0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing
0:00:04news of note in iOS development, Apple, and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm
0:00:07an independent iOS and Mac developer based in Herne, Virginia. This is show number 129,
0:00:12and today is Monday, June 10th, 2013. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes,
0:00:17so let's get going. All right, so I'm coming to you, I guess, it's not quite live, but
0:00:22certainly direct from WWDC. I just got out of the keynote this morning a few hours ago,
0:00:28And like I did, I think last year, I'm going to do a quick episode.
0:00:30This is kind of first impressions.
0:00:32I try and do it right after the keynote.
0:00:34So everything I know at this point is public information.
0:00:36I don't have to worry about the dance I need to do later on as I kind of work through what's
0:00:40public and what's not.
0:00:42And so it's kind of a nice sort of opportunity to do that.
0:00:44And so quick episodes and first impressions hopefully kind of help, you know, just kind
0:00:49of give you some context for what I saw at the talk.
0:00:51Hopefully you've seen the streams or the live blogs or the various things.
0:00:54So you know what I'm talking about and just kind of assume a little bit that you do.
0:00:57So first come some general impressions.
0:00:59It seemed like Apple was really coming out guns blazing.
0:01:02Like there's been a lot of speculation and talk about the fact
0:01:05that for the last six months or so, they've been very quiet.
0:01:08There's not a lot of product updates, not a lot of news, nothing, anything.
0:01:10It's basically like Cupertino was just like Dev Null for a couple of months.
0:01:15And it's like they've been building up this sort of large collection
0:01:19of things that they are all of a sudden going to pour out all at once.
0:01:22So how come you see new Macs, both MacBook Air, Mac Pro, Mac OS X, and big update to
0:01:31iOS?
0:01:32It's like all of a sudden they're coming out.
0:01:33And throughout the keynote, they were constantly beating on either their competitors.
0:01:36I mean, they probably spent probably 10, 15 minutes of the keynote just badgering Google
0:01:41in various ways, in various contexts, in various things.
0:01:44And there's an aggressiveness to it and a feistiness that I thought was kind of interesting
0:01:48to see that's different than I think before.
0:01:51I wouldn't say they're on the defensive in that way.
0:01:54It's not that they were being like, they were, they were, you
0:01:56know, backed into a corner and they were striking out so much
0:01:58as I feel like they're kind of, so it's almost sort of like,
0:02:02there's so much, it's like, enough, no more Mr. Nice guy
0:02:06kind of more is more the kind of the feel that I call us and
0:02:08they're like, you know, we're really good. And we really know
0:02:11what we're doing. And we're the best. And you aren't treating us
0:02:14that way. But we're going to make sure you feel that way.
0:02:16After we kind of show you all the different things we're doing
0:02:19and executing on it once. And that's, I think, the message
0:02:21they're trying to get across at a high level, which
0:02:23I think they did fairly well.
0:02:24There's a few things that are a bit odd.
0:02:26But generally, I think it was a pretty solid keynote.
0:02:28And I think it hit most of the goals and the hopes
0:02:32that I think a lot of nerds had.
0:02:33A lot of people will often go into this
0:02:35who wanted Apple to do something bold, something
0:02:37a bit more interesting, something a bit more outside
0:02:39of what they've been doing before.
0:02:41All right, so a couple of-- let's see,
0:02:42moving through the products, skipping over the very strange
0:02:45slot car demo, which didn't really make any sense.
0:02:47The next thing they talked about, I think mostly,
0:02:49Mac OS X. So now we're getting Mavericks is the next one, and it sounds like the next
0:02:55series of Mac OS Xs are going to be based on places in California. It's a bit of an
0:02:59odd name, but that's, you know, the name is what it is, so that doesn't really matter.
0:03:03There's a couple of things that were good there. I mean, a lot of it seemed--it was
0:03:09interesting that they just seemed to be doing a fair few things under the hood. It reminded
0:03:13me a lot of Snow Leopard, actually, where a lot of the changes and improvements were
0:03:17are more things that users won't notice directly,
0:03:20but they'll notice a lot indirectly.
0:03:22So doing a lot of things with power and performance
0:03:25and those types of things is great for making
0:03:29Macs behave better, but isn't necessarily
0:03:32adding new functionality.
0:03:34The big new functionalities are iBooks and maps, tagging,
0:03:38a few things like that, which are nice,
0:03:39but they're not bold or major incentives.
0:03:43And obviously, the removal of all the textures
0:03:46from everything, calendar and those types of things
0:03:48are just completely untextured now, which is cool,
0:03:51but it isn't really a dramatic, like, in your face
0:03:53kind of change.
0:03:56And so that was good and interesting.
0:03:58I don't do a huge amount of Mac development, but it's interesting
0:04:01and I'm glad that they're still working on that
0:04:03and they seem to be keeping to that goal of doing an update
0:04:06every year.
0:04:08And next, I'm going to talk about the Mac Pro, which
0:04:11I was excited about, mostly just because I--
0:04:15To some approximation, I'm always
0:04:16going to want the fastest machine I can get.
0:04:19I don't need it necessarily.
0:04:20I mean, development is a fairly computationally intensive
0:04:23process, but I'm not doing really robust, rigorous,
0:04:27scientific, numerical, or video editing,
0:04:29or those types of things that are truly dependent.
0:04:32But I mean, using the machine that I sit in front of for at
0:04:36least 40 hours a week every day while I'm working building
0:04:38my apps, I want that to be as fast as possible.
0:04:40And very likely, I will buy a new Mac Pro when it comes out
0:04:43later this year.
0:04:44the magical leader this year that seemed all the products and things were going to be coming
0:04:47out.
0:04:48It's like the layout and usage of it was interesting because it's definitely, I think actually
0:04:56it's much better for me and for a lot of people who are kind of in a role like me, for maybe
0:05:00people who are using it for professional use, professional, heavy professional users but
0:05:05not specialty users.
0:05:07So if you're a video editor or someone doing something very specific, the new Mac Pro is
0:05:10probably not great for you.
0:05:12It's alright.
0:05:14a nice fast computer, but you're still probably going to prefer the old one.
0:05:17And it actually wouldn't surprise me if Apple keeps the old Mac Pros around as available
0:05:21for people who really need the old form factor for whatever reason.
0:05:25They need card-based PCI chips or all kinds of, or dual socket, or all the things that
0:05:31that old one can do that the new one can't.
0:05:33But for someone like me who just wants a really fast Mac, I'll almost certainly buy one.
0:05:37I mean, it looked great.
0:05:38It seemed to have gotten fast and performant, and so I'm excited about that and look forward
0:05:42to getting one whenever they come out.
0:05:45All right.
0:05:45And lastly, I was going to talk about iOS 7, which is, I guess,
0:05:48sort of maybe the keynote part of the keynote.
0:05:51And so iOS 7 is a radical departure from iOS 6
0:05:55in a lot of ways, most clearly and obviously visually
0:05:58and from a user experience perspective.
0:06:01The UI is as kind of expected.
0:06:03It is dramatically cleaned.
0:06:05I don't know what you'll call it.
0:06:08Using terms like "sco-morphic" or things,
0:06:09because it's really complicated.
0:06:11basically it's a very minimal UI, much more based on typography rather than on buttons
0:06:19and textures and lighting and those types of things.
0:06:22There's still some of that, but it's very geometric and it's very typographically driven,
0:06:27which is nice.
0:06:28It looked interesting.
0:06:29The icons for some of the apps are a bit odd, but generally speaking, it's a nice -- I like
0:06:34that they changed it.
0:06:36Exactly how I like it will be dependent on once I actually get my hands on it.
0:06:39And of course, I can't talk about the experience of once I have my hands on it and once I have
0:06:42it because it's under NDA.
0:06:44But suffice it to say, I'm glad that they're driving in that direction.
0:06:48And I think this is actually a blog post that I did last week.
0:06:52I think a lot of apps are going to have to go iOS 7 only because of the dramatic interface
0:06:57and experiential changes that are made here.
0:07:00I think there's a lot of applications who, if you have any amount of, almost any UI,
0:07:08going to have to be updated to either be totally custom, and if you want it to look like the
0:07:13old style for whatever reason, or it's going to have to be moved to 100% iOS 7, or if you
0:07:18have anything kind of in the middle, I think it's going to be really problematic.
0:07:21Thankfully, we have over-the-air updates, and over-the-air updates mean that I imagine
0:07:25that dramatically, a very high proportion of compatible devices will be updated to iOS
0:07:307 within a couple of weeks.
0:07:32And so going iOS 7 only at the start isn't probably going to be too crazy of a thing.
0:07:37definitely ruffle a few feathers.
0:07:38They're dropping support for a bunch of old devices,
0:07:40which is always problematic as a developer.
0:07:42You'll get a lot of--
0:07:44they drop support for the 3GS, which isn't necessarily
0:07:48unexpected.
0:07:48But it means that if I go iOS 7 only for my applications,
0:07:53I'm going to get people who have the 3GS who use my apps who
0:07:55are going to be upset that they can't get any new updates.
0:07:58But that's just kind of the game we're going to have to play.
0:08:00And I'll definitely be talking about that, I'm sure,
0:08:02more over the next coming months as I see how
0:08:04things play out in practice.
0:08:06But I think there's going to be a strong drive
0:08:09to get a lot of iOS 7 only apps and a lot of things
0:08:11coming out this Christmas season.
0:08:13I imagine there's going to-- Apple is probably
0:08:16hoping that there will be a lot of people who are upgrading
0:08:18their devices to take advantage of it.
0:08:21So that's kind of a big thing.
0:08:22And like I said, it's interesting.
0:08:24I like it.
0:08:24Honestly, as a developer who isn't-- I'm not the strongest
0:08:28graphic designer.
0:08:29I like that the goal is more minimal.
0:08:33And I would say that minimal is easy.
0:08:35It takes a lot of graphic design and taste and skill
0:08:38to have a good UI without a lot of components,
0:08:41but it also is something that is possible for someone,
0:08:44I think like myself, to execute on.
0:08:46It reminds me a lot of the UI in Check the Weather,
0:08:49my weather app, which is very minimal and very clean
0:08:51and very simple.
0:08:52But I think I can execute that in a way
0:08:55that I could never do if I was richly drawing textures
0:08:58and basically doing a lot of graphics work and art,
0:09:00which is just something that I can't do.
0:09:02And so I really like that in this case
0:09:04that I can probably do more of it myself in this environment, or I have more success with
0:09:12that, which makes me excited and happy that that's kind of what users are going to be
0:09:15expecting, rather than having to go with the really rich kind of experiences.
0:09:19They send like a tweet bot, for example.
0:09:21It's a classic example of something that's really, really graphically intensive that
0:09:25I could never execute without spending a lot of money getting a graphic designer to do
0:09:28that work.
0:09:29And then lastly about iOS 7, I'm going to talk a little bit about background, the new
0:09:34new backgrounding modes, which I think is probably the second most significant developer-facing
0:09:38feature that they announced in the keynote.
0:09:40And backgrounding modes, the biggest parts of those that are so exciting and insignificant
0:09:44is that finally you can have an application prepared for use immediately after the user
0:09:50launches it.
0:09:51So again, I'll bring up another example of like check the weather, you know, weather
0:09:54app.
0:09:55It would be what I can do now in theory in iOS 7, but based on what it sounds like they
0:09:58did is I can have the app update your weather forecast periodically in the background without
0:10:05the user having to launch the app.
0:10:07And that means that when you launch the app, typically you won't have to wait.
0:10:10You won't have to load new data.
0:10:12It'll just be there.
0:10:13And then the app adapts based on if you're checking, if you're opening that app and checking
0:10:16the weather, you know, five, 10 times a day, it's going to check your, it's going to do
0:10:20background updates five or 10 times a day.
0:10:22If you only check the weather once a day at seven o'clock every morning, then it'll do
0:10:26it at 6.50 or whatever.
0:10:28Like, the way that's kind of the way they sounded like they were structuring it, which
0:10:32is really helpful.
0:10:33Or similarly, something like Feed Wrangler.
0:10:35There's a lot of things that I can do there.
0:10:37And even on the push side, potentially, where I can push content into the application without
0:10:45-- whenever I know it's ready.
0:10:46So on the server side, say I had a concept, this is actually something I've been working
0:10:50on, something called kind of like a watch streams or watch shows on the podcast side.
0:10:54something to say like, here is, you know,
0:10:58here's a feed that I really care about the content of.
0:11:01So say for example, it's Apple,
0:11:02say it's Apple press releases or something.
0:11:04You know, whenever they announce something new,
0:11:05I wanna know about it.
0:11:07And so you watch that feed.
0:11:08What sounds like from what they're doing
0:11:09is I could set up my application
0:11:11so that when that comes in on the server,
0:11:13the server can kick off a notification
0:11:14to all the apps who signed up to know about that.
0:11:17I send out the notification.
0:11:19The app pops up.
0:11:20The app has an opportunity to then go
0:11:21and immediately download it.
0:11:23And so that the next time you launch that app, that content is always there, sort of
0:11:27guaranteed to be there to some definition of guaranteed.
0:11:30And that's really exciting.
0:11:31I think there's a lot of contexts where that would be very significant and allow for a
0:11:34lot richer and honestly less frustrating use from users.
0:11:39Where currently you're always, pretty much my experience across every app I have right
0:11:42now is I'll open up the app, wait two seconds, and then use the app.
0:11:47And that two seconds is while it's doing a network or network request.
0:11:50And the only exceptions to that are things like mail or the system apps that can do backgrounding
0:11:56right now.
0:11:57And so I'm really excited about that.
0:12:00And so I think those are some cool things.
0:12:02It's going to be a lot of work.
0:12:03I think if you're an iOS developer, the next three or four months, myself included, is
0:12:06going to be very busy.
0:12:07There's going to be a lot to do and a lot of work to get apps updated and ready for
0:12:13iOS 7 because it is such a dramatic move in a way that iOS 6 was not from iOS 5 or iOS
0:12:19was not really from iOS 4.
0:12:20There's, I think, going to be a lot of work to be ready
0:12:23whenever this launches.
0:12:24Probably my guess would be early October,
0:12:26just based on the usual schedules for things,
0:12:28but they haven't said that yet.
0:12:31All right, so that was kind of a slightly rambling,
0:12:33but hopefully helpful set of first impressions.
0:12:36Like I said, just got out of the keynote.
0:12:38That's what I've been thinking about.
0:12:39I'm kind of amped.
0:12:40I'm kind of jazzed about what I saw,
0:12:42what I think Apple's doing, and the direction
0:12:44that they're heading.
0:12:45And I'm pretty excited about it.
0:12:47I'll probably do a couple of episodes this week,
0:12:49just talking about some of the other things that they
0:12:51talked about in the keynote.
0:12:52I'll have to just kind of balance that,
0:12:53because obviously things become under NDA the rest of the week.
0:12:56And so suddenly I have to balance that
0:12:59and not be talking publicly about things
0:13:01that I'm not supposed to.
0:13:03But otherwise, that's it for today's show.
0:13:04As always, if you have questions, comments, concerns,
0:13:07compliments, complaints, I'm on Twitter @_davidsmith.
0:13:10I'm on AppNet @davidsmith.
0:13:11And otherwise, if you have a great week,
0:13:13if you're out here at WWDC, make sure you say hi.
0:13:15I'm around all week.
0:13:17I'd love to shake your hand and just sort of get to know you,
0:13:20put a face to some of the people who listen to the show.
0:13:23And otherwise, I hope you're at home,
0:13:26merrily coding and drawing the betas.
0:13:28And I'll talk to you soon.
0:13:29Bye.