0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a
0:00:03podcast discussing news of note, and iOS development, Apple, and the like. I'm your
0:00:08host, David Smith. I'm an independent iOS developer based in Herndon, Virginia. This
0:00:11is show number 201. Today is Friday, October 31st. Developing Perspective is
0:00:17never longer than 15 minutes, so let's get started. All right, so today what I'm
0:00:21going to be doing is talking through some of the little exploratory
0:00:27expeditions I've been on recently.
0:00:29And the role in which these types of things
0:00:31are probably important are things
0:00:33that we need to be thinking about as developers.
0:00:35And specifically, what I've been doing
0:00:37is spending the last-- I guess it's about the last month
0:00:40or so-- trying very hard to make sure
0:00:44that I am ready for when the Apple Watch SDK appears
0:00:49sometime next month, and moreover,
0:00:51be ready for when the actual Apple Watch appears
0:00:54sometime next year.
0:00:56And first, it's probably fair to say, just a quick note
0:00:59about my background.
0:01:00So when I came to iPhone development,
0:01:03I was coming from a place that I was fairly confident
0:01:07about that type of development.
0:01:09My first development effort was on the Palm,
0:01:12and then I did work on Windows Mobile.
0:01:15And so when I came to iOS, there was a certain experience
0:01:20that I'd had with that type of development,
0:01:22with that size of development, with that type of development.
0:01:24And so when I dove into it, I kind of knew what I was doing.
0:01:28When I look at something like the Apple Watch,
0:01:29it is very different, both in terms of interface,
0:01:33as well as in capability and attachment to the user.
0:01:40And so it is something that I'm a little bit-- apprehensive
0:01:43is probably the wrong word.
0:01:44But it's in that vein where I don't necessarily
0:01:47feel like I have a great idea about what a user would want
0:01:51to be able to do and how in which the manner I
0:01:54by which they would want to be able to then do that.
0:01:57And so I've been trying to think about ways
0:02:00that I could get a head start on this,
0:02:02because I want to have this as nailed down as I possibly
0:02:05can before I dive in, rather than trying
0:02:08to start from ground zero when Apple comes out with WatchKit
0:02:11or when I get my hands first on a device next year.
0:02:16And so what I've been doing is playing around
0:02:18with other devices.
0:02:19And so this is this process that I've been going through.
0:02:22And I think it's some interesting things
0:02:23I've learned, and also just to kind of share that experience more generally.
0:02:27So the first thing I did was I got a Jawbone Up24.
0:02:32So this is focusing, this is a little device, it's a little bracelet, there's probably a
0:02:36fancy term for the type of it is, but it's a thing I wear on my wrist, and it was basically
0:02:41an activity tracker.
0:02:42So I've written one of these called Pedometer++ that uses the M7 chip and now M8 chip on your
0:02:48your iPhone, taking a number of steps you've taken,
0:02:51number of floors you've climbed and descended,
0:02:54that kind of thing.
0:02:55And so I'm familiar with this type of data collection
0:02:58and kind of vaguely what I could do with it.
0:03:00But what was interesting is when you start to have a device that
0:03:03is always on you, some kind of wearable,
0:03:08it allows a different level of insight
0:03:10into your actual activity.
0:03:12Because when you wear a device essentially 24 hours a day,
0:03:16seven days a week, you get a much clearer and more complete picture of what you're doing.
0:03:22And it's been kind of interesting to have something like that on my wrist. And I started
0:03:27to see some of the things that I think are a bit lacking in that device, like not having
0:03:31an actual interface to really show you and interact with you, and having to rely on an
0:03:37app running on the phone is actually kind of awkward. So I'm sure they do it for battery
0:03:40life reasons and simplicity and durability reasons, but the F24 band doesn't even really
0:03:45doesn't show you anything on it.
0:03:47It just is a data collector.
0:03:49And so that was interesting.
0:03:50And it's an experience that I thought was really cool.
0:03:53And especially when I started to get into something
0:03:55that I'm not actually sure if Apple Watch is going
0:03:57to be able to do based on what they've been talking about.
0:04:00But it gave me a start to get into sleep tracking.
0:04:03Now, sleep tracking was something that I didn't really
0:04:06have much of a sense of how useful it would actually
0:04:08be ahead of time.
0:04:09But when I started using it-- so this
0:04:11is the kind of a thing where you sit down at night,
0:04:13You push a button on the band, and it goes into sleep mode.
0:04:16And in sleep mode, it kind of tracks how you sleep.
0:04:19And it's really actually interesting and compelling
0:04:22to have a sense of how well did I actually sleep objectively
0:04:26last night.
0:04:28I have a couple of young kids, so sleep isn't always
0:04:30necessarily something that I have a lot of.
0:04:32But it's nice to actually be able to have
0:04:34an objective measure where I'm like, man, I'm tired today.
0:04:37Why am I tired?
0:04:38And I can look and say, was it because I
0:04:40didn't sleep well last night?
0:04:42And if it is, great.
0:04:44And if it isn't, then, hmm, is there something else going on,
0:04:47some other choice I've made with nutrition or activity
0:04:49or something that is causing this lack of energy?
0:04:52And so it's been actually kind of really interesting to have.
0:04:55And so that's something I hope, actually,
0:04:57that Apple can work into the Apple Watch.
0:05:00I'm sure of everything I hear, like the difficulty
0:05:02is going to be in battery life.
0:05:03And if it has to charge overnight,
0:05:05it gets hard to measure sleep.
0:05:07But if there's any way they can do that,
0:05:09Or if I can work out a way to, you know, it's great to charge a device, for example, when
0:05:14I'm sitting at my desk at work because I'm not doing anything, so an activity tracker
0:05:19isn't missing any data.
0:05:20But that was something that I found that was really interesting, and I'm kind of glad that
0:05:24I've had that experience.
0:05:26So then yesterday, for me anyway, it kind of came out of nowhere.
0:05:31But yesterday, Microsoft announced their Microsoft Band, they call it, which is kind of awful
0:05:38as a name, band. What are you wearing there? A band. But anyway, they came up with this
0:05:44band. And the band is actually really kind of cool. So I've had it for about a day now.
0:05:49And so this is kind of an interesting device because it is much, much closer to an Apple
0:05:54Watch than it is to just like a Fitbit or Jawbone Up or one of these fitness trackers.
0:06:00It's kind of in that middle ground where it interacts with your iPhone to do a bunch of
0:06:05stuff like notifications, so when I get a text message, my wrist buzzes, and I can take
0:06:12a look at that notification, as well as also doing all the other tracking things.
0:06:17So it tracks your sleep, it tracks your activity level, it has a heart rate monitor built in
0:06:22and a GPS receiver built into it, so it can track a lot of what you're doing physically
0:06:27during the day.
0:06:28And that has been kind of cool.
0:06:30So like I said, I only had it for about a day, but having just a day with this device
0:06:35has made me 10 times, 20 times more excited about Apple Watch.
0:06:39And what a device like this that is actually deeply integrated
0:06:43into iOS would be capable of.
0:06:45Because the interaction that the Microsoft band can do and run
0:06:49at Pebble or any of these other devices,
0:06:52they are severely limited in terms
0:06:54of the degree to which you can actually do things.
0:06:57It can tell you stuff, but it can't really act upon it.
0:07:01So I get a text message and it pops up,
0:07:03But it's just you piggybacking on top
0:07:05of the normal, of the general Bluetooth notification
0:07:08APIs and things that I don't really know anything about.
0:07:10But as best I understand, there's
0:07:12a bunch of standard Bluetooth operations
0:07:14that a phone can make available to devices it's connected to.
0:07:19And so that's kind of cool, but it's also not really useful.
0:07:23I get a text message.
0:07:25I can't just do the thing where I respond back and send
0:07:28a message.
0:07:29Or I get a notification.
0:07:30I can't necessarily interact with that,
0:07:33which is an alternative, is the kind of thing
0:07:35that I believe Apple Watch is going to allow in spades.
0:07:38Because the OS and the wearable devices attached to it
0:07:43are going to be so tightly connected
0:07:45that all these things now will now finally be possible.
0:07:48So that's really exciting.
0:07:50Having a sense of this is kind of cool.
0:07:52And it's interesting in really odd ways.
0:07:54So one of the things that I found that was perhaps
0:07:56one of the most unexpected benefits that has kind of really
0:07:59got me excited is-- so this actually
0:08:02started with when I first got the Jawbone up tracker,
0:08:05and now even more so with this Microsoft Band,
0:08:09is the degree to which I can untether myself from my phone.
0:08:14So ever since I got a pedometer plus plus,
0:08:17I've had this sense that in order for it to track my day,
0:08:21I need to have my phone on me all the time, which in all
0:08:26honesty, I probably did anyway.
0:08:29But a lot of times, I've been finding recently anyway
0:08:32that it would be good for me to disconnect a bit from my internet life, whatever you
0:08:38want to call it.
0:08:39Being less connected is probably a good thing.
0:08:42It's probably something that would be a good thing for me.
0:08:45And so it becomes kind of odd and awkward when, in order for me to get that benefit,
0:08:52in order for me to track my steps, in order for me to see how active I was in a day, I
0:08:56have to then have my phone with me and always have that readily available.
0:09:01And so what I noticed was happening
0:09:02is when I first got my up end is that I was finally
0:09:05able to kind of leave my phone sitting somewhere.
0:09:07I could leave it on the counter and not have this feeling
0:09:09like, oh no, I'm missing these steps.
0:09:11Because when you get into this kind of a thing,
0:09:15it's kind of fun.
0:09:16And in some ways, it's a little insidious.
0:09:18Because you're suddenly motivated to make sure
0:09:20that you hit your goal every day.
0:09:22There's so many-- there's a really nice positive feedback
0:09:25loop that can be created.
0:09:27And so it's really cool when you do hit your goals.
0:09:30So you want to have your phone with you all the time
0:09:31to measure it.
0:09:32But if you have one of these devices, you don't need that.
0:09:34Your steps are always being counted
0:09:36and they loop back into your device, which
0:09:39is really kind of cool.
0:09:40And then even moreover, as I got this band, which
0:09:45is something that sends you notifications when things
0:09:47are happening on your phone, one thing that I wasn't expecting
0:09:50is that it completely eliminates, or at least
0:09:52strongly reduces, that kind of latent urge
0:09:54that if you're anything like me, you'll
0:09:56feel about your phone, where if I haven't looked
0:09:59at my phone in, I don't know, half an hour, I'll start to get this kind of itch that it's
0:10:04like, "Hmm, have I missed something? Did something happen? And I don't know. Do I need to check
0:10:11it? Do I need to check it?" Which is probably a sign of some kind of a little bit of a problematic
0:10:17mindset situation. But I don't think I'm alone in this. I know from a lot of people that
0:10:21you kind of have this feeling that you always need to know if there's something on your
0:10:24lock screen. You make sure you're always aware of what's going on. And the funny thing is,
0:10:30when you have a device on your wrist that will tell you when something happened that's
0:10:34important, you don't worry about it quite as much. Like, I can now essentially leave
0:10:38my phone on silent, away in a drawer, as long as it's within Bluetooth range, and I know
0:10:44that I won't miss anything because I'm not going to miss my wrist going bzz, bzz. You
0:10:50Like if one of my servers has an issue
0:10:52and I get an outage notice or something,
0:10:56I'm going to know about it.
0:10:57I don't have to worry about missing it.
0:10:59In the same way, if someone sends me a text message,
0:11:01I don't have that feeling of like, oh, am I going to hear it?
0:11:05If I put my phone over there, is it going to be loud enough?
0:11:08All those things go away.
0:11:10And it's really cool.
0:11:12So this is just kind of-- I don't
0:11:13know how useful this is necessarily for someone else,
0:11:15because a lot of these things you just need to experience.
0:11:18But I would say that it is something
0:11:19found to be more compelling and more useful than I necessarily would have initially guessed
0:11:24when I started out in this process in terms of getting ready for the Apple Watch.
0:11:28I think this, I'm much more excited. I used to hear Mike Hurley talking about how much
0:11:32he loved his Pebble, which I will say is a device that I thought about getting, but seemed
0:11:37a little one step too far back in terms of where this technology is advancing to. And
0:11:44so I never quite pulled the trigger. And then now that this device has come out, the band,
0:11:48And more so, I feel like it has even more capability
0:11:51with all kinds of other little sensors and things
0:11:53that are much more compelling.
0:11:55But I remember him saying how it changed how
0:11:58he interacted with his phone.
0:12:00And I can now start to see the glimmers of this.
0:12:03And so now I'm feeling pretty excited to next month
0:12:06be diving into working on the QuatchKit apps.
0:12:09And I don't really know what that's going to look like.
0:12:11There's some speculation about exactly how much
0:12:14is going to be open to us initially,
0:12:16whether we're going to actually be able to build full scale
0:12:18native apps, if it's just going to be kind of an extension
0:12:21capability.
0:12:22And then maybe at WWDC next year, they open it up more.
0:12:25We'll have to see.
0:12:27But at this point, when I look at it,
0:12:29I'm very excited about what this could do.
0:12:31And I really-- and especially even-- like,
0:12:34I know some of the-- just from the things
0:12:36that I've seen about Apple Watch and the people who have seen it
0:12:39who I've talked to, I think Apple is really kind of hitting
0:12:42it.
0:12:43There's a few things they're going
0:12:44to have to get right in terms of battery life
0:12:46and actual usability and so on.
0:12:48I think they're heading very much in the right direction
0:12:50there, as well as other companies, too.
0:12:53It's a really fun, competitive environment
0:12:55that is pretty exciting to be a part of.
0:12:58And so now I've got my list.
0:12:59I've got a list, an omni-focus of app ideas,
0:13:03whether that's extensions to my existing apps, some of which
0:13:06are kind of obvious, as well as a whole bunch of other apps
0:13:08that I think would be kind of cool,
0:13:10things that I've started to think about,
0:13:12where if I have a device on my wrist that
0:13:14has a connection to my phone, what would I want it to do?
0:13:18And the list is getting long.
0:13:20And in some ways, it's probably a good thing
0:13:22that I'm kind of known for being prolific,
0:13:24because I may actually be able to address a lot of those
0:13:27and to be able to really be diving in to it.
0:13:30And I'm kind of clearing my decks to do that.
0:13:32Some of the projects that I've been working on otherwise
0:13:35are kind of probably getting a little bit wound down.
0:13:37So I can focus on this next month
0:13:39or whenever when Watch Kid comes out,
0:13:40because it's interesting as the way I make my living.
0:13:45And we actually had an interesting example this week
0:13:47where James Thompson, the maker of Peacock,
0:13:49had a weird thing where Apple came in, pulled his app,
0:13:51or told him he had to fundamentally change it
0:13:53and how much of a beat down that was.
0:13:55And then thankfully, Apple relented and great.
0:13:58But as somebody who makes my living essentially
0:14:00riding the coattails of a large corporation, in this case,
0:14:04Apple, that's how I make my living.
0:14:07I need to be very careful and understanding that I
0:14:09am riding their coattails.
0:14:11And so if they're heading in a direction,
0:14:13I need to make sure I'm heading in that direction too.
0:14:16And whether or not Apple Watch is the best tracker out there,
0:14:19the best wearable, or whatever, it only sort of matters to me.
0:14:22What matters is that do I think that I
0:14:25can continue to make a good living working
0:14:28on this platform?
0:14:28And so far I have been.
0:14:30Apple Watch, I think, will be the next step in that.
0:14:33And so I'm doing everything I can
0:14:34to make sure that I'm ready and on board with that.
0:14:37And I'd encourage you, if that's something
0:14:39that you're interested in, is to be doing the same,
0:14:41to making sure that you're kind of immersing yourself
0:14:43into this because Apple is clearly spending a lot of time and energy and effort and marketing
0:14:47capital on making this project a success.
0:14:50And so I think there will be a lot of coattails to ride.
0:14:53All right, that's it for today's show.
0:14:54If you have any questions, comments, concerns, complaints, I'm @ DavidSmith on Twitter.
0:14:58Have a great weekend.