Developing Perspective

Gone are the days of map-and-compass development, now if we can imagine it and see a line of sight to it we can build things nearly instantly. Which totally changes the cognitive and structural tradeoffs we need to make in our development process…and how we take care of ourselves in that. Watch on YouTube

I walk through the history of Apple developer platforms over my history as an app developer and grade them, then think a bit about what has made them worthwhile. Watch on YouTube

I’m bringing Developing Perspective back. This first episode wrestles through why being an indie app developer right now feels so “pivotal”, in both senses of the word. There’s the constant, week-by-week change in our tools and workflows, and there’s the bigger structural shift in what it even means to “make” apps. Watch on YouTube

Under the Radar RSS Feed Overcast Link iTunes Link PocketCasts Subscribe Link I am delighted to announce that today I am launching a new development related podcast with Marco Arment. It is called Under the Radar and starts today on the fine Relay FM Network. I have been doing Developing Perspective since July 13, 2011 (roughly 4.5 years). During that time I have chronicled the rises and falls of being an independent developer in the App Store. I am immensely proud of Developing Perspective and glad that I have it to refer to later on as I look back on my career. The time has come now to embark on a new adventure in podcasting. Back in late 2010 a new podcast was started called Build & Analyze with Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin. I hadn’t really heard of either of them before but I immediately latched onto it. Marco’s experiences and perspectives in being a developer were both relevant to my work and engaging to hear. For the entire run of Build & Analyze you’d always find me in the chatroom listening live,…

I tend to think of my app business in terms of revenue per day. Breaking it down to that level helps me keep a close eye on it and know how well or poorly I’m doing. Today I walk through the reasoning for this as well as do a thought experiment of what the numbers might look like for a new business.

Some thoughts on the implications of having to take an unplanned absence from your work when you are self-employed. There are a lot of benefits of being independent that manifest themselves in a situation like this but also a few things to be careful of and plan for.

An overview of what to expect this summer: the beta schedule, timing for release, the importance of RADARS, my growing interest in Swift and an encouragement for everyone to build something new this summer. Will Hains’ iOS Beta History

First Impressions from WWDC 2015. These are my initial reactions right after the Keynote, I’ll probably do another episode later in the week which has more considered reactions.

Some high level thoughts about WWDC and my excitement for it. Then, a few thoughts about whether mobile advertising is in a precarious position.

Today I begin a new Start-to-Finish series discussing the creation of an application from idea to the App Store. My Essential Experience Target: An application focused on surfacing the data currently collected by the Apple Watch and iPhone and presenting it in a useful, actionable, and encouraging way. Blizzard’s Games I discuss: Hearthstone Heroes of the Storm My previous Start-to-Finish series discussing the creation of Check the Weather: #91: Thank you and the Road from Here. #90: Check the Weather #89: Counting Down. #87: Basic App Marketing. #86: App Pricing. #85: Pragmatism. #84: Shipped it. #83: Performance and Letting Go. #82: Localizing an App. #80: Managing functionality. #77: Prototyping a new project.

2015 Developing Perspective t-shirts (4 days to order, ends May 18.) One of the most dangerous traps when learning from someone else’s experience is ascribing intentionality to what in reality was accidental. This can make it feel somehow magical or impossible to learn from. We are all just muddling along. Pedometer += 1,000,000 Joe’s Extraordinarily Kind Words

2015 Developing Perspective t-shirts (1 Week left to order.) Once again the topic of sustainable revenue has surfaced around our lovely community. I’ve recently been changing/adapting my thinking on the subject so it seemed the time to wade in again. Tim on the App Store “The app store had its best quarter ever, with a record number of customers making purchases, driving a new record for revenue, and 29 percent year on year growth.” App Store Metrics In April, 2015: 1,561 apps per day (35,929 non-games, 12,451 games, 48,380 total) Where we are: Redacted for Mac Launch Realmac Product Revenue Snapshot Sensor Tower Top Grossing Analysis From here: Inquisitive: Behind the App #11 Learning to Ride a Bicycle, Again. Sam Soffes on Developing Perspective #208

2015 Developing Perspective t-shirts My WatchKit Apps Release Notes Conference In some ways this week’s episode is a follow up to last week’s show about hustle. All that thinking about the role that asking for money plays in my business got me to thinking about some of the complications that being the face of your business carries. When you are an independent business owner your own personal brand becomes the brand of your products. This can be awesome but also makes certain parts of promotion and discourse more complicated.

Thinking through why I have such a hang up about talking about and asking for Money. Why this is probably not such a great thing for my business and what I might do to fix it. My WatchKit Apps

How to build little features into your applications that re-wire your user’s brains to come to expect a certain behavior. These ‘insidious’ features are a delightful way to help build loyalty with your customers.

Simultaneous Invention or setting realistic expectations for uniqueness. Simultaneous Invention

After a longer than typical break I’m back with another episode…on a related note I’m talking about how to get unstuck. How I manage the situation that seems to happen often enough where I get stuck in a creative rut. Then I talk a bit about how to manage the process of submitting WatchKit apps. Chart of my consistency track record for Developing Perspective:

In the run up to Apple’s media event on March 9th I keep hearing the phrase ‘Gold Rush’ over and over again. Today I unpack that concept and whether it might apply to the Apple Watch. The Phases of Gold Rush: The Rumor The Legend The Rush The Reality Luck = Opportunity + Preparation My WatchKit Series Scott Forstall, “Whole new Gold Rush” The California Gold Rush Trism WatchCon 2 There is unfortunately no shortcut to gaining expertise in a subject. You can only truly understand something by working on it, by immersing yourself in it, by building terrible prototypes and throwing them away. You cannot throw away what you haven’t made.

Prompted by some thinking I did around building the App Preview for Pedometer++, I start to wonder about honesty in advertising. How honesty should I be? What level of candor is appropriate, helpful, reasonable? Building an App Preview

I’m not a huge fan of the term polymath. It sounds kinda pretentious but sometimes the best word for something is that way. Today I was struck by the wild variety of tasks and skills that it takes to run a business principally on your own. So I wanted to walk through some of disparate aspects of the ‘job’. Hopefully giving someone who is considering going out on their own some good food for thought. My intention isn’t to scare anyone off, but just to help you understand the inherent complexity of this line of work, and an appreciation for the things other people handle for you in a J-O-B, job. General Development Software engineering Bug tracking Product Design Release planning Customer support Version Control iTunes Connect submission lifecycle iOS Development Objective C, Xcode, Interface Builder Device and iOS version management Photoshop, PaintCode Testing / QA Server Development Ruby on Rails Postgres Memcached, nginx, redis Queueing, sidekiq Linux system administration, Backups, Security updates…

Today I walk through my history thinking about Swift. From WWDC to now I’ve done a lot of thinking about Swift as whether I should be using it. The result makes me feel a bit conflicted, but the brutally pragmatic part of me is winning out. Swift on Apple.com My WatchKit series

I take a break out of my normal 15 minute format for a return of my occational interview series. This week I’m delighted to talk to Sam Soffes about balancing your own product work with doing consulting, different ways of thinking about success and deciding what it is you want to do with your time. Sam has been developing for iOS since 2008 and has worked on a wide variety of successful products. He is currently working on Whiskey, a Markdown editor for Mac and iOS.

Rather than wading into the hullabaloo regarding Apple’s software quality directly I instead decided to take a step backwards and consider the forces that have driven us to this situation in the first place. My goal is to consider the forces that make keeping software stable over time difficult. The result can apply to small projects as well as to a company as large as Apple. Marketing Complexity: The pressure to keep adding features in order to keep software relevant in a marketplace. Intrinsic Complexity: The unfortunate reality that any added feature doesn’t just linearly increase complexity, instead it increases radically. Personnel/Personal Complexity: The tension and struggle around keeping sharp, talented engineers focused on stability when the promise of working on something else, newer and more exciting looms. These are the concerns we need to stay conscious of in order to manage our software over time. Handshake Problem

Today I think out loud about the implications of an App Store that is functionally full. Where applications cannot realistically thrive simply because of novelty or freshness. Whatever you do now you are facing up against a hyper-competitive marketplace. I think this changes significantly how we need to pursue things from a business perspective as well as helps us be realistic about what to expect. As an experiment I also recorded this episode as a video. I’m not really sure how valuable this is but I’ll never know unless I try. I’m thoroughly enjoying trying out video recently as a medium for sharing within our community. As a result of how my recording was setup the audio for this episode as a bit more echo than I would have liked, I’ll get that buttoned down if I try this again. YouTube version of this Episode

Thinking out loud about why I recently starting my series called As I Learn WatchKit. I’ve learned a lot about the creative process by giving myself permission to put unpolished things into the world. My first attempt at Youtube Then, I dive into the economics of building WatchKit apps. In general I think that the economic realities of building apps for it are consistent with any other app endeavor. If it was a good idea before it is likely doubly so to add a Watch extension. If it is a new idea you have a great opportunity to be an early adopter.

My first reactions to WatchKit. I’m really glad Apple has given is some genuinely powerful capabilities with this first generation of APIs. Getting Started with WatchKit My Initial Impressions Apple’s Main WatchKit page Developer Forums

For a while now I’ve had an episode idea discussing some of the ‘interesting math’ about working on a project by yourself. I discuss how working on something by yourself is so very different than in working on any other sized team.

I’ve had a few folks ask me about my plans and ideas for Apple Watch. While I don’t try to be too coy about what I’m working on I’ve definitely kept some of my ideas close to the vest. I’m well aware that ideas, in general, are useless on their own. But that doesn’t mean that being promiscuous with your ideas is still always a good choice. Derek Sivers on ideas. Trying to formularize this I came up with the following structure for ideas and where sharing them is likely a good and poor choice. Like all good concepts it can be best demonstrated with a two-axis graph with four quadrants: On the one axis is the ease of implementing/realizing the idea. On the other is the expected return on a successful implementation of that idea. Easy, High Reward: If you actually have one of these (you likely don’t) keep it quiet and run with it as fast as you can. Likely hyper competitive. Simultaneous invention everywhere. Easy, Low Reward: Confections that are likely flash in the pan (if they flash at all). Hard, Low…

With the impending arrival of the AppleWatch next year and the WatchKit SDK next month I’m starting to shift my focus towards ‘wearables’. They present a few challenges to me as a developer, not the least of which is that I have almost no experience with that type of device. I used to wear a watch years ago but haven’t consistently for a long time. I saw the Pebble when it first came out and it looked kinda janky. But now it is clear this is an area that the larger companies that I piggyback my business on are heading so I’m trying hard to make sure I don’t fall off. To help me get up to speed I’ve been purchasing a variety of devices to start getting my feet at least slightly damp, if not actually wet. I started with the Jawbone UP and just got the Microsft Band. These are my initial reactions and thoughts. Jawbone UP 24 Microsoft Band

I recently hit a few milestones that got me thinking about the attributes of sustained projects. My 7th iOS (iPhone) Developer Program My first app approved 6 years ago 200 Episodes I tried to boil them down into four keys: Purpose Diversity Flexibility / Ruthlessness Patience / Tenacity

Thinking through the Retina iMac in a world where pixels stop mattering. Also, what’s going on with the iPad? Marco Arments’s thoughts on Retina iMac vs Mac Pro AnandTech’s Hands-on

While a single button might seem somewhat boring or mundane to discuss I unpack the process of thinking through a single button in Emoji++. Specifically how to handle editing of favorites. Ultimately I went with an Edit button rather than a gesture based approach. While somewhat benign superficially decisions like this can make or break your user experience. Also, why I didn’t make the icons wiggle. The Boring Designer Creating Passionate Users Creating Passionate Users - Feature Curve

Talking through the process that ultimately lead to the creation of Emoji++, my recently launched custom keyboard for iOS 8. 🎉

Getting an app ready for day one of an iOS/device launch is impossible to do right. As a developer you have a variety of options available for how you approach it, none of which are perfect. Trade Offs: App Review Marketing (good and bad) Bugs and Issues Helpdesk load New features and their worth Wasted effort Approaches: As ready as you’ll ever be: Work feverishly, battling through buggy betas and API changes to be as possibly ready as possible for the estimated release date. Measured compatibility: Just make sure it doesn’t break Kinda ready: Keep an eye on the changes, have plans in place for basic compatibility begin in earnest once bugs are fixed Wait and See: Wait until you have all the information before you really start

With the rollout of iOS 8 upon us I consider two aspects of the current Apple ecosystem that appear to lie in tension. Pincer Maneuvers Apple is fantastic at laying groundwork. When you take a step back and how their offerings both on software and hardware have evolved over the last few years you can clearly see how much forethought has gone into their approach. Apple doesn’t just throw things over the wall as soon as they are ready. Instead they prefer to gradually expand and enhance their capabilities over time, giving developers lots of warning and time to adapt. I can think of many areas where this has been the case but perhaps the clearest example is the iPhone 6/6+ screens. A few years back they brought Auto Layout to iOS. Then they changed the UI aesthetic in iOS 7 to discourage designs that focused on pixel perfect layouts. They introduced Dynamic Text to add an element of variability and customization to the user experience. Then came Adaptive Layouts, Launch screen Nibs and Asset Collections. Each…

Today I wanted to take a quick run through the App Review Guidelines. Love ‘em. Hate ‘em. They are one of the most core parts of creating and distributing apps for the App Store. I will give some high level thoughts about the state of App Review and then walk through some of the recent changes Apple published. I’ll also touch on the new page Apple published listing the Common App Rejection reasons. I went ahead and organized the changes into a more readable format. Accessibility Note: A less color oriented version of this diff is available here. Preamble We have over a million Apps in the App Store. If your App doesn’t do something useful, unique or provide some form of lasting entertainment, or if your app is plain creepy, it may not be accepted. 2. Functionality 2.9 Apps that are "beta", “demo”, “trial”, or “test” versions will be rejected. Beta Apps may only be submitted through TestFlight and must follow the TestFlight guidelines 2.25 Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion…

Today I’m going to dive into the world of app updates. Why we do them, how often we do them and whether they are important. Context I did a long analysis of the update trends in the App Store. I recommend you visit that yourself but the short version is: 50% of Top Apps are have been updated in the last 3 months (26% overall) 86% of Top Apps in the last year (60% overall) 300,000 apps were updated in the last 3 months. 480,000 apps are effectively abandoned (no updates in last year) Types of Updates An actual shipped update might include more than one of the following categories but it is likely constructive to think about why you are making a change before you make it. Compatibility: An update that exists to allow the existing feature set to work on new hardware, operating system, API, etc. Remedial: An update that exists to correct a flaw or deficiency in existing functionality. Defensive: An update that exists to keep up with the competition. Enhancement: An update that adds functionality or capability to…

This past week has seen an explosion of writing and discussion about the business of making software for sale on the iOS App Store. Personally I love it when these little bubbles of discussion appear. If you’ve listened to me for any period of time you’ll know that one of the things I really like is being a student of the App Store. These discussions provide the opportunity and motivation for all sorts of anecdotes which help expand my view on where things stand. I must confess I was a bit apprehensive in preparing for this week’s show. I have had a number of people reach out to me saying they can’t wait to hear me chime in. I’m right in the thick of this. I’m an “indie” developer who has been making my living off the App Store for nearly five years now, so I’m no stranger to the ups-and-downs it involves. If you are hoping that I have some grand unified model that might summarize our current situation, sadly I think I’ll have to disappoint. Business is complicated, dynamic and ever changing. You can do the…

Back from a delightful, extended vacation I want to take a minute (or 15) to talk about the importance of stepping back from the day to day inputs that can so easily mold or distort your views on things. The world is a varied and complex place and likely very different than the people and perspectives you interact with on a daily basis.

I will be on vacation for the next two weeks, so unless something monumental happens in between now and late July there won’t be any episodes of Developing Perspective. Back at WWDC, basking in the glow of the river of great new announcements I had quipped “Wow, they gave us everything but a business model.” That comment is clearly absurd but it does drive towards a more honest and worthwhile point. In many ways the situation iOS developers find themselves in heading into the Autumn of 2014 isn’t about technology or tools, it is about business. As the market has matured the natural consequence is that older inefficiencies that may have propped up unsustainable models have fallen away. The App Store and related ecosystems are now extremely efficient. If there is an opportunity to be exploited we can expect it to be found and exploited. If you come up with a great new idea it will be analyzed, dissected and the interesting parts copied with often head-turning pace. As I have navigated this transition myself I…

This past week we had a bit of drama about the role of podcast networks. I don’t intend to wade into that discussion but as a result of it I was asked about the role that linking and recommendations play in expanding my own audience for this show. Which is considerable and measurable. I wanted to return the favor this week by talking about how I stay informed about the goings-on in Apple development. This isn’t an exhaustive list but these are the places I always make sure I’m up to date with. I actually use Twitter a lot less than I used to. The signal-to-noise (even with aggressive muting) is just too low. Podcasts Programming and Design Debug Iterate Mobile Couch Business-y Stuff Release Notes Core Intuition General News The Prompt Accidental Tech Podcast Blogs Inessential Jared Sinclair Ole Begemann MacStories Misc Hello Internet Pragmatic

ASCIIwwdc Accessibility is an important aspect of software development. Apple’s platforms provide a wide array of tools for easily adding it into your apps. The return for this effort is often somewhat ephemeral but nevertheless rewarding. Basic Accessibility overview Triple-tap home shortcut Thoughtful ordering of controls Thoughtful ordering of words Design the experience, not narration. Pedometer++ (the app discussed).

We are exploring a new territory within the Apple developer landscape. Here is how I plan my expedition. Get a solid grasp of what’s new Start with Apple’s own overviews: iOS 8 for Developers What’s new in iOS API Diffs Keep in mind questions like these: What does this enable that isn’t currently possible? How would Apple promote this feature? Is this a evolutionary or ‘revolutionary’? Does this seem to be a dead-end or a beachhead? Short list your paths Start to think about how you are going to spend your summer. How much time do you have? What are your ‘minimum’ required things? Not what could you do, what must you do? What would you enjoy trying most? Do you have any specific skills, connections or experience that give you an advantage? Avoid the pitfalls Keep a few things in mind. New developer focused features are often really buggy to start with and your customers won’t care. It likely need to be ready by September 1. So be careful how much you bite off. (It was Sept 10 for iOS 7). Try to focus on what…

My initial impressions on the 2014 WWDC Keynote. Wow, it was a big one.

This year I’m going to skip my usual soapbox speech about WWDC tips and etiquette. Given the way the ticket distribution played out it seems neither kind nor productive. If you are going to WWDC I commend these two #128: WWDC Tips and Etiquette. #53: Please, be polite at WWDC. Today I’m going to talk through a bit of my thoughts heading into WWDC. If the last episode bummed you out a bit this will hopefully put a more positive spin onto things. I also talk a bit about what I’m expecting/hoping to see announced next week. I will be in San Francisco next week and hope you meet many of you there.

I wax philosophical about the future. Trying to wrestle with the uncertainty that surrounds our industry. Some products succeed, some products fail. Where will mine fall?

My thanks to everyone who purchased a t-shirt in the last two weeks. They should be at the printer and then on their way to your door within the next week or so. Anxiety and Inertia I’ll be taking a quick break from the Unconventional Wisdom series today. I want to ruminate a bit on something more topical for my personally. Feed Wrangler hit its one year anniversary this past week. That accomplishment in and of itself is rather significant for me. If you have been listening to this podcast over the last year you know the trials and triumphs getting to here has involved. I wrote up my thoughts about that here if you are interested. The actual topic I want to discuss though isn’t directly related to Feed Wrangler. It has to do with the anxiety of sustaining a business. I’ve been making my primary living from the App Store for just shy of five years now. In that time I’ve seen it morph and change dramatically. The manner in which I have been able to make a living has necessarily required several adjustments…

T-shirts I am doing another run of t-shirts for the show. After I did the campaign for them last fall I heard from a lot of people that they missed out. This year I’m giving the campaign a nice long run (through April 28). The shirt design this year combines three distinctly geeky things—underscores, square brackets and fixed width fonts. Shirts are $14.59 (never longer than 15 minutes). Get one at http://teespring.com/developing. My thanks for the dozens of people who have already got one. Unconventional Wisdom I’m doing a series of episodes trying to take contrarian positions against conventional wisdom in software development. My goal is to challenge the assumptions we make and help us to think more critically about how we conduct our business. The result is something that isn’t 100% my actual position on things but should be productive and hopefully thought provoking nevertheless. I’ll be making sweeping, un-nuanced statements for effect. As with everything in life, it is more complicated than I’m going…

T-shirts I am doing another run of t-shirts for the show. After I did the campaign for them last fall I heard from a lot of people that they missed out. This year I’m giving the campaign a nice long run (through April 28). The shirt design this year combines three distinctly geeky things—underscores, square brackets and fixed width fonts. Shirts are $14.59 (never longer than 15 minutes). Get one at http://teespring.com/developing . Wrapping up I have published the consolidated, summarized article for my Towards a Better App Store series. Unconventional Wisdom Today I thought it might be fun to start another series of episodes. I like doing series because then I don’t have to think so much about my topic each week. The concept I’m starting with is modeled a bit after debate exercise where you are given a topic or statement then told to take either the pro or against position. The process of having to defend either side of an argument often helps to think in ways you wouldn’t otherwise. Along those lines I’m…

I hope you fared better in the WWDC lottery than I did, though I’m hopeful for a possibility of a second round on Monday (maybe?). The system and process generally went really well and I think this is likely the process we’ll see going forward. It isn’t perfect but is as good as I could imagine. Improving the App Store: Part 5 Ratings The star rating of an application is the most important aspects of the sale experience that is outside of the developer’s direct control. It is displayed on every page and instance where your app is shown and gives the customer a general cue about the quality of your app. As such developers tend to take whatever actions they can to increase it. If this were just a question of improving the quality of their apps that would be fine but that isn’t where most developers stop off. Not to reopen the tempest about prompt dialogs, but there are a lot of potentially dubious and tricky things developers can do to try and ‘artificially’ boost their ratings. There are also some really…