼   ► you know, don't hide it, embrace all the rounded edges

00:15:39 ◼   ► where everything's rounded and everything's inset.

00:15:41 ◼   ► And like, maybe that'll end up not being the case.

00:15:45 ◼   ► That maybe that'll actually not work for, you know,

00:15:48 ◼   ► for users, even if from a design perspective

00:15:50 ◼   ► or from a visual perspective,

00:15:52 ◼   ► that's what Apple is recommending.

00:15:54 ◼   ► Like maybe it'll be confusing or annoying

00:15:56 ◼   ► or frustrating to users.

00:15:57 ◼   ► And so we'll end up having to pull things back.

00:16:00 ◼   ► And so like, I think I'm definitely expecting to take

00:16:03 ◼   ► kind of a two phase approach to this where my initial,

00:16:07 ◼   ► like my initial phase will be a series of updates that,

00:16:11 ◼   ► you know, to my apps that will make them functional,

00:16:15 ◼   ► that they won't look broken or weird or letterboxed.

00:16:18 ◼   ► Because if you haven't updated,

00:16:21 ◼   ► if you don't use the iOS 11 GM SDK,

00:16:25 ◼   ► or you don't use a launch screen,

00:16:28 ◼   ► your app will show up letterboxed on an iPhone 10.

00:16:31 ◼   ► So I want to make sure that I'm not letterboxed,

00:16:33 ◼   ► but it's like this first pass might just be to make sure

00:16:35 ◼   ► it looks reasonable, but nothing's, you know,

00:16:38 ◼   ► covered or broken.

00:16:40 ◼   ► And then like in a couple of months,

00:16:42 ◼   ► I'll be able to actually go and do this properly.

00:16:44 ◼   ► 'Cause like, that's probably the most reasonable approach.

00:16:48 ◼   ► But I mean, I will say one thing.

00:16:49 ◼   ► I am very glad that none of my apps

00:16:52 ◼   ► involve a landscape orientation anymore.

00:16:54 ◼   ► - Oh, you're so lucky.

00:16:55 ◼   ► - 'Cause the landscape situation on iPhone 10

00:16:59 ◼   ► is just painful.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Like it is really awkward in so many ways

00:17:07 ◼   ► to like have this like bite just taken out

00:17:11 ◼   ► of the corner of the screen.

00:17:12 ◼   ► 'Cause fair enough, it's in vertical orientation,

00:17:16 ◼   ► it's still cut out, but it's cut out of the status bar,

00:17:19 ◼   ► which is usually we're not expecting things

00:17:22 ◼   ► to be up in the status bar.

00:17:24 ◼   ► It's just, you know, it's the nav bar, status bar,

00:17:26 ◼   ► like that's sort of dead space

00:17:28 ◼   ► from a content perspective typically.

00:17:30 ◼   ► But the sides of the screen, like in that it moves,

00:17:34 ◼   ► it's there as you scroll through a list or things.

00:17:36 ◼   ► And so you end up just, I mean, honestly,

00:17:39 ◼   ► I kind of expect that if I was going to go landscape

00:17:41 ◼   ► in any of my things, it's like, I'm almost tempted

00:17:43 ◼   ► in that case to just bump everything in

00:17:46 ◼   ► and pretend that it doesn't exist.

00:17:49 ◼   ► Because otherwise it's gonna be really awkward

00:17:52 ◼   ► or visually going to look really strange and obvious

00:17:55 ◼   ► in a way that's probably slightly uncomfortable.

00:17:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause again, like this is one of the reasons

00:17:59 ◼   ► why I said earlier, like pull content away

00:18:01 ◼   ► from the edges in new designs.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Because, you know, clearly with this phone,

00:18:05 ◼   ► like we've been going all the way to the edge

00:18:07 ◼   ► for quite some time with a lot of our designs

00:18:08 ◼   ► 'cause that tends to look best.

00:18:10 ◼   ► But now we have the situation where the edges

00:18:12 ◼   ► are all hazardous in some way or broken up by a giant,

00:18:17 ◼   ► excuse me, sensor housing.

00:18:18 ◼   ► It's not a notch, it's a sensor housing.

00:18:21 ◼   ► And it's very, very hard to adapt edge to edge designs

00:18:26 ◼   ► to this phone at all.

00:18:28 ◼   ► What you really need, you know, the way Apple shows

00:18:30 ◼   ► like going around the notch and everything in landscape

00:18:32 ◼   ► and getting around the home indicator area

00:18:35 ◼   ► in any orientation, especially in portrait,

00:18:38 ◼   ► what you need is for things to not be going to the edge.

00:18:40 ◼   ► Like, you know, now the home indicator,

00:18:42 ◼   ► it shows part of your UI like flowing under it.

00:18:46 ◼   ► But you can't have anything around it or under it directly

00:18:49 ◼   ► because then people wouldn't be able to hit it

00:18:50 ◼   ► and it would look bad.

00:18:51 ◼   ► So what you really need is a margin there.

00:18:53 ◼   ► You need like a flowable margin that could just go under that

00:18:56 ◼   ► and not look weird.

00:18:57 ◼   ► Well, you know, you mentioned earlier the case of the ad.

00:18:59 ◼   ► Like I have that problem on my now playing screen

00:19:01 ◼   ► where I have the ad flush against the bottom.

00:19:04 ◼   ► And now I can't do that unless I make the ad weirdly tall

00:19:07 ◼   ► and just give it the margin.

00:19:09 ◼   ► But it's, see this is gonna take a lot of change.

00:19:12 ◼   ► And this is why like I think as developers,

00:19:14 ◼   ► A, we have a ton of work to do.

00:19:16 ◼   ► But then also as owners of, or potential owners

00:19:21 ◼   ► of the iPhone 10, I bet it's gonna be a while

00:19:24 ◼   ► before a lot of apps are really updated

00:19:26 ◼   ► to take advantage of it because it is not easy.

00:19:28 ◼   ► It is way more work than any previous

00:19:31 ◼   ► iOS screen size has been.

00:19:33 ◼   ► So it would not surprise me if it takes like a year

00:19:37 ◼   ► for a lot of apps to really get this down

00:19:39 ◼   ► and to really issue updates

00:19:40 ◼   ► that take advantage of that screen.

00:19:43 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:19:44 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week by Linode.

00:19:46 ◼   ► Get set up in seconds with fast, powerful hosting

00:19:49 ◼   ► starting at just $5 a month.

00:19:51 ◼   ► And that now buys you one gig of RAM

00:19:53 ◼   ► in a virtual server in the Linode cloud.

00:19:56 ◼   ► Linode servers offer industry leading performance

00:19:58 ◼   ► with native SSD storage, a 40 gigabit network,

00:20:01 ◼   ► and Intel E5 CPU, the fastest processors

00:20:04 ◼   ► in the cloud market.

00:20:06 ◼   ► They have nine data centers all around the world.

00:20:08 ◼   ► They have an API to quickly automate tasks

00:20:10 ◼   ► or develop custom applications in their cloud.

00:20:12 ◼   ► And they offer super simple scaling.

00:20:14 ◼   ► You can resize Linode servers in just a couple of clicks

00:20:17 ◼   ► and it's all manageable via the command line

00:20:19 ◼   ► or their wonderful interface.

00:20:21 ◼   ► All of their plans also feature hourly billing

00:20:23 ◼   ► with a monthly cap on all plans and add on services

00:20:26 ◼   ► like backups and node balancers.

00:20:28 ◼   ► It is wonderful to use Linode.

00:20:30 ◼   ► I use Linode, you use Linode.

00:20:32 ◼   ► It's fantastic, I highly recommend it.

00:20:35 ◼   ► So check out Linode today.

00:20:36 ◼   ► They have fantastic pricing starting at just $5 a month

00:20:39 ◼   ► for one gig of RAM.

00:20:40 ◼   ► They go all the way up to 16 gigs of RAM

00:20:42 ◼   ► for just $60 a month.

00:20:43 ◼   ► And they also recently launched high RAM instances.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Lots of new stuff.

00:20:47 ◼   ► And this is, in many cases, this is twice the amount of RAM

00:20:50 ◼   ► that you'll find elsewhere.

00:20:51 ◼   ► As a listener of the show, sign up at linode.com/radar

00:20:55 ◼   ► to support us and get $20 towards any Linode plan.

00:20:58 ◼   ► And with a seven day money back guarantee,

00:21:00 ◼   ► there's nothing to lose.

00:21:01 ◼   ► So go to linode.com/radar.

00:21:04 ◼   ► To learn more, sign up and get a $20 credit

00:21:07 ◼   ► or use promo code radar2017 at checkout.

00:21:10 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Linode for supporting this show.

00:21:13 ◼   ► - So the other thing that I guess

00:21:14 ◼   ► would probably be worth touching on too is from the event

00:21:17 ◼   ► was that this year we finally get LTE on the Apple Watch.

00:21:22 ◼   ► Which I think, and these kinds of things are so impossible

00:21:26 ◼   ► to kind of predict ahead of time.

00:21:28 ◼   ► But it seems to me like a bit of a,

00:21:33 ◼   ► it's a distinctively important step

00:21:36 ◼   ► in the evolution of this product.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Because it suddenly takes it from something

00:21:40 ◼   ► that was so dependent on its paired iPhone.

00:21:45 ◼   ► That it couldn't, I mean initially it couldn't do anything

00:21:47 ◼   ► without its iPhone.

00:21:48 ◼   ► Now it could do some stuff.

00:21:49 ◼   ► And then suddenly going into a world where,

00:21:52 ◼   ► while the device I think is still expected

00:21:54 ◼   ► to have this parent that it's very dependent

00:21:57 ◼   ► on a intermittent basis.

00:21:59 ◼   ► They will now, there's this reasonable expectation

00:22:01 ◼   ► for users that they will be able to go in

00:22:03 ◼   ► for extended periods of time without their iPhone with them.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And as a result, we'll have expectations that the apps

00:22:10 ◼   ► that exist on the Apple Watch can take advantage of that.

00:22:14 ◼   ► And I mean, I think of how,

00:22:15 ◼   ► while the iPhone was transformative to sort of phones

00:22:20 ◼   ► and computing in general,

00:22:23 ◼   ► I think one of the biggest things that it did

00:22:25 ◼   ► that was like enabled so much of the change

00:22:27 ◼   ► in the capability was that it was this always connected

00:22:29 ◼   ► internet device.

00:22:31 ◼   ► And now that the watch is that as well,

00:22:34 ◼   ► I still don't really know what's gonna be possible,

00:22:37 ◼   ► but I expect it's going to be a lot.

00:22:40 ◼   ► And as someone who makes a lot of apps for Apple Watch,

00:22:42 ◼   ► like it's a really exciting time for me

00:22:44 ◼   ► to kind of be exploring what an always connected

00:22:48 ◼   ► Apple Watch will be like,

00:22:50 ◼   ► both from a technical perspective,

00:22:51 ◼   ► as well as just from a user, using it perspective.

00:22:54 ◼   ► Like I think people will use their Apple Watches more

00:22:57 ◼   ► in some ways or in more context

00:22:59 ◼   ► and rely on their Apple Watch more,

00:23:02 ◼   ► because there may be many more situations

00:23:04 ◼   ► where that's their only computing device.

00:23:06 ◼   ► And so like the bar kind of gets raised for what's possible

00:23:10 ◼   ► and what these watch apps are capable of.

00:23:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things,

00:23:15 ◼   ► this largely remains to be seen,

00:23:17 ◼   ► but this is a huge change to the watch

00:23:19 ◼   ► and to the potential for watch apps.

00:23:23 ◼   ► Keep in mind, like before,

00:23:24 ◼   ► like you were kind of fighting with the watch sometimes

00:23:27 ◼   ► because you could always be like,

00:23:28 ◼   ► well, I could just take out my phone and do this faster.

00:23:30 ◼   ► Well, now there's gonna be a lot of people

00:23:32 ◼   ► using a lot of watches and a lot of situations

00:23:34 ◼   ► where their phone is not with them.

00:23:36 ◼   ► So there is suddenly a lot more demand

00:23:38 ◼   ► and a lot more need for good, polished, capable watch apps

00:23:42 ◼   ► that can be independent of their phone.

00:23:44 ◼   ► So that's gonna be a huge change right there,

00:23:46 ◼   ► just in demand and in use cases.

00:23:48 ◼   ► And now, I think largely what we need to see

00:23:52 ◼   ► is watchOS needs to catch up to this new capability.

00:23:55 ◼   ► You know, we still, the tools that we have at our disposal

00:23:58 ◼   ► to make apps on watchOS are still kind of like

00:24:01 ◼   ► making baby apps.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Like when Steve Jobs famously described

00:24:05 ◼   ► old web browsers on old phones before the iPhone

00:24:07 ◼   ► as accessing the baby internet

00:24:09 ◼   ► and showed off how awesome Safari was on the new iPhone.

00:24:12 ◼   ► The watch has been baby apps all this time

00:24:16 ◼   ► and they've gotten a little bit better,

00:24:17 ◼   ► you know, a little bit better here and there.

00:24:19 ◼   ► Your blog post was great about comparing them

00:24:21 ◼   ► to different stages of children.

00:24:24 ◼   ► But we still don't have the kind of capabilities

00:24:29 ◼   ► that we have on the phone, not even close.

00:24:32 ◼   ► And it goes from basic things like UIKit

00:24:35 ◼   ► down to more nuanced and advanced things.

00:24:37 ◼   ► Like my issue was the audio frameworks not being there

00:24:41 ◼   ► or background audio being very limited.

00:24:44 ◼   ► Now that you have independent apps,

00:24:45 ◼   ► you're gonna have to deal with things like

00:24:47 ◼   ► independent push notifications, sync engines,

00:24:49 ◼   ► background URL tasks to keep things up to date.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Stuff like that that the watch either doesn't have

00:24:55 ◼   ► or only has like a baby very limited version of.

00:24:58 ◼   ► And so this has amazing potential

00:25:03 ◼   ► but it's gonna require, I think, a few more years

00:25:06 ◼   ► of watchOS evolution and hardware evolution

00:25:09 ◼   ► before we really see a lot of that potential

00:25:11 ◼   ► being taken advantage of.

00:25:12 ◼   ► - Maybe, I mean I hope that it will be quicker than that.

00:25:16 ◼   ► It's certainly on the SDK side.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Like I hope that we see,

00:25:20 ◼   ► I mean I would love even for watchOS to get better

00:25:23 ◼   ► in its point releases substantially this year.

00:25:25 ◼   ► That we don't have to wait till June

00:25:27 ◼   ► and then the following fall before we actually see

00:25:30 ◼   ► sort of bigger changes that are embracing

00:25:34 ◼   ► a more independent Apple Watch.

00:25:36 ◼   ► But I mean, who knows exactly how that'll go.

00:25:39 ◼   ► I mean one thing I do like though is that

00:25:41 ◼   ► all of these kind of new use cases and new capabilities

00:25:44 ◼   ► are focused in on the most recent and fastest model

00:25:50 ◼   ► of the Apple Watch.

00:25:51 ◼   ► - That's true. - Which at least

00:25:52 ◼   ► is a nice situation where these situations I'm imagining

00:25:57 ◼   ► of someone relying on their watch,

00:26:00 ◼   ► the performance and the experience that you can get

00:26:04 ◼   ► on a first generation Apple Watch

00:26:06 ◼   ► is fine and sufficient maybe but isn't great.

00:26:12 ◼   ► And from everything we hear in terms of

00:26:14 ◼   ► the speed improvements and the capability improvements

00:26:17 ◼   ► especially on connectivity in the Series 3 watch,

00:26:21 ◼   ► it sounds like there's going to be,

00:26:24 ◼   ► like we will hopefully have the horsepower we would need

00:26:27 ◼   ► to actually pull off a lot of the kind of interesting things

00:26:30 ◼   ► that we might wanna do.

00:26:31 ◼   ► And if that does pan out then great.

00:26:36 ◼   ► And then it's like people who are running

00:26:38 ◼   ► first generation watches may benefit

00:26:40 ◼   ► from some of those improvements

00:26:41 ◼   ► but they wouldn't have that same expectation potentially.

00:26:44 ◼   ► But who knows?

00:26:46 ◼   ► I mean people always expect everything

00:26:48 ◼   ► but I'm encouraged in some ways at least

00:26:50 ◼   ► that the people who are going to be wanting to do

00:26:53 ◼   ► complicated things with their watch away from their phone

00:26:56 ◼   ► are most likely gonna be running the latest hardware.

00:26:58 ◼   ► So that makes the experience management perspective

00:27:01 ◼   ► of that a little bit better.

00:27:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, good point.

00:27:05 ◼   ► All right, well we're out of time this week.

00:27:07 ◼   ► What do you think you're gonna tackle first?

00:27:09 ◼   ► - So I'm in the middle phase right now

00:27:12 ◼   ► where we have all this information

00:27:14 ◼   ► and what I spent the last couple of days doing

00:27:16 ◼   ► is doing all kinds of like the rough prototypes,

00:27:20 ◼   ► like the sort of make a branch in my source repository

00:27:24 ◼   ► and just like try 10 things

00:27:26 ◼   ► and throw them all away.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Just trying to understand what's new

00:27:29 ◼   ► and how things, where I should go next.

00:27:31 ◼   ► I'll probably do that for the rest of this week

00:27:33 ◼   ► and then I'll just be going through app by app

00:27:36 ◼   ► trying to update them, trying to make sure the things,

00:27:39 ◼   ► like the first pass will just be compatibility

00:27:41 ◼   ► and making sure everything looks reasonable.

00:27:43 ◼   ► And then after a couple weeks of that,

00:27:44 ◼   ► then I'll dive into it, thinking of new features

00:27:47 ◼   ► and getting sure things are kind of ready

00:27:50 ◼   ► for what's possible now.

00:27:52 ◼   ► What about you?

00:27:53 ◼   ► - I'm still very, very deep into iOS 11 changes.

00:27:58 ◼   ► I honestly have no time to do this new UI stuff yet.

00:28:02 ◼   ► I'm gonna be forced to, so we'll see how this works out.

00:28:06 ◼   ► But I'm frankly pretty underwater right now

00:28:09 ◼   ► and I'm probably gonna be pretty late shipping

00:28:12 ◼   ► what I need to ship, but we'll see.

00:28:14 ◼   ► See how it goes.

00:28:15 ◼   ► - It's fine.

00:28:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, it'll all work out eventually.

00:28:18 ◼   ► - Well, the thing is, it's like, as I used to, I think,

00:28:21 ◼   ► put a lot of pressure on myself about the importance

00:28:23 ◼   ► of it being, everything being there on day one.

00:28:26 ◼   ► And I think in practice, that only sort of matters.

00:28:30 ◼   ► Like being there soon, unless the app just doesn't run

00:28:35 ◼   ► in iOS 11, you install it in iOS 11 and it crashes instantly,

00:28:39 ◼   ► okay, you need to fix that.

00:28:40 ◼   ► Otherwise, you got a bit of time.

00:28:42 ◼   ► You can kind of, it's better to ship something correct

00:28:45 ◼   ► and properly rather than rushing something out

00:28:48 ◼   ► just so that you can be there on day one.

00:28:50 ◼   ► At least, that's the slightly more mature version of myself.

00:28:52 ◼   ► That's what I tell myself.

00:28:54 ◼   ► - Well, I hope you're right.

00:28:56 ◼   ► Thanks for listening, everybody,

00:28:57 ◼   ► and we'll talk to you next week.

00:28:59 ◼   ► - Bye.

00:29:00 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]