00:00:09 ◼ ► So I think today's episode is going to be the end of the, like, feelings trilogy we've been having in the last few episodes of Under the Radar,
00:00:18 ◼ ► where we've been working through the challenging and complicated feelings that we've been having as they relate to our work.
00:00:25 ◼ ► So less about the actual technical in and outs of, you know, which APIs we're thinking about or the app store marketplace rules that we've been dealing with or challenges or marketing or all those things.
00:00:38 ◼ ► We've been talking about this period we find ourselves in where things just feel different and complicated.
00:00:44 ◼ ► And, you know, Marco and I, we've been doing this a long time, and we've seen the tide of these things ebb and flow.
00:00:52 ◼ ► And sometimes it feels great to be an Apple developer, and sometimes it doesn't feel so great.
00:00:56 ◼ ► And we're in a bit more of a not-so-great place right now, at least, you know, we can see our last two episodes to understand sort of that in a lot more detail.
00:01:04 ◼ ► But to wrap up that trilogy, something that I kind of have been recently really struck by was the importance of cultivating optimism as part of the way that we approach our work.
00:01:18 ◼ ► Because fundamentally, I think for both of us, like, we've chosen to be experts in something.
00:01:24 ◼ ► We've spent the last 17 years developing specific expertise in Apple and Apple platforms and understanding them and being really good at this.
00:01:34 ◼ ► And I expect, honestly, for the rest of my, like, programmer career to continue to be on Apple platforms.
00:01:44 ◼ ► Like, I don't have something else I want to do, and there isn't something else that I feel like I'm qualified to do.
00:01:54 ◼ ► It's the surroundings that have been really difficult and challenging recently and something that I've, you know, sort of had to work a lot harder to navigate on.
00:02:02 ◼ ► And I think specifically, and there's an article I wrote and published yesterday titled Choosing Optimism about iOS 19, which is like a case study in this feeling and in the approach that I've decided is important for me to sort of nurture and navigate in myself.
00:02:19 ◼ ► And specifically, it comes out of an experience I had where this last week, Apple was, you know, sort of Mark Gurman had one of his, you know, big rumor posts where he talked about how there's a large expectation that WGDC this year, there's going to be a large UI redesign announced as part of WGDC that's going to reach out and touch a lot of different aspects of iOS.
00:02:41 ◼ ► It's going to be largely or potentially vaguely based on Swift UI and Vision OS and some of the sort of more modern takes on those things.
00:02:50 ◼ ► And it's like, I would say that announcement or that rumor, the announcement of the rumor, I don't know what you say it, is been something that has largely had a lot of negative coverage of it.
00:03:02 ◼ ► And I think it's for understandable reasons, like it brings up, you know, memories of iOS 7 and the challenges that that brought to us and has lots of challenges.
00:03:11 ◼ ► And specifically, like I was this last week, I was also up in the English Lake District doing a hiking trip where I was doing a lot of time just walking and, you know, going up and down mountains.
00:03:27 ◼ ► So like you and, you know, you, John and Casey had been discussing this, this, this, this rumor.
00:03:33 ◼ ► And I was walking up this mountain and I was sort of finding myself, and I will say broadly, the ATP's initial reaction to this rumor was not a positive one.
00:03:41 ◼ ► I believe, like the title of the episode is just like time to spiral or something along those lines.
00:03:52 ◼ ► And like, as I'm walking up this mountain, the first one of the day, I was like nodding my head and being like, yeah, like.
00:04:03 ◼ ► But so as I'm going up the first one, I find myself thinking like, I'm like nodding along and I get to the top and I started having, you know, sort of coming down the other side and you moved on to the next topic.
00:04:11 ◼ ► And I found myself and just realized like, Dave, you feel really like, there's like an ick feeling that I have right now.
00:04:18 ◼ ► And it's like, it's partly because I've been thinking about this thing and it's like, I'm thinking about it from the negative side.
00:04:24 ◼ ► And I'm not saying that the ATP coverage of it was inappropriate or problematic, but it was just like, Dave, if you spend the next six to 12 months in that place, like it's not going to be good for you.
00:04:36 ◼ ► Like, this is going to be a really tough time if you're starting from a place where you have conflicted feelings.
00:04:42 ◼ ► And whenever news comes out, you allow yourself to just get sucked into the negative side of it.
00:04:48 ◼ ► And then I had the benefit of the entire rest of that day to then unpack that thought and think about, well, it's like, well, what am I going to do?
00:04:58 ◼ ► What should I be doing to try and ensure that I can still have some, you know, mental health and positivity and motivation and encouragement instead?
00:05:13 ◼ ► And like, this is the way that like, and what ends up happening, I think, is like, I love hiking for this because it allows me the space to think of things.
00:05:20 ◼ ► And what you tend to have is you kind of have a thought and then it's like it's in a washing machine.
00:05:27 ◼ ► And every time it kind of comes to the front, you start to think about it in a slightly different way.
00:05:35 ◼ ► And they've, after the fourth time through the wash cycle, you kind of, they're developed into something that's useful.
00:05:50 ◼ ► And it was separating how it is possible for me to be optimistic in the sense of focusing on and looking for positive outcomes and positive aspects to a situation without that meaning that I'm, like, endorsing it, I'm enthusiastic about it, that I'm encouraging it, that I'm, like, all of those feelings.
00:06:18 ◼ ► That I can choose to remind myself that in almost any circumstance, if you look for the positive things, you will find them and they will be encouraging to you.
00:06:33 ◼ ► That if all you have is the negative thoughts that are in your mind, everything feels negative and it feels like it gets worse and worse in a way that if you, without changing the circumstances, if you are aware, like, you are consciously trying to make yourself aware of the positive things, it raises the way you feel.
00:06:55 ◼ ► And I think another way to say that, and this is a sort of, like, as I've, you know, I always love these phrases where I'm, like, as I've aged, like, as I have some amount of wisdom from, compared to, you know, myself of 20 years ago, is the understanding that, like, being pessimistic, like, focusing on the negative side of something, like, feels better in the moment, but will, like, slowly eat at you over time.
00:07:18 ◼ ► Whereas being optimistic or looking for positive outcomes or positive aspects feels foolish and naive in the moment, perhaps, but is the thing that will ultimately allow you to sustain and keep going over time.
00:07:31 ◼ ► And so, like, those two ideas that, like, the, like, pessimism feels good now, but will, you know, eat at you over time, whereas being optimistic is foolish now and will sustain you over time.
00:07:46 ◼ ► Like, I can be unenthusiastic or not have good feelings about something and still have the opportunity to look for the good things.
00:07:53 ◼ ► It's, like, taking that approach is the thing that I think is going to allow me to navigate the next, who knows, like, 6, 12, 18 months.
00:08:02 ◼ ► Hopefully, it's not that long that, like, we're in this kind of, this ebb of, you know, the Apple developer sentiment tide.
00:08:08 ◼ ► But while we're down here, if I can keep looking and reminding myself of positive things, I'm going to be in a much better place.
00:08:16 ◼ ► And so that was just something that, you know, at the end of this, you know, this, you know, 10, 11-hour walk, I ended up feeling a lot better.
00:08:26 ◼ ► I think the show is a good way to talk about it, and I think it fits well as, like, a bookend to the, you know, Our Feelings trilogy about, like, yeah, from here doesn't mean that things have changed or have gotten better, but we can take care of ourselves.
00:08:40 ◼ ► And that is a choice that we have to cultivate, not something that will necessarily come naturally or happen on its own.
00:08:49 ◼ ► I mean, I think you've reached a more optimistic point than I have, but overall, I'm still on the optimism side.
00:08:56 ◼ ► I think this particular story about iOS 19 and the associated versions of macOS and everything else being rumored to have a big redesign that makes them all look the same, that, I think, is a combination of, like, the feelings it generates, I think, is a combination of not just pessimism, but also just fear.
00:09:16 ◼ ► Especially, like, in the context of the Mac, which is what we were talking about a lot on ATP, of, like, we are afraid that today's Apple is going to ruin what we love about the Mac, because their recent track record is not amazing there.
00:09:30 ◼ ► There's, like, there's definitely a fear angle, and that's different from, I'm just feeling pessimistic, I think this is going to be bad.
00:09:38 ◼ ► It's related, but it's a subtle difference from, like, you know, we are afraid that this thing we love might have something bad happen to it.
00:09:49 ◼ ► You know, pessimism would be, I think, it'd be easier to wander into that direction from a place of, I don't love this anymore.
00:09:56 ◼ ► And I think when you, I think a distinction that I think matters a lot here is when you have reached the point in a job or a fandom or many kinds of relationships, when you've reached the point where you just are, like, you feel like you're grinding every day and you, your heart's not in it anymore, you don't love it anymore, I think that the best course of action, if you can, is to get out at that point.
00:10:25 ◼ ► Like, if you don't enjoy software development anymore, or if you don't enjoy developing iOS apps or whatever it is that you're listening to the show and developing, like, if you just don't love it anymore, if every time you have to open up Xcode and work on your app, if you feel like, oh, that's a pretty clear sign, you're done.
00:10:54 ◼ ► Like, when you have no more joy left in it, you're probably done and you should probably get out if you can.
00:11:01 ◼ ► That's, I think, different from, I still love this, but I'm afraid about where it might go, or I'm afraid that it might be screwed up in the future.
00:11:17 ◼ ► Like, if, basically, how will you, if you think about it, like, how will you feel if iOS 19 and macOS whatever, if they come out and they're actually good, will you feel excited about that?
00:11:38 ◼ ► Like, it's okay to, you know, to feel excited about, like, I, look, I would love if iOS, like, gets really awesome looking, like, and then my app gets to take advantage of that really easily because I'm all Swift UI and everything.
00:11:55 ◼ ► Like, you know, as I was talking about in ATP, like, the reason why they don't do this very often is that, and the reason why they shouldn't do this very often is that system-wide redesigns are a huge burden on the entire software ecosystem, including Apple's own internal software resources to make their software.
00:12:16 ◼ ► Like, the entire ecosystem is massively burdened by that because what happens in the case of a system redesign like iOS 7 style, basically no one can do anything else that year except adopt a new design.
00:12:38 ◼ ► Sometimes it triggers app-wide rewrites because you have to, you know, it might be easier to adopt the new style if you do rewrite big chunks of the UI or the entire app.
00:12:58 ◼ ► And in that context, Joel was talking more about the technical, like, API side of, like, Microsoft.
00:13:07 ◼ ► You know, so the context of that was, like, Microsoft was, like, launching all these different APIs and, like, different, you know, different ways to write data layers or windowing layers or whatever.
00:13:16 ◼ ► And the idea was, like, you have pressure to, like, keep adopting the new thing, you know.
00:13:21 ◼ ► And on our side, in Apple land in, you know, 2025, certainly I think we have a little bit of that in terms of, like, Swift UI, Swift itself, Swift data, stuff like that.
00:13:37 ◼ ► The difference is with a redesign, with a system redesign, your users can tell whether you've adopted it.
00:13:45 ◼ ► And it matters a lot to them, whereas at the API level, your users probably can't tell whether you're using Swift UI or UIKit or whatever.
00:13:57 ◼ ► But so with a redesign, it's like the Fire in Motion approach coming from Apple, except we all have to actually do it.
00:14:23 ◼ ► Like, whatever plans you had for whatever features you were going to do this fall, if they do a system redesign, you're not doing those features.
00:14:32 ◼ ► Whatever you thought you were going to get done this summer or this fall, if there's a system redesign, you are not doing those things.
00:14:52 ◼ ► Like, Apple is not doing well in the modern discourse in terms of what's going on in tech and where are they in it.
00:15:01 ◼ ► They're not doing great because everyone's AI everything now, and Apple's AI efforts have basically a huge black eye on them so far.
00:15:11 ◼ ► So you could look at that from a pessimistic angle and say, well, Apple is falling behind in the areas people are talking about, so they're going to try to change the discussion and change the environment and drop a huge bomb and say, you know what?
00:15:24 ◼ ► Now everyone's going to have to deal with this instead of getting ahead of us with AI stuff.
00:15:41 ◼ ► The effect will be we do all need to stop whatever else we were doing and adopt the redesign.
00:16:00 ◼ ► And I think where I land as a user of the Mac, I'm afraid, but as a user of the iPhone, I'm excited.
00:16:28 ◼ ► I did literally just do a rewrite of my app and just redesign the entire UI a year ago.
00:16:36 ◼ ► So it's not the most amazing time, although it will be easier for me to adopt the new theme now with my new code than it was with the old code by a mile.
00:16:48 ◼ ► But if this does happen, it will take all of the discussion amongst iOS developers off of AI stuff for a little while.
00:17:06 ◼ ► And maybe it buys us a little bit of time as Apple tries to better find their footing in that area, which they have not found.
00:17:17 ◼ ► My concern is that this is a company that has historically been bad at allocating engineering resources.
00:17:26 ◼ ► That when there's some big new thing that they want to do or that they have to deal with, it seems like they allocate a lot of resources to that at the expense of other projects.
00:17:39 ◼ ► So I suspect if this is happening, then lots of Apple engineering resources will have been spent adopting and implementing this new design for this year.
00:17:57 ◼ ► And there are ways in which I don't – I'm maybe a little fearful of what they're about to do or what they're doing.
00:18:04 ◼ ► But overall, when I look at like where will we get at the end of this and am I excited about that?
00:18:11 ◼ ► Am I excited about a new visual design that the system can adopt, that my app can adopt, that if I adopt it, my app will look cool and fresh and modern?
00:18:26 ◼ ► And that's how I know that even though I am not feeling great about Apple's relationship with developers recently, I'm scared about what they're going to do on the Mac.
00:18:36 ◼ ► I'm scared about them blowing it in a few areas that I think matter a lot to both me and them.
00:18:42 ◼ ► Overall, I am still excited about the possibility of my app looking fresh and cool and me as a user being able to use fresh and cool looking apps on my phone.
00:18:55 ◼ ► So that's what tells me I have not crossed the threshold where I should retire from development or switch platforms or switch apps.
00:19:13 ◼ ► And that's, you know, when I look at, you know, when, if you look at the industry, there's a lot of other ways that you can apply software development that are safe and reasonably boring and reasonably predictable.
00:19:34 ◼ ► But that's I have found that, like, I still want to be on this roller coaster because I still like the ups.
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00:20:42 ◼ ► Yeah, and I think in what you're saying, what I hear, too, is it is these funny things in life where there is an element of, there is certainly a part of understanding when is it time to get off the roller coaster and when is it not.
00:20:59 ◼ ► I think that the things you're describing are definitely good characteristics that, like, if you find yourself in a place that it gives you no joy anymore and you have no enthusiasm and no excitement and it is all negative and you find you've, you know, sort of, it's been long enough in that way that it's not just a phase, that it isn't just a bad day.
00:21:24 ◼ ► And it's time to get off and it's time to do something that does give you positive, those positive feelings.
00:21:30 ◼ ► And I think, you know, it sounds like for both of us, like, it's like we are not in that place at all with this.
00:21:34 ◼ ► Like, in some ways, the reason we have negative feelings is because we continue to care about this ecosystem and about this experience and about the things that are important to many of the people who are in this ecosystem.
00:21:46 ◼ ► And so, like, that's, like, in some ways, the counter example, like, the counter proof that we're still in it is because we care so much and because it gives us feelings that we aren't just neutral.
00:21:56 ◼ ► You know, it's a classic thing that they say, like, you know, the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.
00:22:04 ◼ ► Like, we still continue to care and talk about it and it's something that's important to us.
00:22:12 ◼ ► And I think what you said that was important to have in the back of your mind that I don't think either of us would say that it's, you know, just keep doing something because you've been doing it.
00:22:20 ◼ ► It's like, no, be aware, take care of yourself and understand that things will not always continue on forever.
00:22:28 ◼ ► And I think the other aspect of it is the sense that it's like if you decide to stay on the roller coaster, it's the sense of you and I can't control our circumstances.
00:22:43 ◼ ► But what we can choose to do is choose how we, you know, sort of navigate these things that are happening to us, these things that are announced.
00:23:02 ◼ ► It's like, I feel that, like, it's the place, you know, it is the tool that I use to do my job.
00:23:08 ◼ ► And the thought of it potentially being radically changed is like just, I do have a lot of fear about that.
00:23:16 ◼ ► Like in a way that it's like if I've been using, you know, if I was a carpenter who's been using this hammer for years and years and years and someone comes along and says,
00:23:25 ◼ ► the hammers are now upside down or whatever, like, I'd be like, uh, I don't know how to use it that way.
00:23:33 ◼ ► I'm not going to be able, if I'm used to using whatever, a 12 ounce hammer and now I have to use 18 ounce hammers.
00:23:39 ◼ ► I'm like, I have actual, you know, it's like that makes me really nervous and scared in this particular case.
00:23:45 ◼ ► But it's also like, makes me think of the classic thing of, it's like being careful of borrowing tomorrow's troubles where like at this point, all we have is like a single report from someone who fair enough has a good track record of like something may be coming in a couple of months.
00:24:01 ◼ ► And it's like being careful to not over-index on things that haven't actually happened, to index on the news as it actually happens and react to the truth of the thing, not our imagined version of those things.
00:24:14 ◼ ► Um, because that is another element of this, of, you know, it's like one, in one way, sort of what I was getting at the earlier part is it's like being aware, making sure that we're aware that in anything we can have a positive and a negative thing to look for.
00:24:27 ◼ ► And if we look for both of them, we'll probably be in a healthier place and then potentially being careful about, we don't have to have those reactions right away to everything.
00:24:36 ◼ ► And especially being careful of doing it for things that haven't actually happened yet, that are speculative, that we're imagining things because especially the nature of when you're not feeling great, when you're feeling complicated, conflicted feelings about something, we tend to imagine the worst case scenario.
00:24:52 ◼ ► We tend to imagine the negative things in the same way that on the other side, when things are going great, we unfortunately will then imagine all the positive things and ignore all the, you know, the things that are negative and the things that we probably should have been aware of and the warning signs of trouble to come.
00:25:05 ◼ ► Like it's an important thing in all of these things to have this balanced perspective that is reacting reasonably to things that are actually existent in the world and trying to have not necessarily a balance insofar as we need to like take both sides, but make sure we think about what, what is, what are the negative things that could come out of this?
00:25:26 ◼ ► But also what are the positive things that could come out of this and then using, but having an abundance then of perspectives that we can use to navigate wisely and reasonably and in a way that is taking care of us through that process as a result.
00:25:42 ◼ ► I'm glad, I'm glad you're bringing this perspective to this discussion because it is easy for us to kind of spiral into, you know, fear and pessimism too early or, or when it's unwarranted, you know, again, I think it's a sign that the fear part of it is a sign that we care.
00:26:02 ◼ ► It's, it's that we care about them and we rely on them or we use them every day or we love them or all of those things.
00:26:08 ◼ ► And it is, it's hard to hear that something is changing in a way that might affect you.
00:26:13 ◼ ► Like, you know, the hammer analogy is good, but it was, it's more like, you know, babies use mallets so easily.
00:26:29 ◼ ► Like it's, it's that kind of fear that like, what if this thing that we rely on is no longer suited for its purpose?
00:26:37 ◼ ► Like that beyond just like, I don't prefer it this way, but like, you know, we didn't just make the hammer translucent.
00:26:43 ◼ ► We also made the hammer into a mallet and it's like, well, that's going to make it hard for me to do my job.
00:26:50 ◼ ► But if it does come to pass and if it turns out everything is fine and it turns out we actually like the new stuff.
00:26:58 ◼ ► And it turns out that after a year, when we see the old, the old UI that we currently love, we're going to be like, oh my God, that looks so old.
00:27:10 ◼ ► You know, even like iOS 7 was a huge bomb that went off and it went a little too far, but then it course corrected over the next couple of years.
00:27:22 ◼ ► And then, you know, you see what came before it and you're like, oh, that looks ancient by comparison.
00:27:30 ◼ ► The thing that we currently love and think is at least fine, if not good, that is going to look very, very old in a few months if this happens.
00:27:42 ◼ ► And if it doesn't, if all this is wrong and all this doesn't happen or it ends up being way smaller of a tweak and, you know, more of an evolution and less of a whole system redesign, then fine.
00:28:03 ◼ ► Yeah, and I think, yeah, and I think, but I think we'll say too, it's like it is also the aspect of what I'm not saying is that you shouldn't be circumspect and have, be aware of the negative things.
00:28:13 ◼ ► And I think all these are saying are like, they're genuine fears that I share and things that are, or could go sideways or could be problematic or could be difficult.
00:28:20 ◼ ► And it's like in all those, like the could be's is where I just find myself catching myself to be careful.
00:28:25 ◼ ► That is like if I'm imagining something, you know, that hasn't happened yet, I'm setting myself up to, you know, experience pain and discomfort that I don't need to.
00:28:37 ◼ ► And as much as, you know, it's like there's something delightful of looking forward to something with enthusiasm and excitement.
00:28:44 ◼ ► You know, it's like you're a kid on Christmas morning looking forward to opening your presents.
00:28:48 ◼ ► Like if that's where you are, that then the that feeling ahead of time is a positive one.
00:28:53 ◼ ► But the inverse of that feeling of the dread and fear, that is something that is like sometimes is warranted, sometimes is inevitable, sometimes is the reality of what we're where we find ourselves.
00:29:04 ◼ ► But if we have an opportunity to not be marinating in that feeling, it's probably wise and healthy to choose not to.
00:29:12 ◼ ► And that's, I think, the thing that I'm reminding myself, that when I find myself that I feel like I'm marinating in that negativity, use some strategies to pull myself out of that and at least get me back to like a neutral place.
00:29:24 ◼ ► Because that's a much better thing to marinate in neutral than in, you know, in despair.