294: WWDC Excitement
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Welcome to under the radar show about independent I O S APP development.

I'm mark arment, David smith. Under the raw, not longer than thirty minutes. So it's gets started IT.

Is that time of year we are about to head to wwdc. I'm excited. I always every year on the lead up to IT, i'm always like me the logistics until I really want to fly to california right now.

I'm really busy like if that happens every year and then I I arrange the trip and I do IT and then like a few to be from IT OK. Now excited. Now I can't wait. I really, really, really can't waited to be there.

I'm exactly the same way. Like I mean, it's yeah and I think for both of us, this has been just a fixture on our calendar for so long that like this is a thing and sometimes that is slightly tiring. Sometimes that is reassuring.

Like IT is this weird thing that ever take the that is the the begin of june. It's time for W D C. And sometimes i'm looking forward to IT.

But then inevitably, the closer I get to IT, the more just excited and it's kind of anxious in a good way maybe um for for the event becomes because IT is such a transformative event in our calendar like whatever gets announced. I think this as we're recording um I grow one hundred hours away from the begin of the keynote. I just have a countdown running on my phone and so is like a hundred hours.

I'll find out what's happening for the next year. That's exciting. That's really cool. And it's very fun to have this like you know you just just never know like i've had some there been some years where it's like, huh there's not really anything for me here and then there have been the other years which are the all complete opposite.

You like four years ago, I know vidi ki was announced and that completely changed my life. So like you just never know what's going to what's coming and what's going to happen. So it's exciting, it's cool and it's a little scare at the same time.

Yeah exactly. I mean, I think you know as we talk to him in previous years, the wise approach to this big event of the year is to clear the decks as much as possible before. And now obviously, as I said, was coming out like days before.

It's probably little late for that. But you know the the best advice we can give is to go to W B, T, C, knowing that it's going to probably throw, arrange in your plans in some way and it's probably in a good way. But but like whatever you think is onna happen, there's probably gone to be either details about that, that are not what you expect and or there will be lots of things that that we're not rumor that were not expected.

There are nice surprises that oh, we can always sudden do this or where there's a cool new framework or this mean a significant new language feature like you know obviously this year um there is going to be a lot of most likely movement around swift concurrency and send able safety and stuff like that with with the most likely delivery swift six and not a lot of that we can see in the open because swift is developed mostly in the open. But I think that's going to be a big story for developers of like this major new language shift um with swift and with concurrency safety, we're going to be starting that you know here and now and then that's going to be a ye's long time line of slowly migrating over to that, slowly getting rid of the hundreds of warnings that your projects might have with strict currency. Um so no is going to be that is going to be the usual dose of you know new aps, new improvements to to other aps.

Here's some new improvements to swift, you and new improvements to a and stuff like that. There's going to be you know the usual collection of that. Um so I think this is always I always love this time a year.

It's always a combination of excitement and stress I try to make just stressed as best as I can um and the any because the excitement is like I want to use all this new stuff. This is so cool, I can't wait to I get to use IT. And then the stress is a combination of like A I can't use this until I can require this, a version of the U.

S. In a year or three or b, this capability exists. I have to adopt IT because my customers will expect IT, and I have a time line now this, I have to be in beta sometime in the summer and have this shipped in the fall.

So there's that kind of combination of stress that come along with this time. But overall, I think IT, IT ends up being good overall and IT moves us forward. And that's always fun.

yeah. Now exactly. And it's I think it's interesting. I think we're now to sort of steadily in the kind of like new phase of W D C, where IT is a primarily on on online event that is structured in a different way.

I think we've kind of got a sense of what this is gonna and can have some expectation for that. You know there was in the early years of IT. It's like every year felt very different to the year before as they were kind of finding the flow that works and the happens that worked.

And I think we're now kind of definitively like this is what w dc is going to look like going forward. This is kind of all we can expect, and I think it's a good place for that. And generally, but it's nice that I have less ambiguity about IT than I did in a couple years ago. Where is like is this you're going to be different. It's gna be changed right now, at least I know what i'm getting into and so I can focus more on the content than necessary leads is like the logistics and structure of what to expect?

Yeah exactly. Like i'm really glad that they've settled into the this new format of the conference, the old format, and you know where you have the big conference center, all and all the sessions are in person and then they maybe they get streamed live, maybe they get download later.

You know this new format is just IT is much smaller in the sense of how many developers they can have in person, but IT is just so much more accessible to so many more people. Now there's maybe a couple thousand developers that can go there in person. Ah there's hundreds of thousands of developers around the world.

So it's always been like the in person event has always been really just a drop in the bucket you compared to the entire apple development community out there. So everything else they did like in terms of making the sessions available, streaming them alive, you have later on, during during cover, like having things like virtual labs, all of that benefits so many more people than the impression stuff ever benefit before. So it's good that they had a few years where they had to develop that um because that made everything Better for everybody.

And then now they are they're finding like smaller ways, like okay well, for the in person event, for the people who can come, this is now more like a special treat than the actual conference um and lets to treat IT that way first of all but also like to recognize like anything we can do for that special tree will make IT Better for those people who came out, who actually you flew out, maybe your stay in hotel maybe which is very expensive. They're making a Better for people, but in ways that they're not really making you feel like you're missing a lot by not being there. If if you're watching along at home in the developer APP, you're still getting the bulk of you getting almost all of of quote, the conference are getting certainly all all the media you session and you're getting everything live stream of getting the full in a video production, the the captions, the search ability, the sample code that you're getting all that stuff and the only thing you're missing in person is like some receptions and stuff and and you like visiting apple park, which is which are really cool things. But if you were developer trying to follow this stuff, you know, for your job or for your hobby, that's not that important for you to be missing.

Yeah and I think a baby is just a good helpful is just quickly just summarized the flow if if you're a listener and you've never been through one of these kind of virtual liberty is kind of what to expect. And so essentially on monday morning and I guess tenneco pacific, there will be the keynote which will be streamed everywhere like apple dcom, probably. But so after then, we'll be that and then add one P M pacific.

They'll be the platform state of the union, which is the sort of technical keynote where they'll talk through more of the developers side of the stories of the year. And so these are the actual like implementation details and the changes, the next code and how IT actually will affect us all. And then from there, the rest of the weeks of tuesday through friday will tend to follow a pattern where I suspect in the morning, the actual time, usually I think I was, then there will be a serve, a drop of session videos and see these are things elaborating on the contents of the of the new announcements.

And they tend to kind of work service meter, the mt. Over the week, rather than just like dropping the mall on tuesday morning. I don't have fit to be the case this year, but that's typically the way they do IT. And then in some ways, that's helpful because IT tends to create a little bit of structure where othe wise IT could be a little overwhelming.

Um and then in relation to those, they will be um so online labs that will be put of put on and these are things where you can if you have a question or issue or a problem, you can make a request sample and you will have a sort of a fairly short, but I know I focused useful of virtual a video conference with one or two apple engineers who there to help you please answer your questions. Work through the issue, whatever that might be um and these are being available whenever you want in terms of like it's not just in the old days, IT was much more complicated to do those because they were very time limited and very focused. These you can they're available at certain times of the of the day or after you the week, but there are typically there's a bit more flexibility around that.

And so you can apply for one of those if you have a question. And if you have a question, by all means to take advantage of IT. It's a service up up provides and it's a rare thing.

To have access staple engineers. So sort of take adventures of that um as you could. And then additionally, this year, there's a new thing, the glast couple years they had a kind of like online community thing where they did IT through slack groups.

IT seems like this year that's gone away. And instead, I think the developer forms have been they recently just launched a big overhaul grade to the develop performs. And IT seems like as part of that, that is where there they're potentially doing that kind of like short form question and answer with apple engineers.

And so IT doesn't seem so far like we have indication that there's necessarily going to be the structure events that we used to have in the slack the last few years where I would be like we're going to have a session to this hour we're going to talk about watch kit were gonna if you have any questions coming to answer them. IT seems a bit more unstructured maybe this year, but it's hard to know until that actually happens. IT seems like if you have a particular question that isn't quite at the level of a lab that is something that you wants to help with.

There is going to a lot of apple engineers who are going to spend a lot of time in the forms where you have a question you ask yet, you might just get the answer back. And that's so much more efficient use of everyone's time if it's something like that rather than something that's a bit more philosophical or complicated or needs, you know, ten minutes to unpack with an engineer if you just have like so I tried the CPI and IT didn't work. Or am I using this wrong? Like you may be able to get much more help from that in the forms and potentially from what IT sounds like an apple with marketing material around the new forms.

IT sounds like that may also sustained a bit more, at the very least through the summer in terms of there may be no, it's rather than the old problem was if you didn't have your question by friday next week, you were kind of of luck in terms of having a great venue for an assignment or that sounds like through the forms, you may be able to get help at least at that some levels throughout the rest of the throughout the rest of the summer, if not just sort of indefinitely as an option. And so you just kind of the flow attended to get into for next week is it's going to be monday is just a bit of that's going to be its own little adventure. But you know tuesday through friday, there's just going to be a lot of I tend to wake up with and watch some sessions kind of as i'm going, i'm just always collecting questions.

If it's big enough questions that I feel like it's the label of request a slot. Otherwise we will all go to the forms and be asking IT there and then otherwise just kind of spending time on the various both the informs as well as just various places, online blogs and based on in places like that, just kind of get a sense of if there's things that I am not aware of that I should be that i'm keeping myself a bressed of all the changes. And if there is the little James or things that I need to be aware of that just kind of go try and stay you know he keep him and I open in the rest of the week to make sure that i've learned everything that I can and take an advantage every opportunity that I can.

Ah I actually I really like I mean, you'll see how IT works out. I like the idea of them using the forms more and and replacing those those slack channels they're using in previous years because as you mentioned, there was always this time crunch during the conference where like you have during this four or five day period, you have massive access to apple people to answer questions about the things that they just announced on monday.

But you have to use the things just in as before. You can really formal out your questions like you might need to spend a couple of days writing into the new framework or using a new feature before you even have questions. And when you're going to do that in middle, this conference, like IT, was always like this mad russian.

Okay, after the keynote, download the and get start and then start playing with them sap. Just you can form some kind of questions for the next couple of days before you would lose this opportunity for a year. So you know that was always you of a pretty big matter in addition to the fact like during during the time that you are out there, there's also all these events going on.

Not only you know whatever the sessions are, the apple puts on there is the state of union in the afternoon. They're all these different like little developer events and stuff and receptions and and maybe maybe the A D S and topic that so there's all these events that you're trying to do. You're also trying to be social with the people who are there if you're y're in person because like that's a huge part of IT as well.

And meanwhile, you have this very narrow time window to to access these people, these apple people, and have your question answer and and also like after that week was over, those select channels would be archive or whatever, and they be may be a little bit search able or a little bit available here there. But I was never IT wouldn't like show up in web searches later down later in the year. And the fact that he was always this treasure trove information that was kind of buried and locked away and not really very accessible.

So putting more of electronic channel that into the forms, first of all, that, that would be public and searchable, that's great. And but you know the big difference is if you're going to actually have apple people monitoring those answering questions, the apple develop reforms have always been, I would say, under resource, like there's always been a few engineers from the company who diligently post there and help people out, but they need so many more just to handle the load and the breath of what's being asked there. And so every year, they seem to have some kind of refresh to the developed performs that so far have not really changed that dynamics at all because IT seems like, you know, what they keep doing is like we skinning them or something, but not really solving the people problem like we need more apple experts there answering questions and providing good info.

If this Marks a change in that policy where they're actually gonna have more of their people there and maybe for more than just this week, that would be a massive value to develop community and IT. Would I would go far beyond the context of everybody see like that would be a fantastic year round value. And I really hope that's the direction they're going because we don't look.

We don't need to be going to stack overflow for everything like apple has their own forms. There is different and often more information there that could possibly be there. But you know right now, a lot of most of whatever I land on on a def forms page from from web search, what I usually see is a question with no answers.

And you often times not not first. That's my question. So that's the same question I haps I want. I'm looking for the answer and just not there.

It's a apple to improve that are in in a substantial way on the people's, not the website tempt side. I would love to see that. That's a big job.

I don't know if they're doing that, but but I I think that would be a good use of their infinite dollars. We are brought to you this episode by pork bun doc ham. Pork bun is offering an incredible deal on website domains that are perfect for the APP developers.

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And so in the same way that the onsite W D C is not only is a tiny sliver of the overall community, is probably the same thing in our audience. Imagine there are some of people who are listen to those who will be able, who are fortunate enough to get a ticket to attend in person, but the majority won't.

But nevertheless, I did think he was also just a few a few thoughts about if you are fortunate to be their own person, just to have make the most of your time there. Just sort of like some hints of tips and tricks about that in the first thing with that is I think it's a to understand that a lot of IT is going to be outside and IT seems like from the weather forecast that IT is going to be very warm in the mid eighties, fair height. So that's like low thirties soucians like IT is going to be a very warm, warm day.

So plane accordingly. Ly, you keep what a hat, sunscreen, sunglasses, stay in the shade, try and pace yourself, because you can be a really fun day like it's been. Like last year, we wished to the closest instructor to IT.

IT was just a lovely day to spend an apple park to connect with people, to connect with apple engineers, to able to kind of breath in the enthusiasm of apple engineers, which is something that I was just really love about. Being able to be there in person is there's all these engineers who have been working on these things sometimes for years, kind of insecure cy away, and they're finally public and they can finally talk about them. And their enthusiasm is delightful.

I would encourage everyone who is there to just make sure you just engage in the things that are available and try and even if my first couple years A W D C, I am vish naturally with a very shy person. I don't really enjoy this kind of an environment um as well but I was always the like I would try and force myself to being a sort of engaging these things and attend of the things even if IT wasn't necessarily my comfort zone. Because that's how I met people.

That's how I met so many people in this community who are now would like dear friends of mine who who I really value the relationships we have as like i'd met the molto bracy and so it's just something to to say with that you know but othe wise it's like pay attention to there is a bunch of things that I think are available, you know, if you're on site that aren't going to be probably promoted very widely, like be checking the developers page for the special event and making sure that you aren't there are things you need to sign up for. There's events that you in your schedule that you could go to just make sure that you're taking advantage of IT because it's a rare opportunity and it's really cool. And I would say a little bit too, is it's the I I said of the the first year, I didn't do this as oil I did last year.

I think I typically get into this this mindset. We're on monday after the keynote, I start to get too wrapped up into you. Oh, right, a way. I need to download code. I need to be in there are doing the cos.

I need to be trying things out and like if you're fortunately enough to have a ticket to be there at apple park, i'm you're going to get a lot more broadly out of your time to just enjoy your time there to take advantage of the opportunity to bring. So just like just breathe that fun experience and you can dive into that on tuesday, you take take your time and engage in that. Like see, sitting in the back of cafe max, we trying to get eco downloaded so that you can try something like a much if that's a great use of your time. And I could be if you for your circumstances, I found this like was a much Better use of my time to get up and walk around and meets some people and say hi and really just enjoy the opportunity because he is a rare thing and a special thing. So just like be careful about that if you're out there and othe wise, I just drink a lot of water and stay in the ship .

is much you yeah yeah that's great advice. That's know what I was saying no way to go like there's there is like this mad rush, uh you know trying to figure out how how do I spend my time during this few days and you know there is an inclined to do a lot of work on those days down ald of the st case and start getting in all that stuff. And there are reasons to do that.

The labs are a big reason to do that. Know there are these time bound of things, but IT is also like there are so many other competing things for that time. And as David silk, if you are there in person, you really want to be doing in person events like cause that's what you're there for.

So I would say maximize in person events during the time you are there if you're in person. And you can always go back to the sd case and do your work later like that. That is what will happen the following week IT even later that week on the plane right home.

We know whatever the case is like you'll have time to do that. Um that week your main job is not to jump in to coating immediately. And even if you're not there, even if you're watching at home, there are still all these session videos to watch.

And if you're spending so much time coding, you're not going to have as much time to actually watch the sessions. And a lot of times, like the questions I have for the labs, often times come up because of what I saw in session videos, so that I would say that that is a similar value. And I I found too, like I have found a helpful to dedicate those days to consuming the content of the conference because if I don't do IT those days, i'll never do IT like throughout the rest of the year.

There is never a day in the rest of the year where I tell myself i'm going to watch four session videos this morning that never happens. Instead, I treat IT more like a search and a reference, like I was recently implementing store kit two for the first time. So I I are right. Let me go watch a few store kit two videos. If i'm not like seeking something out in particular, I would never have taken the time to watch these videos.

And where, as you know, when you're actually in kind of conference mode, when you when you've told yourself my main goal today is to watch as many of these sessions as I can, you maybe watch things that you wouldn't necessarily have watched in that kind of search reference mode later in the year. And you often learn about possibilities or learn about little details of how things work or learn about API you didn't even know existed through that kind of more exploratory mode that you're in when you're telling yourself my job right now is to absorb as much as as possible. So take this, take, you know, next week as not just a regular work week and not just a time that you should be coating the entire time.

Take IT as this is a conference week i'm going to spend you take out a big chunk of the day, maybe it's the morning, whatever IT is like, take a big chunk of the day each day next week and say i'm going to watch the sessions of the day for you know this much time in the morning, i'm going to watch this number of sessions and make make IT a large of amount time or a large of number sessions that you will be forced to explore topics that that are outside of like your one core specialty. Like know if you don't make games, maybe watch one game session to see like know what kind of things are available if you don't say say you use you swift D I. But maybe maybe you're curious if they're something new in new I kit that you could use like a raped form or something or advise versa if you don't use swift U I yet.

Maybe watched the watching new in swift UI video to see OK. Maybe maybe there is some things that can start migrating there or some reasons I might want to things like that when you're in that kind of mode, IT IT makes you give you the capacity to expand beyond your usual horizons. And and that's that's like that's the value I would go out of, out of the conference in person when all the things to a person, like there were certain time salts rosia.

Well, the available session during this time slot are not things I would Normally have gone to, but i'm in the conference center. Let me go a sitting one and and sit and see see if I learn anything. And I always did IT was always worth IT. So take this time and and brought your horizons with the sessions and take a break from coding for a week, if you can.

yeah. And I think it's is a great aspect. What you're saying there too is it's like this is the time of the year that new opportunities tend to present themselves. And I think especially as a audience that is likely gone to be largely in any developers like this is the time when the cool new little niches will emerge that apple is announcing something and there's an opportunity to now genocide of thrust to run in and fill in that gap and filling that niche where this new opportunity and so being open minded and as sort of expensive as you can about the things that you explore, because you never really know where that cool idea is going to come from. Like what, you know, what's announced thing is gna really hit in your mind and you could be excited about and have some new APP IT ready, know, by september.

And so I think spending this week in that kind of much more just like open minded thinking about possibilities rather than getting too wrapped up right away into like, okay, there's this new thing. How am I going to implement that in my new APP? And that is certainly useful.

But I also have this to take the inside of what new things can I do in my APP? What possibilities could I explore? What new things are there? And trying to not get the sort of two into the weeds too quickly unless you absolutely need to.

Because I think having this very united this week be as why does you can in your rope, you know, the things that you're interested in and the things that you expose yourself too, because you just never know. Like I have had all kinds of experiences where I watch a session video um that I didn't really expect I was gone to see anything in that I would would a Spark an idea. I Better IT parks an idea and I see something in my oh, that's cool. I want to add that to my APP even if IT isn't necessarily like on the obvious path of features and things that I should be doing, that's where the really cool stuff happens and that's where the opportunities come in. And like you just never know like what opportunities are going to arrive if you have that perspective and take sort of A A wide view rather than getting two narrow and two in the weeds too quickly.

really just go out there and enjoy you have the entire summer to get in the weeds and we will that's we have like that's what the following week is for um you like because we all know that the way apple works with their software releases really is like if you want a bug to be fixed, you have a pretty short timeline each year to do IT.

It's basically considered like me, mid june to mid july is roughly like went the time you have to get your pet change made. And so there is a bit of a rush to get into everything and to try to find those because of this admittedly ridiculous and totally self imposed ridiculous timing that apple holds themselves too. But there's soft.

But uh, you know, so there is there will be appear to the year where you'll be rushing and that will be in a few weeks like there is time for that. And at that time is in a few weeks, like that's when you can start getting into all the code and filing all your bugs and and filing your your change request to the new aps, that there's just one little detail that kind of breaks IT for you, but would make IT great if they did IT. You have time for that.

And that time is called late june, but this is now early, admit june. And this time is for expLoring and and taking IT in and going to the events and going and watching the sessions. And as they ve said, like identifying new possibilities and and kind of taking a more like a more absorbent mode for this before you get into the hard core coating the following week.

Yeah, and I think it's a great opportunity to to celebrating part of this community that I know like you and I both really treasure being a part of and it's really cool. And if you can be in person either in kubota or on the developer website, they have a the whole like directory of in person events that are happening all over the world. So if you aren't in, you know, in couper, tina, you could do could be something near you and to find that.

And it's like it's just cool to be part of that and it's fun to to meet people. And you know, I like I hope and I expect to mean every year we've gone like it's really IT is something very reboarding as we spend almost of the year just talking to each other and essentially like shouting into the void. And it's lovely that at see the void shots back and we get to meet people who you, who listen to the show and who appreciate.

And so if that's you and we U C S. And run into us by me say hi would be little lovely. Know to put a face to avoid and it's it's great to just to connect to to have you know you have discussions and talk about know with the things that we're all mutually excited about, which we always get the opportunity to do.

Yeah, come see us if if you can like whatever you if if you spot us like at the visitor center, whatever I can recommend they have put a coffee there and usually some pretty fund snacks uh yeah so come say hi if you can and uh will will possibly see some of you next week that's great. Thanks for listen.

everybody. hi.