320: Before the Barrier

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. It is the season now, and now we're really in it. Yeah. It is the week before WBDC as we were recording and probably as you are listening to this. We are in that very fun period of time when it is like the...

Exciting announcements, the interesting announcements, deciding and discovering what is going to happen for the next like three months of our life is going to look like is on the very near horizon. And it is both exciting and terrifying.

I don't know. It's like uncertain in a variety of ways all at the same time, which is a fun time of year. I enjoy this. I enjoy this feeling of the week before dub dub. Yeah, I always like, you know, we've talked in the past about kind of the Apple seasonality, you know, from from kind of.

up to this point. This is a time to get projects done, like pay off technical debt, maybe do some architecture work. I did some of that. Sure. So I feel, you know, decent about that. But I never get done as much as I want to get done before WBC. And then it all just kind of happens to me. And then it's like, well.

Here's a bunch of pie-in-the-sky feature ideas that I'm going to have to put those on the back burner for a while. I have a whole bunch of podcasts that I was going to listen to before the keynote barrier. And it's like once the keynote happens, then all these podcasts that were about what we think might happen at the keynote become irrelevant. There's all these – this is like a barrier, like a huge threshold that you cross pre-keynote and post-keynote.

Like you, I think I expect this to be a pretty busy summer. So the big thing is the very, very strong rumors at this point of OS redesigns across the board.

that's going to be a lot if that is true and there sure is a lot of smoke for that fire um that's going to be a lot of work for all of us and it's probably going to be really exciting you know when when apple does a redesign It always creates tons of work, and this doesn't happen that often, but in the few examples we have, it creates tons of work for the platforms.

It can be really exciting for users and for developers to have like, oh, now our app's going to adopt this new cool look. And it often prompts like a redesign across the whole app or a rewrite of the whole app. So there's a lot of like... disruption, a lot of excitement. It usually overall works out well in the long run. But in the meantime, there's a lot of work to do. So that is, I think, what we are about to face. And so it's going to be going to be an interesting summer.

Yeah, no. And I think to that degree that I expect it is going to be a particularly busy summer. extra care to try and be ready for that in terms of, like you were saying, in terms of tidying up loose ends, like not undertaking big... like I had a whole redesign and re-architecture that I was working on Photometer++ that I could put on hold because it makes a lot more sense to tackle that next week than it does in the last few weeks.

And also just like personally and physically, like I've been, I took all of last week off and went on a lovely long hike and it was. intentionally done like this is something i've done a few times now where i find it super helpful the week before the week before wbdc to go and just take a holiday because i know the summer is going to be busy it's going to be difficult to have that time off and it's just

good from a mental reset. I found it was super helpful even just to realign my brain in terms of why I do what I do. I love making apps. This is fun. And there's a lot going on in our community that's really complicated and has

difficult feelings, but like, I still love the job I have and I want to keep doing it and I want to do it well. And it was helpful to have some space. And so I suppose this is like, it's not necessarily very helpful to give you anyone the advice to take last week off because if you.

go back in time it's it's it's like the planting a tree right the best time was 10 years ago the next best time is uh today um so it's like maybe if you if you're hearing this and you have a few a few days to to rest out but but more i think understand in preparing yourself that It might be a very busy summer. It may be something that's very challenging in a good, fun, interesting way. But just something to keep in mind as you're making summer plans because...

Having been through these kinds of summers, some of my favorite experiences I've ever had have been the summer that is really busy. I really enjoy that. That is not something that I am worried about or sad about.

oh man, there's a lot of work. It's like, I love this work. This is what I enjoy. And especially if I don't expect it to be necessarily you know there may be a summer of busy work would not be very fun but i don't expect a lot of busy work i expect this will be the interesting stuff that i really enjoy like you can look at it two ways with some like a big redesign that it can be you know it can you end up in some ways in this

same place as you were before. Or you can look at it as the opportunity to go through my app in a thoughtful, holistic way, understand a lot of the features and pages that are built subsequent to the first time it was written, you know, we're kind of added on.

potentially bolted on in ways that don't feel holistic and of a piece. And so like, it's great and exciting and like, I'm excited that I took, you know, or glad that I took the time off so that I feel ready and rested and excited to like get started on that. And. I hope it's busy in some ways. I hope I don't come out Monday morning from the keynote and be like, huh, that's it?

Like that would be really disappointing to me at this point because I'm like I'm pretty hyped in terms of looking forward to some good, interesting work this summer. We don't know yet like, you know. To what degree of a redesign will this be? And what other... Obviously, the redesign is not going to be the only thing they announce. But that's going to be the thing that affects all of us. Every year, they...

you know, announce here's some new APIs or some new capabilities. And a lot of times it's like, well, that's great if I ran like, you know, a ride sharing app or something. But because my app is not that type of app or like it's hard sometimes to find a use.

for every app to adopt things every WBC of any meaningful size. A redesign year affects everyone. Every single app. If you don't adopt the redesign, your app... Instantly looks old and you will start losing customers and your one-star reviews will increase over time from September forward. Actually, I mean – Thank God it's no longer from June forward since people can't leave reviews anymore on beta OSs, but it used to be bad. But if you don't adopt it, your app basically looks abandoned.

and customers will eventually react poorly to that. So you kind of have to adopt it. So then the question becomes, how do you adopt it? And one way, like we saw with iOS 7, that was obviously the biggest example of a sweeping redesign. One way to adopt a redesign is basically hit build and run with the new SDK and basically change nothing else. Like just adopt all the new UI, hope that the metrics and behaviors are the same enough.

that it doesn't break your UI, maybe go through and do a pass through the app and tweak things that are broken with the new metrics or whatever. But then that's it. That's one way to do it. And that works for most apps if your goal is like... more functional but the the better approach that we saw like back with iowa 7 is like most apps that kind of triggered a full redesign of the app to happen like over the following year

And, you know, oftentimes a full rewrite of the app if it was, you know, based on old technology or they wanted to pay down tech debt or just do things differently. And a redesign also, like it isn't just, you know, the way Apple does redesigns. It's usually not just a reskin. It's actually like new... interaction paradigms often or like new navigation hierarchies, new types of widgets and types of gestures that become common in the system or expected to work a certain way.

So you get a lot of like surface area that like potential for a rewrite or potential for a sweeping redesign. that's probably what's going to happen here. And I'm very excited about that. It does scare me on a number of fronts. It is a huge amount of work for everyone, including Apple.

So what I expect is for the first half of the summer to be really buggy. Like I think it's going to be like if this is actually a sweeping redesign across all of their platforms. It's going to be a mess during the early betas. Of course, it has to be. That's a huge thing to tackle. So they're going to be a mess. We're going to be a mess. And if they actually did it across...

all of their platforms, which the rumors seem to suggest, that's going to also create a lot of friction on the platforms that have less resources typically assigned to them. So things like, you know, the Mac.

tv os watch os like vision os i i like you know we're going to see like kind of like the the non like you know hot platforms or the ones that tend to get less developer attention from apple It might be a hard time on some of those platforms for a while because you're asking everyone on these platforms, including Apple, to adopt a new system design.

That takes a lot of resources. So anything that doesn't have a lot of resources, it's going to feel strained. So it's going to be a very busy time. But again, I think when you look at the potential here, the potential is exciting. And we might end up in a very good place in the fall and winter and spring. But it's going to be a lot of work to get there. Yeah. And I think it is going to be such a funny.

summer to decide about when you install betas and where you install betas. I'm going day one. Yeah, I mean, I am... I will have to wait and see. Don't do this, everybody. No, no one. But it's the thing that's hard about this year is like if it's a substantial fundamental rethinking or dramatic thing, like the bigger the change in many ways.

the more important it is to really understand that as soon as you can. And so there's going to be a tension and a temptation to go ahead and install the beta on your main phone right away. I wouldn't recommend that. I think my recommendation is going to be, I'm heading out to California in a couple of days. I have a testing watch, a testing phone that I'm taking for the sole purpose of them being my, like...

Early testing devices. One of my phone has a cell plan on it so I can use it to some degree as my main phone. It's not the wrong number, obviously, but I can use it. in a more holistic way rather than just feeling like an iPod Touch. It can actually be a phone, and I want to try and use that a little bit, do some of my phone use on it.

I think it is going to be a summer where you're going to want to understand how it feels in practice beyond just looking at it in the simulator. And so I think having testing devices in general is just something to, you know. think about and use as much as you can this summer. Cause I think that is going to be useful, but yes, I think the temptation to be on my main phone much sooner is going to be much higher. And I think that is in some ways reasonable because the nature of these.

things is you have to live with them to understand them. And so it's a little scary. It's a little, you know, be careful out there. I think especially if you are traveling to California, do not install a beta OS on your primary device while you are away from your home.

Yeah, that's something that I've I have done that. It is not wise. I've seen people who have done that. It is not wise. It usually ends in tears and problems when you then try and do something that is important while you are away from home and you cannot do it or your phone.

just continuously running out of battery or who knows what. Don't do that. You get a testing device if you're going to California. If you're at home, maybe you can. But generally, be careful out there. Though it does make me think a little bit about for testing device purposes. How important do you think it's going to be to have a testing device that can run Apple intelligence on it? Hmm.

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All right. So Apple intelligence compatibility for test devices. That's a very good question. My strategy for test devices will allow for this no matter what, in part because my current test phone is last year's iPhone 16 or 15, whatever it is, Pro. So it has anyway. But what I'm going to do this year, normally... My test strategy is I bring like some, you know, few years old iPhone, sometimes either one of my old phones or something that got cheap off of Amazon, like refurb.

which is, again, it's a great option. I mentioned it in the past, like Amazon refurbished and recertified and renewed, whatever, you know, there are different terms for refurbishing. Those devices can be... hundreds of dollars less than new ones and for testing purposes i've never had a problem with them

I would just say throw away the weird no-name charger and USB cable they come with because you can't trust those. But the devices are fine. Anyway, so my strategy this year, though, is I'm going to go beta one unless there's some kind of like unforeseen. reason why I can't, but I'm going to go beta one on my main devices and I'm going to, you know, over the next few days, I'm going to make a backup of my current main devices.

Onto my test devices. So my test devices will become the outgoing versions for stability over the summer if I need them. But I'm going to use my main devices as my beta devices.

And so if you only have one device, like your current phone, capable of running apple intelligence you can do the same strategy if you want the only thing is like you have to weigh the risk of like well if you do have to go back to like if you have to like you know start using your test phone as your main phone because you're previous main phone is running a beta and is ruined you know you have to kind of figure like how do you do that you know is the risk worth it to you

As you said, Dave, I would not recommend people do this while traveling, especially internationally. That's a terrible idea for so many reasons. But overall, I think – so the question though of like what do we think – Apple intelligence needs will be for the betas and for our needs. All the rumors also are suggesting that we are finally, I know finally after one year, but that we are getting APIs. to use the on-device models in various ways.

I, first of all, am very, very glad to hear that. I hope that comes true. And I hope that there are lots of capabilities that we are able to use without any needless restrictions. So hopefully... Obviously, these models are going to be resource intensive to use locally. And so I'm sure there will be some restrictions on like maybe you can't use them in the background while the phone's on battery or stuff like that. I'm sure there will be limits. But hopefully those limits are.

as light touch as they can be. Because I really think that many apps will probably find utility... in at least some of the LLM and AI based APIs locally on the phone. So even, even simple stuff like, you know, if you, so many apps have like,

a list of things that you then drill into with detail pages. Well, if you can call the on-device summarization APIs, maybe you can do like kind of what Apple Mail does and you can have like, you know, the little description line of text on the table view or on the list. of what you're going into, that can be an AI summary of the thing you're going into. There's going to be, I think, little things like that that are going to become fairly ubiquitous fairly quickly.

If there's that kind of utility in your app where you can think about what Apple's likely to unveil as an API for these AIs, it's going to be things like... The writing tools, we already can kind of do that in the built-in widget. Maybe we can call it programmatically. Okay, that's something. It's going to be things like text summarization probably. That's something. Maybe it'll be some kind of image synthesis. I don't know. That might be a little heavy, but maybe not.

Maybe that'll be there. I'm hoping there'll be audio transcription. There's already an API for that that's based on older tech. I'm hoping they upgrade it to the newer tech and fix some limitations there. I would love to have that. And for many apps, audio transcription could be useful things.

Think about in your app, like where you can use even small, quote, AI features. And if there's any of those for your app, I mean, there's also things like recommendation algorithms. If there's anything like that for your app.

that you think might be useful, even in small ways like text summarization and lists. I would suggest plan for an Apple intelligence-capable... test device for the betas however you want to do that whether you want to do it my way of making your primary the beta and using a secondary as your backup or going out there and buying an inexpensive or a less expensive apple intelligence compatible phone right now maybe the iphone 16e Something like that. There's a lot of options out there.

Yeah, and I think my current plan is to look, depending on what's actually announced on Monday, it's like if I need one, I think a M1 iPad Air is currently the cheapest device you could get that would support Apple intelligence because like a refurbed. iPad Air M1 is a fairly old device at this point.

I think you could get it for just a couple hundred dollars probably or $300, which would be the easiest way into that. I think we're just going to have to see. It's just an interesting dynamic. I hope we don't get a bifurcation of Apple intelligence again.

Where it's like, if you want Apple Intelligence 1, you could support those devices. But if you want Apple's Intelligence 2, you need this new set of higher spec devices that would be... complicated and annoying, but I suppose at this point, like I said, I'm just waiting to see what's announced on Monday, see if there's new restrictions, see if there's any opportunities that are specific.

and dramatic for Apple intelligence, but it's just a new wrinkle that is interesting to have to walk through because. It is very tied to modern hardware in a way that you can usually get away with older hardware for a testing device, you know, just for iOS features themselves. You know, I don't need my typical testing watch right now or phone right now is I think two generations.

behind the fastest one. And so that's usually fine, but for Apple intelligence reasons, that is a bit trickier in a weird way.

But yeah, I'm trying to think of other things. Like I think WWDC itself, it's, we know how the, this new, it's not even new anymore. Like how the, you know, video based. presentations will go. I think we have a sense of what WWDC itself in terms of, you know, Monday, there's the small in-person gathering at Apple Park, but otherwise, you know, from the vast majority of people, you're just going to be watching it online. Then the videos and things will become available.

And I think the only thing I'd say is I think a flow that I've gotten into with this new cycle is I feel like Monday you're like drinking from the fire hose. There's just too much information to keep track of. And so most of what I'm doing is just. writing down little notes to myself of like things to look at later. And later is in this case Tuesday, where Tuesday is the day that I go through the list of all the things that I bookmarked or wrote a note about to go and look at subsequent.

Tuesday is sort of like for exploring those, understanding them, maybe playing around a little bit. And then I find Wednesday is when I start to really start prototyping and building stuff out. This is a little bit complicated by the lab schedule in terms of if there are. This year, there are these new things called group labs, which sort of sound a little bit like the thing they tried with Slack a few years ago, but now it's in real time.

kind of video based, but I'm slightly unclear, but it seems like you can sign up for these like big WebEx sessions where you can submit questions and have them answered in a group setting, which in some ways is helpful, but you have to have the question to ask in order to do.

that so if you are trying to work on something that you were going to a group lab that's earlier in the week you may need to shift up your schedule in terms of the exploration and building part because i think my best questions typically are coming from when I've actually tried to build something. And not like deeply integrating it into my app, much more, you know, file new project, try to build something, try to build out the simplest version of the idea that you have.

And see where the limitations are. See where the rough edges are. And then either in a group lab setting or in a one-on-one lab, ask your questions. Because I think that's going to be much more successful and productive if you've actually tried the API, you've explored it. it, you found the issues, you found where very often I find I have a situation where I've

had an idea for a feature, I start trying to build it. And I find that I'm my conceptualization of how the feature should work is running into issues or limitations.

within the API so either I'm not using the API correctly or there's a bug or issue with the API and a lab is a great venue for having that discussion but generally that's sort of the flow that I do and I will say as I've said many times the new video format is amazing and I love it and I hope it's the same this year where we just get lots of videos that are short and sweet.

and are easy to kind of jump around with. And I think I watch a ton of videos. I watch most of them very quickly, not trying to really understand and follow along everything in detail. Like I'm skimming initially just to try and... have a lot of surface area that i've been exposed to and then again i'm like you know adding a second level of

things where i'll go back and re-watch at 1x paying close attention taking notes like in a more detailed fashion but early and initially like you know monday tuesday wednesday those early weeks days of the week, I'm just trying to gather as much as I can and try and understand as much as I can so I can ask good questions when the labs are going on and just so that I can be as prepared for it in that way. Because the reality is...

As much as next week is a big week, the summer is a long time. I have a lot of time to do the actual work, but the thing that is rare and sparse is access to Apple engineers. And so I'm just trying to be as prepared as I can in the short term. rather than necessarily worrying about how this is actually going to be architected in practice. I just want to have as many good questions as I can, as soon as I can.

Yeah, that's a good strategy because, you know, like in many ways, the timing of WWDC Labs is weird and not ideal because like, you know, you get all this new stuff, but you can't, as you're saying, like you kind of have to rush to see like. Am I going to have any issues or questions with this? You know, because you only have the labs for the few days after the keynote, after you get the beta one. And then, you know, in terms of like filing bugs that you want to be fixed.

you know you basically have a month or so like you know for the most part like if you unless a bug is really really bad that like so bad that it would be like a showstopper it's probably going to sail through if it persists through mid-july so like you you have basically one month

to file bugs that have a chance of being fixed. So you kind of have to figure out really soon, like, what are those bugs? And you have to also market your bugs. It's not a great situation, but it is the situation that we're in. The best way to get bugs fixed is find them in the next two weeks, post them on social media with bug with feedback numbers for Apple people.

And spread the word as much as you can. And then when new betas come out, if they're not fixed yet, do it again. File it again. Post it again. Spread the word again. That's how you get bugs fixed. And the best time to do that is the following month after this. You only have a short time. So that's like if you're going to do things like if some API that you use is now deprecated in the new OSs and you need to go back and adopt some new changes to avoid these deprecation warnings.

That's something better done like in July. Like you can wait on that because that is not like an urgent thing. What you need to do the first month is play with the new stuff and file bugs about the new stuff. That's like the immediate on fire thing for all of us. It kind of sucks that this is the way that you have to file your bugs in a very short span for them to be fixed. But that is the reality, and we can't change it.

That's what we've got to do. As you're right, this is a good time to build fresh test things, test harnesses, little... test projects, using the new APIs the way you expect to have to use them. See what works, see what doesn't, and file as many bugs as you are willing to and as you can in the ideal time to file them because there is no other ideal time.

Yeah. And I think maybe a good place to wrap this up is also just to say it's going to be interesting. I think this year you're not going in person. I will be in Cupertino in person. But I was thinking about the actual connection part, like the way that we connect as a community, whether that be filing your bugs and shouting about them on social media or in person. And I will say that Apple is a really great site that I noticed.

they have a bunch of community events and many of them, in fact, most of them probably aren't in Cupertino. So don't feel like if you want to connect about WDC, you're excited about it. You want to talk about it with like-minded people who are interested in this sort of thing. I would say don't feel like.

you had to be in Cupertino to do that. There are lots of events that seem to be all over the world that people are doing, you know, keynote watch parties and that sort of thing. And it's just a good opportunity to do that. I will say my annual warning, if you are coming out to Cupertino, for the first time. It is forecast, I believe, to be extremely hot and sunny and warm and dry. And so be careful with yourself in that way. Sunscreen, water, a hat. Take care of yourself because...

Monday at Apple Park can be really cool and special. Apple Park is just a really fun place to be and to be in a group of people who care about the thing that you're excited about and you just watch the keynote and you get to talk about it right that minute.

with other people who are interested in it with some of the engineers who worked on it who are often extremely excited and delighted to talk to you about it because they've been sequestered away for so long working on these features so it can be really exciting but you know take care of yourself don't

you know, get heat stroke and overdo it. So it's, you know, find some shade, wear some sunscreen and drink plenty of water and then just enjoy yourself. And I think whether that's, you're going to Apple Park, whether you're at home. Like, I don't know. I love this part of the year. I think it's really fun. I think it's exciting. It's been a really complicated year to get to here, you know, in terms of we've had some very difficult feelings that we've had to navigate through.

Many of those are not resolved, but they nevertheless, like there are some fundamental aspects to next week.

that are exciting interesting fun and i look forward to it and i think that's you know i'm glad that i was able to work myself and my feelings around to the place that i am you know i do have excitement and it's a bit more clear-eyed perhaps this year a little bit less um you know uh just sort of blind enthusiasm than i've maybe had in some years gone by but i'm nevertheless enthusiastic and excited and you know this is the part of the job i enjoy i like making new stuff and boy do i

There's going to be new stuff to make starting next week. So it's kind of like just a fun thing to look forward to. Yeah. As you mentioned, there's been a lot of complicated feelings and a lot of kind of ugliness in some of the stuff around the developer relationship right now. But this is a good time to enjoy the fun tech stuff.

And we'll get back to that stuff as we need to over time. But this is now like we're about to get a whole bunch of new... tech progress apis redesign hopefully like some you know nice like async and swift ui stuff and you know that'll all make our lives great for the next year and uh we'll at least certainly be busy I think so. Thanks for listening, everybody. And we'll talk to you on the other side of the barrier in two weeks. Bye.