Leo Dion (host): Welcome to another episode, empower Apps. I'm your host, Leo Dion. I'm joined once again by Peter Witham of Compile Swift. Peter, thank you so much for coming on. I think this is appearance number four. Maybe I don't know. I lost count. You're one of, you're one of the regulars. You're one of the regulars on this program, so I appreciate you coming back on. For people who don't know you, I'll let you do your own. Peter Witham (guest): Thank you.
Yeah, I think I'm, I now have more appearances than there are spinoffs for Game of Thrones. I'm not sure, but I think I'm winning that fight. Yeah. Leo, thank you. Thank you for having me back again. Yeah I'm Peter Witham compiled Swift is what I'm known as for the most part in our development communities. Obviously with a focus on Swift and all.
Development fund and yeah, no it's great to be back and I think we've got a topic that is not only informative, but people should really pay attention to, because it's something people don't think about when it gets to the exciting season. Which is where Leo Dion (host): we're at. Yeah. So we, we do our yearly WWDC recording and it came to me that for a lot of, especially newbie devs, what, how should they approach WWDC because there is a lot of stuff going on. And it, it could be overwhelming.
And I feel like I've done this enough years now that I know the pattern and know the dos and don'ts. And I figured. Yeah, it'd be good to cover that in an episode. But a month before WWDC actually happens, what do you, before begin, maybe you can say what do you think is the number one thing developers should take away when they get ready for Wwtc? Peter Witham (guest): I think the number one thing is pace.
Not everything has to be done the day the conference starts, or even the couple of days before it starts, regardless of whether you are watching it remotely or you are traveling it, you've got one of the golden tickets or you are just traveling out to be close to the event, which fantastic if you are. But either. Pace yourself. Remember it's a week long conference, but it's really the week that starts off the next year for all of us. Doesn't have to be done the first day.
Yeah. Leo Dion (host): Yeah. I think that's really good point. They're all recorded obviously, and Much better quality, I would say, recorded than they used to be when they were live. And they're gonna be around. The talks are gonna be around for a while. Take your time with it, pace it. Depending on what kind of learner you are, you may want to just open up excode, which we'll get into a little bit later and just k at it.
But let, I think it's a really good point to pace yourself because these talks are gonna be around for forever. There's no reason to hurt rush into it. What do you think, what do you think are some things that devs should do to prepare for WWC right now? Peter Witham (guest): Yeah, so I can run through what I do and I think, like you said, like yourself. This is something that I've adjusted and figured out a game plan for me over the years.
A lot of it by trial and error, the number one is okay, wiping my production machine and downloading the first beta for Mac os not the first thing to do. And so the first thing I do is I say to myself, okay, i. I know I'm gonna take notes. I know I'm gonna watch a bunch of things. I know I'm gonna forget a lot of the things that I watch and that's okay cuz like you say, it's gonna be there for a long time. But I also back up. I use it as like a signpost to back up all of my machines.
Even though for me, rarely if ever, do I install whatever we may get on that from the conference that first day, but I use it as a good excuse to just, okay, back everything up, because you had that it's like that midnight craving. Maybe I just will try this new thing. So backing up is number one yeah.
Taking notes and I don't take exhaustive notes while I'm watching the sessions so that I can enjoy them because you Leo Dion (host): know it in, you want to be able to just Take in the information first. Yes. And then go back and, play it at Yeah. Two speed. Yeah. And figure out what are the specific APIs you should be really be looking into.
Peter Witham (guest): Think of it as, in some ways it's like a. Think of it as when you are, we used to, back in my day, we would wander around the video store right before we picked what we were gonna watch. Now we might, scroll through the endless list on choose your streaming service, treat it like that. Yeah. Make notes for yourself that says, oh, there's something on. Topic X and I will go back and watch that. So come up with a viewing list for sure.
But don't feel that there's that pressure to, okay, now I need to get into it. If you are in a position like you and I are, for example, you're in a Slack group or a good Slack group or discord or some community, Share it and have fun with that community while the event's going on. Yeah. There is plenty. That's a really good point. Solo time afterwards. Yeah. Leo Dion (host): Yeah. We'll post some links to some of the WWDC groups out there, WWDC by notes and there's a ton of 'em.
Apple actually links to a lot of 'em too, but what I was gonna say you, what you wanna do is like that. They usually post the schedule with funny names that aren't like anything related to the topic. And then right after, probably State of the Union or the keynote, they'll like actually fill in the names. And I think that's a good opportunity if you wanna do anything to prepare, go through your. Developer app or whatever wwc app you're using, and clear out all your favorites.
And then when the day comes start, like going, when the actual topics are announced, go through and mark like what you want, be very picky because there's gonna be a lot and pick what are the talks you really want to cover? And for me, it like comes down to what you're interested in, what your apps, your current apps could use, or what feature that you think is gonna be released. That is gonna be like something you could really build on top of.
Yeah, and I think those are the kind of the three things. And then I would also say one more thing. There's a lot of especially their design talks are really good. And if there's some business talks too that you can tap into that gives you a good insight into what Apple is looking for and what they think is gonna be a successful app, and yeah. If anybody's gonna know it, they're gonna know it. So those are would be the four talks I would look into.
Yeah. Peter Witham (guest): I agreed and I think. Almost subconsciously take note of patterns because if there is some new APIs and let's pick one for example. Let's say that there was a lot of talks on location services. Just, I'm just picking one. That's usually a good sign that says, Okay. You know what, if you want to maybe stand a better chance of getting featured in the store when this stuff comes out, this might be the thing to do, right?
Because Apple will want to push whatever their agenda is for this year. And for example, location services whatever the new hardware is this year, they're gonna want to push that. Now, I'm not saying, if you make a, a. To do planning app, right? Don't go throwing in something that's completely useless in your app. But if there's a way to tie in what the trend seems to be that they're talking about, that might be a good plan as well, and you're only gonna Leo Dion (host): know that.
So a good example. The good example would be WidgetKit from a couple years ago. Yes. Was a great example of something that you could throw in. Yep. Last year we had live activities, which is both a good thing to put in your app, but also was a great indicator of where the iPhone 14 was headed with Dynamic Island. So Those are the things that you want to look out for.
That I think is a great way to get yourself featured in the app store and take advantage of whatever iPhone is gonna become out in September or October. Absolutely. Yeah, I think, yeah. So how can you tell. How can you tell though the difference between something that they really talk about and push and something that quite frankly is gimmicky? And what I mean by this is we all know the feature that Apple will really talk about a lot in June and then know everybody forgets it by like December.
Yeah, like the thing that comes to my mind would be like message kit like messaging apps. Like they didn't go anywhere. What else? I'm trying to think what else. Yeah. There's a few, there's a few of these things where it's just they talked about it, and then it, like it just didn't go anywhere. Yeah. Peter Witham (guest): Yeah. A classic and this is not to pick on anybody, there are those previous years when things were live and they would have third parties come in and do demos. Something.
And yeah, you knew why you were watching it. It's this is going nowhere. What is what is this about? And that kind of thing. And I think that you have to just trust in your gut that says this doesn't feel like the thing. Now there are sometimes too, I think they show things. Are too early. And for example, AR and vr great.
That they jumped on it, but I think, not that it wasn't ready, but it wasn't ready in the sense of there, there was nothing really, anyone had anything good to take advantage of it until recently. Yep. So something like that where it's okay, bookmark those videos, but put that on the B playlist, something like that. Yeah. Leo Dion (host): Until this year, like there's yeah, I'm a, I'm actually like, side note, probably more skeptical that we're gonna get anything in June, but we'll see.
Yeah. I don't know. I think, yeah, go ahead. What were you gonna say? Peter Witham (guest): No, I was gonna say I got a, we've got a viewer slash listener. Third may come into play on that particular topic when we get there. So I'm gonna edge my best for now until I have to commit. Leo Dion (host): Okay? Okay. Okay. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think we've, we covered that pretty well. What, let's talk, you talked a little bit about backups.
How do you go about installing or trying out new oss and new versions of Xcode and stuff without breaking your setup? Peter Witham (guest): Yeah, so great question because I had a plan that worked for me for years and. Didn't not because it, it went wrong, but because it's just not really practical anymore. So I'll dive into how I'm gonna try and do it this year based on what didn't work last year. So normally what I would've done let's take Mac Os right. I would install it.
First thing I would do, clone my internal drive to an external drive. Make sure I can boot from it. That's my emergency. Get me up and running fast system. Put it somewhere safe. Don't touch it. Then I would take another external drive and try to, you remember when you used to be real easy to. An os on an external drive and booted from it. One. Still, one of the things I loved about Matt and that's not as easy as it used to be.
So it seems now that the opinion now is and something that I might try this year. Is to create, if you have the space, create another volume on your internal drive and put it on there. So that's, yep. Probably the plan I'm doing this year for the Mac. When it comes to my iPhone I don't install betas. Period, because I just, remote working and full-time day job in that I gotta be contactable 24 7 and I don't have a spare device here that I could do that with for that particular purpose.
Ironically, I do have lots of phones here. I think they got about five right now. But they all need to work, to test things cuz they're radically different. But I don't do anything with my I guess you would call it production iPhone, everyday. iPhone seems weird when we're talking about these phones to say I've got my, like everyday carry phone, my test phone and so on. But that's in the same Leo Dion (host): boat. I have five phones. I gotta.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's, yeah, the partition thing is pretty much what I've been doing. To test out Mac Os. Hopefully there's not a reason for me to test out Mac OS 14, but we'll see. But what I'm more worried about, I think for me is as a watch developer, there's a lot of rumors that watch West 10 is gonna be big release radical. Yeah. And that means I have to install the beta on my phone and my watch, which is gonna suck. Because those first betas can be really bad.
If you really wanna be safe, wait until the public beta, if you really want to be safe, then you put it on a different iPhone and watch. But we all know how difficult it is to put it on a separate watch. That's not very practical, but yeah. And also something I think about is probably putting him on a different Apple account. I don't do that, but. It's probably what you should do, honestly, because you're updating your iCloud stuff as well as your software. So keep that in mind.
Yeah. Good point. But yeah, that's that's the way I would do it. What are what are some resources that you've followed every year besides. Obviously using going through Apple's website or going through their developer app so what are some other resources that you would recommend following just off the top of your head? And if we don't think of it now live while we're recording, we'll put 'em in the notes. So yeah, you can look in the links in there.
Peter Witham (guest): There's always gonna be, thank, thankfully internet people are always good at telling us, Hey, you didn't mention this one. Thank you. Internet people. Yeah. A good one. And of course one, I'm sure everybody knows, but it's always so good, so reliable, right? Paul Hudson's hacking with Swift. He's usually really good and fast at getting out there to answer things like the questions that we as developers should really care about. What's the differences?
What's the key things we need to know about? And also some extremely good examples, especially when it comes to Leo Dion (host): even. I like, like in the interim time we get new re we just recently got Swift five eight and I'm like, I don't know what that, what's new with been, he has really good articles with each sublease of Swift that happens in the interim. So yeah, I totally agree with Paul stuff. Yeah. Yeah, Google agrees with me so I know. I agree.
I agree that Pulse stuff is solid, there you go. Yeah, so Peter Witham (guest): there's that. Of course there's a, a slack that you know, again, if you belong to a good slack with lots of good folks like the one that you and I belong to, lot of good folks in there from many different Leo Dion (host): vendors. There's usually a WWDC Slack. Yeah, there is iOS happy hour. That's a really good group. And obviously all the other iOS developers, slack you, were there other resources?
Apple has slack too. Yeah. So join the Apple slack drink during dub. Yes. They have a slack. It's, oh, I did not know, okay. Where you could do q and a. They have exercises and events going on okay. Throughout the week, so definitely take advantage of that. That's where you actually get to talk to Apple developers on Slack and ask them questions. It's not like a regular Slack, but it's like very rigid q and a style. But I highly recommend taking advantage of that.
I've been doing the, I've been taking advantage of one-on-ones throughout the year, which I love that they do that now, where you can do one-on-ones with developers. Super helpful. And also take advantage of off like their office hours. Get if you have a burning question for an apple dev now is the time to Oh yeah. Start coming up with those questions and get those appointments like they have. You can ask Apple developers. They're awesome. It's basically like using a DTS ticket almost.
It's, they're really helpful. They know what they're doing. Take advantage of that. And then what's the other, they have another event going on, so they have the slack. Yeah, I think I did that. The Slack and the Office Hour Q and A. Both of those are really solid opportunities to like actually have one-on-one time with Apple developers. Yeah. And the Apple Peter Witham (guest): developers the ones. I've dealt with in the past that they are absolutely fantastic.
They will they'll listen to you and, obviously be, I guess it goes without saying, but I'll say it. Don't go asking them to reveal secrets not gonna happen. Leo Dion (host): They might not even know. They might not even, yeah. Peter Witham (guest): They may not even know. I re I remember it's funny so slight side story there. I did a podcast recently with Joel Kean and that maybe a name, some folks know May, maybe not, but he was telling me a story about, he was at Apple and was working.
The the SDK for the original iPhone with the iPhone folks working next door, and they had no idea what they were working on. They didn't know what it was for. Happens on both sides, but it was, yeah, it was one of those where it's yeah, they didn't even know what it was, yeah. It happens. Leo Dion (host): Yeah. Yeah, totally. So that, I gotta put that, I'm gonna put that on my to-do list. I need a couple things I wanna ask Apple.
Yeah, Peter Witham (guest): No. I was Leo Dion (host): saying I need to come up with a, my, my to-do list for coming up with questions for Apple Apps when done. Okay. Because okay, I need to do that myself because like I've apps in the works and it's I have questions, I have really good questions, and they're super helpful. If they can't help you, they'll follow back with you. They'll email you back. So take advantage of that and you'll, Peter Witham (guest): you are absolutely right.
Just to bring home the point that you made, which is, this. The time of year the, not to say you don't get their attention, the risk of the year, but this is when they are laser focused on helping developers because, they're also looking to craft the products for the next releases, right? When we're talking software. Yeah. So they need, they need everybody's feedback and questions as much as you need help from.
They need it from all of us to know, get a feel if they're heading in the right direction and what they should expose. For example, I don't know this as a fact, but I would imagine, trying to decide what APIs become public. If nobody's interested in one, they won't focus on it too much. Things like that. So we should help them as much as they help us for sure. Leo Dion (host): Yep. Agreed. Agreed. What should we, I guess two other things I wanted to cover and then you touched on this earlier.
Okay. You talked about some stuff is not gonna be ready. For the 0.0 release. Yep. So that's something to keep in mind. Just it's not, and they'll take it out of the beta probably by July or August and you'll know. Yeah. It's probably gonna end up in 16 or 17 one or whatever 0.1 that comes out in November, October with the next set of new hardware. And what was the other thing I was gonna say? Water. Yeah. I don't. What else did we not cover? Do you want to answer some of your questions?
Peter Witham (guest): I was gonna say I got a, I I threw caution to the wind earlier and asked the internet people and we have a discord that we use for a lot of our live streams and stuff. And I put out there and said, Hey yep. Any questions? Anybody wants, and. I got a couple, and one of them is a topic that I guess we knew was gonna come around. Let's start with the let's start with the easy one. What apps are you planning on building for the headset? I don't know what they're talking about.
Nice. So let. I think it's too dangerous a topic to touch on. Will there be a headset at WWDC But I think what they're saying is if there was what apps would you build for it? And actually I think this is a really good question for you because I know with some of your watch apps, like some of your you got hardware and things like that. Is this if this hardware is a. Do you have plans or do you have ideas or maybe you don't wanna share them? Leo Dion (host): I do actually. I do have an idea.
I do have an idea on my bucket list. I don't know if I should reveal it on this show cause someone sale my idea. So could you, if you don't wanna steal my idea, skip ahead to whatever time code I'm done talking about it. Yeah. So I, this is not an exciting idea, but it's an idea I've been thinking about around the Dion House. We have some barren walls where I want to post pic, I wanna do some pictures, add pictures to the wall and stuff.
And so I think what would be cool is an AR app, and I honestly, it would work on the iPad fine AR app, which would. Stuff from your photo library and put it on the wall of your house so you could see what that picture would look like. Oh, Peter Witham (guest): that's a good idea. Yeah. That can Leo Dion (host): Maybe order. Dang it. Peter Witham (guest): No, don't worry. You know what, I'm gonna give you this idea for free.
Okay. You because I don't think I've got the time to build it, and I'm sure you do. Leo Dion (host): Yeah. I don't either. That's why it's on the bottom of my list. But Peter Witham (guest): what about okay, so I want you I like that idea, especially as a photographer, right? If I can have an original Ansel Adams hanging on my wall virtually, I'll go. That's Leo Dion (host): cool. It's cheaper. Peter Witham (guest): So we're good with that.
But also what about taking like the, the fridge shopping list idea? You have a, an ar version of the shopping list that you can write on the fridge, and it goes up to cloud for everybody, there there's one. Someone can have that for Leo Dion (host): free. Yeah. See. Yeah, a to-do list app would probably be the first app I would do on the app, because I don't know how to build a to-do list in AR kit, so I would probably end up doing that too. Yeah, I know what you mean.
Yeah, Peter Witham (guest): don't worry. I think by the, if the headset does come out, w after about the first week, there'll be a hundred tutorials on making a virtual to-do list Leo Dion (host): that's traditional and probably 300, 300 bucks to file. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah, what other questions do you have? Yeah, Peter Witham (guest): so that, that was the first question. This next one you and I have touched on before, but it's always worth talking about. What do you think, okay.
Of the one day format versus either the historic in-person format or the pandemic or virtual. And what is that? So Leo Dion (host): those are three different ones, three different format? Peter Witham (guest): Yeah. I think they've, or they're basically so the old I guess if we would break it down, the old style, everything in person with live right. The the new mixed style of kind of this one day with and then virtual and then the pandemic, all virtual.
Yeah. I know for me, and I know from our previous discussions, for you as well, I love the mixed I think it's great. I think it's important to have at least the one day where, all right, maybe you didn't get to the Apple ship. But, some kind of in-person gathering. And then the virtual for the real technical stuff, because I think, you and I were talking before the show.
We've lost that in person, in, connection in some ways especially for folks lazy like me that have not been to a conference in person for a while. Guilty. So I actually think that the mixed is a good idea because I think that just doing the virtual is great from a technical standpoint. It's like doing your homework as a kid at school, right? It's great for that deep learning. But the social aspect is super important as well. Very important. Yeah. You know what, but what do you think?
I like the mix, but how about you? Leo Dion (host): I always wanted to attend WWDC in person. I think I was planning on attending in 2020 until the apocalypse happened. I never had that opportunity to really do it. I didn't, I couldn't justify it before then. Business wise. Yeah. I think honestly as far as like ingesting stuff and taking in the tutorials and the talks, I think. I think the way it is now is fantastic.
I think it's unrealistic to do a conference in-person conference with as big as Apple is now. I think 10 years ago, or even, 10 or 20 years ago, that made a lot more sense to do WWDC in person, but now it's it's so massive. Like Apple's the biggest company in the world. I just couldn't imagine them doing a conference and justifying it with as big of a developer community as they have. I do think. That net, but you lose out on networking.
You lose up on meeting up with actual Apple developers in person. And so I think they're just, luckily folks like Josh in our previous episode are hosting conferences and folks like Adam and the folks at synesthesia who are doing Swift Heroes, like they have conferences. We have Swift Toronto, and I think that's filling in that void of networking opportunity. Obviously there's Zoom and Slack and Discord and stuff, but in Twitter and Macedon.
But like I do think yeah, the kinda like in-person networking is something that. Can't miss out on. And it's unfortunate we don't have a way to do that now formally through Apple. But the other conferences are just filling in that gap, I think. Peter Witham (guest): And actually I like that I think it feels more personable when it's third parties saying, Hey, let's do something, get together.
Because I, Anytime Apple's involved, and this isn't a criticism of Apple, but they're gonna be Apple, right? And at the end of the day, that's a company and so therefore it's gonna be very it's gonna be the way Apple does things, right? Leo Dion (host): They have a legal and a marketing department that have a specific guidelines as far as what you can and can't do. Exactly. It's gonna, it's not gonna be a mock, it's losing. Goosey has a. Yeah. Peter Witham (guest): Yeah.
Like for, so for example, you would not go to an Apple driven event and be hyper critical of Apple in some way unless you never wanted to go to that event again. Not to say that you shouldn't be critical, we should, but the freedom when it's a third party driven thing. To be realistic, I think is the best way to put it. And to not let marketing and hype and everything else get in the way and really look at things and say, what's the state of play for us really.
Yep. So I like the third party approach as well. Leo Dion (host): Yep. Yeah. Anything else you wanna talk about before we close out or anything you wanna mention that you're working on? Yeah, sure. Peter Witham (guest): I'll mention something that I'm working on. I'm working on an app at the moment that I've been building. I'm doing this building in public, building. And sharing with folks, and it's been very interesting.
And one of the things that I've been doing that with on the live streams is building an app to help folks looking for work. And it's not complicated by design. It's not meant to be. It just enables you to put details in. To track a job application and, manage all of those because you know how it is you put a, you apply to a bunch and then it's did I reply to that one? Did I set something up? And you can track it in there. So I've got a beta.
Beta, test flight version of that at the moment that I'm getting feedback from people on. And we'll put a link in the channel. Can Leo Dion (host): people sign up? Yeah, Peter Witham (guest): that'd be great. Yep. That is exactly what I want for folks. It's and given the nature of the app It's, it was an excuse as well for me to do core data and cloud kit so that it'll, for the syncing mechanism. Nice, nice. Yeah. So I do want folks to use it.
It's not gonna cost anything because the whole point is it's, it was the idea came about when all, lots of our. Friends, developers, and that were losing jobs, right? We, not to say that it's over by a long shot, but putting it out there for free in the hope that, hey, if I help someone find a job, it was worth it. Leo Dion (host): Put we'll a link into the show. Do you have an name? What's Peter Witham (guest): the name? The name is not one of my first choices.
I, so we should talk about this just briefly. It was one of those, I had a great name, went up, went to put it in the store, and it's yeah, that exists. And you're like, ah, didn't think about that. It's the job finder tracker, which. Is very descriptive. Leo Dion (host): Yes. Ariel Michaeli from AppFigures would love that name because it's easy to search for. So that's great. Oh, there you go.
Peter Witham (guest): So yeah, it's it's not listed in there at the moment, but if you go over to my web website, you go to peter whi.com it's there and you can register to, to get on the test flight. I will more than happy to put people in there. All I ask is that if they use it and they find something, tell me. But that's what I got. Awesome. Yeah. Leo Dion (host): Yeah. Thank you, Peter, for coming on the show again.
We'll have you on again in a month hopefully for our annual WWDC where can people find you online? Peter Witham (guest): Yep. Yeah. And Leo, thank you. It's always a pleasure to come back and talk with you. And again, I should say right now, thank you Apple for again putting the conference on this year so that, Leo and I can come together. I think it's great that Apple does that for us. Leo Dion (host): For us. Yeah. I think that's like exactly what they're thinking of.
Yeah. Yeah. Peter Witham (guest): They say that they don't think about the little guys, but they do it for you and I every year. What is it? Leo Dion (host): Apple? Apple is number one. Consumers, number two, developers are number three. I think we're like number 1.5. We're like in between fair apple's and the consumers on the priority lists. Peter Witham (guest): We know that, they're watching in their background. Hello Apple? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, thanks Apple.
But yeah, you could find me two places. Like I say, comp Compile Swift is pretty much what I'm known for everywhere. CompileSwift.com and every. Anything else. And then me personally, if you want to reach out to me, you can go to Peter Whitham, just my name, peterwitham.com. And reach out to me there. Leo Dion (host): Cool. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode. If you enjoy this on YouTube, please and subscribe. I'd really appreciate it. You don't know how helpful that is.
If you are listening to this, give us a review in whatever your favorite podcast player is. We'll be back in a couple of weeks to, I dunno, we'll talk about something. Maybe I'll talk about my Swift World tour, which I'm currently on at the time of this release. So maybe I can give some insights from that. We'll see. Otherwise, thank you for joining us. Talk to you in a couple weeks. Bye everyone.