Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello, and welcome to Developing Perspective.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing news of note and iOS development, Apple and

00:00:07 ◼   ► the like.

00:00:08 ◼   ► I'm your host, David Smith.

00:00:09 ◼   ► I'm an independent iOS developer based in Herne, Virginia.

00:00:11 ◼   ► This is show number 92, and today is Wednesday, October 24th.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:19 ◼   ► So what I'm going to talk about today is yesterday's Apple event, which is perhaps unsurprising,

00:00:25 ◼   ► and that's why today is Wednesday rather than Tuesday.

00:00:28 ◼   ► But basically, let's see, I was encouraged

00:00:33 ◼   ► by what I saw yesterday.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Honestly, in many ways, I was much more encouraged by it

00:00:38 ◼   ► than I was by the iPhone 5 event.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Because while the iPhone 5 is awesome,

00:00:43 ◼   ► I didn't leave the event being like, oh my goodness, wow.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Apple is really doing amazing things

00:00:51 ◼   ► and really kind of pushing the edge at all.

00:00:53 ◼   ► It's kind of like it's the next logical step.

00:00:56 ◼   ► And there are a lot of things in yesterday's stream

00:01:01 ◼   ► of announcements that I think really were quite impressive,

00:01:04 ◼   ► and things that I'm glad they're doing.

00:01:06 ◼   ► And so what I was going to talk through today

00:01:08 ◼   ► is, first, I'll talk a little bit about the iPads

00:01:12 ◼   ► and a few thoughts there.

00:01:14 ◼   ► And then mostly, I'm just going to focus on how

00:01:17 ◼   ► all these new machines change the ideal developer machine

00:01:21 ◼   ► landscape.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Now, first, I'll talk about the iPads.

00:01:24 ◼   ► So basically, first, there's always the amusing story of the 220-day-old iPad 3 being deprecated,

00:01:35 ◼   ► essentially, which is a little awkward.

00:01:38 ◼   ► If you bought one of those, which I'm sure most people who do any development on the

00:01:44 ◼   ► iPad did because it was the first Retina screen, it's kind of annoying that I have two, maybe

00:01:50 ◼   ► three on the iPad.

00:01:52 ◼   ► because there are so many different things going on with them, so I have a bunch of these

00:01:55 ◼   ► iPads that are going to be kind of underpowered and kind of difficult to support going forward.

00:02:01 ◼   ► And I say difficult to support because they're in this really awkward middle ground where

00:02:06 ◼   ► the original, so the iPad 3 was sort of barely able to support a retina display.

00:02:13 ◼   ► It did it, but you couldn't really tax it too hard, it would struggle a lot with certain

00:02:16 ◼   ► operations, you know, some of the classic even simple things of like trying to, I think

00:02:20 ◼   ► I think this is a great example of taking a render of a graphics context would be kind

00:02:26 ◼   ► of rough because it's so many pixels.

00:02:28 ◼   ► And now that it's perfect, now they've actually released the iPad that you can almost kind

00:02:33 ◼   ► of imagine that they wanted to release back in March.

00:02:36 ◼   ► It's a little awkward though for developers because now we still have to support the whatever

00:02:41 ◼   ► it is 10, 15 million iPad 3s that just came out, which I'm sure they sold quite a lot

00:02:47 ◼   ► of them.

00:02:48 ◼   ► We have to support them and manage them, but they're being replaced on the Retina side

00:02:53 ◼   ► by a much more capable device, the iPad 4, which is by all accounts a much more capable

00:03:01 ◼   ► thing.

00:03:02 ◼   ► It has a faster processor.

00:03:05 ◼   ► It's the same physically, but better in a way that is hopefully helpful.

00:03:11 ◼   ► It's kind of annoying.

00:03:12 ◼   ► I'm not sure if I'm going to get one right away.

00:03:14 ◼   ► Honestly, the thing is there's not that much that it does that the iPad 3 won't

00:03:19 ◼   ► Do and I'm nervous about sort of starting to do a lot of my testing and things on an iPad 4 at least right away

00:03:27 ◼   ► Because my guess is I may be pushing I push things to a point where they wouldn't work as well on this weird kind of

00:03:33 ◼   ► Limo device, so I'll probably order one right off the bat, but I'm surely I'm gonna bench that one of almost everything at this point

00:03:41 ◼   ► The iPad mini is interesting. I like I like the concept of it. I think the price is a bit high but

00:03:48 ◼   ► Whatever they can do what they want

00:03:50 ◼   ► Pricing I think from a form factor perspective. I think they nailed it. I think it looks really nice. You know sleek thin I

00:03:57 ◼   ► Like the like I love love love that the screen resolution is the same. It's just a higher pixel density like that is great

00:04:05 ◼   ► I'm going through my apps right now kind of making sure that everything

00:04:09 ◼   ► Works at that size and it should if you've meter tap targets at a reasonable size

00:04:13 ◼   ► On the old iPad they should still work at the smaller size the thing that I'm more worried about is fonts

00:04:19 ◼   ► And specifically some of my font size choices just making sure that you know a font that was

00:04:24 ◼   ► Say like I did a 10 or 12 point font for a small subtitle or something somewhere that may have worked

00:04:31 ◼   ► On the old iPad, but it my god is that it won't it'll be a little too small

00:04:36 ◼   ► on the new ones. So that's something that I'm looking at fixing and changing.

00:04:40 ◼   ► Just kind of making sure all my text is nice and readable. My tap targets I'm pretty sure

00:04:44 ◼   ► are fine, but I'll also be going through those. And that's kind of really all you have to

00:04:46 ◼   ► do. I mean, I would expect the biggest impact of the iPad mini is that there's going to

00:04:51 ◼   ► be a big jump in sales in iPad and iPad apps, just because the price point's moving down.

00:04:56 ◼   ► And it's a much more likely gift, I would say, than the original iPad, just in the sense

00:05:03 ◼   ► So if you're getting in the door at $329, in a way that before you were

00:05:08 ◼   ► getting-- and my guess is Black Friday sale, that'll probably be $299,

00:05:13 ◼   ► would be my guess.

00:05:14 ◼   ► My guess is that's a ton of them on that kind of thing.

00:05:17 ◼   ► And so I think it's a big deal for--

00:05:20 ◼   ► I'm working as hard as I can and frantically

00:05:22 ◼   ► to check the weather ready for the iPad to make it work on both platforms,

00:05:28 ◼   ► because I think there's going to be a lot of growth right there in the very

00:05:32 ◼   ► near term.

00:05:33 ◼   ► making sure that I'm on the cusp of that wave.

00:05:36 ◼   ► But otherwise, it's all good stuff, nothing too dramatic.

00:05:38 ◼   ► I was a little surprised to run any iOS announcements.

00:05:42 ◼   ► Just had a gut that they might do something with that.

00:05:46 ◼   ► But they didn't.

00:05:47 ◼   ► Really, iBooks and iBooks Author stuff was really the only sort

00:05:51 ◼   ► of software announcements.

00:05:52 ◼   ► But overall, a pretty good run, just a little bit

00:05:55 ◼   ► annoying about the iPad 3.

00:05:58 ◼   ► All right, so I'm going to talk now about how all these new Macs

00:06:03 ◼   ► that they've basically revamped the entire lineup,

00:06:06 ◼   ► save the Mac Pro, since June, essentially.

00:06:10 ◼   ► So at WWDC, it was a new 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro and Ivy Bridge

00:06:16 ◼   ► MacBook Airs.

00:06:17 ◼   ► And then now they've added to that a new mini, a new iMac,

00:06:21 ◼   ► and a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

00:06:24 ◼   ► And I think that creates a very interesting sort of segmentation

00:06:28 ◼   ► for the market in terms of what's the best developer machine.

00:06:33 ◼   ► And I think it works out pretty well.

00:06:38 ◼   ► I was giving it some thought last night

00:06:40 ◼   ► and I think Apple's created some fairly nice chunks

00:06:42 ◼   ► for if you're a developer, or someone really,

00:06:44 ◼   ► what I mean by developer machine,

00:06:47 ◼   ► I mean someone who's using their computer professionally,

00:06:48 ◼   ► that this is what you do for your career

00:06:51 ◼   ► to make your living on it.

00:06:53 ◼   ► And so it's not the kind of thing that you're just like

00:06:54 ◼   ► surfing the web or watching videos or those types of things

00:06:55 ◼   ► where your choices and your trade-offs would be very different.

00:06:58 ◼   ► If you're using this to make your living, you have different goals, different characteristics,

00:07:04 ◼   ► and different things that you're trying to accomplish.

00:07:07 ◼   ► So first I was going to work my way through the lineup, starting off with the Mac Pro.

00:07:15 ◼   ► And basically, I think the Mac Pro only makes sense to buy at this point if you need some

00:07:23 ◼   ► kind of odd, like, external graphics card, or specific graphics card set up, or you need

00:07:30 ◼   ► to have five hard drives, or something very, very specific like that.

00:07:35 ◼   ► You need two DVD drives.

00:07:37 ◼   ► Like there are a few things that only it can do, but pretty much that's it.

00:07:42 ◼   ► I would generally say, speaking, not recommend the current Mac Pros for anybody.

00:07:48 ◼   ► It's just a really old machine.

00:07:49 ◼   ► I think it hasn't been revised in over two years.

00:07:53 ◼   ► And I mean, other than the stupid update

00:07:56 ◼   ► they did at WWDC, that wasn't really an update.

00:07:59 ◼   ► But it's really not a great machine right now.

00:08:02 ◼   ► And there's a lot of more compelling options.

00:08:04 ◼   ► So I would just write that off from the start

00:08:05 ◼   ► because it's kind of expensive for what you're getting.

00:08:08 ◼   ► And they're clearly not putting a lot of effort into it.

00:08:11 ◼   ► Maybe this coming year, they'll release something new,

00:08:13 ◼   ► maybe at WWDC or something.

00:08:15 ◼   ► Like Tim Cook's email, oh, we've got some good stuff coming

00:08:18 ◼   ► in 2013, maybe, but stay tuned.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Next, I was going to say the Airs.

00:08:24 ◼   ► The Airs are great machines.

00:08:26 ◼   ► I love the Air I have.

00:08:28 ◼   ► I've seen a lot of people who love their Airs.

00:08:30 ◼   ► The Airs are a great machine if portability is vital for you.

00:08:34 ◼   ► And by that, I mean if you're someone who's

00:08:36 ◼   ► a traveling consultant, if you're

00:08:38 ◼   ► someone who's bouncing between meetings all day,

00:08:41 ◼   ► if you're someone who--

00:08:42 ◼   ► one of the most important things for their computer

00:08:44 ◼   ► is that you're able to walk around with it.

00:08:46 ◼   ► An Air is a fantastic machine.

00:08:48 ◼   ► They're pretty capable.

00:08:49 ◼   ► They're not quite as fast as a lot of the other things

00:08:51 ◼   ► I'll talk about.

00:08:52 ◼   ► But they're probably fast enough at this point,

00:08:54 ◼   ► especially because they're all SSD based.

00:08:57 ◼   ► And that means that a lot of operations,

00:08:59 ◼   ► other than things like compiling,

00:09:01 ◼   ► are probably going to be very fast and snappy and good.

00:09:04 ◼   ► So if portability is your main goal, just get an air.

00:09:07 ◼   ► They're amazing machines for that.

00:09:09 ◼   ► I mean, you'll barely even know you're carrying them,

00:09:11 ◼   ► especially the 11 inch, which is typically

00:09:15 ◼   ► what I recommend for somebody.

00:09:16 ◼   ► And I say that because for me the 13 inch air doesn't make a lot of sense because you're in it's sort of small

00:09:22 ◼   ► But it's kind of big still a bit bigger. It's like I want if I want a small computer

00:09:26 ◼   ► I want a small computer

00:09:28 ◼   ► I mean my air actually fits in one of my coat pockets for I have a scotty vest which is a great Jack lots of big

00:09:33 ◼   ► Pockets and ask you I can fit my air in there like that's great if I want something that's a bit bigger

00:09:39 ◼   ► I would probably move towards getting a retina macro Pro at this point

00:09:42 ◼   ► So that's why I'd say if you want to do something small,

00:09:44 ◼   ► get an 11 inch air, max it out, great machine,

00:09:47 ◼   ► you won't be disappointed.

00:09:49 ◼   ► Next, I was going to talk about the Mini.

00:09:52 ◼   ► And the Mini, I think, is a great starter machine now.

00:09:55 ◼   ► The Mini is a great starter machine

00:09:57 ◼   ► because from a pricing perspective,

00:09:59 ◼   ► it's really inexpensive compared to a lot of the other options.

00:10:02 ◼   ► And obviously, you don't get a monitor with it,

00:10:04 ◼   ► which all the other machines come with.

00:10:05 ◼   ► But if you have an existing monitor kicking around,

00:10:07 ◼   ► you have an older display, you have an old cinema display,

00:10:10 ◼   ► old any display, is a great way to get a Mac.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And from a performance perspective,

00:10:15 ◼   ► it's actually kind of interesting.

00:10:16 ◼   ► If you max out the Mini on CPU, you're

00:10:20 ◼   ► actually getting a machine that's probably about as fast

00:10:23 ◼   ► as the fastest 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which

00:10:27 ◼   ► is a pretty beefy machine.

00:10:28 ◼   ► It's what I use right now.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And I mean, it's great.

00:10:31 ◼   ► And so Mini's a great machine.

00:10:33 ◼   ► It would certainly work well for a build machine or those types

00:10:36 ◼   ► of things.

00:10:36 ◼   ► But I'd say if you're a developer,

00:10:38 ◼   ► really short on cash, really kind of just need something to get going,

00:10:43 ◼   ► even an entry-level mini is probably going to be really good.

00:10:47 ◼   ► So definitely worth keeping in mind,

00:10:50 ◼   ► it's not as compelling as some of the other things I'll talk about, but it's definitely

00:10:54 ◼   ► a solid machine. If money is the most important thing, I'd say a mini is a good choice.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Next is the iMac, and the iMac, I'm kind of looking at it from a

00:11:03 ◼   ► professional machine perspective of

00:11:05 ◼   ► the iMac is the

00:11:07 ◼   ► It's almost the new Mac Pro in some ways, where it is...

00:11:11 ◼   ► You can get the... If the thing you want most is raw CPU performance,

00:11:16 ◼   ► the fastest CPU you can currently get in a Mac, I think...

00:11:19 ◼   ► Mmm...

00:11:22 ◼   ► You can get one of the fastest, the highest value high-performance CPUs

00:11:27 ◼   ► in a Mac today comes in the iMac.

00:11:31 ◼   ► If you get the crazy maxed out, I think it's a 3.2 GHz quad-core i7 or something.

00:11:36 ◼   ► I mean, it's a-- that is a beefy machine.

00:11:39 ◼   ► And you may be able to get more speed out of one of the--

00:11:43 ◼   ► a Mac Pro with, like, whatever, the 12 core or something,

00:11:46 ◼   ► if you're doing rendering or something,

00:11:48 ◼   ► some kind of operation like that.

00:11:49 ◼   ► But for actual use, sort of thread-based use,

00:11:53 ◼   ► my guess is the iMac is going to come out pretty well

00:11:56 ◼   ► in the benchmarks for performance.

00:11:59 ◼   ► Typically, I don't recommend iMacs.

00:12:01 ◼   ► I used an iMac for a couple of years, and I kind of regretted it.

00:12:03 ◼   ► And especially this one looks even worse.

00:12:05 ◼   ► in the sense that if anything goes wrong, absolutely anything, it's kind of annoying

00:12:11 ◼   ► that it's all in one.

00:12:14 ◼   ► And so, and it's very, at least in my experience, it's really awkward to have a repair go well,

00:12:21 ◼   ► in the sense of, I've definitely had it where I had a hard drive go bad and they went in,

00:12:24 ◼   ► they changed the hard drive, and then there was dust under the glass.

00:12:28 ◼   ► And so they had to take it back and it's a really hard thing for them to repair well

00:12:33 ◼   ► because it is so integrated and so all in one.

00:12:38 ◼   ► A laptop's a little bit like that these days,

00:12:40 ◼   ► but at least the laptop has a different discrete display

00:12:45 ◼   ► versus components on the bottom.

00:12:47 ◼   ► And just in general, I don't feel--

00:12:51 ◼   ► and you're getting a lot more for that compaction.

00:12:55 ◼   ► And so I like the iMac if performance

00:12:58 ◼   ► is what you absolutely need.

00:13:00 ◼   ► but typically my guess and my main recommendation

00:13:04 ◼   ► is that if you're looking for a great if you really are a developer who wants to do

00:13:07 ◼   ► some work

00:13:08 ◼   ► professionally on your computer the best thing is going to be to get a Retina MacBook Pro

00:13:13 ◼   ► they're great I have the 15 inch version which is the sort of if you have the

00:13:16 ◼   ► money

00:13:17 ◼   ► it's worth it model and you get the 15 inch I got a nice specced out one

00:13:22 ◼   ► certainly very expensive but it's very worth it it's a great machine

00:13:27 ◼   ► It's portable, high-performance, the Retina screen is amazing.

00:13:30 ◼   ► And for iOS-- and for Mac development, it's kind of essential.

00:13:34 ◼   ► For iOS development, it's just very helpful.

00:13:36 ◼   ► The fact that I can run an iPad Retina simulator natively on the screen,

00:13:41 ◼   ► and it looks normal, rather than on any other display,

00:13:44 ◼   ► you're kind of having to scale it down and things.

00:13:48 ◼   ► That just doesn't work as well.

00:13:49 ◼   ► So I really recommend a Retina Mac Pro.

00:13:51 ◼   ► I'd say a 15-inch-- if you have the means, I highly recommend it.

00:13:56 ◼   ► If you don't, if money's a bit tighter, I think a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is probably

00:14:03 ◼   ► the--is really, really good.

00:14:04 ◼   ► The Mini is only if you have, like, if you're really strapped for cash.

00:14:08 ◼   ► If you have a--if you can afford it, even a baseline Retina MacBook Pro on the 13-inch,

00:14:12 ◼   ► which is not too bad on the, you know, as Macs go, would definitely be where I'd start

00:14:17 ◼   ► off.

00:14:18 ◼   ► It's a great machine.

00:14:19 ◼   ► It's fast, nice SSD inside.

00:14:20 ◼   ► The screen is gorgeous.

00:14:22 ◼   ► And all you're really getting with the 13 versus the 15, from my opinion, is you're

00:14:26 ◼   ► you're just getting a little bit, you're saving some money.

00:14:27 ◼   ► The 15 is a better machine for almost in all,

00:14:30 ◼   ► in almost every measure except for size,

00:14:32 ◼   ► but the size difference isn't as dramatic.

00:14:34 ◼   ► So that's kind of where I'd say.

00:14:36 ◼   ► All right, hopefully that's helpful.

00:14:37 ◼   ► And as always, if you have questions, comments or concerns,

00:14:39 ◼   ► I'm on Twitter @_davidsmith.

00:14:42 ◼   ► I'm on AppNet @davidsmith.

00:14:44 ◼   ► And otherwise, if you guys have a good rest of your week,

00:14:46 ◼   ► enjoy the new stuff, you know,

00:14:47 ◼   ► be up at 3 a.m. to do some ordering

00:14:49 ◼   ► and I'll talk to you later.