Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development. I'm Marco Arment. And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is usually not longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started. So for today's topic, it's going to be a bit more kind of a, I don't know, a squishy in the feelings, non-specific, non-technical topic, which is one of these slightly funny things to say because...
I've heard from a variety of people over the years. Some people listen to Under the Radar for the technical, like Deep in the Weeds. Xcode stuff. And there are people who only listen to Under the Radar for the squishy, emotional, businessy, kind of philosophical side of things. So if the latter group is you, this is an episode for you.
But specifically, this is something that I find a podcast is a useful venue to talk through feelings you have. We've often referred to this show as our fortnightly group therapy session. And it's a useful tool, just in general, to talk out feelings you're having because it helps them to not be these kind of amorphous specters in the back of your mind that can be lurking and...
The amorphousness of them makes them feel bigger and scarier. So if you can instead try and turn that into words, you can address it, and you can think about it, and you can have strategies to address and improve your... perspective on them and so specifically i'm just wondering there's something that i've been feeling you know and i was going to say recently but it's not even particularly recently it's just like generally for a while
is that it's been a trickier thing to be as excited about being an Apple developer. And that's for so many reasons. Like, and this is some of the things like over the, like the DMA last year or all kinds of other Apple policies, or I mean, in some ways it's never been that easy to be an Apple developer, you know, with all the app review dramas over the last, like almost two days.
But recently it's been something that I've been feeling more acutely. It's been something that I've been aware of that I don't feel as excited about. some aspects of my job and the parts of it that are related to being an Apple developer specifically as much as I used to. That it used to be something that I was really genuinely excited about and I would get a lot of joy and satisfaction in my work.
And being an Apple developer as part of my identity was something that I was really proud of and really... you know, it was, it was meaningful to me. And it's the things like I noticed that like this year, like the, the afterglow feeling of WBDC last year in 2024 was probably the shortest it had ever been that like, I enjoyed it at the time and it was kind of cool and it was great. And then it's like a week later.
that sort of lovely feeling that you often, I often would get after WWDC, which would often carry me all the way through to September, like through the hard months of getting things ready. Like it was much shorter this year. And there's just like that feeling. And it's like, oh.
I don't like that. I don't love that that's, obviously, this is my profession. This is the thing that I've chosen to become an expert in and have spent literally almost two decades becoming skilled at. And so it's not great if you don't have sort of that.
sweet feeling about it as much anymore. And recently, as I said, I've been trying to kind of... put handles onto that feeling and to make it more specific rather than just this general feeling because the reasons for that change I think seem like they're going to be continuing to exist and change.
You know, endlessly. And this is not a great show to dig into the topic du jour for why that may be tricky. You know, this is not a politics show or it's not really a place that it's a short form podcast. And so it doesn't really lend itself to that. But it is definitely a place where we can talk about the feeling. And specifically, what I've ended up on is I think what I realized is previously in my life, there's been, if you sort of imagine a Venn diagram with two circles.
And there's a circle that's me and the things that are important to me and the things that I enjoy and the things that I'm good at and the things that I value. And you put all those in a circle. And in the early stages of my indie developer career, it felt like there was my circle and Apple's circle, and the two had a meaningful overlap. They didn't overlap fully. It's not like all the things I cared about, the things that Apple cared about. It's like the old...
thing that Apple cares about itself, its users, and then its developers. And that's sort of in that order. And so given that developers was very big in my circle, and that was not in their circle very much, there was never a full overlap there. But it was a bigger overlap and a more meaningful. overlap as a result. And recently, I think what I've been realizing is there's just been this slow shift
of those overlaps, where it feels like less and less the things that really value and are important to me matter as much to Apple as they used to. And whether they did or not, like, who knows? Like, so much of these things are very kind of vibes-y. and perceptions, and marketing, and things that are not straightforward and not clear. And I think it's important to remember that, that these things aren't straightforward and binary.
As the dynamic shift, like sometimes it was you felt something that wasn't true or sometimes it was true, but you didn't feel it. Like all these things are very possible here. But as. Apple Circle has shifted in my perception of it. I think what I for a while I was getting really bummed out because it felt like I could feel that drift and that. It felt like I was moving away from something that mattered to me.
And I think that feeling on my side, when I was projecting it against myself that way, it felt bad. It felt like I was doing something wrong or that something was changing in me that I didn't like. And I've had a lot of... sort of wrestling with this, as you can probably tell as I ramble on for nearly a third of the episode or whatever so far, is that I realized that wasn't actually what was happening.
that I think the things that mattered to me hadn't changed. My circle was fixed in this whole process. And the fact that Apple's circle, in my perception of it, was shifting away from it. It's like the reason that affected me is because my circle was the same things that really mattered to me. And they were things that I cared a lot about. And so when it felt like the large organization that has tremendous control over my life and work.
We're shifting away from those things. It was meaningful. But my circle hadn't changed. My circle hadn't moved in this whole time and in this whole process, really. And if I instead find that I focus... on those things, if I focus on the things in my circle, rather than wherever Apple's projected circle happens to feel like it is right now, I felt a lot better.
And it's been really helpful in the last few weeks since I really kind of codified this, you know, with that metaphor in my mind of the two circles really helped me for some reason. So that's part of why I wanted to share it here. If I can focus on my own circle and the things that matter to me, like things like I really care about making quality software that's well-designed, that's accessible, that is useful, that...
does things in ways that improve people through my users' lives, I care a lot about that. And I care about doing that in a way that is honest and moral. These are things that matter to me. And if I continue to focus on those, my satisfaction goes up dramatically, rather than worrying about the degree to which those things potentially are not as valuable.
to the parent organization that sort of manages the ecosystem in which I live in. And I'm not saying they don't care about those things anymore, but at least the perception I get more recently is that there is a much more complicated interplay between all those factors. But like I said, if I focus on my own...
circle like life gotten a lot has gotten a lot better and it's made me more productive and it's made me less distracted as a result because that's ultimately the only part of this that i can control the only part of this that i have agency over is Like what matters to me? What do I value? And if I focus on doing those things, like wherever other, whatever else is happening around me, like I'm much more stable and much more sort of whole as a result.
Yeah, I'm glad you're bringing this up because I have had a lot of similar feelings and it was hard to kind of nail them down or be able to put them into words or solidify them. For me, it's not just... It's actually – I've been feeling more and more jaded or disappointed in the broad tech industry as a whole like for a while now. And I think this is part of – this is kind of related. to it just being a matured industry. Tech is just big business now.
And big business is tech now. They're intertwined with each other so much now because the tech companies are so big and tech touches everything. And so we're just dealing with giant corporations now doing what giant corporations do.
A few minutes ago, you said the word the parental organization referring to Apple over the ecosystem. That struck me because I think my relationship with Apple over time... such as it is i mean i think they apple thinks very little about me but i think a lot about them and sure um so it's obviously very lopsided but uh but my relationship with them i think
It has served somewhat of a parental role in the past in the sense that – and I think that's true for a lot of us – that growing up as Apple fans or having this be a big part of what we focus on, who we are, how we identify. It is almost a parental style of relationship in the sense that like we look to them for guidance and for approval.
We respect what they think and say and do. We respect what they make. We are fans of what they make. And then in some ways, we are seeking their approval. Like we want recognition. We want. App Store features. I would love someday to get an ADA. That's my crowning achievement that I could possibly have professionally. But I think over time...
What I have felt is, and forgive me, I'm not a psychologist, but what I have felt I think would be somewhat similar to if you started having a disappointment with who your parents are turning into. Maybe that's more serious than it has to be. But like the role that Apple has served for me, you know, emotionally and mentally was more parental in the past. And these days.
They're no longer able to do that for lots of reasons. I mean, again, just the growth of everything, everything being so big and so corporate and so honestly just kind of cynical and greedy in certain ways.
A lot of this is political. A lot of it is policy. Apple, over time, and especially recently, they have gone from a parental figure in my mind, whether subconscious or not, into just... a big corporation that i am decreasingly respecting uh and that's and it hurts like when you lose respect for someone you care about that's a really hard thing to process and that really shakes you
And I have lost a lot of respect for Apple over the last few years. For a while, that has manifested itself in just kind of like... Anger, frustration, trying to change them into something better by advocating for better behavior and better decision making. which is futile. I mean, that's never going to work. It doesn't work. I've learned that too, that I'm not going to make them better by yelling about it on a podcast.
So my relationship with Apple has shifted into – from basically a parental figure that I was respecting and trying to please into they're just the platform vendor. For a while, that was demotivating me, and I think to some degree it still is. I no longer am seeking an ADA. I no longer am getting excited about Apple's announcements nearly as much.
I don't even know if I'm going to go to WBDC this year. I'm treating them just like basically the way they treat us. They are a resource to me. I use them to make money. They use us to make money. And that's it. The relationship has been degraded to that. You know, a lot of times, a lot of days I kind of, you know, when I'm faced with the idea of, oh, I wonder if I want to work on Overcast today. It's like a lot of times the answer is no, I'm not feeling it.
Because I'm so kind of getting so jaded and lost so much respect for Apple. And I don't really want to support them in a lot of these ways. But then I come back to like, well, I still do. Love computers. And Apple makes the best computers. I still do love making software. And this is the place that I can make the best software. And this is the platform I can make it on. This is the language I can write it in.
I still love Overcast as a product. And this is where this product is. This is where this product lives. So there are things I care a lot about still. It requires me to change my perception of my relationship with Apple from a more emotionally invested one. to a more dry business one. I'm not going to carry water for them.
If I get some message saying, some email saying, come develop for the Vision Pro or whatever, that's not going to sway me. And I don't care how much you think it's going to change the world or whatever. For me, it's becoming just a more straightforward, dry business relationship. And honestly, that's what it has been. From Apple's point of view, I think for the entire time, it just took me a while to realize what my role actually was and how small my role actually was.
And that sounds really cynical. That sounds awful, I think, to a lot of people. This would sound really bad. And it's been hard to process. And I'm not fully on the other end yet. It still hurts. to some degree, for me to realize all of this and to try to internalize this. But I do think where I will end up is just a more sensible place for business. It is probably better in a business relationship.
for me not to have a parental-style perceived relationship with the platform owner. It is less fun. It is less emotionally invested. And it's a very different style of relationship. But nevertheless, that is the relationship we have. So there is some value in recognizing that this is the reality of this relationship. It has been the reality of this relationship for longer than I have realized it was the reality of this relationship. But it is nevertheless the reality of this relationship.
I can start to treat it accordingly. I can start to not invest in things for the fun of it that won't have an upside. So again, Vision Pro, easy punching bag, maybe a bad example. But even stuff like... Any kind of new Apple intelligence tie-in, like, do I need to do that? Well, if Apple says I need to do it, that's going to have a lot less weight now. If my customers say that I should do it, that is what I need to be paying attention to.
Or if it will benefit me in my life, if I will personally get satisfaction out of doing it, then that's something I can pay attention to. The shift in this relationship, what it does for me is it dramatically deprioritizes things that Apple. asks us to do or thinks we should do. We start thinking more about what do we want and what do our customers want? Because what Apple wants, we no longer need to pay as much attention to because that relationship is no longer what it used to be.
So yeah, and I think something that you just said that really hit me well or was useful for me was the thinking of just like how... these relationships change and evolve over time. And that is a natural and sort of inevitable part of... anything, that it will change and develop and will not be the same thing that it was before. And that's difficult and painful and challenging when the thing you had before was nice and had positive aspects of it. And, you know, it's easier to let go of something.
if it wasn't working for you. But, you know, it's a funny thing when I think back to, I mean, you and I have been doing this a very long time. And I think that's useful. I mentioned that mostly just because I think it is if you were starting out, you know, sometimes I talk to people who are more recently, you know, like who graduated from college a few years ago.
are getting started in their iOS developer career. It's a very different world in some ways now. These are people who the App Store was only just... Like, you know, the app store was launched when they were like four.
their entire life essentially it's a wild thought what you have like these are people who exist and their perception of what things are and what they could be or what they might have been in the past it's just different than you and me like I remember I think part of the challenge here is because I lived through the period from the early, like maybe the first six, seven years of the App Store, where there was just such...
like you sort of almost like silly excitement about it being part of the next big thing and it kept becoming the next like even biggerer and biggerer over time that like it started off like oh man mobile apps are cool and then it's like are everything. And it was really cool and fun to be on the cusp of that wave as it just crushed over the entire world and became so important and essential to everything. That was awesome.
And that is not where we are now. Like you said, it is a much more mature... you know, situation than we find ourselves in. Like it is a much more mature thing. Like everything, you know, there's, you know, there's the old thing of like, you know, there's an app for that. It's like now there really is an app for everything and every probably a hundred apps for everything. Like there are.
attributes and aspects of this that are just so mature and success is measured and sort of... result of things that are now not necessarily our specialty that are like about business and about being slightly more cynical and slightly more focused on metrics and things that are, you know, aren't necessarily our focus.
And that's, you know, and by that, I mean, if we want traditional success, which we certainly want to some degree in terms of like, you know, being highly downloaded or having lots of income, like those things become a little bit more cynical now than they used to. to be that there really was a bit more of a meritocracy to things, that if you were the best, it would...
you would have a much higher chance, whereas now it's not really about necessarily the best. It's about the best marketing or the best acquisition or the best addiction mechanic in your application to pull people back into your app time and time again. There's things about this situation that are...
are different. But that change, you know, and that evolution is tricky. And it reminded me of a situation I remember writing about this years. I mean, this was, I think, back in like 2014 or something, like, I mean, you know, almost 11 years ago. I remember when Facebook
bought WhatsApp. And at the time, it kind of felt like the start of a new phase of the App Store, because it sort of changed into the App Store was changing from lots of small little fish into this kind of conglomerate phase where the big fishes were starting to... acquire anything that had traction and sort of turning it from lots and lots of small players into fewer and fewer bigger players.
And I think that thought has certainly proved to be true, that there are fewer and fewer big players in the App Store. You look at the top downloaded list and the parent companies of each of those apps, and it's like three companies.
that are the vast majority of app use on the iPhone. And so... in some ways that's liberating like in the sense of it's like i'm not i'm not even playing the same game they're playing and like there was a time when i kind of was like where you as in smaller indie developer you could really be playing the same game and have a reasonable expectation to be a player Now it's like we have our own little worlds. And, you know, some of that is...
You know, it's like it's easy and convenient for you and me in some ways because we have our own little worlds that we established much earlier on. And at times when it was perhaps easier to get those, you know, to establish a beachhead from which we could work from. But it's just different. And that evolution is the part that is weird and different. But it is kind of nice to, in some ways, it's also liberating to be like, things have changed. Like, things aren't the same as they were.
10 years ago, five years ago, whatever that is. And like being accepting of that change is helpful. I think I find it very helpful to me when it's like, yeah, things aren't going to be like they were back then. And the more I hold on to it or the more that, you know, to your point about trying to like change Apple or whatever that might, you know, something we might think about or look at.
It's like the less we try and think in those terms, because like we're trying to reclaim something, it's just ultimately like going to be very counterproductive. But if instead it's just like, yeah, no, that's not going to happen. We're in a new phase. And that's difficult. And I think we both and I know many people in this community who've kind of gone through that feeling in a weird, painful way. And it's just really tricky and awkward and kind of icky sometimes. But like.
There's also hope in that. There are things that... haven't changed. I love that I'm in a community of people who seem to care about the same things that I care about. If I poke about, ask a question online, I'll get answers that are focused and kind of geared in that same direction. like that culture.
at least in the group of people who I tend to interact with, exists. And I think some of it may have originated in people who were copying Apple in a parental way, in terms of like they were emulating that parent company. But I think in many ways that culture... persists because it was not Apple. It was what they were.
projecting at the time like those values still value are still just as valuable now as they were when they were um directly and obviously being generated from them and so like we can just continue to focus on those things and i think
you know, keep making cool stuff. And I don't know how long I'll be able to do this for. Like, I wouldn't have expected this relationship in some ways to have lasted for 17 years, 18 years. Like, it's a long time that this has gone on. And I hope, you know, I very much hope that there. There is a long career and path ahead of me doing this because I do enjoy it. But I'm going to have to find my own joy inside of that rather than being able to lean on the sort of...
having that be externally brought to me by the platform. Yeah. And I think that that is the key of like, you know, how we move forward, how we how we keep motivating ourselves and validating what we make is just without Apple. You know, there's lots of other areas of tech where there is no parental organization, so to speak. Like there is no like obvious platform owner or source of that motivation and validation. Like when people make stuff on the web.
There really is no web parent company. So if you're making good stuff on the web, who are you making it for? You're not making it for one company. You're making it for yourselves. Your customers, maybe people you respect, people whose opinions you respect. And when you get validation, where are you seeking that from? One big company? No, you're seeking it from like...
users and people you respect, people whose opinions you respect. And so that's where we're ending up now with Apple platform development is that we need to be making things for our own reasons.
and seeking external validation outside of Apple. Because their validation, if it's going to be something that we no longer seek, or that we no longer respect, or it's coming from a place that we no longer respect, we have to find our own... motivation to make our own things and so much of tech has worked that way that we know it's possible
We can look around for tons of examples of places where people make stuff not to please some big company, but for their own satisfaction and the satisfaction of their customers and users and their circles. We are brought to you this episode by Sentry. Sentry are the people who help you avoid your mobile app being the one that gets deleted next. From getting deep context into crashes to seeing full insights and performance issues, Sentry is here to make sure your code doesn't suck.
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completely free at sentry.io slash four slash mobile or click the link in the show notes then use the code radar our thanks to sentry for the support of this show and relay the other thing is like over time Tech changes, and we don't always go along for the ride. Tech has gotten way bigger over the course of my adult life.
It used to be that I was more involved in lots of it and over time as it gets bigger, I've had to specialize and narrow the parts of it that I was really in or cared about or qualified to do because it just gets bigger and bigger. And that's just – it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Always having to narrow my focus, narrower and narrower and narrower just to keep up. And that's OK, too. And eventually, I will decide where tech is going. I'm not going. And that's when I will retire from tech.
Like that happens to all of us at some point, willingly or not. Like eventually, like, you know, you mentioned the young people who were born in the App Store time. Like, yeah, eventually we're going to be gone from this world and they're going to be in it. And then the next generation will be in it. We don't have to always go where everyone goes. So we can decide during our working ages, we're going to be in this for a while, but that won't be forever. Every time tech changes or grows.
Some people get lost along the way. And that's just part of it. That's an actual part of it. So, you know, eventually the relationship that we have that we used to think we had with Apple.
Eventually, there won't be anybody left in the Apple ecosystem who even remembers that time or whoever felt that way. To them, it will just be like, yeah, well, that's the big company that gives us the developer tools and they take a third of our money and that's it. There will be no other perception of the relationship. I think it's wise for us to kind of jump in and start the process now of that migration because that's where it's going with or without us.
Yeah. And I think there's just something in that of just the fundamental reality of we have more agency than sometimes I think, at least I can say for myself, I have more agency than sometimes I give myself credit for. And I think the...
Places I often find myself struggling is when I am... unintentionally giving up that agency and in this case it was sort of like giving some some of my identity and focus to a company rather than being it being self-directed and part of that was just laziness part of that was just it was fun and like there's lots of things that go into that
And I think it's the reality of understanding that I have agency over what I think is important, what I value, what I do with my time, what I look at and sort of engage in. And I think there's still parts of Apple who care about those things too. And that's awesome. And like, I have interactions with people, you know, developer relations is an organization that generally.
seems to care still about a lot of those things and a lot of the, you know, teams within Apple or the things that they put out. Like, it's not that this, you know, relationship is like cut off and it's never going to work. But it's like, I think I'm increasing, it's like realizing that I have the ability to, you know, understand what's important.
And the degree to which and the places where that overlaps with Apple, you know, focusing on my circle, where, you know, wherever Apple's circle happens to overlap is fine. And I will... enjoy those parts when it align. But when they don't, I don't need to feel that some part of me is deficient or out of step or in any way sort of impinged by that. And I think that's really productive. That's hopefully emotionally more healthy. And it's a reasonable...
a way to stay motivated and keep doing this, hopefully for a long time going forward. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you in two weeks. Bye.