Screenshots of Every Screen of Apple Watch Settings.app
This Flickr album doesn’t include screens not available in the demo units available at the Apple Store, (e.g. Bluetooth), but it’s interesting nonetheless. This one’s for all those folks out there (like me) who have to drive over an hour to get to an Apple Store.
Full-Time Hobbyists
From an article on indie game development by Daniel Cook
We don’t talk about it much, but a large number of successful ‘professional’ artists are in a relationship with someone else that pays their way. They aren’t successful entrepreneurs with a deep understanding of sustainability. Instead they are full-time hobbyists in a fortunate financial situation. They accumulate excess leisure time and spend it on game development.
This sort of blessing is very difficult to admit. But embarrassed silence dupes less fortunate artists into pursuing an unrealistic fantasy of how to thrive. If you are kept developer and are living off someone else’s money, talk about it. Indie finances could use a little sunlight.
This whole article is brutal, fascinating, and probably just as true of all independent software markets, not just games.
Riposte, the App.net App, Permanently Removed from Sale
As part of an agreement reached over an alleged trademark infringement, Riposte (the App.net app I made with Jamin Guy) will be removed from sale on the App Store. We’ll also be taking down the riposteapp.net homepage.1
Even though we haven’t updated it in a while2, it saddens me to see Riposte go away. It may not have been a successful business, but it was a success to us. We had a lot of fun making it, and are grateful to everyone who supported us along the way.
We will keep the push notification servers for Riposte and Whisper running as long as we can — not forever of course. So those of you who still have Riposte and/or Whisper on your devices should be able to continue using them for a long while.
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We will take down the app and homepage for Whisper (the private messaging app we made for App.net) as well. ↩
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Riposte was a labour of love, lasting as long as it did thanks to the generosity of the App.net Developer Incentive Program. Jamin and I each have children and full-time jobs. There’s just not enough time in a day to take on all the projects we want to do. ↩
Kottke on the Apple Watch, But Really on All Technological Progess, Ever
In the entire history of the world, if you make it easier for people to do something compelling, people don’t do that thing less: they’ll do it more. If you give people more food, they eat it. If you make it easier to get credit, people will use it. If you add another two lanes to a traffic-clogged highway, you get a larger traffic-clogged highway. And if you put a device on their wrist that makes it easier to communicate with friends, guess what? They’re going to use the shit out of it, potentially way more than they ever used their phones.
Link.
Unanswered Questions About Apple Watch Versus App-Driven Businesses
Some questions I’ve been wrestling with in the runup to the launch of the Apple Watch this week. But first, a quote from Wired’s entertaining post iPhone Killer: The Secret History of the Apple Watch:
Along the way, the Apple team landed upon the Watch’s raison d’être. It came down to this: Your phone is ruining your life. Like the rest of us, Ive, Lynch, Dye, and everyone at Apple are subject to the tyranny of the buzz—the constant checking, the long list of nagging notifications. “We’re so connected, kind of ever-presently, with technology now,” Lynch says. “People are carrying their phones with them and looking at the screen so much.” They’ve glared down their noses at those who bury themselves in their phones at the dinner table and then absentmindedly thrust hands into their own pockets at every ding or buzz. “People want that level of engagement,” Lynch says. “But how do we provide it in a way that’s a little more human, a little more in the moment when you’re with somebody?”
For decades, every time a new screen became commonplace (the TV, the personal computer, the smartphone) it did so in part by gobbling up large swaths of time devoted to legacy devices. Will the Apple Watch follow the same path, or is it additive to the time spent on existing devices?
If the Apple Watch succeeds in weaning people off of the four-inch smartphone screen, even in part, what kind of time will it be gobbling up? It seems designed to eat into the cumulative time spent on habitual usage: waiting in line, waking up, riding an elevator, etc. Will it also affect how people spend longer blocks of leisure time?
Even if the Apple Watch doesn’t siphon off of large blocks of leisure time, the cumulative time spent on habitual usage is a significant battle ground. This is where a lot of apps duke it out over small shreds of people’s attention. What will it mean for attention-based app businesses1 if the battle ground shifts onto a device intended for five- to ten-second interactions? What does it mean to be a “DAU” or an “MUV” in this context?
For ad-based app businesses in particular, what will happen to the concept of the “native ad” when transplanted onto a watch? Apple Watch is not just smaller. It has entirely unique design constraints compared to its smartphone cousin. If the form factor proves wildly popular, will this reset the clock against which successful native-ad-based businesses have been racing since 2008?
What about paid apps? There is currently no way to put a sticker price on an Apple Watch app. Developers will have to find other means of making money that are enhanced by bundling an Apple Watch app with an iPhone app. Is there much opportunity here?
The Apple Watch requires an iPhone for networking, communication, computing power, etc.. If and when that technical requirement is lifted, will Apple also lift the requirement that watch apps be bundled as extensions of iPhone apps? If so, what kinds of monetization would an “Apple Watch App Store” allow?
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I’m casually lumping together IAP-fueled games, passive content streaming apps, ad-based social networks, etc. ↩