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Dive into the world of software development. Tune in for in-depth interviews with industry experts and the latest information. Whether you're an experienced developer or just starting, this podcast is your one-stop shop for everything related to software development.
00:00
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the CompileObjects podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Pato, and on the other line, I've got Peter Witham. Welcome, Peter. Hello. Hello, Jeff. How you doing, buddy? How's your week been? Oh, man, it's been great. You know, we've really been getting into some of the new stuff that Apple announced just recently, and I'm excited. And so I really just want to get into talking about that. Yeah, me too. I can't believe that we're already at the third version of iPhone OS. Yeah.
00:30
And it's got some really important stuff. So go ahead, dive straight in and let's kick this thing off. Well, of course, you know that the biggest one that people like were really clamoring about and been wondering why haven't we had this the entire time is finally the ability to copy and paste stuff on the iPhone. And I felt like it's not really been limiting me so far, but it is still a really nice thing to have. And it looks like Apple put some real thought into it, you know, as they always do.
00:59
They're late to things, but then they'll eventually figure it out and do a good job of it.
01:04
Yeah, me too. It's funny how it's not until you realize you don't have it that you're like, "Oh, yeah."
01:12
And I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about the interface with two dots and tapping on the thing, but I got a feeling we'll get used to it. And I feel like it's one of those muscle memory things. Once we've done it a few times,
01:28
you know it'll seem like we've been doing it this way forever and maybe we will do it that way forever who knows because apple really has thought it through yeah it really looks like they nailed it and yeah i don't expect it to have major changes i don't expect them to be reworking that endlessly i think that they really sat there and figured out how to do it well and i think they've done it the the which you would want and the way you would expect yeah yeah i mean you know i'm i'm sort of thinking
01:58
I've got to myself, you know, the only thing you could maybe do, you know, like a really wild dream is maybe if I could tap and copy something and then, I don't know, I go to my other phone because we've all got test phones, right? And I could paste it on the other device or something, but I know that's crazy, folks. So, you know, I'm sort of living in a dream world there. Do we all have test phones? You know, I don't even have an actual phone yet. I've just been doing all of my development on an eye touch that I
02:29
Well, you know, and see, that's the thing. I love my iPod Touch so much that, you know, I don't know about you, but it goes everywhere with me. Arguably, I think I probably use it more than a phone still at this point, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm just using the little crappy Samsung flip-on, so, you know, I don't have an iPhone. I'm not paying that monthly cost for it at all, but so, I
02:58
I still am using that but I have the iPod Touch to do software development on to build apps on and to really just check out what's in the App Store. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's a device that, you know, I'll ever be carrying religiously or standing around, you know, tapping on the screen or anything, but you never know. I mean, it is certainly useful and I, you know, I'm going to miss my HP iPack because I'm so used to that, but
03:28
you know how many times have you lost the stylus right so yeah so another feature um that i think is probably gonna be a big one um and is very common to mac users uh spotlight right i mean yeah now finally the ability to like oh great i can i can do a little bit of the search in here i still miss the name sherlock but you know spotlight is is yeah yeah yeah i don't know you know do you think it'll become so commonplace that one day you know it'll
03:58
like, oh, let me spotlight that for you. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Just like when we say Google
04:02
something today. Yeah. Yeah, right. I mean, I feel like it just kind of sounds cool to say it, doesn't it? Right? Yeah. I mean, surely Apple's working on like their own search engine at this point, right? That, you know, it would go in with all the stuff that they've been doing with MobileMe that they would want to have their own spotlight thing. I'm sure we'll see that in the next couple years. Do you think so? I don't know. I mean,
04:27
I think that, you know, Apple is so busy at the moment with obviously having the device at the moment, right? That we don't know how long this this bubble is gonna last. But it seems like they're okay with, you know, using Google search, right? Yeah, I mean, on the iPhone, we do have the Google Maps app, the YouTube app, they do seem very closely connected. So yeah, I guess that it doesn't make sense for Apple to move in on any of their
04:59
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, Apple being Apple, they'll focus, you know, down on what they've got now and, you know, just continue to use somebody else's. It's easier for them and they can do what they do well, right? Yeah, we don't see Apple going and making their own Maps app, so I don't know why they would want to go and make their own search app. But yeah, I think you're right. You've convinced me. Yeah, I think the other big thing that they announced today,
05:27
in iPhone OS 3 is the ability to send pictures and also contacts and other types of information. But I think pictures is going to be the big one of sending those in messages using SMS. Sorry, not SMS. SMS is for text. MMS is for this additional data. It's an open standard, so it'll work with every phone out there. It'll work out there with your Windows phones, your Palm OS devices, and all of that.
05:57
BlackBerry, all of these various services, it's not using a proprietary system like BlackBerry does with their communications. It will actually work across phones. And so Apple here really adopting kind of this industry standard in order to share with the mass amount of people, as we stated earlier, myself included, who are not using an iPhone for day-to-day communications.
06:23
Well, and I think that's great because, you know, I love seeing that Apple is embracing these open standards and saying, look, you know, hey, we want, we recognize all these other folks that have got devices and so on. And we want to make sure that we're compatible with them and we stay open and not lock down some proprietary something or another. So kudos to Apple for that. I'm sure we will see a lot more of that in the future. And I think that's going to be great.
06:53
It doesn't feel like the kind of thing that makes sense for them to get into where they would have what like an iPhone only messaging system like that just doesn't make any sense it feels like it's locking too many people out it feels like it's just creating this environment where you've got just like a Apple user specific social network that's just kind of a silly thing
07:17
Yeah, no, I agree completely because I think at the moment it's a hard enough challenge to get people to switch to using the iPhone device, right? You said it earlier, right? We're all so used to and we love our flip phones. Right now the bigger challenge is, hey, you know, I mean, especially since you have to move to AT&T to get it. I know this is different in some of the other countries that the iPhone is available in.
07:47
But here in the United States, it being only on AT&T, I'm not going to switch carriers just to get the iPhone. Right. So I think, you know, it's such a say at the moment that there's really no guarantee that this iPhone thing is going to become a big deal. Right. I mean, it's not going to be the iPod. I was just going to say something like the iPod, where it was so obvious from day one that it was like, this is the device people have.
08:17
everybody needs for their music, right? It doesn't feel that way with the phone at the moment, and I think that that's a big enough challenge for Apple as it is. So why go and lock something down that says, hey, you've got to have this device to use it, right? But I also want to pick up on something else that you said there, because, you know, you're saying about sending photos in messages, and that's great, you know, but given the cost involved with data plans and things like that,
08:47
I really wonder if that'll how much of a big deal that will be. That's too early to tell. And I don't know. I mean, it's kind of like the flip phone thing. We're all so used to cameras being cameras that I don't know that I see a future where it's like, oh, you know, yeah, I'm going to take my mainstream pictures with something of the quality of the camera on the iPhone. Right.
09:16
I'm not saying it's a novelty or it's a gimmick. I just don't feel like it's like, oh, I should rush out and replace my camera gear with this.
09:24
Yeah, I mean, I feel I get where you're coming from. And I do feel like there is a lot of concern that people have around the fact that an iPhone camera is not nearly as good as even just like your standard point and shoot camera.
09:41
But I mean, I feel like we've been seeing for years that in places like Japan, there is kind of this big movement towards camera phones as being, hey, this is a thing that you have that you can take pictures with it, you can instantly share them, and really kind of have this social aspect to it that I think will take off. And, you know, one thing that we didn't mention in this whole discussion is
10:11
The fact that Apple didn't say explicitly say but heavily seemed to hint that this is not going to be supported by AT&T right off the bat and so I think that this is Apple really testing the waters in places like Japan where they will have support for this right from day one and kind of experimenting in some of these other places Apple bringing it into the United States once the carrier that they have there is really ready to support it
10:39
Well, and that's an interesting point that I hadn't thought of, which is, you know, if they can pull this off and folks really start to use their phone to take photos, maybe that's also some leverage there with not only using sort of partially against AT&T, but with other carriers to say, hey, if you can do a better job, you know, maybe one day,
11:08
will support more than AT&T in America, for example. I don't know, maybe. All right, so this is a developer podcast. So let's start talking about some of the SDK software development kit stuff, right? Because, again, this is the third revision at this point, right? iPhone OS 3, and there's a lot of big stuff this year, huge stuff, I think, in the SDK. And something that really stood out,
11:37
I think will be something in the future.
11:41
Will be push notifications.
11:44
You want to dive into the details on this one?
11:46
Because I think this is an important topic.
11:48
Yeah.
11:48
I mean, I think this goes great with one of the apps that I've got out there, which is the news app.
11:53
And really, this is the ability to send to users a notification.
11:59
It pops up just like they got text message or anything like that.
12:02
And say, hey, there's some new information.
12:05
And so the three things that you can send to people are text, audio, and badges. So with text, like I said, it shows up just like a text message and has some amount of like a headline, a news headline, some kind of alert, anything like that. Audio allows you to have custom audio that shows up along your text or just on its own. And they had this really funny part in the keynote where they were showing off,
12:35
a developer building app for ESPN. And when a new notification came in about some sports news that happened, it actually played the like SportsCenter theme, the da-na-na, da-na-na. And yeah, everybody in the audience got a real kick out of that, hearing that kind of recognizable sound and knowing what that meant. And the last item that you have available is badge alerts. This is just, hey, you don't really want to interrupt the user, but you should let them know that they have like a new message, a new email, something like that.
13:04
you can actually put like a number badge on your app icon so i i think this is going to be a big deal i would really love to see this for like new uh notifications um new headlines and stuff in my news app but what are you thinking about this yeah no i think so too and what i like is the you know it doesn't feel obtrusive right um yeah you know the text one i i feel the text one is maybe
13:34
the most obtrusive unless you're sitting in a library and you get an audio one. But you know they are I think it'd be very useful. I can see them being used in a very limited way which also means that when I get one of these push notifications I know it's going to be something important and relevant right. And I think that that's a big deal right there. So you know like if I get a notification
14:05
that I got a message from someone or like you said, an audio badge. I can see maybe if they can figure out some way in the future that is like, please give me the latest scores on a game that I can see while I'm at a family thing and not have to like go look at the television, right? That would be cool. I think that's what they were trying to get at with the ESPN one. Yeah, yeah. And I think the badge alerts is an interesting one as well.
14:34
Well, you know, because it's just that small, noticeable but not obtrusive on your icon, the, you know, it's just a quick way of giving you some potential number for something. I got three, whatever they may be, three news updates or something like that, right? So I love this, the idea that, like I say, it's not going to be abused.
15:02
It'll be something that when you get it, we're getting your attention because we really want to get your attention and you are invested in knowing whatever it's trying to tell me. So, yeah, I'm excited about this. That is one of the really nice things about AppReview. I know we complain about the fact that AppReviews take a week to do, but that they will protect users from this kind of stuff. You know, I think that Apple will lock down and make sure that people aren't just using these notifications for advertising or anything like that.
15:32
that they are going to make sure that, hey, apps are using these four things that are truly important. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, in general, I feel like app developers will be respectful of these and respectful of the platform. And like you said, that in conjunction with Apple checking that, hey, you know, I'm sure they're going to have a system that says, should you really be sending a notification for this? Right.
16:01
And I think it's pretty interesting to see where this goes. Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that they've announced is the ability to do peer-to-peer connectivity between apps on different devices. One of the things that's obviously been such a huge win for iPod Touch and iPhone users has been on-the-go games. And this is going to allow people to very easily, in one room, get together and play a game together or, you know, do some other shared activity together.
16:30
on multiple devices.
16:34
And so I think this is going to be really fun.
16:36
So imagine you've got like a racing game or something on your phone and you can very quickly find somebody else in the same room, your friend, your buddy, and connect to them and now have this race against each other.
16:52
I think that this is a huge, huge deal.
16:56
And I do think this will be a step up as well from, you know, I think probably most of us, if you've ever played a game with somebody else, you've all been there and had that like split screen experience on the television, right? You know, and it's like you're on the top, friend on the bottom or whatever, but you always kind of know what they're doing because you can see it. Yeah. Whether it's such here that, you know, I'm playing with somebody else. I've got the full screen experience on my device.
17:26
I think this will be a thing again. I think that the theme this year is definitely Apple recognizing that they want this to be a community. Think of this device as they've said before. It's a communication device, right? But that's not just talking on the phone. That is, in the case of this, more like a family event, right? Let's get around the plugin. This is something where you're going to get around people and be with them. And I think that this unlocks a lot of
17:56
for games.
17:57
Because we've seen multiplayer games on the iPhone so far, but they all used the internet.
18:01
And because mobile internet is so slow, like you don't have any real, real-time activities.
18:07
This is all of the games that you've been able to do so far have been things like Scrabble, where you take like a whole turn and then pass it over to the next person.
18:16
Whereas I think that this with this peer-to-peer connectivity, a lot of this is running over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
18:22
you're going to be able to have things like I said, like a racing game where it's much more something that you're doing live. And I think that's going to really unlock a lot of fun experiences that we couldn't do before. Agreed. And I think that if folks, you know, start to think about how maybe this can be used for something beyond gaming as well, it will make the users feel more secure. You know, with Apple's focus on
18:53
I think this will be a big deal going forward. I don't have to worry that, you know, oh, it's going up to some phone network somewhere, big brothers watching me, whatever. It's just me and you in the room connecting, like you said, one-to-one, peer-to-peer. And that's how far it goes, right? The bandwidth only stretched you so far, right? Blitz-2 connectivity is not that far, yeah.
19:20
Yeah, exactly. Right. So I think that speaks a lot to Apple's maybe vision of the future and privacy. I'd like them to be very concerned about that going forward. And it does feel that way. Yeah, absolutely. And then there is one other here that we want to talk about as well. You know, of course, we're talking about, you know, apps here and that. We want to talk about in-app purchases.
19:49
Yeah, Apple made a big deal about this, but I honestly don't see this being much of a thing. What do you like? I feel it's weird. Like maybe I've not connected the dots because Apple tried, you know, something that a lot of developers have talked about, and especially people who have been around on the Mac for a long time. So, you know, companies like Panic that have done a lot of Mac apps and have started looking into or talking about doing apps for the iPhone have been saying, like,
20:19
We need stuff like the ability to charge upgrades. And I think Apple was saying that this is kind of a solution for that. But A, it feels more complicated than that. And B, a lot of the things that they talked about doing with this just didn't really feel like they were things that companies do. So they were talking about games that could sell extra levels or stuff. And if you think of shareware games,
20:49
You know, Doom being the kind of canonical example that, yeah, they sold extra levels, quote unquote, at the end of the first episode of the game. But it was really more like you've got a demo and you've got the full version. And Apple already does that. People will publish, you know, the light version of their app to the App Store and then the full version that you pay up front. I don't really see what in-app purchase is getting you.
21:19
in that case. And so that's the part where I was like, I don't, they made such a big deal out of it, but I don't really feel like it's going to be something that a lot of apps use. Yeah, I agree with you. I think, you know, like you said, Doom is a good example. I think that we are used to, you know, games being very much like apps, right? I've got whatever it is, this year's version, next year,
21:49
I'm going to buy next year's version. Right. And this idea of like some kind of, I don't know, micro payment. I don't know. I don't think, I don't think it'll catch on because it doesn't play into, I think, how users think of these things. You know, we all get excited when there's a new release of a game and things like that. And if you had this kind of incremental process, I feel like it lessens the experience.
22:19
a little bit and lessens the, you know, the high community. I mean, with games, especially like we are used to seeing the big game developers, Nintendo, Sony, whoever that come out with, you know, when you've got a new Mario game, for example, it's a separate game that you pay for upfront. You don't go get Mario Kart Double Dash as an upgrade to Mario Kart 64 and just pay for a thing. You're buying. And yes, this is, you know,
22:49
a weird case because they're completely different consoles, but, you know, bear with me. I get what you're doing with it, yeah. But, you know, you go and you buy that new thing. And so I understand what they're trying to get out with, like, software or something where, you know, if you're upgrading from Photoshop 5 to Photoshop 6, then you do typically get, like, an update type program there. But I wish they would have just done actual update pricing as opposed to this weird in-app purchase.
23:19
I don't know.
23:22
Yeah.
23:22
I mean,
23:22
I I'm trying to visualize like,
23:25
you know,
23:26
how's this.
23:28
Yeah.
23:28
Are you just buying updates to Photoshop by paying for it?
23:34
Like,
23:34
do you have to always go start with Photoshop five and then buy an
23:38
upgrade to Photoshop six and then an upgrade to Photoshop?
23:41
Like it's exactly.
23:42
Yeah.
23:43
It's like,
23:45
it,
23:45
it ends up,
23:46
it almost sounds like some kind of like magazine.
23:49
subscription thing, right? Get the monthly edition, right? I mean, that's just insanity. Honestly, that would be better because like, then you're buying like a regular subscription to something. But no, this is still a case where you have to buy each individual piece separately. Whereas, yes, I think you'll have to have the base as well. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. And yeah, that's the other thing is that you can pay up front and still have to pay more. I don't know. But I'm thinking, yeah, a subscription where
24:19
it was like an automatic thing okay maybe that makes sense but like right now it's it's still like you've got to go out every single time and and pick a new version of that i don't know it doesn't make i don't yeah i mean and you know like i'm trying to think of like how this like what would this be used for i mean and and it just sounds so insane to even say it but something like i know let's take doom since i i think
24:49
most game players know of doom right um you know it's like saying hey if you want to pay another
24:57
couple of dollars you can have red armor i mean who the hell's gonna do that that just sounds so
25:03
ridiculous it's even saying it right absolutely all right so uh those are kind of the big new things uh we
25:11
can we can kind of start wrapping it up uh yeah iphone os 3 we'll probably get this in a couple months
25:17
iPhone users, you're on that, you know, care plan. You're going to get it for free. iPod touch users, slowly iPod touch users. We're going to have to pay $9.95 for this. I mean, this does seem like a lot of really nice new things to get for that. And $9.95 versus, you know, getting a new version of Mac OS X, you've got to spend $129 for a new copy of Leopard. Like, okay, $9.95, I'm fine with that, you know, to get copy and paste, to get push notifications, to get that kind of stuff.
25:47
Like I, 95, totally fine. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I would happily pay that price to get those. And I also think that 9.95 is, you know, for what I've paid for the device and that I'm not even going to notice it. I'm completely fine with this, right? You're not asking me to. I'm a poor college student. Like, that's not going to mean it. It means a little bit more, but yeah. Okay. I mean, you've got to save a little bit, but it's cheaper than like, oh, shoot.
26:17
I've got to replace the iPod Touch. Right? You know. I mean, gosh, come on. Like, what are you saying here? Like, we'll buy a new one every year? That's not going to happen, right? You know. But I do agree with you. When you think about it in terms of the price of upgrading a desktop OS. Yeah. It's like practically giving it away. And we're getting so much, relatively speaking, more. Like, it's not like Leper came with copy and paste.
26:47
I mean, we are getting so much year over year. I realize that it's on a smaller base. You know, the Mac has been around for how many years at this point? And the iPhone has only been around for three. But yeah, I think that this is a case where the cost is totally worth it. Well, and I think to the, there exists here. I mean, I don't know, you know, but it almost feels like we're on the
27:17
a new breakthrough platform that has the potential to become as uniform and accepted as a desktop, a laptop, right? I mean, maybe not. The future will tell. But, you know, when you put it in that bigger picture, things come with a cost, right? And this seems like a reasonable one. And like we say, compared to my desktop, it's very acceptable.
27:48
But you get a lot more for your desktop, for sure. Right? And I think that's reflective in the prices. Yeah. Makes sense. Anyway, I think that's good coverage of everything. Peter, if people are interested, where can they find you? Yeah. So, you know, I'm relatively new at all this stuff. Well, I guess a fair amount of people are. But I'm fortunate enough that you can go to PeterWidham.com and that is where you will find me.
28:17
Where will they find you, Jeff? I'm primarily with all of the other Mac developers these days on Twitter, twitter.com/cocotype and I think that can be where you find me. All right. Well, folks, that's what we got for you. Who knows? Maybe there's more to talk about in the future. We don't know. Maybe this is flash in the pan. But that's it, everybody. Thank you for listening and we will see you later. See you later.