Developing Perspective
- Épisodes
- 229
- Parution
- toutes les deux semaines
- Dernier épisode
- 15 Oct 2026
À propos du podcast
Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing the news of note in iOS Development, Apple and the like. Hosted by David Smith, an independent iOS developer.
Épisodes 229
#229: Portal Gun Development
Gone are the days of map-and-compass development, now if we can imagine it and see a line of sight to it we can build things nearly instantly. Which totally changes the cognitive and structural tradeoffs we …
Notes de l’épisode
Gone are the days of map-and-compass development, now if we can imagine it and see a line of sight to it we can build things nearly instantly. Which totally changes the cognitive and structural tradeoffs we need to make in our development process…and how we take care of ourselves in that.
#228: New Platforms
I walk through the history of Apple developer platforms over my history as an app developer and grade them, then think a bit about what has made them worthwhile. Watch on YouTube
#227: Pivotal
I’m bringing Developing Perspective back. This first episode wrestles through why being an indie app developer right now feels so “pivotal”, in both senses of the word. There’s the constant, week-by-week change …
Notes de l’épisode
I’m bringing Developing Perspective back. This first episode wrestles through why being an indie app developer right now feels so “pivotal”, in both senses of the word. There’s the constant, week-by-week change in our tools and workflows, and there’s the bigger structural shift in what it even means to “make” apps.
Developing a New Perspective
Under the Radar RSS Feed Overcast Link iTunes Link PocketCasts Subscribe Link I am delighted to announce that today I am launching a new development related podcast with Marco Arment. It is called Under the …
Notes de l’épisode
I am delighted to announce that today I am launching a new development related podcast with Marco Arment. It is called Under the Radar and starts today on the fine Relay FM Network.
I have been doing Developing Perspective since July 13, 2011 (roughly 4.5 years). During that time I have chronicled the rises and falls of being an independent developer in the App Store. I am immensely proud of Developing Perspective and glad that I have it to refer to later on as I look back on my career.
The time has come now to embark on a new adventure in podcasting.
Back in late 2010 a new podcast was started called Build & Analyze with Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin. I hadn’t really heard of either of them before but I immediately latched onto it. Marco’s experiences and perspectives in being a developer were both relevant to my work and engaging to hear. For the entire run of Build & Analyze you’d always find me in the chatroom listening live, suggesting titles.
In many ways it was the show that most motivated me to start podcasting. To create a venue for sharing my experiences and hard learned lessons. I was very sad when it finally wrapped up its 108 episode run. All that makes the prospect of starting a new development podcast with Marco a great joy.
If you liked listening to Developing Perspective I’d really encourage you to subscribe to Under the Radar. It is in many ways the spiritual successor to Developing Perspective and Build & Analyze. A venue for us both to discuss and examine what being a developer means today — the challenges we face, the opportunities we see, the lessons we learn. Oh, and it’s never longer than 30 minutes.
So let’s get Started
#225: Users per Day.
I tend to think of my app business in terms of revenue per day. Breaking it down to that level helps me keep a close eye on it and know how well or poorly I’m doing. Today I walk through the reasoning for this …
Notes de l’épisode
I tend to think of my app business in terms of revenue per day. Breaking it down to that level helps me keep a close eye on it and know how well or poorly I’m doing. Today I walk through the reasoning for this as well as do a thought experiment of what the numbers might look like for a new business.
#224: Unplanned Absence.
Some thoughts on the implications of having to take an unplanned absence from your work when you are self-employed. There are a lot of benefits of being independent that manifest themselves in a situation like …
Notes de l’épisode
Some thoughts on the implications of having to take an unplanned absence from your work when you are self-employed. There are a lot of benefits of being independent that manifest themselves in a situation like this but also a few things to be careful of and plan for.
#223: What to expect this summer.
An overview of what to expect this summer: the beta schedule, timing for release, the importance of RADARS, my growing interest in Swift and an encouragement for everyone to build something new this summer …
Notes de l’épisode
An overview of what to expect this summer:
- the beta schedule,
- timing for release,
- the importance of RADARS,
- my growing interest in Swift and
an encouragement for everyone to build something new this summer.
- Will Hains’ iOS Beta History
#222: WWDC 2015 First Impressions.
First Impressions from WWDC 2015. These are my initial reactions right after the Keynote, I’ll probably do another episode later in the week which has more considered reactions.
#221: Circular Revenue.
Some high level thoughts about WWDC and my excitement for it. Then, a few thoughts about whether mobile advertising is in a precarious position.
#220: The Essential Experience.
Today I begin a new Start-to-Finish series discussing the creation of an application from idea to the App Store. My Essential Experience Target: An application focused on surfacing the data currently collected …
Notes de l’épisode
Today I begin a new Start-to-Finish series discussing the creation of an application from idea to the App Store.
My Essential Experience Target: An application focused on surfacing the data currently collected by the Apple Watch and iPhone and presenting it in a useful, actionable, and encouraging way.
Blizzard’s Games I discuss:
My previous Start-to-Finish series discussing the creation of Check the Weather:
#219: Accidental.
2015 Developing Perspective t-shirts (4 days to order, ends May 18.) One of the most dangerous traps when learning from someone else’s experience is ascribing intentionality to what in reality was accidental …
Notes de l’épisode
One of the most dangerous traps when learning from someone else’s experience is ascribing intentionality to what in reality was accidental. This can make it feel somehow magical or impossible to learn from. We are all just muddling along.
#218: Blazing Trails.
2015 Developing Perspective t-shirts (1 Week left to order.) Once again the topic of sustainable revenue has surfaced around our lovely community. I’ve recently been changing/adapting my thinking on the subject …
Notes de l’épisode
Once again the topic of sustainable revenue has surfaced around our lovely community. I’ve recently been changing/adapting my thinking on the subject so it seemed the time to wade in again.
“The app store had its best quarter ever, with a record number of customers making purchases, driving a new record for revenue, and 29 percent year on year growth.”
In April, 2015: 1,561 apps per day (35,929 non-games, 12,451 games, 48,380 total)
Where we are:
From here:
#217: The Brand.
2015 Developing Perspective t-shirts My WatchKit Apps Release Notes Conference In some ways this week’s episode is a follow up to last week’s show about hustle. All that thinking about the role that asking for …
Notes de l’épisode
In some ways this week’s episode is a follow up to last week’s show about hustle. All that thinking about the role that asking for money plays in my business got me to thinking about some of the complications that being the face of your business carries. When you are an independent business owner your own personal brand becomes the brand of your products. This can be awesome but also makes certain parts of promotion and discourse more complicated.
#216: The Hustle.
Thinking through why I have such a hang up about talking about and asking for Money. Why this is probably not such a great thing for my business and what I might do to fix it. My WatchKit Apps
#215: Insidious Features.
How to build little features into your applications that re-wire your user’s brains to come to expect a certain behavior. These ‘insidious’ features are a delightful way to help build loyalty with your customers.
#214: App Store Snowstorm.
Simultaneous Invention or setting realistic expectations for uniqueness. Simultaneous Invention
#213: Showing Up and Shipping Apps.
After a longer than typical break I’m back with another episode…on a related note I’m talking about how to get unstuck. How I manage the situation that seems to happen often enough where I get stuck in a …
Notes de l’épisode
After a longer than typical break I’m back with another episode…on a related note I’m talking about how to get unstuck. How I manage the situation that seems to happen often enough where I get stuck in a creative rut. Then I talk a bit about how to manage the process of submitting WatchKit apps.
Chart of my consistency track record for Developing Perspective:#212: Four Phases of a Gold Rush.
In the run up to Apple’s media event on March 9th I keep hearing the phrase ‘Gold Rush’ over and over again. Today I unpack that concept and whether it might apply to the Apple Watch. The Phases of Gold Rush …
Notes de l’épisode
In the run up to Apple’s media event on March 9th I keep hearing the phrase ‘Gold Rush’ over and over again. Today I unpack that concept and whether it might apply to the Apple Watch.
The Phases of Gold Rush:
- The Rumor
- The Legend
- The Rush
- The Reality
Luck = Opportunity + Preparation
There is unfortunately no shortcut to gaining expertise in a subject. You can only truly understand something by working on it, by immersing yourself in it, by building terrible prototypes and throwing them away. You cannot throw away what you haven’t made.
#211: Asterisk Free Marketing.
Prompted by some thinking I did around building the App Preview for Pedometer++, I start to wonder about honesty in advertising. How honesty should I be? What level of candor is appropriate, helpful …
Notes de l’épisode
Prompted by some thinking I did around building the App Preview for Pedometer++, I start to wonder about honesty in advertising. How honesty should I be? What level of candor is appropriate, helpful, reasonable?
#210: Polymaths.
I’m not a huge fan of the term polymath. It sounds kinda pretentious but sometimes the best word for something is that way. Today I was struck by the wild variety of tasks and skills that it takes to run a …
Notes de l’épisode
I’m not a huge fan of the term polymath. It sounds kinda pretentious but sometimes the best word for something is that way. Today I was struck by the wild variety of tasks and skills that it takes to run a business principally on your own. So I wanted to walk through some of disparate aspects of the ‘job’. Hopefully giving someone who is considering going out on their own some good food for thought.
My intention isn’t to scare anyone off, but just to help you understand the inherent complexity of this line of work, and an appreciation for the things other people handle for you in a J-O-B, job.
General Development- Software engineering
- Bug tracking
- Product Design
- Release planning
- Customer support
- Version Control
- iTunes Connect submission lifecycle
- Objective C, Xcode, Interface Builder
- Device and iOS version management
- Photoshop, PaintCode
- Testing / QA
- Ruby on Rails
- Postgres
- Memcached, nginx, redis
- Queueing, sidekiq
- Linux system administration, Backups, Security updates
- iTunes Connect, contracts, payments,
- Accounting, Taxes and banking.
- Budgeting
- Compliance, Local, State, Federal, Business Licenses
- Benefits / Welness
- General hosting, email, domains, etc
- Websites
- ‘Brand’, personal and otherwise
- Photoshop
- Marketing concepts and ideas
- Microeconomics
#209: Not so Fast.
Today I walk through my history thinking about Swift. From WWDC to now I’ve done a lot of thinking about Swift as whether I should be using it. The result makes me feel a bit conflicted, but the brutally …
Notes de l’épisode
Today I walk through my history thinking about Swift. From WWDC to now I’ve done a lot of thinking about Swift as whether I should be using it. The result makes me feel a bit conflicted, but the brutally pragmatic part of me is winning out.
#208: Sam Soffes.
I take a break out of my normal 15 minute format for a return of my occational interview series. This week I’m delighted to talk to Sam Soffes about balancing your own product work with doing consulting …
Notes de l’épisode
I take a break out of my normal 15 minute format for a return of my occational interview series. This week I’m delighted to talk to Sam Soffes about balancing your own product work with doing consulting, different ways of thinking about success and deciding what it is you want to do with your time.
Sam has been developing for iOS since 2008 and has worked on a wide variety of successful products. He is currently working on Whiskey, a Markdown editor for Mac and iOS.
#207: Irresistible Complexity
Rather than wading into the hullabaloo regarding Apple’s software quality directly I instead decided to take a step backwards and consider the forces that have driven us to this situation in the first place. My …
Notes de l’épisode
Rather than wading into the hullabaloo regarding Apple’s software quality directly I instead decided to take a step backwards and consider the forces that have driven us to this situation in the first place. My goal is to consider the forces that make keeping software stable over time difficult. The result can apply to small projects as well as to a company as large as Apple.
- Marketing Complexity: The pressure to keep adding features in order to keep software relevant in a marketplace.
- Intrinsic Complexity: The unfortunate reality that any added feature doesn’t just linearly increase complexity, instead it increases radically.
- Personnel/Personal Complexity: The tension and struggle around keeping sharp, talented engineers focused on stability when the promise of working on something else, newer and more exciting looms.
These are the concerns we need to stay conscious of in order to manage our software over time.
#206: Can the App Store be Full?
Today I think out loud about the implications of an App Store that is functionally full. Where applications cannot realistically thrive simply because of novelty or freshness. Whatever you do now you are facing …
Notes de l’épisode
Today I think out loud about the implications of an App Store that is functionally full. Where applications cannot realistically thrive simply because of novelty or freshness. Whatever you do now you are facing up against a hyper-competitive marketplace. I think this changes significantly how we need to pursue things from a business perspective as well as helps us be realistic about what to expect.
As an experiment I also recorded this episode as a video. I’m not really sure how valuable this is but I’ll never know unless I try. I’m thoroughly enjoying trying out video recently as a medium for sharing within our community.
As a result of how my recording was setup the audio for this episode as a bit more echo than I would have liked, I’ll get that buttoned down if I try this again.
#205: AILW - Economics of WatchKit Apps.
Thinking out loud about why I recently starting my series called As I Learn WatchKit. I’ve learned a lot about the creative process by giving myself permission to put unpolished things into the world. My first …
Notes de l’épisode
Thinking out loud about why I recently starting my series called As I Learn WatchKit. I’ve learned a lot about the creative process by giving myself permission to put unpolished things into the world.
Then, I dive into the economics of building WatchKit apps. In general I think that the economic realities of building apps for it are consistent with any other app endeavor. If it was a good idea before it is likely doubly so to add a Watch extension. If it is a new idea you have a great opportunity to be an early adopter.
#204: Delightfully Pragmatic.
My first reactions to WatchKit. I’m really glad Apple has given is some genuinely powerful capabilities with this first generation of APIs. Getting Started with WatchKit My Initial Impressions Apple’s Main …
Notes de l’épisode
My first reactions to WatchKit. I’m really glad Apple has given is some genuinely powerful capabilities with this first generation of APIs.
#203: Divided by One.
For a while now I’ve had an episode idea discussing some of the ‘interesting math’ about working on a project by yourself. I discuss how working on something by yourself is so very different than in working on …
Notes de l’épisode
For a while now I’ve had an episode idea discussing some of the ‘interesting math’ about working on a project by yourself. I discuss how working on something by yourself is so very different than in working on any other sized team.
#202: Four Quadrants of Ideas
I’ve had a few folks ask me about my plans and ideas for Apple Watch. While I don’t try to be too coy about what I’m working on I’ve definitely kept some of my ideas close to the vest. I’m well aware that …
Notes de l’épisode
I’ve had a few folks ask me about my plans and ideas for Apple Watch. While I don’t try to be too coy about what I’m working on I’ve definitely kept some of my ideas close to the vest. I’m well aware that ideas, in general, are useless on their own. But that doesn’t mean that being promiscuous with your ideas is still always a good choice.
Trying to formularize this I came up with the following structure for ideas and where sharing them is likely a good and poor choice.
Like all good concepts it can be best demonstrated with a two-axis graph with four quadrants:
On the one axis is the ease of implementing/realizing the idea. On the other is the expected return on a successful implementation of that idea.
- Easy, High Reward: If you actually have one of these (you likely don’t) keep it quiet and run with it as fast as you can. Likely hyper competitive. Simultaneous invention everywhere.
- Easy, Low Reward: Confections that are likely flash in the pan (if they flash at all).
- Hard, Low Reward: Time sinks, labors of love. Most ‘I have a great idea for an app’ pitches. XKCD on easy vs hard problems.
- Hard, High Reward: Real businesses are built here.
#201: On Expedition.
With the impending arrival of the AppleWatch next year and the WatchKit SDK next month I’m starting to shift my focus towards ‘wearables’. They present a few challenges to me as a developer, not the least of …
Notes de l’épisode
With the impending arrival of the AppleWatch next year and the WatchKit SDK next month I’m starting to shift my focus towards ‘wearables’. They present a few challenges to me as a developer, not the least of which is that I have almost no experience with that type of device. I used to wear a watch years ago but haven’t consistently for a long time. I saw the Pebble when it first came out and it looked kinda janky. But now it is clear this is an area that the larger companies that I piggyback my business on are heading so I’m trying hard to make sure I don’t fall off.
To help me get up to speed I’ve been purchasing a variety of devices to start getting my feet at least slightly damp, if not actually wet. I started with the Jawbone UP and just got the Microsft Band. These are my initial reactions and thoughts.
#200: Sustained.
I recently hit a few milestones that got me thinking about the attributes of sustained projects. My 7th iOS (iPhone) Developer Program My first app approved 6 years ago 200 Episodes I tried to boil them down …
Notes de l’épisode
I recently hit a few milestones that got me thinking about the attributes of sustained projects.
- My 7th iOS (iPhone) Developer Program
- My first app approved 6 years ago
- 200 Episodes
I tried to boil them down into four keys:
- Purpose
- Diversity
- Flexibility / Ruthlessness
- Patience / Tenacity
Voici les 100 derniers épisodes sur 229. Les épisodes plus anciens se trouvent dans le flux du podcast.
