[00:00:00] EU App Store Changes
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[00:00:00] Leo Dion (host): welcome to another episode, empower Apps. I'm your host, Leo Dion. Today I am joined by Kyle Lee, otherwise known as Kilo Loko. Kyle, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
[00:00:15] Kyle Lee (guest): Absolutely. It's been a while. Leo. It's good to see you. Happy to be here. Hello everybody.
[00:00:19] Leo Dion (host): , for those who don't know you, I'll let you go ahead and introduce yourself.
[00:00:23] Kyle Lee (guest): yeah, absolutely. Again, my name is Kyle, also known as Kilo Loko online. So that's where you would, that's the name that I go by on Twitter or X and YouTube, and that's where I made a lot of YouTube tutorials on iOS development, android development, fluter development, a lot of stuff around mobile development.
[00:00:41] Kyle Lee (guest): And I've been in the industry since 2015, so like about, what is it, eight, eight years now. And I've worked at a startup called Bird, which is a scooter company. I've done freelancing and I just got laid off from AWS last year. A little bit of a little bit of experience under my belt.
[00:01:05] Leo Dion (host): Yes. If you're not following kilo on social media, you definitely should be doing that. Yeah, we had you on to talk about AWS Amplify, I believe last
[00:01:16] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah,
[00:01:17] Leo Dion (host): So yeah, this time we have a few exciting topics to talk about. There's a big thing coming out from Apple. Of course, I'm talking about the new changes to the App store not talking about anything else that's coming out.
[00:01:31] Leo Dion (host): Yeah, what, so we've got some new stuff. I think it's in gonna be in 17 four, maybe if not 18, regarding the new like alternative app stores for Europe, I believe. You wanna kind of explain what's going on there and what this might mean for developers like myself?
[00:01:52] Kyle Lee (guest): yeah. Absolutely. So,, the high level overview is a lot of you are probably familiar and have heard about this court battle that's going on between Apple and Epic Games, which is the creator of Fortnite. And this happened a couple of years ago, so if you've been in the industry for a while, you might've heard about this.
[00:02:11] Kyle Lee (guest): And essentially a lot of the rulings on the court case have been made and it led to one, one of the rulings going in the favor of Epic Games. And this is primarily happening over in Europe, in the, in, in the European countries right now. And the ruling kind of led to Apple being forced to allow apps to make in-app purchases through a third party link. So essentially what the ruling says is that your app can actually go to their website to make the purchase of like their subscription. Or if you wanna buy like tokens for a game or like whatever your app is offering, it doesn't have to go through the app store.
[00:03:02] Kyle Lee (guest): And the reason why you wouldn't want to go through the App store is because Apple takes this 30% commission off of every purchase that is being made in your app. So the idea is like you would have something that most people are familiar with Netflix, right? Generally you can't sign up for Netflix within the iOS app or the Apple TV app.
[00:03:24] Kyle Lee (guest): What you have to do is you have to go to netflix.com, you have to go, buy the subscription whatever it costs, like 1599, and then you would have to log into your account through through your iOS app. Now theoretically, you would be able to purchase your subscription through the website on Netflix.
[00:03:45] Kyle Lee (guest): Still not through the app store but you would still be able to do it through the app. It could link you to that website and then you could make the purchase there and then return back to the app. The problem is that the way that Apple complied to this ruling was kind of in a very controversial way to where yes, you can link out to your.
[00:04:12] Kyle Lee (guest): To your paywall on your website, but there's gonna be these huge roadblocks that are going to essentially scare customers off and are going to strongly discourage any customer from purchasing your your product through your website so that you don't have to pay Apple um, so much. You can do that, but there's a lot of hoops that the customer has to go through, which is already like horrible user experience and is going to essentially prevent all customers from wanting to, to make that purchase.
[00:04:45] Kyle Lee (guest): And then on top of that, they're going to still charge you 27% to make that purchase. So anything that you would have made by not having to pay Apple by allowing the customer to purchase through the app store, you still have to pay them that minus 3% and that other 3% is most likely going to something like Stripe, which is gonna be your payment provider.
[00:05:10] Kyle Lee (guest): I hope I was able to explain that in a easy to understand way.
[00:05:15] Leo Dion (host): So you still, you can purchase outside the app store, but the money still goes to Apple.
[00:05:20] Kyle Lee (guest): So the way, yeah, so the way that this, the way that this works is Apple is demanding to have statements like financial records and transaction statements sent to Apple from your business, from your, yeah, from your business to you would send those statements to Apple so that they can verify which transactions came from their app, so that you are still forced to pay them to the 20, per the 27% or 12% if you're part of the small business program. But you are forced to send over your statements to Apple.
[00:05:59] Leo Dion (host): That's crazy.
[00:06:00] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah.
[00:06:02] Leo Dion (host): I'm just like oh my gosh. What as a developer would you have to do to implement something like this?
[00:06:08] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah. So I haven't gone through the actual implementation, but I have kind of seen screenshots of what is required. So now remember we're in our, we're in our, let's say we're Netflix, we're in our Netflix app, and we're about to send a customer to our paywall so that they can get their monthly subscription.
[00:06:29] Kyle Lee (guest): I'm trying to avoid paying Apple the full 30%. I would just wanna pay them the 27%, which. It actually doesn't make any business sense with the way that Apple has implemented it. But let's say that we do wanna do it. What the customer's going to experience is now this customer, if they were already signed in some apps, you're already signed in when you wanna make purchases, not Netflix, because you would still need to make a purchase to have an account and stuff like that.
[00:06:55] Kyle Lee (guest): But
[00:06:56] Leo Dion (host): right.
[00:06:57] Kyle Lee (guest): if you were signed in, you are now going to first see a screen that's going to warn you, Hey, apple is not responsible for anything that happens beyond this point. If there are any malicious things that go on past this in this browser and you do make purchases, apple is not liable.
[00:07:17] Kyle Lee (guest): You cannot get refunds. You are responsible for losing your own money. It's this giant scare tactic scream. And obviously it doesn't, it, apple is very good about their words, about how it's not actually saying anything bad about what's happening, but they are warning and saying like, all of these different things can happen in a more professional sense.
[00:07:41] Kyle Lee (guest): And then if you do continue to move forward, then you have to actually sign in if your account requires signing in to make the purchase with your account. And then you would make the purchase and then you would be dropped back into the app. So it's, it is a less than ideal experience for the customer.
[00:08:06] Kyle Lee (guest): And Yeah. And most businesses and successful app developers understand that when a customer is about to make a purchase, the last thing you need to do is add friction and scare them off. You have to re, you have to reduce as much friction to the purchasing pro process as possible, or else you're going to eliminate a large chunk of your potential buyers.
[00:08:32] Leo Dion (host): Wow. That's crazy. What I wanna jump back and ask again to the developer question. So let's say you have an app and you want to add this. What kind of like certificates or provisioning profile stuff or IDs?
[00:08:47] Kyle Lee (guest): I haven't implemented this myself yet, but I would assume it's a special type of yeah, thankfully I think it's like a special type of one of those like SF web views that you would display.
[00:09:00] Leo Dion (host): Like an associated site
[00:09:02] Kyle Lee (guest): So it, I think it's a specific kind of view that you would display.
[00:09:07] Kyle Lee (guest): So you would just present that and it'd probably
[00:09:09] Leo Dion (host): Okay. Oh, like
[00:09:10] Kyle Lee (guest): like a modal, right? Like a, like over the screen and then it just, I would assume it probably just contains a link because you can't pass any user data through it and Apple wants to monitor it, so I would assume it's its own thing.
[00:09:25] Leo Dion (host): This is yeah, I mean, I first, I think like Apple can do whatever the heck they want with their platform in a lot of ways. But at the same time, I feel like Apple continues to like really drag its feet on a lot of this stuff, and it seems like it's all about the money.
[00:09:44] Leo Dion (host): And they used double speak about oh, it's about privacy, it's about security, but it just feels. Like it's just about the money and like what it does is it like undermines the brand because then it's like when they do say something sincere about privacy, 'cause they do a lot of good stuff in that space, then it's like, do I really trust that they're gonna be right even when they are right.
[00:10:09] Leo Dion (host): You know what I mean?
[00:10:10] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah. I do want to like preface that like I used to be an Apple fan boy, and I like, am very strongly not that anymore. So you can understand my position on why I may have explained exactly what this ruling led to, but if you like, look online and if you kind of go through some of the articles that have been released by notable publishers like Nine to five Mac, um, you will see that this overall is.
[00:10:39] Kyle Lee (guest): Is kind of a bad faith implementation of what has been ruled in court. So I just want to like preface like this is where I kind of stand. I am not an Apple fan boy anymore, so my views will, may differ from yours. Also, yes, apple is like really great at doing things with security, but just like you said, Leo, it does feel like it's all about the money because Yes, I understand that.
[00:11:14] Kyle Lee (guest): Oh Apple's getting their cut 30% from the purchases because they're you're doing business on their platform. I understand that. But when the App store first launched, there weren't subscriptions. It was all like in-app purchases and stuff like that, and. The app store was much simpler back then, and Apple was taking a cut because your app was essentially being advertised on the app store.
[00:11:44] Kyle Lee (guest): But now there's so much work that has to go into just app store optimization alone that they're not really doing a whole lot other than simply hosting your app. And it's because you're forced to. A lot of Mac apps don't go through the Mac app store one because they don't want to pay that 30%.
[00:12:07] Kyle Lee (guest): And two if they're gonna be doing all of this branding and marketing for their product, it's just gonna simply live on their website and you can simply download it to your Mac. And that's kind of the way that that. It's going now to where companies want to be able to allow you to side load or simply download your iOS app onto your device from their website because they're already notable brands.
[00:12:36] Kyle Lee (guest): They don't need the marketing or the placement that the app store provides some something like Netflix. It doesn't need to be in the app store. If you found out that Netflix was in the app store and you wanted Netflix on your iPhone, you would go to netflix.com and download Netflix onto your iPhone.
[00:12:56] Kyle Lee (guest): If that was something that was allowed, right? So at this point what is Apple doing for you other than allowing you to use their device? And I think that's kind of like a really big argument and that's why you're going to start hearing about a lot of different companies. Working on building their own app store.
[00:13:16] Kyle Lee (guest): That third party apps can actually list their app probably for free, probably at no extra cost, and it'll probably just be like a big middle finger to Apple.
[00:13:27] Leo Dion (host): I feel like we're slowly inching towards the topic we didn't wanna talk about, but I feel like it's, we're gonna get there because I think these are, these two are kind of related in a way. But explain, if you don't mind, explain a little bit what you mean by Apple fan boy and what you mean by not being an Apple fan Boy.
[00:13:44] Leo Dion (host): And that's okay. You're allowed to be not an Apple
[00:13:47] Kyle Lee (guest): Oh, okay. Yeah.
[00:13:48] Leo Dion (host): You're allowed.
[00:13:48] Kyle Lee (guest): Let's see. It took a while to get there. Like, when I first entered the world of iOS development, like I was Apple fanboy it was like Apple was the best company. I wanted to have a new iPhone every year. Not even every two years. Like every year. I wanted to have one.
[00:14:04] Kyle Lee (guest): And then like I had the iPad the watch, whatever. It really started with I I think it started with my dad actually buying me Amazon echoes. So
[00:14:17] Leo Dion (host): Okay,
[00:14:18] Kyle Lee (guest): like now I had this thing where I'm not actually referring to Apple's assistant. I'm not gonna say the name so that it's not setting off anybody's thing.
[00:14:28] Kyle Lee (guest): But yeah. I wasn't using an Apple's assistant, I was using Amazon's assistant. So that was like one thing. And then I think the home pod had came out after that. And the home pod is like really overpriced in my opinion. And it's not, I haven't actually seen one in person, like at somebody's house, but I don't run in, I don't run in these circles of like extremely wealthy people, but I haven't seen them out in the wild.
[00:14:58] Leo Dion (host): No, I, no,
[00:15:00] Kyle Lee (guest): and, yeah. So have you had because I've heard a lot from the tech community purchasing this. But I
[00:15:06] Leo Dion (host): I, I have not purchased a single home pod I have purchased. I wanna say like I have about 1, 2, 3, 4, or five home pod minis. I purchased them used, so I got a considerable discount or I purchase them on sale. And as far as like playing music, they're great. So I'll say that we do have an echo attached to our therm thermostat.
[00:15:30] Leo Dion (host): It's fine. I'm not a big voice assistant fan. I just like heavy music, so in that sense they're fine. They do their job, they're really good quality sound, and that's what I wanted. I mean, they're considerably cheaper than the home pod, which I think is I don't know. It's Yeah, it's, you're totally 100% correct.
[00:15:49] Leo Dion (host): They're totally overpriced.
[00:15:51] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah. But I mean, that's like kind of Apple's thing, right? Like they're known for kind of being
[00:15:55] Leo Dion (host): Oh
[00:15:56] Kyle Lee (guest): the, like it's it's like a, it's like a social, it's like social signaling essentially on, on a lot of Apple products. But yeah, I think that, I think it kind of started there and then I started having issues with my Max,
[00:16:09] Kyle Lee (guest): I had my 2009 Mac for seven years until I actually got into the field of development. So from like 2009 all the way to like 2016, I was able to use my MacBook Pro, which was amazing. And then I got a new one and that one seemed to like, like after, after a year or two, it seemed to not even be able to keep up with some of the updates, which was like really interesting because it seemed like Max had gotten a lot better than they used to be in the past.
[00:16:36] Kyle Lee (guest): And then I started
[00:16:37] Leo Dion (host): Which, which year of MacBook did you buy, if you mind me
[00:16:40] Kyle Lee (guest): I wanna say it was like a 2015 or 2016.
[00:16:44] Leo Dion (host): Okay. Yeah. That's kind of the doldrums, I guess, of MacBooks. Were those early the years between when the keyboard issues to when they finally transitioned to
[00:16:56] Kyle Lee (guest): It was like over, it was overheating, the battery ended up dying, like really quick. And then I was just like this is kind of. lame but I was using it for, I was using it a lot and I was using it for video production too. So I was like really stressing this thing out.
[00:17:12] Kyle Lee (guest): So then I ended up having to buy another one in like 2017 20 17, 20 18. And mine was still like relatively, it felt like it was still relatively new. In my opinion, computers are supposed to last about five years.
[00:17:25] Leo Dion (host): Yeah. 100%.
[00:17:26] Kyle Lee (guest): so yeah, it's just I didn't like that. And then the thing that really got me angry was the selling point of the Apple ecosystem Let me down.
[00:17:39] Kyle Lee (guest): And it started to break, which is this iCloud sync, having your, having everything work between devices started to break down. And I don't know what happened. I don't know if it was something that I did or it was a bug in iCloud, but. All of a sudden on my newer MacBook Duplicates, I like these dot iCloud files started showing up and they started duplicating across my entire computer.
[00:18:06] Kyle Lee (guest): Everything that was synced, it was being duplicated. And then I ran out of physical storage. I think. Yeah, I think I've, I ran outta physical storage. It wasn't like it didn't transfer to the cloud, the duplicates, I guess, but it burned up my storage and then every time I would remove all those, after a couple of days, it would run out of storage again.
[00:18:26] Kyle Lee (guest): So now I actually don't even rely on syncing across devices. I live, like all my projects, they just live in GitHub. And I pull 'em down from whatever computer. But I do not rely on iCloud at all. And that's like that, if you think about it like why a lot of people like Apple, it's because everything just works together.
[00:18:50] Kyle Lee (guest): And if you take that away, it's just, it's not anything fabulous anymore.
[00:18:56] Leo Dion (host): No, that's 100% like the walled garden as it's called. It's it, it's, how do I put it? You're it, you should be, you should benefit from being a fan of Apple products and buying into the ecosystem and not feel like you're burdened by it. Yeah. And just the fact that you bought laptops during the worst period.
[00:19:19] Leo Dion (host): I'll say I love my new laptop. I love the MacBook Air. I skipped like all the laptops from 26, 20 16. Like I had a 2015 and I just kept that thing until they switched over to Apple Silicon. 'cause I knew those laptops were garbage. And yeah, you're just like, you got the worst of it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna argue with you because I get it.
[00:19:40] Leo Dion (host): Like I totally get it. I'll just say I am happy with Apple products. They do work really well together when they do work. I'm not trying to convince you. That's not my point. I'm just saying I like it. I like the ecosystem. I never go with Windows if I ever had the chance. I hate Windows.
[00:19:55] Leo Dion (host): I've been on Windows. I think the Mac is probably their best product in their suite. I think the watch is pretty good too. I think, yeah. I don't disagree with anything you said, like it's just, it is what it is. So do you have an Android now or
[00:20:08] Kyle Lee (guest): Oh no. So I still, the iPhone is still a really good device on its own. Really amazing device. I, so again Apple has let me down a lot. So I bought a M1 Mac Mini and this was like, I wasn't one of the first, I bought it a couple of months after it came out and there was all these raving reviews about it.
[00:20:29] Kyle Lee (guest): I buy mine. Just simply a lot of stuff doesn't work, a lot of stuff. Oh, you have to talk about Rosetta and things just
[00:20:35] Leo Dion (host): Oh, really?
[00:20:36] Kyle Lee (guest): It was still like very early on. I still have issues with it. Like I can't display like one of my monitors 'cause I did something. I don't know, it's, it was bad.
[00:20:45] Kyle Lee (guest): And then I had my Apple watch on up until maybe three weeks ago when it just simply was not syncing to my phone. So now it's again, just useless. If you think about it, like you take away that one thing that Apple offers you where it's like everything works together. If you take that away, like how much do you really like your devices?
[00:21:03] Kyle Lee (guest): And yeah, it's just like that. My account is corrupted or something like that. So I'm only
[00:21:09] Leo Dion (host): Have you contacted support
[00:21:11] Kyle Lee (guest): I haven't contacted support, so that's all my fault.
[00:21:13] Leo Dion (host): where I've contacted support usually they've been pretty good about it.
[00:21:17] Kyle Lee (guest): I should try that.
[00:21:18] Leo Dion (host): Or even like a DTS ticket. Use your dt, you get two of 'em. Like use 'em I really encourage people to take advantage of those.
[00:21:25] Leo Dion (host): I had one issue, there was some iPad app that either it was the iPad app or the Catalyst app that kept showing up as in my Mac app store as being updated, even though I didn't have the app anymore. And like they fixed the issue and it could have been something on their end for all I know.
[00:21:42] Leo Dion (host): I don't know. Yeah. I'll I'll just encourage people take advantage of it. You've, if you're paying this premium, yeah, they should have this stuff fixed. I think the one issue that's bugged me lately is and I've had this on. My studio is just like USB stuff, getting disconnected just outta nowhere.
[00:22:00] Leo Dion (host): That's, and I just, I need to send a support ticket. I just haven't had the chance to do it. And I'm talking not feedback, which has its own set of issues. I'm talking like actual Apple support. Take advantage of that for sure.
[00:22:12] Kyle Lee (guest): Over, over the years before we go onto the next topic, I will say that I still love my iPhone, um, and. had an Android, like I haven't had it as my primary, but because I was getting into Android development before, and I did cross platform as well. I've worked with an Android and I still primarily prefer iPhone, like I strongly prefer iPhone over Android.
[00:22:40] Kyle Lee (guest): And then I will also say that I've worked with a couple of different programming languages now, and Swift is still by far my favorite programming language. It's just it, in my opinion, it was much more elegant in Swift three before Apple forced their changes on it with all these view modifiers and things like that.
[00:23:04] Kyle Lee (guest): But overall I still love programming and Swift, it is my favorite language. I. Not Swift UI so much, but what's my second favorite? Dart? Dart, which is used for Fluter programming. It'd be, it would be swift, dart Python. Then Kotlin and Kotlin
[00:23:24] Leo Dion (host): Oh, wow,
[00:23:25] Kyle Lee (guest): a, t's a pretty strong programming language.
[00:23:27] Kyle Lee (guest): I just didn't get, I just didn't take the time to learn it. But,
[00:23:31] Leo Dion (host): Okay. Okay.
[00:23:31] Kyle Lee (guest): There's a lot of really cool features in Dart Python. You can do a lot really quickly and the community's huge, a lot of support around that. And then Dart Kotlin is very similar to Swift. If you wanna, if you want to be like bilingual in programming languages and you already know, swift Kotlin is not a bad one to, to check out.
[00:23:52] Leo Dion (host): I do. Kyle, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pivot. I know we said we were gonna talk about it, but I feel based on what we've already been talking about, we kind of have to so we're recording this a few days before product is out, the Vision Pro.
[00:24:06] Apple Vision Pro
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[00:24:06] Leo Dion (host): I kept telling Kyle, I don't wanna talk about it 'cause we're gonna talk about it and we're gonna say all this stuff even though the product comes out and people are gonna say it's good or bad.
[00:24:15] Leo Dion (host): So please forgive us if by the time this episode is out, things are different. But it does have, to me, it has a big bearing on what we've already talked about these app store changes. And like to me, for one thing I was a developer early on developer with the Apple Watch and I wouldn't say I got burned on it, but so much can change in an API I think you lose a lot of that because the APIs changed so much. I also I'm not super enthusiastic because of the app ecosystem and kind of what we're getting at early on. And to me, like I think there's been stuff about I think it's easy to look at the iPhone and be like yeah, you can be on the iPhone 'cause there's a trillion people on the iPhone.
[00:25:06] Leo Dion (host): But like the iPad to me has been the biggest victim of the shortcomings of the i the app store. And I think just as far as like using the iPad I think like it's, I think it's been hurt a lot by the limitations of the app store and a lot of people don't wanna invest money and time in putting an iPad app together.
[00:25:26] Leo Dion (host): And even some people like purposefully deny an app that could easily be like transitioned from iPhone to iPad. And I am kind of feeling like. The same thing with the Vision Pro, where it's first of all, a, this, just as we said, it's overpriced probably. But also like it's severely restricted for what I want to do with it.
[00:25:49] Leo Dion (host): And I'm, we're talking, I don't know if you've been to a lab, but I'm talking as fully ignorant as not being in a lab, but I'm like, I don't see the long term business like built around this device right now in 2024. And to me, like the app source stuff is a big part of a, that costs way too much money that nobody's gonna wanna buy it right away unless you're really enthusiastic and it's great that they sold out.
[00:26:20] Leo Dion (host): But it is what it is. And. See, like it's a totally new class of device. It's not, it's, yeah. Okay. There's other devices out there, but they're specifically targeted towards gaming. This is a workplace VR device, essentially. I don't, so those are my thoughts on it. What I don't know. What do you disagree?
[00:26:40] Leo Dion (host): Agree, like where do you think I'm wrong on it?
[00:26:43] Kyle Lee (guest): So I think that everything that you said is pretty valid. So again, we're talking about the Apple Vision Pro and what do we think is going to happen with it, and I don't think. I don't think anything's going to change even after launch of this product. So by the time you guys are listening to this or watching it apple Vision Pro is out.
[00:27:05] Kyle Lee (guest): There'll be much, there'll be a lot more reviews online. But overall what we can do is we can talk about what is the future, what is the future for Apple Vision Pro, because that's not gonna change even after launch. Because it really has to do with what is Apple doing And what I will, I'll put my stance out there right now just so that you can understand where I'm coming from and whether or not you want to listen to me.
[00:27:29] Kyle Lee (guest): Overall, I don't think that the Apple Vision Pro provides the value for the price of $3,500. And it is not like when the competitor is going to be something like meta's what is it? Meta, the Meta Quest three, which is $500. So there's a $3,000 discrepancy. I don't think that there's a $3,000 improvement in technology uh, there.
[00:28:05] Kyle Lee (guest): Additionally, this thing costs more than your computer that you're working on every single day, and you cannot load X code on it. Just keep that in mind.
[00:28:16] Leo Dion (host): Speak for yourself.
[00:28:17] Kyle Lee (guest): No, my,
[00:28:17] Leo Dion (host): who has a Mac studio.
[00:28:19] Leo Dion (host): Your computer.
[00:28:20] Kyle Lee (guest): Most people's computer. The large majority of
[00:28:22] Leo Dion (host): The normal
[00:28:23] Kyle Lee (guest): right? 3,500 bucks is a lot. And like you could get a maxed out.
[00:28:28] Kyle Lee (guest): You could, or I don't, I haven't checked a MacBook Pro in a long time, but you could probably get a really high end MacBook Pro that's going to actually bring money back to you. For that price is what I'm trying to say.
[00:28:40] Kyle Lee (guest): So what does Apple Vision Pro do really well? It's probably going to be the best in the industry at AR technology, which I don't think actually exists right now.
[00:28:52] Kyle Lee (guest): So what exists right now is,
[00:28:53] Leo Dion (host): Quick question. Have you been to a lab?
[00:28:56] Kyle Lee (guest): I have not been to a lab. So clarify, like I don't have hands-on experience with this. I'm going based off of what I've seen online, what I've done like research on, and my understanding is that Apple is. The number is going to be the number one in the AR space.
[00:29:12] Kyle Lee (guest): So augmented reality, not virtual reality, where you're closed into a pre-configured environment, they are going to be changing the environment around, like they're going to be adding things into your, to your surroundings. And that's what it's going to be doing extremely well. The problem with that is at the $3,500 price 300 500, how many people can afford this?
[00:29:38] Kyle Lee (guest): Like how many normal people can afford this? Even for the tech industry, like I'm looking at people um, making their decision on whether to buy this thing online or not. A lot of them have to like, dip into saving, like they don't just have, $4,000 'cause you have to still pay tax. They don't just have $4,000 just laying around to buy a toy.
[00:29:58] Kyle Lee (guest): Just like without thinking about it, the majority of people have to think about this purchase. And that's to an industry where six figures is extremely common, right? So this is a pretty sizable purchase for anybody. And I just think that Apple hasn't even actually announced what their intentions are with this device because, apple likes to go into things like education and things like their medicine so revolving around your medical records or whatever.
[00:30:33] Kyle Lee (guest): So what is Apple actually planning for this device? Are they planning it strictly for entertainment? And this is the
[00:30:40] Leo Dion (host): I mean, I don't think they know. I don't think they know. And I think it's like the Apple watch being, being, having gone through that, it's like they had no idea what they were gonna do with it. It's like you can send heart rate
[00:30:53] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah, so they went, so they're looking
[00:30:55] Leo Dion (host): and then they pivoted to health and they were like, okay, this is they finally figured out, okay, this is where the watch is really helpful.
[00:31:01] Kyle Lee (guest): But even then they
[00:31:02] Leo Dion (host): so I think it's
[00:31:02] Kyle Lee (guest): the pro watch too, and that's geared towards like very specific what is it, like rock climbing or scuba diving and things like that too.
[00:31:10] Leo Dion (host): yes. Yeah. Yeah. I, okay, Kyle, I'm gonna be sarcastic, but what's gonna make the Vision Pro such an excellent device is the apps that are on it. Because, and I'm being sarcastic because this goes back to our earlier discussion. They've built I feel like they've burned so many bridges for not for indies so much, but for like bigger businesses that like people, the apps that people really want to use.
[00:31:37] Leo Dion (host): Then now we see Netflix is yeah, we're not gonna be on the vision. Facebook's not gonna be on the Vision Pro. And yeah. I think that's gonna hurt, that relationship is gonna hurt the Vision Pro. And I see a lot of people, indies essentially spending $4,000 building just for the reason of, developing an app for it. And yeah, and I'm just are you gonna make I just can't imagine you're ever gonna make that money back for the, 12 people or
[00:32:07] Kyle Lee (guest): Will, will. Some people will, right? Some people will make like an amazing meditation app or something like that.
[00:32:15] Kyle Lee (guest): And you know that anybody that has purchased this device has money. So you charging them a sizable subscription is not out of the question at this point. It, that is something that, that can be done.
[00:32:29] Kyle Lee (guest): I like, I don't want anybody, I don't want to, I don't want anybody to feel like we're dumping on their purchase of the Apple Vision Pro. If you bought it, then I'm sure that you have very good very good reasons. And you probably have a strategy in mind of how you're going to recoup your losses
[00:32:46] Leo Dion (host): Price it, price your app accordingly. If that's your if you're gonna buy it for fun, totally buy it for fun. I'm not like, I'm not gonna shame anybody for that. But I mean, you need to price your app high enough to get the money back. Like price it high. Oh, it was a thing in indies is like, no, you're not charging
[00:33:04] Kyle Lee (guest): yeah. If you're gonna go out there and charge a 7 99 subscription fee, like no, triple it.
[00:33:11] Leo Dion (host): Yeah. No, totally. A hundred percent. Regarding First mover can you name me one app that came out when the iPhone first came out that's still around?
[00:33:20] Kyle Lee (guest): Is not about being still around, right? 'cause there, there have been successes like Flappy Bird that have made like a cultural impact. Everybody knows what Flappy Bird is. And then it left the App Store because I think what the developer just didn't want to deal with it.
[00:33:36] Kyle Lee (guest): He like made enough money and he was able to split. So first Mover Advantage does exist, but keep in mind that the App store is not going to be empty. You're actually going to be competing with people that know what they're doing for this device. And the reason for that is because anybody that was interested in the AR and VR space actually have already made apps for different.
[00:34:00] Kyle Lee (guest): VR headsets like the Met Quest Pro, and all they have to do is take that U most, they're most likely using Unity or Unreal, and they're going to port their app into the Apple Vision Pro and they will be most likely available on day one. So it's not like it's going to be an empty market. If you think that's what it, if you think that's going to be the strong selling point of you having a very simplistic app in the App store, I mean, simple apps, they do get, gain a lot of traction sometimes, but it's not like the App Store is gonna be completely empty.
[00:34:35] Kyle Lee (guest): So just keep that in mind, you are competing with people that have existed in this space for a long time and don't need to learn ar kit or reality kit like they are using existing tools that work across different platforms. And honestly, that would be probably if you're, look, if you're interested in being big on the Apple Vision Pro market, just keep in mind that there are going to be competitors that will do the same thing that you can do that work with other devices.
[00:35:09] Kyle Lee (guest): Especially like if you're interacting with other people like games where it's two players. You're not just playing against other Apple Vision Pro players. You're playing against anybody that, that can have a headset and that it's available on that device. Play against each other. And that's that multi platforming aspect is important.
[00:35:29] Kyle Lee (guest): Just like the way that you're on any of your apps that you can interact with an Android user. It's the same concept.
[00:35:38] Leo Dion (host): Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good point. I feel like we talked about quite a bit, and I don't, almost don't want to I think we should like skip our main topic that we were gonna talk about. 'cause at this point I feel like
[00:35:49] Kyle Lee (guest): We're too invested at this point. We've gone too far.
[00:35:52] Leo Dion (host): Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Is there anything else you wanna mention regarding Vision Pro App Store? To me, there's, problem is with, the way you know it works is growth is very important. And so they have to keep pumping up these
[00:36:11] Leo Dion (host): services, like numbers, right? Because they've already sold iPhones to everybody in the world that is ever gonna own a one.
[00:36:20] Leo Dion (host): And so yeah, like I feel like there, there's an incentive on them to just keep milking that services money for everything it can get and unfortunately I feel like it's kind of hurting the brand and hurting the business in the long term, if because if they're not investing the time and money and just simple hey, get fix iCloud and or just like help, help developers more with the App Store. Because I find like a lot of the app store stuff, there's a lot, like there's a lot of great talks that they have, but they're very focused on like app events or stuff like that. I'm not sure that really fit with a lot of developers apps out there.
[00:37:01] Leo Dion (host): I don't know. And it like, to me, like there's other, yeah, there's just, I don't know. It just seems like the app store there's really good stuff there and it's gotten a lot better, but it feels like there's something missing as far as for Bus to create a long-term business around the App Store seems much less attainable than it used to be.
[00:37:24] Leo Dion (host): Does that make sense?
[00:37:25] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah I will say that I do kind of agree that Apple can be doing a lot more a lot of more thi I think Apple can do a lot more in terms of helping developers. In terms of App Store you really only get some official guidance on that if you're looking into search ads. I haven't really I haven't really come across any other official guidance.
[00:37:49] Kyle Lee (guest): So if anybody out there knows how
[00:37:52] Leo Dion (host): They've been doing those tech talks every few months or so that you can call into,
[00:37:57] Kyle Lee (guest): yeah but like having like more official documentation and truly understanding how to, kind of compete with some of these bigger apps in, in, in these spaces. A lot of it is just kind of trial and error like. It's there's so much that you have to just test yourself and I think having a little bit more transparency on the app store, especially with everything that's happening after that court ruling would be a good move on Apple's have to just like, give a little bit more transparency on how these things are ranking.
[00:38:30] Kyle Lee (guest): Like what's most important. Give us a actual good example. 'cause apple's like notorious for not even following what they're imposing on the rest of the world, so it's just in development, you want to change something about how something that's simply provided by a Swift UI or even UI kip.
[00:38:50] Kyle Lee (guest): Apple can do it and you could do it too if you dig and you use. Ava, like hidden APIs and things like that, you can modify views exactly how Apple does it. And that's, and it's like those little things, it's just like Apple should be held to the same standards that they're imposing on everybody else as like I understand that it's their product.
[00:39:11] Kyle Lee (guest): They can do whatever they want, but like at the same time, it's, it leaves, I mean, I'm just speaking from personal experience, it's it leaves people like me feeling okay, you're not as glamorous as you once were. Even though a lot of these things have existed for a while. It's just there's a lot more starting to stack up against you.
[00:39:32] Kyle Lee (guest): And it's giving these arguments and I don't
[00:39:36] Leo Dion (host): I do think it's gonna hurt. I mean, I think it's gonna hurt them in the long term though. If they keep kind of like making the situation worse and worse. I think you're gonna see that with the Vision Pro. I think you're gonna see there's not gonna be this plethora of apps that Apple expects to be out there.
[00:39:55] Leo Dion (host): 'cause I think they've burned so many bridges
[00:39:57] Kyle Lee (guest): You could, you have to keep it in mind that it could be strategic, right? Because the person that's going to be able to to purchase this thing like, like this may actually not even be a consumer product, which is why it's priced the way that it is, right? This could be the business product that is available for prosumer consumption, right?
[00:40:17] Kyle Lee (guest): So what I mean by that is that if Apple wants there to be apps available for everybody, let's release the Apple Vision Pro so that nobody gets it. Let all the developers get it, all the big companies get it so that they can work on it, officially put out apps in the app store, and then we release the Apple Vision Air and that's like a $800 headset and then it's much more affordable.
[00:40:45] Leo Dion (host): I think the problem though is that. When you talk to big businesses or like education what they care about is that it has Microsoft teams or they can run Chrome OS apps and like if Apple's gonna burn that bridge, they're never gonna sell to those sectors because Microsoft or Google just don't want to put out apps on it and they'd rather put out their own device.
[00:41:08] Leo Dion (host): Hey folks, editor Leo. I just want to jump in here and mention that during editing I noticed that Microsoft is planning to release, if not, has released the office suite as well as Microsoft Teams for the Vision Pro. So that's exciting if you're a big fan of teams . I'll link to an article talking about that as well as netflix announcement ,Google's announcement regarding YouTube and The Vision Pro, as well as a link to an article talking about Christian Selig's new app June out,, which is YouTube app for the Vision Pro. So check that out in the show notes below.
[00:41:43] Leo Dion (host): Okay, now you can listen to the rest of the episode.
[00:41:46] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah, so that so what you're saying is like almost directly related to, did you see the Netflix response?
[00:41:51] Leo Dion (host): No, what was the Netflix
[00:41:52] Kyle Lee (guest): Okay so Apple Vision Pro will not have a native Netflix app available on it, on launch, and I don't think that it will be available at all during 2024, is my understanding. So Netflix responded, saying that right now they don't think that it's a good time to the ROI is not there to invest in a native Netflix app.
[00:42:21] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah, a native Netflix app on the Apple Vision Pro because the customer base simply is not going to be there at launch. They're not opposed to doing it in the future. To clarify, it's just like right now, there's no ROI on it. There's no return on investment because it's going to cost so much to do the development to provide an amazing experience that would be expected from a movie platform on a headset that there's simply just not going to enter the space.
[00:42:53] Kyle Lee (guest): And if you wanna watch Netflix on your Apple Vision Pro, you have to go to the website.
[00:42:57] Leo Dion (host): Okay. Okay. Interesting. So you can't pull up Netflix basically through
[00:43:01] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah. Through Safari. Yeah.
[00:43:03] Leo Dion (host): Okay. Which I feel like is just like such a. That's something they could do in a lot of ways, like to get around a lot of the Apple stuff. I do think it's a big deal that Apple like just cannot be in these big sectors. Do you think that the Vision Pro is specifically for businesses, or do you think that the Vision Pro is purposely overpriced so that they're gonna come out with a cheaper version for consumers? I just want to clarify that part. Does that make sense?
[00:43:35] Kyle Lee (guest): I think it's a little bit of both. And the reason why I say that is because, the Vision Pro, right? Whenever we get pro as a suffix, it means like this is the top of the line that you can get. And this is the best technology that we're going to offer for this line of product is pro. So if you put out the Apple Vision Pro as the top of the line, this is the best the technology can do.
[00:44:01] Kyle Lee (guest): Then theoretically, developers can utilize all of the technology inside of that device and really figure out um, how to provide the most amazing experience possible. So businesses and developers can provide the best experience possible. And there's people that will go digging around, figuring out, oh, we can do all of this using metal, and we can, I.
[00:44:29] Kyle Lee (guest): Make it amazing. And then that will be the apple that will be like highlighted during, ww DC or something like that or whoever wins the awards. Those type there will be like Apple Vision Awards, so your Apple will be highlighted and spotlighted for doing something amazing and standing out for that reason.
[00:44:49] Kyle Lee (guest): Also, they don't know what the market is like, and yet to keep in mind that Apple is not a gaming, is not known for AAA games. They never did AAA games as like they never did. When somebody wants to do professional gaming or even like high level gaming, competitive gaming, they go out and they buy a pc.
[00:45:12] Kyle Lee (guest): They don't spend any amount of money on a Mac to make that happen. So they have to figure out who is actually buying this and what are the demands for this headset. Because they're entering the space late as usual, they usually do everything better. And the like the Apple Vision Pro is probably the best piece of technology that will be out there as a headset like that.
[00:45:35] Kyle Lee (guest): Nobody's arguing about that. But they have to figure out who act, who wants what from this thing and probably have to figure out what direction to take it in. So I think it's a little bit of both.
[00:45:46] Leo Dion (host): Okay. Yeah, I mean, I'd be curious to see. I mean, I dunno, it's just, there's, it's so early on, even by the time this episode just comes out, like so much is gonna change on this and we'll see how it goes. But yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot going on.
[00:46:07] Kyle Lee (guest): Just keep in mind like. When Apple TV launched, everybody was making an Apple TV lap. And I haven't downloaded an Apple TV app in a couple years
[00:46:18] Leo Dion (host): I mean, I've downloaded Apple TV apps, but they're all streaming platforms, so there you go.
[00:46:24] Kyle Lee (guest): That's what I'm saying. Like once, once you set up your Apple TV and people will say like this is not the same thing. And it's not, but if you're going into it with an entertainment aspect, and I mean games are definitely a real thing, right? But I. But yeah, like a lot of the times it's at least in my case, it's like once I get my device, I set it up with the apps that I normally use.
[00:46:45] Kyle Lee (guest): And in this case where it's entertainment, it's going to be it would be Netflix. But it would be like all my streaming platforms, a couple of really good games that stand out. That's where the first mover advantage exists. And I'm not one that's really into playing a bunch of different little games, so I just generally don't go out and the game market is a very competitive space.
[00:47:08] Leo Dion (host): Are you talking on the iPhone?
[00:47:10] Kyle Lee (guest): I'm talking about in general game. The game market
[00:47:12] Leo Dion (host): Oh
[00:47:12] Kyle Lee (guest): space. So If you think that it's not gonna be competitive on day one it will be, I promise.
[00:47:17] Leo Dion (host): Yeah, totally. Yeah. Kyle, there was so much to talk about today. Sorry. We'll talk about modularity in the next time you come
[00:47:25] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah. How many people want to hear about modularity? Can we get like a show of hands or can we get some dms that say, because we were supposed to talk about modularity in app development.
[00:47:35] Leo Dion (host): But we, we wanted to rant about the App Store and the Vision Pro and Apple. So I think it, maybe before we close, what's the big takeaway you would have for a developer out there?
[00:47:45] Kyle Lee (guest): a big takeaway for a developer. So I would say that overall now more than in the past, it's kind of important to pay attention to what's going on in the news. I'm a person that hates news. I don't watch news especially with this being an election year in the states I hate news, but I would say pay attention to what's going on in like the tech scene news.
[00:48:16] Kyle Lee (guest): Because there it seems like there's a lot of big changes that are happening that will directly impact developers and we don't necessarily know if it's for better or worse yet. And I'm referring to the ruling with the Apple and Epic games. I'm referring to Apple Vision. Prob being a new device that you can develop for, just pay attention to the news I a ai.
[00:48:42] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah. And then we have yeah, WWDC coming up this year. They may actually, break into that space, but I still think it's too early for Apple. They tend to wait a little bit longer than just, it's only chat. GPT has only been out for a year, so Apple is probably gonna wait like another year or two before they introduce anything.
[00:49:02] Kyle Lee (guest): And even then it's who knows if we're gonna have an API to it or not. So You
[00:49:07] Leo Dion (host): I have a dumb tech question I want to ask you before we close out that I've been wanting to ask and I forgot about it. So you've done development on Android as well? Is that? Correct. Where do you see something like PWAs fit into this progressive web apps? Because I see a lot of mobile folks, not Android but folks in yeah, more like there we go, more more, more Android folks who are like, yeah, I don't wanna have to go through the Google Play Store.
[00:49:35] Leo Dion (host): We just want to build a progressive web app and do it that way. Do you think that that's a thing that could ever happen? Assuming Apple makes it more and more easy to do it on Safari the iPhone.
[00:49:49] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah, so I think that's actually something that was kind of like in the back of my mind when I was talking earlier, is unfortunately depending on this ruling, progressive web apps can become a lot more popular if Apple decides to become more difficult for developers. And it starts doing doing things that are going to hurt smaller developers.
[00:50:15] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah, there's just, there's progressive web apps are definitely something that can regain a lot more popularity than they already have. And for a lot of different apps, progressive web apps. Make absolute sense, especially in a small development team. So just again, keep an eye on the news because there can be a lot that changes.
[00:50:43] Leo Dion (host): Yep. Yeah, I agree 100%. Keep an eye on what's going on both for your, if you're just a freelancer or a developer who's wants to be an employee keep an eye on what's going on.
[00:50:56] Kyle Lee (guest): Oh, Leo, hold on. 'cause that the statement that I made will scare a lot of people especially aspiring developers and I don't wanna do that.
[00:51:03] Leo Dion (host): Okay. Okay.
[00:51:04] Kyle Lee (guest): iOS development is still a like getting into iOS development is still relevant, minimum for at least three years minimum. I would say at least five years actually.
[00:51:14] Kyle Lee (guest): Apps already exist. You can still get hired. I guarantee that you can still get hired within the next five years for an iOS development. So if you are just starting out, you can still start learning iOS development and still get a job. I don't wanna scare you away that, oh maybe I was thinking about learning Swift.
[00:51:30] Kyle Lee (guest): Now I gotta go learn progressive web
[00:51:33] Leo Dion (host): no, and
[00:51:33] Kyle Lee (guest): that's not what I'm, that's not what I'm saying. But some people will take it that way. I know aspiring devs will take it that way. And that's not what I'm saying. If you want to get into the space, go ahead and get in. I'm just saying existing developers um, indie developers, just pay attention to the news because you may want to learn another skill.
[00:51:52] Kyle Lee (guest): If you're just starting out. There's still gonna be a lot of jobs for you to get hired as an iOS developer. Don't worry about that.
[00:51:59] Leo Dion (host): I think so I'm in Michigan of course. And to me I think one thing to think about is to me, like the 20th century had the car and like people thought there was gonna be something else, like an airplane or some, some weird transportation device that's gonna, no, the car was the big thing of the 20th century and I feel like the iPhone and the smartphone are the thing of the 21st century.
[00:52:22] Leo Dion (host): I think we constantly, and you see this with in financial stuff is like. People are constantly looking for the next big thing. And I'm like, no, the next big thing was the iPhone. And if you like, if you put your career on the iPhone or a smartphone or mobile development, you're gonna be fine for the next.
[00:52:41] Leo Dion (host): Honestly, like I, I think 10, 15 years, like I, I mean, you could, you have a skillset that is gonna be, 'cause people are just, there's not gonna be a device out there that's gonna replace the iPhone. It's just not gonna happen in my opinion. I think VR may be a thing that grows, but I'm not, I think it's just one amongst many devices.
[00:52:59] Leo Dion (host): Whereas the iPhone, to me is the device that, like the desktop computer and even the laptop just was not accessible enough to people. Whereas the iPhone just made it so much easier for people to ma made technology, the computers internet accessible to a whole. Wide range of people and there is plenty of money to be made in that space.
[00:53:21] Leo Dion (host): So yeah, 100% iPhone developer, I think you're gonna do quite well. So I agree a hundred percent and I think it's just a matter of the news informs you of what other skill sets or what APIs specifically might be profitable to you. There's gonna be some like core ML thing that might come out this year and it's doesn't say that being an iPhone developer is is detrimental.
[00:53:45] Leo Dion (host): It's saying that being iPhone developer is great and learning how machine learning is even like that's gonna build on top of it. It's not gonna subtract that away. Does that, did I phrase that correctly? Would you
[00:53:56] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah. Yeah. I think that you're absolutely right. Like the key is just remembering that, um, while the tech industry moves fast, the rest of the world does not right. Everything especially government stuff, everything else moves slow. I'm sure that there's a lot of people that know older folks that still have flip phones, right?
[00:54:17] Kyle Lee (guest): Like the rest of the world moves slow and they still need to be supported, and that means that there will be jobs to support those folks.
[00:54:26] Leo Dion (host): Yeah, 100%. Kyle, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. There was just so much to talk to today, talk about today. Yeah, it was just fantastic to see you. And I'm really happy that you were able to come back on.
[00:54:39] Kyle Lee (guest): Yeah, I'm always happy to be here, Leo. And a couple of months after I made my Apple Vision Pro app and I made a billion dollars, we'll talk about it.
[00:54:48] Leo Dion (host): We will talk about how you how you modularized your apP.
[00:54:51] Leo Dion (host): What everybody wants to hear about. Where can people find you online? I.
[00:54:55] Kyle Lee (guest): yeah. You can find me on primarily on X and on YouTube at kilo, KIL, OCO LOCO, so KILO underscore, LOCO.
[00:55:06] Leo Dion (host): Thank you Kyle. People can find me on Twitter, oh, sorry, X at Leo g Dion Mastodon at Leo Dion dot C. Im YouTube at Break Digit and LinkedIn at Leo g Dion. So be sure to check that out. If you enjoy this episode, please post a review on your podcast player. I'd really appreciate it. If you're watching us on YouTube subscribe and I'd appreciate that as well.
[00:55:30] Leo Dion (host): Yeah, thank you so much for joining us and I look forward to talking to you again. Bye everyone.
