0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspectives. Developing Perspectives is a podcast discussing
0:00:04news of note in iOS development, Apple, and the like. It's never longer than 15 minutes.
0:00:09I'm your host, David Smith. I'm an independent iOS developer based in Herndon, Virginia.
0:00:13This is show number 47, and today is Wednesday, May 17th.
0:00:17All right, so before I get into the main topic for today's show, I just wanted to briefly
0:00:22touch on yesterday's launch. So if you've been following along for the last couple of
0:00:27episodes. That's kind of in the arc that I've been talking about, kind of the process of
0:00:30launching an app.
0:00:31Yesterday was a big day, and I'd say it went well. You know, it's nothing sort of wild
0:00:36and crazy. My server configurations and all those things held up just fine. A little bit
0:00:41of extra load, but nothing too unheard of. Certainly no more than things like Christmas,
0:00:46for example, or those types of days where the servers have, you know, held on.
0:00:49You know, it was overall a good day. I've gotten some great feedback. And, I mean, the
0:00:52The thing that honestly was the most reinforcing is, I mean, it's always weird when you go
0:00:56to sleep as an independent because you never know what's going to happen with your servers,
0:01:00you never know what's going to be going on.
0:01:03And you know, I woke up this morning, opened up the app store, and audiobooks has a five-star
0:01:06review.
0:01:07You know, all the reviews so far have been five stars, people are loving it, and that's
0:01:11just incredibly satisfying.
0:01:13So I'm sure that I've had one crash report come in from somebody and, you know, a few
0:01:17little things.
0:01:18But, you know, in general, it went well.
0:01:21And thanks to all of you who went out and downloaded it or told a friend or whatever,
0:01:27I really appreciate that.
0:01:28But overall, it was a good day.
0:01:31And so I guess that's kind of the fun part of being a developer.
0:01:36I got home, my wife had made a nice dinner to celebrate, and it's nice.
0:01:42It's nice to be able to finish something and to see it in the store and to be proud of
0:01:47it.
0:01:48because it's kind of a funny thing where I was just thinking about it yesterday about how,
0:01:53even if it had sort of bombed in some ways, or even if the, you know, like the download didn't
0:01:58go up right as much as I may have hoped, but at the end of the day I know the app is better than
0:02:02it was. You know, I am very confident of that, and at the end of the day I think that, you know,
0:02:09I'm proud of what's in the store now in a way that I wasn't necessarily as proud before, and so,
0:02:14So, you know, it's a big win.
0:02:16Alright, so I'm going to kind of transition into the main topic for today, which is a
0:02:21little bit about, sort of, I guess, goals.
0:02:24This is kind of the thing I've been thinking about today and yesterday as I've kind of
0:02:27wrapped up this big arc that I've been working on for months and months and months.
0:02:31It's finally out, it's finally in the store, I'll do a few bug fixes and things, but I'm
0:02:34not expecting to kind of be working on audiobooks as intensely for the next, you know, sort
0:02:40of short period, at least until WWDC.
0:02:43And so it kind of got me thinking, okay, so what do I want to do next and those kinds
0:02:48of things.
0:02:49And I have some app work I need to do on one of my other apps, which is a recipe manager.
0:02:52But moreover, it was kind of like I was trying to ask the meta question, kind of ask the
0:02:59question behind what I should do next rather than just, oh, I should dive into working
0:03:04on this next app.
0:03:05And it was kind of like, what do I want?
0:03:10What does success look like for my apps?
0:03:11What does success look like for my writing?
0:03:13success look like for this podcast. And the reality is, I found that in general, it's
0:03:21easy and constructive to kind of measure yourself if you can create kind of goals for what you
0:03:28would kind of define success for yourself as. And often I find these best aren't at
0:03:34best if these aren't financial goals, if these aren't things that it's like, "Oh, I want
0:03:39to make a million dollars.
0:03:42It's very concrete, but it's also very ephemeral.
0:03:45Like, okay, you've made a million dollars.
0:03:47But the process of getting there, what does that even look like?
0:03:51How do you go about doing that?
0:03:54And moreover, are you going to be optimizing for the right things if your goal is to make
0:03:58a million dollars?
0:03:59It's kind of like if you're a game developer, are you trying to be Zynga and make money?
0:04:04you try, you know, who's like sitting there churning out, you know, having, making people,
0:04:09you know, sort of addicted to your game in a way that just sort of forces them to keep
0:04:12giving you money, like, ugh, versus, you know, making an awesome game that is successful
0:04:17because it's awesome. And, you know, I imagine, you know, if you're the kind of person who
0:04:21listens to a show like this, you're probably more of the, more of the latter. You want
0:04:24to make something awesome. And so that's a bit more subjective and a bit more difficult
0:04:28to kind of put your finger on. But it's still, I think, a worthwhile thing to kind of try
0:04:32of put into perspective for yourself of like what does success look like for you.
0:04:37And so this is kind of where I've been thinking about, you know, as I've been working on my
0:04:40next things and kind of where I am more generally for where I put my attention.
0:04:45And so there's kind of three areas right now that I'm putting my attention in.
0:04:48And that's my apps, that's my blog, DavidSmith.org, and this podcast, which you're listening to
0:04:54right now.
0:04:56And I've kind of come up with, I think, my goals.
0:04:58And I think it's worth even to talk about them publicly, both because they may be helpful
0:05:02for you, but also because if I talk about them publicly, I'm more likely to sort of
0:05:08hold myself accountable to them.
0:05:10And so this is just kind of where I am today, and it may change, but this is kind of, these
0:05:16are my goals, this is what I'm aspiring towards.
0:05:20And in general, what I try and do is to set my goal to be something that is clearly sort
0:05:26of definable, that I'll know when I get there.
0:05:28It's not something that I'm going to struggle to know, like, "Well, I want to have a successful
0:05:34app," for example, would be a very bad goal because what does that mean?
0:05:38What does it mean to be successful?
0:05:40What does it mean to be any kind of subjective word there?
0:05:45I want to be well-known.
0:05:46I want all those kinds of things.
0:05:48You want something that you can kind of be concrete about.
0:05:52And so today, for apps, I think my goal for an app is to be featured by Apple in iTunes
0:05:59as one of the apps they do.
0:06:01New and noteworthy, staff picks, all those kinds of categories.
0:06:05And what I like about that is you want a goal that's just beyond your grasp, in the sense
0:06:12that it's not something that you can easily do, or that for you is easy to do.
0:06:17Not that it's necessarily an easy task.
0:06:19For some people, shipping an app is the goal.
0:06:22The goal is the process of getting it out the door.
0:06:24For me, I've been doing this for long enough that that's not so much the difficulty.
0:06:27The difficulty is then, okay, I want to make an app that's noteworthy enough that Apple
0:06:32puts it up front in the store.
0:06:34That has other financial benefits.
0:06:36That has all kinds of other perks.
0:06:38But it's something that I can look at and say, if I'm building an app and I'm trying
0:06:42to optimize it for it attracting Apple's attention, what does that look like?
0:06:47kind of apps tend to have that effect. And it works well for me to kind of be thinking
0:06:54in those ways. For a while, I used to think, "Oh, my goal is to win an ADA, to win an Apple
0:07:00Design Award." But in reality, what I think is that was actually not as motivating as
0:07:05I would like because it's one of those things I can say it, "Oh, I want to win an ADA."
0:07:11But in the back of my mind, my internal second thought is, "Oh, that's never going to happen."
0:07:17A, there's only like five or six people in the world who ever win a year, and of those
0:07:25people most of them have skills beyond what I have on the design side.
0:07:31I think my coding is one of those things that I think I could perhaps compete on, but I
0:07:36don't think on a design side, that's just not the skills that I have.
0:07:41And so having that as a goal is just perhaps a bit unrealistic and unmotivating because
0:07:45if I don't believe it myself, it's just never really gonna
0:07:49happen.
0:07:50That's kind of where I am. It's like I want an app
0:07:53that would be featured and we'll see what happens tomorrow. The app
0:07:56store refreshes on Thursdays.
0:07:58And I mean if audiobooks was there, I'd be thrilled. It'd be awesome.
0:08:03It's important to celebrate and I would.
0:08:05I've had a couple of apps featured and it's just been a privilege
0:08:09to see your app there and
0:08:12It's the kind of thing that what I do is I go in and
0:08:16you know, I take screenshots and I print them out and I put them up in my
0:08:21office and I
0:08:23celebrate and remind myself that yeah, you did it, you can do that.
0:08:27So when you're hitting
0:08:28a really rough day and you just don't want to do
0:08:32whatever it is you're doing, you can kind of look over and be like
0:08:35yeah, I can do this, I've done it before.
0:08:38And so that's kind of where I am with apps.
0:08:40And then, sort of, the next area where I was talking about it was, like, with my blog.
0:08:43And this is, again, an area where,
0:08:46as I started, I'm not necessarily a writer by nature.
0:08:50It's not something that comes easily to me or
0:08:53I have a lot of skill,
0:08:55just in generally.
0:08:57And so,
0:08:58when I started writing, I was kind of being like, "Why do I want to blog?
0:09:02Why do I want to write?"
0:09:04And I think it's because I feel like I have
0:09:06useful insights to share
0:09:09that would benefit other people and that I'd like to share that voice, you know,
0:09:13with other people.
0:09:15And, you know, it's not really financial. There's no ads on my blog.
0:09:19I'd be surprised if there ever were. It's just not the kind of thing that
0:09:22I seek to make money from. I'd rather it be a place that people can just go and find useful.
0:09:28You know, I may make some money from it just sort of
0:09:31tangentially from people going and liking my apps
0:09:34and buying them, but
0:09:35you know, it's not financial as its goal,
0:09:41and so
0:09:43instead it makes me wonder like,
0:09:44you know, so how do I measure that? It's not like I want page, it's not like I need a
0:09:48million page views, I want a hundred thousand uniques.
0:09:51It's like, I find those things kind of because you can't...
0:09:55you're optimizing again for the wrong things. If my goal is page views,
0:09:59it's like I should just be posting like
0:10:02crazy rumor iPhone 6 will have, you know, shiny black blah blah blah.
0:10:08Like it's not...
0:10:09like you can drive page views by just kind of speculating and being sensational,
0:10:15but that's not
0:10:16particularly interesting to me.
0:10:18And so for me I've always kind of...
0:10:20my goal...
0:10:21this may sound a little funny, but
0:10:23my goal is always to write
0:10:24such that I could be... feel...
0:10:27sort of... it would feel appropriate to be linked to on Daring Fireball.
0:10:30So Daring Fireball is, you know, I think my favorite website of all.
0:10:35And it, you know, is John Gruber's site where he, you know,
0:10:39writes great articles and links to interesting stuff.
0:10:41And I've always, my goal is kind of you,
0:10:43I always kind of write with that quality bar in mind,
0:10:47that it's good enough to feel
0:10:49at home in that environment.
0:10:51And so,
0:10:52that's kind of what I, you know, sort of what I keep in mind. So I'm writing an article.
0:10:55I'm keeping that in mind. I'm thinking about
0:10:57what,
0:10:59you know, is this concise enough? Is this to the point? Is it
0:11:03interesting enough? Does it grab things?
0:11:05That I'd feel proud of it being
0:11:07sort of listed in and amongst many of the great articles and things that
0:11:11get linked to there.
0:11:12And even moreover, that sense of that, you know,
0:11:15John Gerber would think is
0:11:18sort of worthwhile, is interesting enough. So, and that's happened a couple of
0:11:21times. And the first time it happened,
0:11:24you know, same thing. Took a screenshot of,
0:11:26you know, my article, "LinkedIn Daring Fireball," and printed it out, put it in a frame, and it's
0:11:29up in my office. And
0:11:32it's nice to have
0:11:34something so concrete that
0:11:36I can kind of measure and look at and say,
0:11:39"Yeah, I did that. I think I've had three links there." And so, it's something I'm proud of.
0:11:44And then, kind of thinking about this podcast, it's something...
0:11:48For me, I started off just kind of as a
0:11:51side project. And in many ways it is still a side project, but it has an increasingly
0:11:55large following and so
0:11:57I kind of was thinking about how do I quantify that? It's like number of downloads, number of
0:12:02people who mentioned me on Twitter about it.
0:12:04That doesn't sound very
0:12:05motivating or interesting and so
0:12:07you know it's like I'm a big 5x5 fan. I love the network that Dan
0:12:11Benjamin runs and
0:12:13you know I'm a bit of a super fan if I'm honest and
0:12:16for me it's kind of, I've always tried to do a show that has sufficient quality
0:12:21that it would fit in in that lineup of shows.
0:12:24and one day maybe I'd end up on the 5, you know, being invited to join the 5x5
0:12:27network. I mean, that'd be awesome.
0:12:30But that's kind of the goal for what I'm thinking about it as. It's like, I want a show that
0:12:33fits in there.
0:12:34So when I'm doing something or I'm tweaking something or I'm playing with stuff, it's like,
0:12:39you know, if this was, you know,
0:12:41a show that came on between build and analyze, hypercritical,
0:12:45incomparable, and the talk show,
0:12:47you know, would it fit in?
0:12:50would the sound quality make sense? Would the subject matter? Would the polish?
0:12:55Would all the things that kind of go into a show
0:12:58fit in?
0:12:59And if it does, then I'm doing well and
0:13:01who knows, maybe one day that'll actually happen, but even if it doesn't, the goal
0:13:05is that I'm...
0:13:06that's kind of what I'm keeping in mind
0:13:09as I do the show.
0:13:11So that's kind of how I do it, and I think it's just a constructive exercise
0:13:15to be thinking of ways where you can
0:13:17objectively measure
0:13:19success,
0:13:20but ideally in ways that aren't
0:13:22sort of purely sort of quantitative.
0:13:25So that you're, you know, these things where you're almost, you're drawing your
0:13:28success from other people thinking you're awesome.
0:13:31And by choosing people with excellent taste
0:13:34to define that for you.
0:13:36And that's kind of how I do it. It may not work for everybody, but you know, that's kind of
0:13:40what I do. And so when I write an app, I'm thinking, would Apple like this?
0:13:44Would it be feature worthy?
0:13:46When I'm writing, it's like, is this the kind of thing that someone like to, you know, John Gruber would like?
0:13:49Could it be good enough quality for him to think is interesting and give a link to?
0:13:54And it's like with my podcast, are the words I'm saying is the environment and the technology
0:14:00and the editing and all the things that go into it, are they of high enough quality that
0:14:04it would fit in in that context?
0:14:07So that's how I do it.
0:14:08All right, that's it for today's show.
0:14:10Hopefully that's interesting.
0:14:11Definitely, if you have questions or thoughts, now that I finished that big arc on launching
0:14:14an app, it would be helpful if you have any questions or thoughts to let me know so I
0:14:18I can address them on the show. The best way to get a hold of me is on Twitter. I'm @_DavidSmith
0:14:24on Twitter or the show is @devperspective on Twitter. You can reply to either of those
0:14:29with questions, comments, concerns. As always, if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear
0:14:35them. It's always just encouraging to me to know that other people are listening. And
0:14:39if you like the show, please either rate it on iTunes. Apparently that's helpful. I'm
0:14:43not really sure. Or just tell a friend. Either way, it would be a big thank you from me if
0:14:48did that and otherwise I hope you have a good day. Happy coding and I will talk to you later. Bye.