Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► I uh started developing Perspective uh fifteen years ago, did it for four years

00:00:06 ◼   ► by myself, and then did ten years of under the radar with Marco Arment.

00:00:11 ◼   ► And then we've been sort of off for about a year and it felt

00:00:16 ◼   ► like something I should do again.

00:00:18 ◼   ► I don't know what form this will take or what the schedule or whatever

00:00:23 ◼   ► would be, but it feels like I have something to say that I think

00:00:29 ◼   ► would be helpful, and at least I hope it would be, and so I

00:00:33 ◼   ► figure I'd bring it back and we'll see how this goes.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Because we live at a really funny time, as uh to be an indie

00:00:40 ◼   ► app developer.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Uh it is, you know, I've been I think it's coming up on the

00:00:44 ◼   ► eighteenth anniversary of my first app being launched on the app store in a

00:00:48 ◼   ► couple weeks.

00:00:50 ◼   ► And in that time, you know, the entire adult's life, uh, it

00:00:56 ◼   ► a lot has changed.

00:00:58 ◼   ► A lot of things are different and we've gone through many cycles of different,

00:01:02 ◼   ► but it feels like the pace and the style of the changes are becoming

00:01:09 ◼   ► even more significant, more different, more wow, that's a lot, kind of feelings.

00:01:16 ◼   ► And

00:01:18 ◼   ► I feel like I imagine I'm not alone in this feeling.

00:01:22 ◼   ► I'm not alone in it being like feeling like a kind of overwhelming, a

00:01:26 ◼   ► little bit mad, but also kind of exciting and also kind of uh like

00:01:32 ◼   ► just Like you have this really interesting kind of energy about the world right

00:01:36 ◼   ► now in the iOS development world because so many things about the ways that

00:01:43 ◼   ► we do our job has changed that are different now than they were before.

00:01:47 ◼   ► You know, I spent the last twenty-five years working on becoming a a really

00:01:52 ◼   ► good professional programmer.

00:01:53 ◼   ► And increasingly I find I don't really need to be a professional programmer.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I need to design products, I need to build things using the skills that

00:02:02 ◼   ► I have and the sort of expertise I've built up over the last 18

00:02:05 ◼   ► years, but I don't need to program very much.

00:02:09 ◼   ► And that's really weird.

00:02:10 ◼   ► And that's that's weird both at like a product level, a business level, and

00:02:14 ◼   ► a personal level.

00:02:16 ◼   ► It's weird to face a world that you thought you had a skill that

00:02:21 ◼   ► was going to be essential to your life going forward and now is different.

00:02:26 ◼   ► That doesn't mean that I can't use those skills, and I'm sure there's lots

00:02:29 ◼   ► of topics we can unpack later about that.

00:02:32 ◼   ► But it it's a weird thing.

00:02:33 ◼   ► And I think I certainly have felt that recently.

00:02:36 ◼   ► I felt this tension between

00:02:40 ◼   ► uh the excitement and the overwhelm in And but equal parts sometimes.

00:02:45 ◼   ► And that's that's tough.

00:02:46 ◼   ► That's really weird, uh, to do and in sort of like, you know, the

00:02:51 ◼   ► dark uh watches of the night when you're, you know, sort of having trouble

00:02:54 ◼   ► sleeping or thinking about these things.

00:02:57 ◼   ► And you know, I start writing down my feelings.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Um a word kept coming back to me that I thought would be the

00:03:03 ◼   ► sort of the general topic that'd be good for today.

00:03:05 ◼   ► And that is uh pivotal.

00:03:09 ◼   ► Uh because so much of where we are right now feels pivotal in two

00:03:16 ◼   ► senses of that word.

00:03:18 ◼   ► So pivotal is a word, you know, that can mean sort of changing.

00:03:22 ◼   ► So rapidly sort of left right, left-right, left-right, like that kind of, you know,

00:03:26 ◼   ► something that pivots a lot.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Um and then you also often will hear pivotal used in the sense of

00:03:33 ◼   ► like big kind of epoch defining changes from one there's a one time and

00:03:39 ◼   ► then there's we pivot to the the next uh period.

00:03:43 ◼   ► And I think both of those things are happening.

00:03:45 ◼   ► I think on this micro level, the small level, boy is it hard to

00:03:50 ◼   ► keep up.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Boy is it hard to feel like you are able to wrap your arms

00:03:54 ◼   ► around what is happening what the best thing to do is, what uh what's

00:03:59 ◼   ► even happening, what's the news, what's changing.

00:04:01 ◼   ► Like it is a never-ending seeming like news cycle that has functional, meaningful changes

00:04:08 ◼   ► to the work that I do that it isn't you know, there was a

00:04:11 ◼   ► period where it was like, oh, in June Apple will announce things at WDC

00:04:15 ◼   ► and that will be fun and that will be exciting and that will kind

00:04:18 ◼   ► of kick me off for a year, maybe, or at least several several months.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Um And that's not the case anymore.

00:04:26 ◼   ► Like the change at uh of my workflow and the way things are pivoting

00:04:31 ◼   ► is day by day, week by week now.

00:04:34 ◼   ► Um you know, I it's wild to me when I think about how, you

00:04:38 ◼   ► know, WDC in June three, four months ago.

00:04:42 ◼   ► Like when that happened, it was before uh Anthropic released Fable and like totally

00:04:48 ◼   ► changed all manner of workflows and uh expectations and things that are possible and

00:04:52 ◼   ► things that are reasonable.

00:04:54 ◼   ► Like that's since WDC.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Um that and then you know er if you and you snap zoom into

00:05:01 ◼   ► almost any, you know, two week period since then, and they've been these huge

00:05:05 ◼   ► constant pivots and changes.

00:05:07 ◼   ► And that just sets a a situation where it is natural, it is definitely

00:05:13 ◼   ► true, but you'll feel anxiety, you feel nervous.

00:05:16 ◼   ► I certainly feel really like uneasy about not knowing what

00:05:22 ◼   ► The best thing to do is what's happening, what's changing, because the ground is

00:05:27 ◼   ► ever changing underneath of us.

00:05:28 ◼   ► And that I find is really difficult.

00:05:30 ◼   ► I find that that is really challenging

00:05:34 ◼   ► in that form of pivoting.

00:05:35 ◼   ► So like the constant change.

00:05:37 ◼   ► And then zoo there's the zoom out pivot, these big kind of structural changes

00:05:43 ◼   ► to how we work, what we do, what it is to be a developer.

00:05:47 ◼   ► Like I've, you know, for years and years I would have said if someone

00:05:50 ◼   ► asks me, you know, at a dinner party, hey what do you do?

00:05:52 ◼   ► It's like, well I make apps.

00:05:54 ◼   ► And that used to mean something.

00:05:57 ◼   ► The word make there had a very specific vision in my mind of what

00:06:02 ◼   ► I would do, that I'm opening Xcode as a text editor and typing characters

00:06:09 ◼   ► into a text prompt, you know, into a text editor, to put code in

00:06:14 ◼   ► that then I run and I validate and I use uh and that's what

00:06:18 ◼   ► making looks like.

00:06:19 ◼   ► And that is not what making looks like now.

00:06:22 ◼   ► Like that p era, that period of my life is likely gone to some

00:06:28 ◼   ► degree.

00:06:29 ◼   ► The degree to which that will be a part of my life, I don't

00:06:31 ◼   ► really know.

00:06:32 ◼   ► But I do know that it is going to look a lot less like

00:06:35 ◼   ► that, and a lot more like something else.

00:06:38 ◼   ► And I don't know what that new thing is, I don't think anyone does.

00:06:41 ◼   ► But the new thing Is definitely coming.

00:06:43 ◼   ► The new thing is is here.

00:06:46 ◼   ► And that is a big like industry level shift.

00:06:51 ◼   ► That isn't just a change that'll affect me and my work.

00:06:54 ◼   ► That is a in you know something that affects any I any iOS developer,

00:06:57 ◼   ► any especially the Indie app developers, because I think we are often at the

00:07:02 ◼   ► forefront of these kinds of changes because we have the ability to change and

00:07:07 ◼   ► adapt so quickly, the big impacts sort of hit us first.

00:07:13 ◼   ► We have less inertia, perhaps, to overcome in good ways and bad ways.

00:07:17 ◼   ► And so I feel that.

00:07:19 ◼   ► I feel that there was this change that has happened, that we have pivoted

00:07:24 ◼   ► into a new era, into a new period of what it is to be

00:07:28 ◼   ► an app developer.

00:07:30 ◼   ► And that is cool, that is exciting, but it is also really scary.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Um it is also really un unnerving

00:07:39 ◼   ► because when you spend a lot of time developing an expertise to develop a

00:07:44 ◼   ► sense of what

00:07:47 ◼   ► is the way something should be done and you get good at it having

00:07:51 ◼   ► that skill then become something that is sort of becomes less relevant or less

00:07:56 ◼   ► important is really weird, is really complicated and challenging.

00:08:02 ◼   ► And I gotta say, it's been a weird time.

00:08:06 ◼   ► But on the plus side, like I'm always someone who looks at these kind

00:08:10 ◼   ► of situations and says, okay, this is the reality, right?

00:08:15 ◼   ► Things are pivoting at the micro level.

00:08:17 ◼   ► Things are pivoting at the macro level.

00:08:20 ◼   ► What can I do with that?

00:08:21 ◼   ► You know, what should I do with that?

00:08:23 ◼   ► How can I change or adapt or improve my workflows, the way I think

00:08:29 ◼   ► about myself and about what's happening

00:08:32 ◼   ► to

00:08:34 ◼   ► sorry, the word that comes to mind is to survive this, to ideally thrive

00:08:38 ◼   ► in this, but at the very least to get through it in a way

00:08:41 ◼   ► that is sane and rational and reasonable

00:08:44 ◼   ► and taking advantage of opportunities when they exist but not taking advantage of things

00:08:49 ◼   ► that are ultimately going to be counterproductive or harmful.

00:08:53 ◼   ► Um, and then just taking care of myself and the people I care about

00:08:56 ◼   ► as part of this.

00:08:57 ◼   ► And so I think at the highest level, like what I'm saying, what I

00:09:02 ◼   ► found for myself is it's like there's two sort of logical things that I

00:09:05 ◼   ► need to do as a result of the this being a pivotal time in

00:09:08 ◼   ► both senses.

00:09:09 ◼   ► In the small sense, in the micro-pivoting sense of constantly changing small adjustments, never-ending

00:09:16 ◼   ► kind of a feeling.

00:09:18 ◼   ► That I've definitely found the importance of

00:09:22 ◼   ► taking being aware of how difficult it is and being kind to myself in

00:09:27 ◼   ► inside of that.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Understanding that work is gonna feel really tough now.

00:09:33 ◼   ► It's not gonna feel like it has for the last 18 years, where I

00:09:38 ◼   ► had a sense of mastery and accomplishment and I knew it was happening it's

00:09:42 ◼   ► going to be that kind of early stages of anything when you haven't built

00:09:48 ◼   ► in the grooves into the your workflows that you're still finding your way through

00:09:53 ◼   ► kind of the the rough

00:09:55 ◼   ► sort of loose sand uh part of things.

00:09:58 ◼   ► And that's an exciting stage in some ways, but understand that that will take

00:10:01 ◼   ► a lot of work.

00:10:02 ◼   ► That will take a lot of effort mentally and emotionally.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And so I keep telling myself it's very important to take care of myself

00:10:10 ◼   ► inside of that situation to be aware that that is happening.

00:10:15 ◼   ► Life is hard.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Life is challenging.

00:10:18 ◼   ► So take care of yourself.

00:10:20 ◼   ► Be aware of that.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Get outside more.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Spend time with things that don't change um these are th something I've definitely

00:10:28 ◼   ► in the back of my mind like say I I go out in nature

00:10:31 ◼   ► and I look at a hill, a hill that's been there for, you know,

00:10:35 ◼   ► thousands of years at least.

00:10:37 ◼   ► Um Um and it gives me some comfort that I can walk amongst that

00:10:42 ◼   ► and even if it feels like everything is changing, everything's pivoting constantly,

00:10:47 ◼   ► not everything is.

00:10:48 ◼   ► It is a narrow sliver of my life that has that reality and spending

00:10:52 ◼   ► time in places and things that haven't, or the relationships that are the same

00:10:58 ◼   ► as they were six months ago, even though a lot of other parts of

00:11:01 ◼   ► my life feel like they've changed so much.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Um, spending time and reminding yourself that even if something feels like it's constantly

00:11:08 ◼   ► changing, there's lots of parts of your life that aren't.

00:11:11 ◼   ► And holding on to those and spending time intentionally focusing on those is what

00:11:15 ◼   ► has been most helpful and impactful for me on the micro sense of pivoting.

00:11:20 ◼   ► And then I think on the on the macro side, on these big structural

00:11:24 ◼   ► changes that are happening in our industry, the thing that I keep coming back

00:11:28 ◼   ► to is like the micro thing is about how I treat myself and I

00:11:32 ◼   ► think the macro sense of change is how we treat one another, how I

00:11:37 ◼   ► treat others, how I'm

00:11:40 ◼   ► being patient with, maybe is the right word for it, is understanding that this

00:11:44 ◼   ► is gonna be messy, this is going to be complicated, there isn't a right

00:11:48 ◼   ► answer That will work for everyone, or even just be the right answer.

00:11:52 ◼   ► And so, whenever that's the situation, it is important, I think, for all of

00:11:56 ◼   ► us, but I'm speaking to myself here, to be as thoughtful and kind and

00:12:02 ◼   ► patient as we can in the way we interact and think about how other

00:12:07 ◼   ► people are adapting to this world, how we're r responding to people making different

00:12:13 ◼   ► choices as they try and navigate this.

00:12:15 ◼   ► Because that's been challenging for me.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Like some of these things can get really

00:12:19 ◼   ► sticky and challenging and you can have strong opinions that um can make things

00:12:25 ◼   ► really weird to feel like s you disagree with someone who you maybe you

00:12:29 ◼   ► previously did agree with a lot um or those types of changes.

00:12:32 ◼   ► And so yeah, I I think the the phrase that I've sort of settled

00:12:36 ◼   ► on in my head is the importance of sort of being reflective rather than

00:12:41 ◼   ► being reactive.

00:12:43 ◼   ► So when I see someone doing something or having an opinion that maybe I

00:12:47 ◼   ► don't necessarily immediately and obviously dis uh agree with, it's the sense of like,

00:12:52 ◼   ► huh, I wonder why they think that.

00:12:54 ◼   ► I I wonder where that's coming from.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I wonder what I can learn from the perspective that they have.

00:13:00 ◼   ► And I think that has served me well as we all collectively try to

00:13:06 ◼   ► find the new normal, find the new whatever this is gonna be.

00:13:11 ◼   ► I I wanna keep making software.

00:13:13 ◼   ► I want to

00:13:15 ◼   ► be in this industry, to be relevant, to make a business that's viable financially

00:13:20 ◼   ► and make beautiful and wonderful things and take advantage of the tremendous opportunities I

00:13:26 ◼   ► now have to do things that previously I couldn't do, to do things that

00:13:30 ◼   ► previously would have been impossible or outside the scope of what a small indie

00:13:35 ◼   ► developer could do.

00:13:37 ◼   ► And so I focus on those things and I try and hold on to

00:13:41 ◼   ► them and understand that living in a pivotal time uh is an opportunity, is

00:13:47 ◼   ► something that allows me to take advantage of things, to like in a weird

00:13:52 ◼   ► way, it gives me the strongest remem mem sort of m memories back to

00:13:57 ◼   ► the old early days of the app store, where so many things just felt

00:14:01 ◼   ► new and novel and newly possible.

00:14:04 ◼   ► Things that weren't like every sort of everywhere you look, someone had come up

00:14:08 ◼   ► with a cool idea for a new app, a new way of doing something,

00:14:11 ◼   ► a new capability that they could like invent in whole cloth for the iPhone.

00:14:16 ◼   ► And that was an exciting time.

00:14:18 ◼   ► And I feel so

00:14:19 ◼   ► privileged that I lived in that time, that I got to work in that

00:14:22 ◼   ► time, that I was able to sort of eke out a living initially in

00:14:26 ◼   ► that time.

00:14:28 ◼   ► And if that's what this ends up being, which I think is very likely

00:14:31 ◼   ► that this will we will look back on this period and have those similar

00:14:34 ◼   ► kinds of feelings.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Um like what a privilege to g have gotten to do that twice.

00:14:38 ◼   ► Uh but in the meantime, I need to take care of myself to not

00:14:42 ◼   ► get too overwhelmed by the feeling of everything Always changing.

00:14:45 ◼   ► And I guess we just need to take care of each other to work

00:14:48 ◼   ► through this process in a way that is respectful, kind, and ultimately gets us

00:14:53 ◼   ► to a cool place where we can all do our best work and make

00:14:57 ◼   ► awesome things