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