Hey folks, WWDC 2025 is just around the corner and I'll be
in the Cupertino area again.
I've got a jam packed schedule planned for WWDC week.
You'll find me out one more thing or community kit, two of the best community
events that are happening that week.
But I especially wanna let you know that on Monday, June 9th at
4:00 PM Pacific, I'll be recording a very special milestone episode.
We're hitting our 200th episode of Empower Apps at Community Kit.
We'll be talking about everything announced at the keynote and
the State of the Union, and I may have a very special guest.
Be sure to sign up as space is limited.
The link is provided in our show notes.
I will be also hosting panels and helping folks with server side swift
questions at one more thing and even doing a live demo of Bushel at the
CommunityKit Indie Fair on Wednesday.
Speaking of bushel, version 2.1 is out and to celebrate both the new
release and WWDC, I'll be offering a 50% off annual subscriptions for new
customers till the end of WWDC Week.
So definitely take advantage of this as soon as you can.
There's never been a better time to streamline your workflow with Bushel
Links to all these events and more will be in the show notes below.
Thank you for joining me and I hope you enjoy today's episode with Peter.
Welcome to another episode of Empower Apps.
I'm your host, Leo Dion.
Today I am joined by Peter Witham.
Once again, Peter, thank you for making your 400th appearance on the show.
And I only look a day over 38.
This true.
For people who don't, listen to this podcast, I'll let you introduce yourself.
thank you Leo having me back again.
Always look forward to this and chatting with you.
Yeah, my name's Peter Winham.
I am primarily an iOS developer, although I also work with Android and
React native, but Swift is my thing 'cause I have the Compile Swift,
podcast is what I'm primarily known for.
Shout out to my co-host on that, Jeff.
So yeah, that's probably where folks have heard my, weird Texas accent before.
Texas accent.
I like it.
For people who, are subscribed to the newsletter and follow me on social, I
will be in California once again for WWDC.
There's a bunch of events going on, including leading a panel and giving
a talk and talking about Bushel.
But I will be recording a special 200th episode live from Community Kit.
You'll definitely want to check that out since Peter won't be available.
I figure now's as good of a time as ever to go over the year and what
we're thinking when it comes to WWDC.
I will also post a link to all the stuff so you can register there as well.
It's been a heck of a year, like in the Apple space, where do we begin?
Not all good stuff and I feel like I went over this in my year review of stuff that
I'm, I was worried about and it feels like it all it's all come to a head.
Yeah.
What's your thoughts about it?
Doesn't It has been a very up and down year, I think
Since the last, dub dc right?
So many things we could cover in both directions.
I guess the one that stands out the most and, we'll get into the topics,
but, the fouled promises maybe of AI that never really happened yet.
And things like this, but I feel like it's not been one of the best years
for Apple and not necessarily all their fault as we'll probably get into.
But yeah, it's been a tough one.
Are you surprised by the AI stuff
I am.
The way Gruber described it, it's like they never really demoed anything.
Is it that surprising or what part of you is shocked,
Yeah.
I think, I'm always one of those people who, hey, whoever the company
is, but especially Apple, don't give it to us until it's ready.
And so therefore, if they don't feel it's ready, It's better to suffer
the brief beating that you get from saying something will be here and
then putting it all over the website and then, pulling it back again.
And I do feel that folks have been a little unfair, They
did give us something, right?
Not everything that it should have been.
And, hey, is that better than giving us something that was a complete disaster?
There's that side that says.
Siri was never that great to begin with.
Could it really have been any worse?
I'll take what I've got.
I have been using some of the stuff on the Mac, for example.
Like what?
services have been pretty good.
Especially for folks like ourselves where it's okay, gimme a quick summary of this
document for podcast notes and things like that, i'm not expecting miracles
and I feel it was okay, but I think it was the fact that it was really sold to
us as, Hey, this is really gonna bring your iPhone, your watch, those other
platforms to life in a whole new way.
And it didn't,
the iPhone 16, that was the selling
Yeah.
I had the clip of, Snoop and Jason Mahomes trying to sell you an iPhone 16 with ai.
Yeah, like they really pushed it.
And you're right.
I don't think, I don't think that those folks out there, who are putting these,
lawsuits together about, Hey, I bought this because of this and it didn't happen.
It's we all know Apple's got a lot of lawyers.
Good luck with that.
Because there is that thing of they made you want to have it, but
they didn't force you to get it.
They just made you want it, which is what Apple is excellent at.
Yeah.
it seems like it's a big hurdle for them to get where every, I like, I
don't know what tools you use, but I've been using Claude and cursor
quite a bit and they're a great fit.
I don't know how Apple is gonna be able to compete with that, it almost
feels like too late in a lot of ways, for them to get into that space.
it
Now there's rumors that they're gonna provide SDKs for some
models, but I dunno, I'm we'll see.
Also, will we get it in the version zero or will we have to
wait till version two and yada.
Yeah.
We never get anything in version zero.
Version zero is just the, police holder for the installer.
But I agree with you.
Apple.
Has to get it right next time is what it comes down to in simple terms.
And it's interesting because you mentioned about the SDKs.
I was thinking about this the other day, is this Apple's way of saying, we
couldn't deliver so far on the promise, but if we open it up, we're sharing that
responsibility with the developers, right?
Maybe you can do it better than we can, which I feel like is a smart thing
That's what they should do at this point,
'cause I'm with you.
I don't think they'll cash up with everybody else.
They certainly won't, go speed ahead of everybody.
Not now, but the best they can hope for is to catch up and continue to use
their platforms to push their services.
Which is what it comes down to.
Yep.
Yeah, and we know, like they've been doing a lot with private cloud compute.
They talked about that actually at the server side Swift conference
and how that's a big deal.
So I'm curious to see how they might let developers plug
into that and be able to take
I think that is the one area where Apple does have a better chance than anybody
getting ahead of everybody else in the sense of, maybe their, marketing spin
should be, your privacy still comes first.
That has been a big selling point that they've tried to spearhead,
absolutely.
I'd use them, if they'd have, I was all excited to use these services and
that, and like I say, I've not been disappointed with what I got, just that
I didn't get everything I was hoping for,
we did talk about Siri, so yeah, I'm not expecting anything outta Siri
Yeah.
speaking of, things that they keep trying to fix, iPad OS supposedly
is gonna have a redesign this year.
I just, I don't know what they're trying to do with the iPad.
I don't think I'm the target audience for it.
I wish it was what I want it to be, but it just isn't.
What's your thoughts on the redesign?
It really does depend what they mean by redesign for me.
they're looking at redesigning everything,
yeah, there's the visual
to go with a vision
And, like with everything Apple, usually when they, redesign these
things, It's nice, I like it.
It is still something they're very good at as far as redesigning, iPad os
functionally, I use my iPad every day.
of course I'm a developer, It's not a replacement for my Mac and that is not
anything I expected it to be But the one thing that greatly disappoints me
is every time I plug in an external display to my iPad and it's okay, I
got another big iPad on the screen.
What value is that to me?
And a lot of that does fall, I think, to developers of third party apps because
it depends how they use that experience.
The I'm not gonna name and shame or anything like that, but there are
some that are like, Hey, you tried.
It's pretty good.
And there are others that are.
pretty terrible, so I don't need a big iPad display, so I guess for me, I need,
what do you use your iPad for?
Yeah, engineering manager by trade is my thing.
So it's a lot of the management type things, classic example
is, the web browsers open a lot,
And it's handy, I'm one of those unfortunate people.
I have to use teams every day and, greatly
Yeah.
Welcome to
Yeah.
So it's great, let iPad handle teams and Outlook and all that stuff, right?
That's a good idea.
That's what that's for.
Primarily, and it's because I'm used to full screen apps at this point.
That's cool.
But I'd like windowed apps when I plug in external display,
I think like for me, what burns me out about the iPad is just like.
You have to have the app in the foreground.
Like copy and pasting between stuff is really hard.
Like compared with the ability I have to use my mouse and be able
to drag stuff around on the Mac.
Like I just lose a lot of
That's,
it makes it really difficult.
that's why I want multiple windows, like true multitasking, which I know isn't,
it depends how you want to interpret.
What multitasking is.
To me, multitasking is, like you said, multiple windows.
It, it's the Mac experience for me.
The you hit on a really good example of pane, actually.
The, the copy and the paste, and that kind of feels like stage
manager, that thing that I never use.
And immediately turn off on everything was isn't this just a fancy clipboard?
Because it feels like that,
So I bought myself one of these portable monitors.
Oh, how do
you seen these before?
Yeah.
50 bucks, at Best Buy.
And I was like, let's see what happens when I hook this up to my iPhone.
You can't even do it in portrait mode, even though the iPhone is portrait,
it displays it like portrait, but in the middle of the landscape display.
it only works if the iPhone is in landscape and then it fills up the screen.
'cause it's oh, I wonder if I could take my iPhone to a coffee shop with a display
and a keyboard and just start writing.
I was just curious and yeah, it's like stuff like those paper cuts that like,
yeah.
Make the experience
I had read these reports about, these possible enhancements
to using an external display.
And I got excited too.
I'm like.
Oh, great.
'cause I remember years ago, I can't think of who made it, maybe it was
Motorola, there was that phone that you could put in the back of a dock.
It was like the Nintendo Switch thing.
You put the phone in and then boom, you got a computer.
So I was like, if I could do that'd be great.
But yeah, you nail the problem, which is okay, there's always
something that makes it not work.
And I get it.
It's not necessarily Apple's fault, but it is because with these huge phones,
it's not a priority.
Of all the apps that I can think of that I can use in landscape mode, fraction of
them, and certainly not the home screen.
My gosh, I used to love having my iPhone in landscape mode.
I remember that.
What's the deal?
Yeah.
I was gonna say something, but of course I forgot.
I don't know what their plan is for the new design.
that goes to, the other big topic I wanted to talk about that I've actually
started looking into how to implement this properly in bushel, but we're
gonna get possibly year based version numbers, which I find interesting.
It's a little bit odd to do that for Gear 20.
26. But, the idea would be is that this stepped WC everything is
gonna be version 26 for next year.
there might even be a rumor that they might do that for the iPhones this year.
We'll see.
I think the iPhone more than the OSS need to.
It's weird at this point going with 17, 18, 19.
yeah, what do you think of that?
This came up pretty recently, right?
And immediately I thought, okay, this is a good idea.
And then I was like, oh, but that means we will miss out on the iPhone 20.
And doesn't that just have a nice ring to it?
We had the iPhone X, the iPhone 10, whichever camp you want to be in.
We also missed out on iPhone
Oh yeah, that's true.
So it's like what, it's like they don't want to commit to these wonderfully
magical numbers, but I'm actually in favor of the idea of the year
because, like so many of the tools, we use and now use the year number.
But it does, you're right in that it also struck me, this doesn't
really work, it's because the way the cycles work, here we are in
2025, dub DC just around the corner.
We are gonna get the new versions.
We all know this, right?
We're gonna call 'em 26 'cause we'll get them in the fall.
Okay.
That does that.
That's okay.
That kind of makes sense.
'cause we know we're getting to see it way ahead of time.
But the perspective of the hardware, it feels a little bit
like car model years, right?
Oh, that's exactly what they're going for.
The idea would be is that anything but the budget phone would be
for the next year, and then the budget phone, like the 16 E right.
Would've been the 25
yeah, exactly.
And so I think it's, I think I'm okay with it, but we'll see how it plays out.
what they need to do, and I know I've said this every year, but what
they need to do is just not have so many versions of everything, right?
Consumers can keep it simple.
I want the iPhone 26, I want the iPad 26 in size X. you and
I have spoken about this before.
It's no longer that simple thing of I want an iPad of one of these two sizes.
I want an iPhone of one of the, by simplifying the numbers, you've
not simplified the actual problem
Do you think we'll get hints of a foldable phone in our Swift UI code?
I hope so.
And the reason I say that is because I think to us the developer community.
We wouldn't be surprised as far as we are concerned, it's a done deal at some point.
So we won't be shocked or surprised.
It'll just be, ah, there it is.
And sometimes I do wonder if companies Apple, in this case put those
little things in there for people to find, to see what the reaction is.
Oh, okay.
Should we do that?
Because like we were saying earlier about everything else, if Apple does a
foldable, it better be the Apple we used to know and love, where it's like you
have made one better than everybody else.
Because, along with that, they're gonna charge more for it.
no question.
And
it's gonna be
I would be a what?
I think that's the thing is would I use one.
Probably I probably wouldn't.
'cause I love my iPhone 15.
I went down from the max to the, to just the pro,
Okay.
I think for me was one of the best decisions, was like, this is fantastic,
this is what I should have done.
So I don't want to foldable, but I think it'll be in there.
I think we'll have traces of some mystery hardware that
will clearly be the foldable.
Just like we've said before when they said, stop focusing
on actual physical screen sizes,
Yeah.
What do you think?
do you think we're years away
What would that look like?
Yeah.
It's so hard, right?
Because all the mockups that everybody does for these things
is always the typical not thinking like Apple, oh, let's just take two
iPhones and sandwich them together,
Apple will either figure out the crease problem or they'll work around the crease
problem, which is the Apple way, right?
Where it's oh yeah, we can't have see-through glasses.
Let's put a screen on the outside to show your fake face.
Or, oh, we can't get rid of a notch, so let's just make it an island
and have a little widget at there.
So like I feel okay, what are they gonna do with the crease in a creative way that
right.
the
I thought about this and I was like, okay.
I've just never liked this idea of a crease that's like a fold, that actual
crease on the Samsung about where it is.
Have you looked at an actual foldable
I feel like they could oh, apple will be, is they, if anyone could
make a seamless screen that just.
It looks like it snaps together, it would be them.
But maybe they can make a dynamic island that runs all the way along
that middle piece that's thin.
Or something like
And because, I was thinking the other day, I was like, okay, clearly I'm not Apple,
but what's an Apples way and an Apish way is have it fold the other way so that
the screens are on the outside and that crease could become a magic island that
I can read when my phone is laying flat
Do you know what I mean?
Yep.
if you thought of this already and that's what you're doing,
I didn't steal the plans.
No, they should
if they haven't thought of it, hey gi, gimme a call.
We'll put
yeah.
I'll say if I just solved the problem, it's all right.
I'll just take 1% of anything,
did you, so you do some Android,
Yeah.
did you watch any of Google
I didn't watch it, but I have read I gotta say, for me, I was like, Google,
I think may have a better year than Apple right now, but again, assuming
they can deliver the magic, whoever delivers the magic's gonna get it.
But certainly it feels like all the right promises are there from Google.
Love more, hate them.
Just Apple right now.
feel like, Google.
Yeah, they're so smart to have their conference just before.
Because they can say even if they, accidentally now what Apple's gonna
announce, they can still say we did it first, so I'm excited for
what Google's doing this year.
I don't wanna be a full-time Android developer.
No offense to anybody.
It's not my thing.
I'm a Swift
if you do want to be a full-time manager or a developer, you skip tools.
That way you can
Oh yeah.
a previous
Aren't those guys great?
They are doing such a phenomenal job.
And I know folks that have used the Skip tools and of course, like
you say, you've interviewed them.
I've interviewed them.
I really think that they have a great solution and that is probably the
and I'm really excited to see now we have the ecosystem steering committee.
That's another smart thing, right?
swift has not been pushed in.
In the sense of realizing it's available for other platforms
especially embedded stuff.
Like folks like
I don't know if you follow the Edge OS stuff
Yeah.
And things like that.
'Cause hey, if I could write, and I often say this with the folks that I
hang out with, if I could write Swift as my solution anywhere for anything,
you better believe that's what I do.
I just don't believe in having to jump through hoops to make it
work, which is why those, you're saying about the SKIP tools, it's
great, you've solved my pain point.
Well done.
Yeah.
So one thing I wanted to mention that we talked about version numbers
is I feel like the yearly cycle is weird, I don't know how to put
it, but I get it, it's a marketing thing, but at the same time what,
Does it?
and what I also feel like we're pushing features sometimes that nobody wants.
An unfair
and it's like just to have something to show off for the
new model, blah, blah, blah.
And yeah, but you guys haven't fixed like all these issues on the previous os.
And I think, two thoughts on that is yeah you're putting
an undue pressure on yourself.
Oh, it's that time of year again, people are gonna expect new hardware, people
are gonna expect the new OSS in WWDC, knowing that they won't be available.
But also, like we said, last year, they still had most of the year.
this is part of the other bigger problem.
You have folks that are driving everything based on the money side of the equation.
And you've created this artificial enterprise of once a year, twice
a year you do this as opposed to ship it when it's ready.
I think these versions need s years.
Like what hap, we had the iPhone s's like we need like iOS what, like 18
Yeah.
I don't mean that literally, but like we're doing these every year
and like we still have bugs in version four that haven't been
someone asked me the other day, what's the biggest thing you want this year?
And it's the same answer I always give, which is, Hey, I love those years when
they just truthfully say, nothing major.
It's a bug fix year.
As developers we're like, fantastic.
Thank you so much.
But I get it to all the top level sweet folks.
It's the marketing thing, right?
from fixing bugs.
How does that ship a new phone?
But you do lose customers if you don't fix bug.
That's the problem that
until now.
Because I think that's the thing is the competition has.
Never been as fierce as it is now.
And people, we are reaching a tipping point where things are now so expensive
that you folks are now saying, you gotta give me a reason to buy it.
I'm not just gonna get, but it's a new iPhone.
Okay, take my money.
It's a new iPad.
Take my money right now, because of lots of situations.
It's, why do I have to get it?
And you've gotta give me that new shiny, even this thing
of, it's got a better camera.
I don't think it works as, to sell it like it used to.
Do.
If you think about it like content creators like you and myself, do we
buy a new $1,100 camera every year?
I'm sure some folks do, but I don't,
right.
and I think the average consumer now is like starting to realize how expensive
these things are and what you get for it.
So I don't think the yearly cycle necessarily works anymore.
It does it, and in the, in that sense, like you say, I agree.
Give me a, an on off cycle for bug fixes In software, I would
be more inclined to buy hardware.
If you gave me a two year cycle, wouldn't feel so bad and I'd
have paid off the other one,
I think the iPhone just, there isn't gonna be that much more
innovation in the smartphone.
Not having said that, I do think it's not a device that's
gonna go away anytime soon.
when the smartphone came out, I don't think.
Sales of computers went down.
I just think more people had access to technology with the smartphone.
AI is not gonna take away the smartphone.
Yeah, you don't want the
having a screen.
We want a screen, we want something we can look at regardless of
whether there's AI behind it
look at the ipo, the iPod.
That was in theory, a great idea with no screen, no controls, but.
Maybe it was just way too ahead of its time in that.
Yeah.
yeah.
Yeah, I'm, at this point, if you tried to get me to use anything that didn't
have some kind of input system, other than it relying on my weird accent
voice, it's just not gonna sell on me.
It's just not gonna happen.
I think there was a joke someone said the other day about, they stopped
the car project because you couldn't, it wasn't recognizing when someone
said, please stop, turn left, but I agree with you and I think the
phone device is not gonna go away.
But I recognize on the flip side, you only sell so many so often
I'm sure Apple's doing just fine, but there will be a tipping point.
Yeah.
Let's go for it.
Do you, when you say Costa iPhone, are you talking specifically
about tariffs or was there
no, I was just talking.
I try not to touch on anything close to politics.
It's such a dangerous area, but anything that raises the price of the
phone, even if it's just, apple wants to raise the price, I think it's a
dangerous gamble let me put it this way.
I think a lot of folks.
when they buy the huge television, right?
hey priorities, right?
And so do you need to spend 1200, 1300 plus on a phone every year?
Do you think people buy new phones every year still?
I think there's enough.
Okay.
this model, working for me, it's usually I won't entertain the idea
for at least a couple of years.
That's what I do.
And even I got a 15 and it's fantastic.
I have no reason to change it.
But I'm sure there are folks who are just, I want to have the latest one.
There's enough of them.
Otherwise they would, it's like those spam phone calls and everyone
says, how do people fall for this?
Why do they keep doing this?
Because enough people.
do it, that it's worth them to keep doing that.
I'm not saying the iPhone is spam folks before you're right in, I'm
just saying that whatever it is, there's always enough people to buy
into the business model, otherwise the business model wouldn't exist.
I think it's hurt the
I think it's mostly people who have iPhone elevens and are upgrading.
I don't think it's people who are like, I have the 14, I need the 15.
Yeah.
And I think, it's driven by the younger market, younger than ourselves, Leo.
If we are, if we're fruitful, I wish I had that kind of disposable income,
but then I'd probably be taking vacations if I could do that as well.
Yeah.
I don't, yeah, maybe they'll raise the cost of the iPhone.
They've already raised the cost of the cheapest iPhone, obviously, so I.
That's been the way they've done it.
I think that's the elephant in the room right now, more so than the prices,
and I think that's gonna be one of the sticky situations Apple's probably
gonna be in for the next rest of the
yeah, and I,
regardless of politics.
It's just, a bad
Yeah.
At the end of the day, it comes down to it's still the consumer
that gets hurt in the middle.
Regardless of how you get there, whether a price increase is forced on you,
or they choose to, or, any of these companies or, whatever the situation,
it's gonna be us that, that suffer, right?
It always is.
And I think that more than anything maybe would drive a slower rate of iPhone sales.
I think it definitely gets worse when you talk about whatever the
plans are for the vision Pro.
You couldn't convince enough people to spend three K on this now.
The price of a phone goes up.
Surely at some point the price of everything else hardware
is gonna go up as well, right?
Yeah
And on that note, it will affect me when it comes to Max because we're
pretty regular upgrade now Max, right?
I got the M four.
I love it.
But by the time the M
What kind of M four did you
the M four Pro Mac Mini,
Oh, I really want to get
I got the 64 gig version or whatever it is, 48, whatever that top number was.
I got that one in the Pro with, a one terabyte drive inside
and I'm using the externals.
That's awesome.
I have no reason to change this thing anytime soon.
for what we do as developers and content creators, Xcode will
always take some time to compile.
rendering video and things like that, it's gonna keep me
probably
And that,
same here with my M1
there you go.
The M ones.
So imagine an M four studio, right?
You are not gonna need, you might wanna replace that thing
every couple of years but in your heart, you don't need to, right?
And I feel that's the same problem as with the phone and everything else.
You nailed it when you said from a hardware perspective, these things
are now so mature that we are not.
You and I are old enough to remember the early days of I
got a 66 megahertz intel chip.
Pre SSDs, pre lc, like CRT monitors.
We've come a long way.
But that goes back to, like you said, with that phone in my pocket, I got more power
in my pocket than I ever dreamed I would.
What are we gonna see with Vision Pro?
Like where can they possibly go with that device?
You didn't get one, did you?
Okay.
have not tried the demo.
Here's the reason why I'll be completely transparent with the audience.
Because I know if I try one, that's it.
I'm done.
Oh, you
I'm done.
Take my money.
And
Wow.
why I haven't, because I know the benefits for me, the huge benefit
would be the one that a lot of folks, mention, Tim Mitra, for example, he's
always saying about the huge desktop.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
If I had that, I'd be set, but I also know that enough people say about the weight,
it's oh, that's why I don't have one.
Not to mention that I can't justify the cost, but I did say to myself,
oh, V two might be a thing, but.
I think part of the question maybe you're asking is there will be a V two, right?
Or what are they gonna do with the V two to actually sell it?
The big part of the problem, obviously, is that the developers did not flock
to it like they thought they would, I feel like with that product, what pushes
me away is, besides the lack of apps, is the the thousands of paper cuts.
I feel like I'd use it and be like, oh, but This is a problem.
This is a problem.
It's just after all, I'm just gonna be like, I don't want to use this.
And we've heard reports of people who've owned them and just left them
in their drawer because they're just like, I'm sick and tired of dealing
I'd love to know the percentage of people, and I hope it's low,
but if they're honest, they said.
I'm still using it to feel like I got my money's worth out of it.
And I know that be because I know there were folks use it to watch,
essentially like an infinite big screen.
And I bet that's amazing.
That's another reason why yeah, if I was to see the latest mission Impossible
on one of those, and my whole room is a screen, I'm gonna feel like
it's the best thing I ever bought.
exactly.
so there is that.
But I also know Jeff, the co-host on the compulsory of podcast, he has one.
But I lived through his experience of spending a long time crafting his app.
Shout out to Jeff, by the way, buddy.
Spent, I watched him spending a long time making his app work exceptionally well.
On the Vision Os and then after a while saying, how's that going?
And it's what?
Why did I bother?
And I get it,
So does he have a vision pro?
does.
Does he use
He says he does.
And I believe him.
What does he use it for?
yeah.
That was the thing.
I didn't, it was like, okay, I'll believe you.
I won't ask too many questions, we would, have you come on the podcast against him.
You can ask him.
'Cause I feel like there will be a great conversation between the
two of you about the Vision Pro,
I'd be curious like what?
But he does, I think, for him to speak on his behalf, but obviously
as a developer, he spent a lot of time with his app and felt like.
Wow, what a waste of time that was, and again, folks, I'm
just interpreting what he said.
it wasn't worth the development time, and he's not the only
one I've heard that from.
And I think, like you are saying, that's been the thing to touch on
it, the death by a thousand cuts.
Yeah.
As we know with all Apple devices, right?
Let's be honest, whether Apple likes it or not, it's the third party apps that make
or break it, it made the iPhone, right?
Not to say that the iPhone's not a fantastic phone, but it didn't really
become useful to like myself until great, now I got apps on it, right?
And that's what the Vision Pro clearly needs as well.
But I don't blame developers if they took the stance of, you know what Apple, we
all know you don't like us developers.
You really never give us.
The attention because we are not, we don't put the money
in your pocket in that sense.
Yes, we do.
Because look at the app store, right?
And Apple makes huge amount of money from services.
That's a whole other conversation.
But why would I help Apple when I feel like they're not really doing a
whole lot to help me except just lie in their pockets with my hard work?
You know what I mean?
yeah.
I know, even diehard developers go spend a three grand on a vision pro.
right,
response
or
like, mine, I'll, I'd rather have spent three grand on a phenomenal
Mac mini, which is what I did.
And love this thing for years.
The Vision Pro is a V one, assuming.
It's still the plan.
It'll be redundant at some point year or next year, but
my Mac mini lives on, right?
Exactly.
That's the way I would look at it.
I'd rather spend money on a Mac than on a vision pro.
'cause I know I'd use it
yeah.
Or for that matter, that's two plus iPhones.
Exactly.
I know for yourself and like in my household, we are two
plus iPhone families, right?
Most people are, I think at this point, if you've got one, you've got more than one.
And so great, I'll upgrade all of those this year.
not all have to sit in the living room with headsets on,
yeah.
do you think we're gonna see changes to the app store at
this is
of, legal
yeah, I was gonna say, this is one of the more, I think, interesting areas, right?
We've seen so many changes, Over the last year we've seen so many
changes, many of which Europe, no question, have forced the issue.
Putting aside whether, I feel that's right or wrong.
There have been changes and there will be more changes because once you open that
door, you don't close it again, right?
The US I think has had it better.
And some, other countries that are not Europe are still, locked in the sense that
they are locked in on these platforms.
But I also think if, let's say the situation arose and take
the Asian and US markets, right?
If they were to suddenly be forced to open up third party app stores,
I don't think it would be a good id.
It wouldn't be a good experience.
for better or worse.
And you know me, the audience knows me.
I'm all for, hey, fair competition is a good thing, right?
But I also think security and privacy is more important.
Now I get it.
You could argue that.
Okay, privacy wise, apple still has my data and they might be
the nice people in the room.
Right now we don't know that's it in the future.
I'm not claiming it is I do value not having to worry that if an app makes
it on my phone or my iPad, and I'm not including the Mac very specifically there,
if it makes it on my iPhone or my iPad, there's a better than average chance.
I'm good.
Yes, there are still some problems, things get through, but it's as
someone who works on multiple platforms as a job, I can honestly say, it
is infinitely worse on Android.
Is it really
i.
I had an Android phone and I wanted to really love it because like the,
one of the test phones I've got now is a Samsung and it's beautiful.
The screen, the cur, it's just fantastic.
It's if I didn't have an iPhone, this is what I have.
But.
Then I think about the app stores, and then I think about,
Android platform and that.
So yeah, there will be changes to the app stores.
I think apple will always claim it's gonna hurt them, right?
You're cutting off, we are bleeding to death.
Okay.
Apple, quit it.
No one's gonna believe that you're bleeding to death anytime soon.
But they do have a good argument, Hey, this way the users feel more confident.
I can't argue with that.
I think that's a valid argument right there.
But what do you think from like a app builder's perspective, do you think
it'll get better or worse for us?
I think most people are gonna stick with Apple.
as somebody who only is on Apple, I would say I don't trust
the app store as a consumer.
I just think there's a lot of sketchy apps, on the app store, so I don't even
feel like I'm paying for decent security.
It sounds like you have more experience on Android, so maybe I'm mistaken.
So maybe we could get more premium apps, stores that are
better quality apps and stuff.
I don't know.
But yeah it's a unfortunate situation we're in and how we got
here as far as like they've been pressed and pressed and have just.
Que they just continue to squeeze and think they can get more out of it.
I do.
and I think the iPhone's been hurt by it,
Oh, absolutely I do.
And I do say that I think for.
Many different reasons.
Like you said, death by a thousand cuts.
I jokingly say it, but I also believe too, welcome to
Microsoft of the nineties folks.
You, once you dominate a market, it's not the question of whether
you earned that success or not.
'cause hey I think they did.
I think Apple deserves everything they got because they came up with the solutions
to problems we didn't know we had.
But when we realized we did, wow.
Did it turn the world around for everybody, right?
Yes, of course.
I'm specifically talking about the iPhone here, right?
And not, I'm not talking about whether I think it's right or wrong.
It did turn everything around for everybody, right?
Not everybody had a cell phone back when they were, super simple phones
and everybody, most people do now.
And so it's opened up people around the world to the world,
which is nothing but a good thing.
But with that inevitably becomes okay,
but now you think that we should just accept everything you do.
And that's acceptable to a certain point until they, in this case, apple.
And that's why I say welcome to Microsoft of the nineties, until you start to
abuse that and you start to, Apple's always believed its own hype, but now
it really believes it's a reality.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
I don't know, I'm a bit cynical about it just 'cause from what I've seen,
the apps that are the big ones on the app store tend to be doom scrolling
video apps or like gambling apps.
And that's all I see.
As far as what are the big hits?
So it's great, you've got addictive apps, but like at the same time what
happened to the really, I don't know, maybe it's just the market has changed,
but it just seems like those are the hits and like your productivity app,
or, more creative games seem to be getting squeezed outta the market.
And I think I put a lot of that blame on frankly, the unpredictable
nature of App store review.
If we've got 10 Tetris gloss, that is all that should be allowed
on the store is we have got the maximum amount of Tetris glos.
I'm not saying that, because the 11th one could be groundbreaking, pivotal in some
way, but what I am saying is it doesn't feel like the rules for the app store.
And I know we as developers I know I'm preaching to the choir.
The rules seem to apply one way for some folks, one way for another set of folks,
and then we can't help but touch upon this, if you are one of those companies
that Apple's decided they've got a beef with you, it's a third set of rules and
we will make out that to let you in.
We'll, just.
Kill Apple as a company, of which none of us believe it.
But it doesn't matter if you've got enough lawyers,
yeah.
I do think that the biggest problem is just the financial structure
of how the app store was set up.
This is what we've ended up with, where we have games looking for whales and
things like that more than anything else.
And I think that's really where the problem has reared its head and like
you said, app store review, et cetera.
it's to Apple's advantage, right?
That they make a ton of money
Of course.
And I don't fault them for that.
I think Apple deserves a percentage of sales because they
are doing an awful lot for us.
Even if it doesn't feel like it, anyone like us who's ever put an app
in the app store suddenly appreciates I had to do zero clever marketing to
have a nice page in the app store.
there are so many useful things.
They deserve something for that.
They're hosting this stuff.
what does that percentage, what should it be?
I don't know.
But they deserve something.
But they don't, if I'm giving them something, they shouldn't be able
to dictate all the rules to me.
As a someone putting an app in, I should follow the guidelines that
I agreed to and laid out and they should be clear for me to understand
so that if you accept it or reject it.
It's okay, I get it.
I pushed too far.
Look at the amount of, you said it yourself.
Look at the amount of adverts that you see for things famously, certain
games that didn't exist, that appeared in adverts and then Hey,
we actually made a game of this now.
That is Apple's fault.
'cause
They're the gatekeepers of what gets in and what gets out.
that's why they tell us their monopoly is a good thing.
And yet they don't demonstrate using that monopoly for the right reasons to,
I think this, I don't care about the 30% cut, whatever it
If I, it's like arguing about the $90 or whatever it is, $99 a year
to be in the developer program.
right.
Hey, if you're not making $99 a year, I. I'll be transparent, right?
I have a full-time day job.
I don't make enough from the app store to cover my yearly developer, cost.
But that's not why I am doing it.
But if I was doing it, I would take it serious enough.
I would feel like at that point I'm doing something wrong.
So before we close out, I wanted to ask you, what have you been working on lately?
Yeah.
So over the past year in particular, I have been doing
a lot more game development.
I actually did release like my Enders hurdles game, which was just a fun,
Hey, could we make SpriteKit work?
That then ended up as a, oh dang, we got a real game.
I finally released it.
I moved away from SpriteKit, and went into like goodo.
So I did finally release it on multiple platforms because everybody wanted me to.
But I have been doing a lot of game development because it's
my, when you do mobile apps.
Every day as a job.
At some point you're like, I don't wanna do mobile app in the
evening necessarily every night.
So I do game development because I'm free to do whatever I want and it
doesn't matter if I ship it or not.
so you're talking about Gau and Sprite kit.
Explain to me the differences
For those, Sprite kit is Apple's, I call it Apple's Gaming 2D technology.
And then of course there's various other ones for 3D this is
everybody kept pushing me like, you should make this for Vision Pro.
And I'm like, what's the point?
Just to circle it back.
it's their 2D gaming technology and it is a lot harder to work with than
it should be because it's not a game.
Engine it is more, hey, if you wanna make a game engine with it, you can.
So you've gotta do all that work, right?
But if you look at others like, there are three that I use,
Gado, unity and Unreal Engine.
They are pre-built engines.
I just have to go make my thing right.
And interestingly doing Gadot has made me learn, GD script, which is very close to
working with Ruby and things like that.
And so it's huh, in fact, Jeff and I did a compiled Swift episode recently
where we were talking about you go do something else and you find it has side
benefits to your mainstream work, right?
And so that's what happened there.
Not Sprite Kit turned out not to be my thing because it was taking
too long to do basic things.
And that's a whole other subject about how Apples.
Not embracing gaming platforms the way they would like you to think they are.
I'll say it, I say it every time, so apologies.
Apple, just by Unity already and make Swift the main programming language,
and I will back you a thousand percent.
So Gau is a different engine,
engine,
but you can use Swift in it.
you can, it's not the main language, but there are some very smart folks out there.
I'll find the link.
We'll put the link in the show notes.
you can use Swift by way of a bridge.
the cohost on Compulsive podcast, Jeff, he actually embraced this.
I tried to embrace it, but it got to that thing of I was doing too
much work to get Swift working before I actually made anything.
And that to me is always the sign that something's wrong.
Okay.
it's really good.
It's coming along in leaps and bounds.
There have been conference talks about it.
Apologies.
I can't remember the gentleman's name off hand.
Who did it.
We'll find it for the links.
It's really good.
And in fact, there's also an iPad app now that you can use to make cado,
Oh, that's
You mean I can code them on the iPad?
Interesting.
Not really something I want, but interesting nonetheless.
But that's what I wanna see.
I wanna see Swift taken seriously in these other arenas, right?
Game development in particular, because yeah, I can type swift a lot quicker
than learning another language, right?
So that's what I've been working on a lot lately.
I still have apps.
I've got like my JobFinder Tracker app, which is, swift
and Swift data and, all the in,
what platform.
it's on iOS
Okay.
I do wanna make it multi-platform, meaning iPad, a better iPad
experience, true native iPad experience and Mac at some point.
I just don't feel it has the core features yet that it needs to have.
And so it's kind, that thing of, okay, let's get one platform.
Right now I do the interfaces for the others because it uses
cloud kit and everything else, so your data goes everywhere.
But it's just not the experience I want it to be yet.
Yep.
And I will say I haven't migrated it to Swift six 'cause I'm a little afraid.
Peter, thank you so much for coming on.
Sorry you won't be in California this year, but one of these years.
I'll have to get you
I almost made it to deep Dish this year, except for last minute, work
commitments almost made it, but yes.
Yeah.
Thank you, Leo.
we will make it buddy.
We will make it and be in the same location at some point.
It will happen, that would be fantastic.
But as always, thank you for having me back on the show.
It's always a pleasure.
We always have so much to talk about when we get together
and, just thoroughly enjoy it.
It's always interesting, so thank you.
And we'll put links to you and your compile swift stuff and live
streams, et cetera, in the show notes.
So be sure to check that out.
Like I said, I will be, doing a special recording Monday, June 9th to talk about
the events of the first day at dubbed up, special 200 episode at Community Kit.
I'll have a link to preserve your spot.
You do have to reserve your spot free.
So go check that out.
I'll be doing a panel at one more thing.
On Tuesday, I'm gonna be showcasing bushel at the Indie Fair Community Kit.
So definitely check that out.
Bushel is gonna be on sale, till the 23rd.
we just released Bushel two point 10, 2.10, 2.1 0.0.
So check that out.
We added a menu bar, we redid the snapshot interface.
It's really great.
if you're gonna test out Mac Os.
26, you'll definitely want to, grab a copy of bushel and give it a try.
you get 50% off if you subscribe, for your yearly subscriptions.
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Alright, that's it.
We'll see you, everybody in California.
Talk to you later.
Bye.