331: Reflection

Speaker A: Welcome to under the Radar, a Show about independent iOS app development. I'm Marko Arment.

Speaker B: And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is usually not longer than 30 minutes. So let's get started. So I don't know if you remember what you were doing on November 4th, uh, 2015 necessarily, but I can tell you what you were doing and that was launching this show. So we have now celebrated our ten year uh, anniversary of under the Radar. Um, which I guess congratulations to us. That's a long time to do anything, I suppose. Um, and it was a bit wild this morning. I listened to our very first episode and we were remarking about the launch of the Apple TV App Store.

Speaker A: Oh my God.

Speaker B: Which goes to say just how long we've been doing this show because that is a long time. And we also finished the episode somewhat amusingly, both talking about how we were about to start working on our first Apple TV apps, which I don't believe either of us had ever shipped.

Speaker A: I mean, I started it. That was true.

Speaker B: It was true. You started it.

Speaker A: I think I spent two hours on it, maybe most of which was spent trying to get it to build. Yeah.

Speaker B: So, I mean the world is a very different place, I suppose than it was when I think about, you know, 10 years ago when um, we started doing this, when we started, you know, sort of you had been coming from Build and Analyze and you think you'd started ATP, but it was, you were sort of had it. We're looking, we were sort of looking for a more developer focused outlet and I had a show developing Perspective, which was um, a solo show that I'd been doing for several years that was 15 minutes or less. And that's how we ended up on the 30 minutes or less. And that was sort of how we got started with this. And so reaching 10 years. And it's one of those things that there's no easy way to necessarily say this, but this is the last episode of under the Radar. Um, we're winding down the show and leaving it at sort of 10 years, being a good run for it. And I think I very much appreciate many of the people I think who listened to that very first episode 10 years ago are probably still listening now. Um, in many ways almost necessarily our most, um, core audience are the people who started 10 years ago and are probably still with us now. And so I wanted to a say thank you for listening for 10 years. But also I wanted to talk a little bit about why, because behind the scenes I think I was the one who sort of Started the discussion around, whether it was around the tenure interview anniversary would be a good time to wind down the show. Um, and so I sort of, I can take the blame and the credit or whatever way you want to look at that, um, for that, or at the very least, I feel somewhat responsible to explain, um, sort of where I was coming from and why. I feel like now is the right time to wind it down. And um, really, at its core, I think I found, you know, being online and having an online presence and sharing your opinion and commentary and having opinions on the Internet is a complicated thing, or at least it should be in some ways a complicated thing. It should be something that you're thoughtful about, I think. And if you are, you can avoid all kinds of pitfalls and challenges. And um, honestly, or just at a fundamental level, I think if you're thoughtful about it, you can make your online presence something that is additive and beneficial to the world in a way that, um, is hopefully, you know, a good goal or something to look forward to. Um, and something that I've found for myself is I've kind of had to develop like, I don't know, like principles or guidelines for myself that I try and live by that help me stay sane having an online presence. And like rule number one, um, is that you don't need to have, nor should you have an opinion on everything, that you don't have to always comment or react to anything that's happening in the world. You can just choose not to. And that's great too. And sharing an opinion is something that you should typically try to do. And these are shoulds that I'm talking to myself, not to the world. Like, maybe it's useful for you, but this is. These are the things that I tell myself is that I should only be sharing things where I feel like I can meaningfully contribute. And generally only when doing so is helpful to the broader discussion that I'm doing. Things that I feel, you know, talking about things in a place that I feel like I can make a meaningful contribution. And two is the publicity of my opinions should be directly proportional to my expertise in the subject that I'm talking about. And so for something that I'm sharing widely and publicly, I should have a really relatively strong area of expertise. I should know what I'm talking about rather than talking about it. If, um, I don't know, and if I don't know if I'm still working something out, that's great. But those are conversations that become less and less public in some ways in Our years of recording this show, one of the funny things is there's two shows, there's the show we have out here and then we hit stop recording. And you and I will often chat and talk. And that conversation, we're sharing different opinions in a different levels. And we were able to do that because it's not public. Right? And so it's having that area of expertise and that strength in your belief in your. What you're saying, I think is a useful prerequisite for sharing things publicly. And the thing that I found is probably starting maybe 6ish months ago, um, I was finding that both of these were becoming more of a struggle for me around, under the radar, around my general sort of contribution and feeling that many weeks we were searching for something to talk about rather than feeling like there was something urgent and meaningful that we sort of needed to share that. And some of this is just coming from the age of like and the focus of the show, where we have in some ways, I think, literally covered every core topic in iOS app development over the, over the last 10 years. Like, there are times where it is somewhat comedic. When I point, you know, m, I'm like, oh, have we talked about this? And it's like, yes, we have. Yes we have. Like, I can go and talk about it. Because that's the nature of, of having a show for 10 years with a very relatively narrow topic. Um, but I think also the world of iOS app development has sort of contracted and has less novelty and newness to it. And so it's hard sometimes to find meaningful contributions to feel like we're still having. Um, and then on the other side, like, the second rule, I think what's challenging is that because most of the topics that we are most topical and most pressing in many ways to iOS app developers are things like AI and EU regulation and uh, big fights between trillion dollar companies. And I'm not an expert in that. Like, I don't feel good necessarily having public commentary on some of those topics because I don't, I don't have expertise in that and that feels precarious and not great. And like, I don't feel like I'm not at all bashful about saying that I'm an expert in iOS app development. Like, I completely, straight up, like, I'm humble about many things, I'm not humble about that. Like, I am an expert and I can talk publicly about that. But you know, you want to talk the impact of AI or different AI systems or antitrust regulation and compliance and all this stuff And I'm not an expert, and nor do I particularly enjoy talking about it. I mean, I think this year in particular, there's been a lot of challenging topics that I did not look forward to having discussions about, both because I'm not an expert and because I just. I don't like them. They're not nice. It's not positive. And there were fewer and fewer places where we were able to just talk about the parts of it that we like and have it feel relevant and meaningful. And so, like, those two things together were sort of the kernel that got started in my mind, where I was like, I feel like it might be time. And you and I talked about it, and I think in the way we've talked about, like, how do you wind down an app? And how do you know when it's time to do that? Um, I think there was, you know, the classic thing of we talked about it and we let it sit for a while, we let it kind of marinate, and then, you know, kind of at some point, we settled on, you know, 10 years felt like a nice, round number. It's a meaningful contribution, hopefully, to. A lot of people have learned things about app development, I think, and I know from people I've talked to that many people got into it based on our discussions and have launched apps and built things as a result. And it's always so wonderful and heartwarming to hear those. Those kind of stories. Um, but I think now is the time to sort of wind it down and, you know, we'll. I'm sure both of us will continue to be online and both of us will continue to have. Have commentary and things that we do it, but this particular format, in this particular way, um, felt like its time had come.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, as Dave mentioned, he was the one who kind of brought this idea to us, but as soon as he said it, I started thinking. I'm like, yeah, that actually, that feels right. It feels right to end the show at 10 years, um, for many of the reasons that you mentioned, uh, after so long. There were so many weeks, as Dave said, where we would just come to the show, like, what do you want to talk about? And I was like, well, I could talk about this, but I'm not really done with it yet. I could talk about this, but I don't really want to share that right now, or I don't want to share that at all. Um, or we could talk about this other thing, but we talked about that seven years ago, three years ago, and one year ago. And so it does kind of feel like we've done it all. We've covered everything that this show has been meant to cover. It doesn't feel like we're ending it at the wrong time. It doesn't feel like we're cutting it off too soon. It feels like this is. This is right. This was. This was a good time. And, like. And, you know, there's no. There's no other, like, drama behind this. Dave and I like each other a lot. We're still gonna like, have these zoom, um, calls every so often and just have, like, what basically, like, the. The secret show that we. Which honestly was often better because we could talk about things like confidential, you know, numbers and. And things going on. Like, we could. We could talk. We could talk more honestly with each other because we were just two friends talking without the audience. Um, so, you know, so we're great. Don't worry about anything there. And this show has been remarkably consistent over the years. Like, we launched and we pretty quickly settled into a number of downloads every episode that we basically have kept almost the same for 10 years. Like, the show didn't really grow or shrink over that time. It's been, like, exactly the same audience for 10 years. We don't get a lot of feedback, but the feedback we do get has been very consistent. Uh, you know, just everything has been very consistent. Relay has been a very consistent network for us the entire time. The ads have sold, like, the entire time and very consistent. Um, like, everything has just been consistent and stable and, like, unchanging, uh, the entire time. It will feel kind of weird not to do this show, but it has kind of felt like a struggle to come up with what to talk about for all the reasons that we mentioned. Um, and so it feels like a good time to end the show before it gets. Before it feels like a burden. And this nice round number. Um, this. This was a good time. Um, let me first get the sponsor out of the way. We are brought to you this episode for the last time, uh, by Sentry. So you got, like, broken lines of code, busted API calls, app crashes. No one loves that. That's why Sentry exists. It's the only developer first app mon platform built to give you answers, not just clues. Sentry gives you tools like error monitoring, distributed tracing, session replays, and two freshly minted tools, AI agent monitoring and structured logs so you can get to the root cause of your issues faster. Sentry is used by millions of developers, including some of the biggest, like Claude, Disney plus Duolingo and so many more. And there's a new Sentry AI agent called seer. What SEER does is whenever you have a problem that Sentry is detecting, it will use AI to try to figure out what the problem is and will automatically generate potential fixes for you with over 90% accuracy. That's incredible. It's like hiring an engineer who already knows your entire code base and it can find the correct root cause 94% of the time. So what it does, it finds that root cause and then it provides you a merge ready pull request based on the analysis. You review it and you say, oh, that actually is correct. That ah, does fix the problem. You save yourself so much time. So try it free at Sentry IO that's S E N T R Y Sentry IO Tell them that we sent you. They have a free dev plan and listeners of the show can use the code radar on signup for three months free of their team plan and 150,000 free errors. So Sentry IO s e n t r y IO use the code radar or just click the link in our show notes. Our thanks to their support. Our thanks to Sentry for their support of this show and relay.

Speaker B: Yeah, and yeah, it's a weird thing like, uh, you and I were talking a bit before. We were sort of recording of how like I woke up this morning and knowing that this was going to be the day that we record the last, uh, the last episode. And it was like this classic combination of feelings where it wasn't that I was. I wasn't necessarily sad in the sense that it was, you know, I was regretful that it was. We were ending it. It was more sad that just like, yeah, this thing that has been a meaningful part of my life that essentially every two weeks for the 10 years you and I have had a conversation, um, that we posted about iOS development and we've talked about all kinds of topics over those times we've launched. Five years ago, widgetsmith happened and completely changed my developer life. You've launched major updates and all kinds of things. Our lives have gone through all different directions and it's been interesting in some ways through the various changes that have happened that like, the show is always just sort of this consistent background thing. And I really like that it exists as a snapshot of some of those things. Like I think one of my favorite episodes is that episode you and I recorded right after Widget Smith had its sort of crazy viral moment and went crazy. And we had talked about it, we had a venue to talk about it and we had all of the background, um, and the discussions, like there was on under the Radar that summer before. I remember calling out how sort of like a challenge to the world that I was going to win the widget game, which is a bit of an unusual thing for me to do. But I was like, man, I feel like I really, like no one's going to outwidget me. Like, I've got this. And turned out that was true. Uh, it's a fun thing. And I think it is one of the privileges of being having a platform to talk about these things that you end up with that record. You end up with these kind of details. Because I think so often in life it is easy for things to just sort of happen and then fade away and that they don't necessarily have, um, a record in a milestone. And I love that I can go back and listen to that episode or the first episode like I did this morning, you know, when we didn't know what we were doing and have a record of that. And so I feel very sort of thankful to our audience who has stuck with us for, you know, for 10 years to allow that to be something that made sense. Because, you know, it isn't one of these situations where we're winding down the show because our audience has collapsed and, you know, no one's listening anymore. No, it's like the same number of people are listening now as they did before, which, um, is remarkable in its own way. But it's much more, you know, it's lovely to have that people, group of people who care about what we have to say, I suppose. And you know, it's funny, there's things about the show that I will miss and some of it is like completely silly things. So where, like, I love whether or not it's true or not, several WWDC videos I feel like start with so let's get started. They'll have an introduction and they'll say, so let's get started. I don't think this is actually true, but in my mind every single one of those people is an under the radar fan and it's our little subtle shout out. And it'll be sad that when that happens it'd be like, oh, that used to be our thing, now it's not our thing anymore. Um, or just little details and being able to run into people who feel like they've, you know, who know us and have benefited from the show and have that be a thing that happens. Obviously people can still come up to us and talk to us, um, subsequently it's not like the show has to be ongoing for that to be the case, but I don't expect it would be the kind of thing that has quite the ongoing pattern, um, to that. But, yeah, so, like, it's. There's. It's like that nostalgic kind of bittersweet feeling is sort of where I am on it. But, yeah, it feels like it's the right time and I think it'll be interesting to see what that does. I'm wondering sometimes if, uh, there'll be more developer topics on ATP now, um, or things like that, where there's things that previously their outlet would be for you and I to talk about them, and now both of us are going to have to find other outlets. When we have the truly meaningful constructive commentary or opinions or ideas or experiences to share, we're going to have to find a different outlet for them.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that'll be an interesting path to explore for both of us. Um, when you end something like this, you create a vacuum, not only in the audience potentially, I mean, that gets filled pretty quickly with other stuff, but you create a vacuum in your own life, uh, in your own creative output, in your public output and in your time. So even though this show has never taken a lot of time ever, it's always been remarkably fast and easy to make. Um, but, you know, it still frees up. Like, oh, as you mentioned, like, oh, maybe I'll talk more on ATP. Maybe you'll make more videos or make more blog posts. Like, you know, there's other outlets that we have that, like, eventually an idea is, you know, gets. Gets lodged in our heads and we have to get it out or we want to talk about it in some form. Like, you know, like, I've had a couple ideas. Like, I wonder if I could maybe do this weird, like, you know, YouTube format or something. I don't know, like, I have all sorts of weird ideas that I'll probably never get to. Um, but one or two of them I might get to, and you have the same thing. And so it is going to be interesting to see kind of where this goes, um, because, you know, and we both have, you know, audiences in different places. Like, you know, you have obviously the entire app universe at your disposal. Plus you have, you know, you've cultivated a blog and everything. Um, and I have ATP and my blog, and so we have ways that we can reach people and try out new things. I think it'll be interesting. And I think also the world of indie app development, first of all, uh, I don't know how much of that world is left. I think it's probably bigger than we think, but it's no longer like the community that we thought we were in when we started. It's both way bigger than that and way, I think, way more diverse than that, which is good. It needed to be. Um, but also it's more spread out, it's more disparate. Um, and so there are a lot of indie developers out there, but I don't think many of them are like people who used to follow the old Mac blogs and made Mac software back in the day. I think that community has largely dispersed or in many ways retired. Um, or gotten absorbed by other things. Um, you know, there's not a whole lot of that community left in a coherent form anymore. Um, but who makes apps today? It's a whole bunch of people that we've never heard of. And that's a good thing. That means the world has gotten bigger and broader. It's also a lot of younger people that like, maybe don't even listen to podcasts. Their world is YouTube and other places. And so there's this whole world out there of developers. Um, but it's a very different world now than what we started the show for and kind of the world that we considered ourselves coming from and the world that we know. And it's not that our world is gone. I think it's just, it's a much smaller part now of a much bigger thing that like most of that world has never heard of us, will never hear of us. Probably wouldn't seek out development focused podcasts even to begin with. Um, and maybe it's better off that, that we kind of like step aside and like, you know, let the world move on without us. As if it needed our permission. Obviously it doesn't. But, uh, but like, it does feel like we are kind of a relic of a past era. And not that we're like leaving this, this world, like we're still in it, but it feels like this hasn't been the real mainstream world of iOS app development for a very long time. Uh, it's, it's now a very different world. It has been for a long time. And I don't know how much there is more to say about it from, from our perspective, like from our, from our, our version of this world.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think there's definitely too.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: I think something you said that really thought jumped out at me was the sense of just, I think so much in life and this is beyond just like the show or development or whatever, but just like if you, you don't know what will fill avoid until you create the space in the first place. That like, if in life you are too busy all the time and you're running around and you're, you know, your schedule is packed and you're always busy and everything's always going on, you will be operating out of inertia rather than out of intention. Like, it just. That's the nature in my semi experience of when I feel like that when I don't have space, when there isn't sort of margin or slack in things that you're just sort of. You do whatever you've been doing before because you don't have the space to create new things. And I think what's interesting about now is it's like I, like, one of the things I'm excited about is just like you're saying, like, it's creating space, it's creating space for you. And I, like, not that it was a huge amount of time, but it was certainly something that we were doing. And there's only so many somethings that you can have on your mind, um, at once. And it also potentially creates space for other people. Like if there, if we were talking to a particular niche or a particular audience, maybe we're creating space for other things to come in and fill that, that space. But the only way that you can discover what's in that space is by creating it in the first place. And so in some ways, like, I'm excited for what would come next for you and I, as well as for what, winding this down and creating potentially, you know, some more space in this space, in this niche, like, who knows? But it's, you know, it's like, I think we did an episode a couple of ago about rest and how it's like, you never know, you need a break until you actually take one. Um, and I think in some ways it's like, I'm just really intrigued to see what happens. Not having this particular outlet be the thing that I bottle up a lot of my thinking and opinions and things that I want to share. Like, for a long time it's always been sort of like, save it for the show, bundle it up and put it in there. Um, and so creating a space where that's not, you know, that's not the default, that's not something is like, they'll be creative, they'll be interesting. And, you know, I think that is something that is genuinely exciting to me to not Know what that is and that not knowingness is the fun part, is the interesting next couple of months, years. I don't know. Like, you know, I don't think when we started recording this. Well, I know for sure, I didn't 10 years ago think we would be doing the show still. I, um, think we decided to start the show on a whim. You and I were just like having a phone call, like just chatting. And then we're like, hey, what if we did a podcast? And then I believe we recorded the podcast like 10 minutes later.

Speaker A: This is how many podcasts begin.

Speaker B: And so like, it was not something that we were starting with a 10 year, you know, 10 years in mind. But it worked and it was great. And I think it works because, you know, you and I are the same, but different, I think works really well. It's like part of our dynamic is like we're both doing the same thing, but in like completely different ways. In very, like just, you know, I, when we, when we, when we launched under the Radar, I did, you know, in the first episode, I think I mentioned that I launched like 54 apps or something. You launched two. It's like these totally different things, but it works for both of us.

Speaker A: Uh, don't forget, don't forget the magazine and bug shot. My greatest hits.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And did you have a nursing calculator?

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, nursing clock. That was short lived.

Speaker B: Yeah, like, I forgot about that, you know, like, but it's just, I think that's one of the things and like, I just as a person, like, I really have appreciated our conversations, Marco. Like it's been. It's because we're the same, but different in a way that I think is really complementary. And that works. That we both want, I think at a high level to make like, to make good things. That's like overriding and that works well. We can talk about that. The way in which we define and go about doing that process of making good things. And like, doing good work is completely different. And I could not work, like, I could not work with you and I don't think you could work with me. Like, you know, in that way of. I think I would drive you crazy with the way that I develop and sort of the chaos and um, sort of pace of it. Whereas I would be probably very frustrated by the sort of the intentionality and pace at which you do things, where you work on things. They get really, really good. But they get there by being really methodical, um, and taking a lot of time with things. And that's different and that's great. And obviously it works. Overcast exists. Widgetsmith exists.

Speaker A: There are many reasons why you and I each work alone in the programming department.

Speaker B: Exactly, yes. I'm not sure either of us would work well with anyone else.

Speaker A: No, I don't think so.

Speaker B: In that way.

Speaker A: Not as a programmer, at least.

Speaker B: We're putting the indie in the independent in indie app development in that way. Uh, I fear sometimes the thought of becoming this never happened. But honestly, 10 years ago I definitely thought it was much more of a likely probability that at some point I was going to have to get a jobby job, work at a big company, you know, working for a bank and making their iOS app or something. And I just think, sometimes I think about that and I was like, oh man, I, I would be the worst. Like, I know what I'm like, I know how to make apps. I do not know how to make apps inside of a big company. And so that would have been, that would have been a whole adventure that I'm very fortunate and glad that I never had to, never had to explore. At least, you know, not so far. Um, anyway, I.

Speaker A: Have you, have you seen big company apps? You'd be fine.

Speaker B: I'd be alright. I just worry that I'd be a little bit ungovernable in a way of like someone assigns a JIRA ticket to me and I'm just like, no, I don't want to work on that. That doesn't sound interesting.

Speaker A: You build a whole system to avoid working on it.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. It's like, no, I did this whole other thing instead. Isn't this great? It's like, no, that's not what we wanted you to do, Dave.

Speaker A: And it would be great and it would be the better solution, but it wouldn't matter.

Speaker B: But it wouldn't be the thing.

Speaker A: Well, we can close by saying thank you everyone, for all these 10 years of listening. Uh, we really appreciate you, we appreciate your support and your time all this time. It's been a really good run. It's been a great experience doing this show both for me and Dave individually and us together. And it's been great for our friendship to develop a lot over this time as well. To have all these calls and all these secret after podcasts that, that were even better. Like, it's. It's been a great time. It's been great for us and just, uh, want to thank you all for, for being here this whole time and, and I, uh, don't really know how to, how to end this uh, you can give it a shot. Yeah.

Speaker B: No, and I think, uh. Yeah, I think I was just. I mean, I think the best place to end something like this is just with gratitude. I'm very grateful for the time that you've invested every two weeks talking to me, and I think for all of the people who have listened to this, to Mike and Steven and the Carrie at Relay who host it and put up with our slightly ungovernable, um, approaches to things. Um, and just generally, yeah, it is not an easy thing to have the support of a network and of an audience and of each other. It is a wonderful thing that I'm very grateful for, that you and I haven't fallen out over the last 10 years. That is always those kinds of things. You could be winding down a show because you and I get in a fight or something, and it's like, instead of we're still friends, we're still doing this. Because, you know, in some ways, partly why I kept doing the show is because I loved having the excuse to talk to you every two weeks. And I think that is something that is wonderful. And, you know, I'm sure you and I will continue to talk and we will continue to have that, but there was something reassuring about the consistency of it that I very much, uh, appreciated and that, you know, it's. It's cool to think of the many things, the opportunities that having under the radar opened up for both of us. Like, I think it's very. It's amazing and wonderful how many. For how many years? We did an interview at wwdc, and we were one of the few podcasts and people who had that opportunity. And I think there are people who we've talked to during those interviews who, as far as I know, were the only kind of show they've ever talked on. Like, it's not, you know, they're. We're not on the pr. Um, the PR junket side of it, where we're talking to engineers about engineering. And I felt very grateful that Apple trusted us with that, that they clearly had listened to the show and they knew we were about. And they knew the kind of people we would be and the kind of conversations we would have. And, you know, that was very gratifying and very encouraging that, you know, that was just nice to have those kind of milestones of support. And so, yeah, I think at the end, we can just end the show with, you know, being. Being grateful for that, being grateful for what we've had and, you know, looking forward to what the opera, what this space will create in our lives, in our audience, in. Who knows? But, you know, when something winds down, it just creates that space for new things to grow. And you never know what they are. But that's exciting in its own way. So I guess I'll just wind up by saying thank you. Thank you to you, Marco. Thank you to the audience, and thank you for all the people who worked behind the scenes at Relay to make this, uh, work for us for the last 10 years.

Speaker A: Yeah. See you out there, everybody. Thank you for listening.

Speaker B: Bye.