Unicellular Chatter with Rogue Amoeba

9:21

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Mayor McCheese View

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:21

9:23	Are you an Apple developer? Yes, for Mac ( 10% ) Yes, for iPhone ( 21% ) Yes, for Webkit ( 1% ) Yes, for one or more platforms ( 14% ) Not yet ( 21% ) No ( 33% ) Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:23

9:30

ericasadun:

I want to welcome to your our live chat with Rogue Amoeba developers Paul, Quentin, and Mike. Rogue Amoeba (http://www.rogueamoeba.com) is an independent Macintosh development company that ships primarily audio-based products such as Airfoil, Audio Hijack Pro, and Fission. They've been in business since 2002, making audio tools for Mac OS X.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:30 ericasadun

9:31

PaulKafasis:

Howdy

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:31 PaulKafasis

9:31

ericasadun:

Today TUAW is pleased to play host to Paul Kafasis: all-around boss and product manager, and very soon now Quentin Carnicelli: Chief technical officer and skittles addict, and Mike Ash, programmer extraordinaire, glider enthusiast, and Airfoil specialist. Welcome and thank you for graciously lending your time to TUAW today.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:31 ericasadun

9:31

ericasadun:

Today's topic focuses on Apple, and the challenges of programming for the Mac (and iPhone) platform when the values of openness and outreach are sometimes notable more in the breach than in the observance.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:31 ericasadun

9:31

Mike Ash:

Good morning.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:31 Mike Ash

9:32

ericasadun:

Welcome, Mike and Paul!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:32 ericasadun

9:32

ericasadun:

So with that as your introduction, why don't you start by telling us about yourselves, your programming background, and what brought you to the Apple platform?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:32 ericasadun

9:32

Mike Ash:

I've been an Apple user since the early days. My first computer was an Apple IIGS around 1988 or so, and I've been using and programming for Apple products ever since.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:32 Mike Ash

9:33

PaulKafasis:

I've had a Mac for over 20 years now, my family got a Mac Plus back in 87 I believe.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:33 PaulKafasis

9:34

PaulKafasis:

So it wasn't really anything that brought me to the Mac, it was always the computer in our house.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:34 PaulKafasis

9:34

ericasadun:

Today, you have a half dozen commercial applications and they're all basically for the Mac, right?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:34 ericasadun

9:34

PaulKafasis:

Right, we've got 5 major products, and 4 of them are exclusive to the Mac. We've got one Windows version, of our Airfoil product, but Rogue Amoeba is a Mac-first, Mac-focused company.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:34 PaulKafasis

9:35

ericasadun:

So how has that been from a business point of view? Can you make a successful living as a small Mac-only developer?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:35 ericasadun

9:36

PaulKafasis:

I think there's no question that you can make a living - we do. We started with three people here at Rogue Amoeba, 3 cofounders - myself, Quentin (who I believe will be joining us later), and Alex.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:36 PaulKafasis

9:36

PaulKafasis:

From there, we've grown to six people currently, with plans to hire more, and several part-time people.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:36 PaulKafasis

9:37

[Comment From Justin ZJustin Z: ]

Are you porting your apps for iPhone?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:37 Justin Z

9:37

PaulKafasis:

People view the Mac as a small market, but it's still got tens of millions of users, and potential customers, for an ISV

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:37 PaulKafasis

9:37

MikeRoseTUAW:

JustinZ has a question:

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:37 MikeRoseTUAW

9:38

PaulKafasis:

He does, and it's an interesting one, because it has a built-in assumption - that porting apps to the iPhone is the way to go.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:38 PaulKafasis

9:38

PaulKafasis:

We're not doing any direct ports right to the iPhone, because it's a very different device than a Mac.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:38 PaulKafasis

9:38

ericasadun:

What are your feelings about this whole new iPhone development arena that just opened up.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:38 ericasadun

9:38

MikeRoseTUAW:

[Note for readers: we're going to hold the rest of the questions for a few minutes]

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:38 MikeRoseTUAW

9:38

PaulKafasis:

We are certainly working to code/applications for the iPhone though.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:38 PaulKafasis

9:39

Mike Ash:

A fair amount of core code can be made to work on the iPhone but anything to do with the user interface needs to pretty much start from scratch, both for technical and for human interaction reasons.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:39 Mike Ash

9:39

ericasadun:

Before we move onto the topic of iPhone development, let's get back to the mac for a moment.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:39 ericasadun

9:39

ericasadun:

What do you like best about the Mac just looking at things from a platform point of view?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:39 ericasadun

9:40

PaulKafasis:

Hmm

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:40 PaulKafasis

9:40

Mike Ash:

As a programmer, the best thing about the Mac is the great programming environment Apple provides. It's clean, fast, and powerful and compared to my experience with other platforms (and even the pre-OS-X Mac) it's a real joy to work with.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:40 Mike Ash

9:40

PaulKafasis:

As a user, I just find it by far the most enjoyable platform to use. I've used Windows, I've used Linux - they're just poor, in so many places, compared to the Mac, in terms of design and user interaction.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:40 PaulKafasis

9:42

ericasadun:

When we were planning this live chat, the big theme we agreed to discuss was Apple: the highs and lows of developing on their platforms. I'd like to push the questions in that direction right now. How do you guys feel about the Apple portion of development?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:42 ericasadun

9:42

PaulKafasis:

"Resigned"?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:42 PaulKafasis

9:42

ericasadun:

*rofl*!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:42 ericasadun

9:42

MikeRoseTUAW:

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:42 MikeRoseTUAW

9:42

ericasadun:

That's not exactly a ringing endorsement

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:42 ericasadun

9:42

PaulKafasis:

That is, it's not perfect, or even close, but we're resigned to that fact.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:42 PaulKafasis

9:43

PaulKafasis:

It's not, no, but it's not a slam either, it's just realism.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:43 PaulKafasis

9:43

ericasadun:

How can you characterize Apple Developer Relations?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:43 ericasadun

9:43

PaulKafasis:

Apple's tight-lipped, about everything. That can be tough to work with. But they make some of the best products in the computer world, and the platform itself, Mac OS X anyway, is powerful and open. That works out pretty well.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:43 PaulKafasis

9:44

MikeRoseTUAW:

Is the lack of a third-party IDE for the Mac (since CodeWarrior is gone) a drawback? With no competition...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:44 MikeRoseTUAW

9:44

ericasadun:

That combination: paranoia + openness. It sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:44 ericasadun

9:44

Mike Ash:

I think that the lack of a third-party IDE is a huge drawback. As my colleagues will attest, I constantly complain about problems with Xcode, and competition would help a lot.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:44 Mike Ash

9:44

Mike Ash:

But ultimately Xcode is pretty decent, so we're in a pretty good situation as it is.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:44 Mike Ash

9:45

PaulKafasis:

Well, the tools are open, the platform is open (as is Windows and Linux, but unlike the iPhone, say).

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:45 PaulKafasis

9:45

ericasadun:

But Apple's not especially known for being forthcoming about its plans, no?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:45 ericasadun

9:45

PaulKafasis:

Erica, right, that's the problem. We can't plan anything, with any level of certainty.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:45 PaulKafasis

9:45

PaulKafasis:

Of course, Microsoft is very open, announcing tons of features for their next OS that then get cut, so it's a crapshoot.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:45 PaulKafasis

9:46

ericasadun:

Right now, quite a lot of developers seem to be betting their future on the iPhone platform--and most of them aren't even allowed into Apple's developer program yet. Is that pretty much par for the course?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:46 ericasadun

9:47

PaulKafasis:

I dunno that you can say anything is par for the course with the iPhone - it's the first real new platform since Mac OS X.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:47 PaulKafasis

9:47

Mike Ash:

There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for iPhone development right now from a lot of different places. Personally I'm a bit more cautious, and it remains to be seen whether the rosy predictions about Apple's iPhone App Store will really come true.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:47 Mike Ash

9:47

PaulKafasis:

In terms of working in the dark, working without a net though, you're always doing that, to some extent, with Apple. I think it's a bit riskier with the iPhone.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:47 PaulKafasis

9:48

ericasadun:

What risks specifically?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:48 ericasadun

9:48

PaulKafasis:

Well, as Mike points out, the App Store is a big question mark right now.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:48 PaulKafasis

9:48

PaulKafasis:

Just how restrictive will Apple be? What will be kept out?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:48 PaulKafasis

9:49

Mike Ash:

Every iPhone application must be approved by Apple. Whether Apple will approve any given application is an enormous risk, since it's impossible to know until you've already sunk a great deal of work into it.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:49 Mike Ash

9:49

ericasadun:

And there you have that transparency issue again.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:49 ericasadun

9:49

ericasadun:

I've had developers approach me over the last few weeks saying that they want to develop for AppStore but they don't know if they're going to even be competitive because Apple has given no guarantees and many of them are stranded without devprogram access.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:49 ericasadun

9:50

ericasadun:

That's typically Apple, isn't it?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:50 ericasadun

9:50

PaulKafasis:

Right, and it's worse here, because Apple has the final say currently. On the Mac, Apple might be working on a competitor to your app, and say nothing until they announce it. There, you can still compete. On the iPhone, if you spend 6 months dev'ing an app and can't get it on the iPhone, then what?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:50 PaulKafasis

9:50

PaulKafasis:

Well, I dunno - I think the iPhone is a worse case than usual. Apple's locked the platform down, by making themselves the exclusive gatekeeper for what gets on. You don't see that on the Mac.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:50 PaulKafasis

9:50

Mike Ash:

I'm not sure that you can talk about typically Apple in this case. The iPhone is a new platform, and Apple hasn't done one of those in a very long time. Apple was very open when transitioning to Mac OS X and that helped a lot, but Mac OS X was also a much smaller platform at the time and it rolled out much slower.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:50 Mike Ash

9:51

ericasadun:

Would you say that with the release of Leopard that OS X development has stabilized, in terms of 3rd party risk?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:51 ericasadun

9:51

Mike Ash:

From my perspective, OS X development stabilized sometime around 10.3 and the changes with 10.4 and 10.5 have been relatively small by comparison.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:51 Mike Ash

9:51

ericasadun:

I do remember that Apple was *very* late with the final Leopard release

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:51 ericasadun

9:52

ericasadun:

How was that scramble?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:52 ericasadun

9:52	What's the most valuable learning resource for Mac development? Apple dev site ( 41% ) One-on-one training ( 7% ) Independent forums ( 25% ) Books ( 13% ) Mentoring ( 14% ) Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:52

9:52

PaulKafasis:

Yeah, I'd agree with that. 10.0 and 10.1 were risky. Even 10.2 was pretty good, and widespread. Since then, the platform has been decently stable

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:52 PaulKafasis

9:52

PaulKafasis:

Well, for a few developers, it was rotten.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:52 PaulKafasis

9:52

PaulKafasis:

Those who'd decided to go Leopard-only with an app.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:52 PaulKafasis

9:53

MikeRoseTUAW:

How much of a lure were the new Leopard features for developers?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:53 MikeRoseTUAW

9:53

PaulKafasis:

But for us, we were still doing 10.4 development, so it wasn't an issue. I think the biggest thing was that Apple pushed developers to go Leopard-only, to use a lot of the cool new technology. When the delay happened, that stung some devs.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:53 PaulKafasis

9:53

PaulKafasis:

Mmm, for existing developers?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:53 PaulKafasis

9:53

ericasadun:

I remember getting emails from developers saying they would never ever develop for OS X ever again after that Leopard GM thing--but there they are, still plugging away for OS X

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:53 ericasadun

9:54

PaulKafasis:

I think people definitely are excited by them, but for established companies like Rogue Amoeba, we take things slowly.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:54 PaulKafasis

9:54

Mike Ash:

Leopard features were all over the place. Some of them, such as Cocoa garbage collection, are very enticing but also a big risk. I've started playing with the new features now that Leopard was out but I would be reluctant to plan any large application around such a new feature before the first public release.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:54 Mike Ash

9:54

ericasadun:

And of course, leopard brought Objective C 2.0. The first major language update

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:54 ericasadun

9:54

ericasadun:

Did you end up porting your code from 1.0 to 2.0?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:54 ericasadun

9:54

PaulKafasis:

We know we're going to Leopard eventually, but we need to wait for our existing customer base to get there, in a lot of cases. I'm a big adocate of what the Safari team supports - the current OS (10.5) and the previous (10.4). That means it's slower to get those new features, but it keeps things stable for us.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:54 PaulKafasis

9:55

Mike Ash:

I wouldn't call it the first major language update. Aside from garbage collection, which can be seen as being somewhat outside the language, Objective-C 2.0 is a small collection of very minor changes.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:55 Mike Ash

9:55

ericasadun:

Like fast enumeration, no?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:55 ericasadun

9:55

ericasadun:

And synthesized properties

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:55 ericasadun

9:55

Mike Ash:

Fast enumeration is nice but it's fairly trivial. Internally, we have a "forall" macro which gives us the same basic syntax, although without the "fast" part.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:55 Mike Ash

9:56

Mike Ash:

Properties are interesting but they seem to mostly save effort on work which was already easy to begin with.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:56 Mike Ash

9:57

ericasadun:

Have you guys had a chance to work the new iPhone SDK?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:57 ericasadun

9:57

PaulKafasis:

We have, absolutely.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:57 PaulKafasis

9:57

PaulKafasis:

We're just getting started with it, really.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:57 PaulKafasis

9:58

ericasadun:

Just from an OS X developers viewpoint, does the SDK fit what you were hoping for?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:58 ericasadun

9:59

Mike Ash:

The SDK itself is excellent and it's exactly what I was looking for. A lot of the things that go with the SDK, such as mandatory Apple approval, inability to manually load third-party applications, and other such restrictions have been very disappointing.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:59 Mike Ash

9:59

ericasadun:

Mike reminds me that it's now about time to start turning the floor over to our TUAW readers.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:59 ericasadun

9:59

PaulKafasis:

The summary in my head is "From a technical standpoint, it's great. From a legal standpoint, less so."

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:59 PaulKafasis

9:59

ericasadun:

Ready for some reader questions?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:59 ericasadun

9:59

ericasadun:

That's hilarious, Paul!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:59 ericasadun

10:00

[Comment From KankkiKankki: ]

I just wanna say RA, that your apps are quite great.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:00 Kankki

10:00

[Comment From imichaeldotorgimichaeldotorg: ]

What do you think is the best way to get started in Cocoa programming?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:00 imichaeldotorg

10:00

[Comment From FrizullFrizull: ]

I've been a Windows developper for years (VB.NET). What would be the best starting point for me as a Mac developper ? Onlne tutorials, books ?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:00 Frizull

10:00

[Comment From SamSam: ]

Where would you recommend someone who wants to learn to program for Mac? :)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:00 Sam

10:00

[Comment From Pat OPat O: ]

I have decent programming experience with the Mac, but I have just started to tackle the CoreAudio Framework. You guys are audio experts, so I was wondering what is the best way to tackle this framework?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:00 Pat O

10:01

PaulKafasis:

Kankki - Thanks 8)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:01 PaulKafasis

10:01

MikeRoseTUAW:

A lot of questions

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:01 MikeRoseTUAW

10:01

ericasadun:

Sounds like people want to know about getting started with Development

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:01 ericasadun

10:01

MikeRoseTUAW:

on how to get started developing for the Mac.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:01 MikeRoseTUAW

10:01

Mike Ash:

For getting started with Cocoa, I would recommend picking up one of the many excellent books on the subject and diving in. Apple provides all of the tools you need, and the book will give you guidance as to where to start and how to tackle the basics.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:01 Mike Ash

10:02

MikeRoseTUAW:

Any in-person training you would recommend?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 MikeRoseTUAW

10:02

PaulKafasis:

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 PaulKafasis

10:02

Mike Ash:

CoreAudio itself is extremely complex, so it can be daunting. There I would recommend starting with Apple's sample code, of which there is a lot, and then slowly modifying it to see how it works and how you can make it do what you want.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 Mike Ash

10:02

PaulKafasis:

(And don't release your currency convertor app, there are enough of those)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 PaulKafasis

10:02

MikeRoseTUAW:

LOL

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 MikeRoseTUAW

10:02

Mike Ash:

I don't think any of us have ever had Mac-specific in-person training.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 Mike Ash

10:02

ericasadun:

Hah!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 ericasadun

10:02

MikeRoseTUAW:

Fair enough.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 MikeRoseTUAW

10:02

MikeRoseTUAW:

Mark has a related question...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 MikeRoseTUAW

10:02

[Comment From MarkMark: ]

Is there enough training material available for Xcode. It is great we get the tools for free but some extra help would go a long way, i.e, video tutorials

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:02 Mark

10:03

ericasadun:

I know Apple has many developer videos for ADC program members

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:03 ericasadun

10:03

MikeRoseTUAW:

Is there ever enough?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:03 MikeRoseTUAW

10:03

ericasadun:

http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:03 ericasadun

10:03

ericasadun:

And there is always YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDPA4PNsoLg&feature=related

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:03 ericasadun

10:03

MikeRoseTUAW:

Here's one that's RA-specific...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:03 MikeRoseTUAW

10:03

Mike Ash:

I didn't have too much trouble adapting to Xcode, but I came to it with a lot of Mac development experience and I could see where it could be more difficult for someone who is just getting started. Apple's documentation is generally good but it tends to be lacking in the "getting started" department.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:03 Mike Ash

10:04

[Comment From Johnny LoganJohnny Logan: ]

When is "Detour" coming back? When is it going open source if it is not being developped...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:04 Johnny Logan

10:04

PaulKafasis:

Ah Detour....

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:04 PaulKafasis

10:04

ericasadun:

http://rogueamoeba.com/detour/

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:04 ericasadun

10:04

PaulKafasis:

For those that don't know, Detour was an app we had from 2003 to...2005 I think. It was a bit of a support nightmare, and it didn't sell terribly well, so we made the decision to retire it.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:04 PaulKafasis

10:05

PaulKafasis:

And I swear, if everyone who asks us about it had actually bought it, I'd be conducting this chat from a yacht 8)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:05 PaulKafasis

10:05

MikeRoseTUAW:

ROTFL

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:05 MikeRoseTUAW

10:05

[Comment From Steven DegutisSteven Degutis: ]

What is your advice for a Mac developer planning to make a lifelong career developing Mac-only software? For example, would getting onboard with a company like, say, Rogue Amoeba, be a good start, or should they just try and make it on their own ASAP?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:05 Steven Degutis

10:05

PaulKafasis:

Anyhow, that link actually answers the questions, but we have no plans to bring it back I'm afraid, and open sourcing it isn't really an option. Sorry!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:05 PaulKafasis

10:06

PaulKafasis:

I don't think there's one correct path for being a Mac developer

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:06 PaulKafasis

10:06

Mike Ash:

My advice for getting started would be to first start doing some independent projects of your own, small things that you enjoy and would find personally useful. At that point you can see if the independent life is for you or if you can find a company you would enjoy working for.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:06 Mike Ash

10:06

PaulKafasis:

However, I would say that coding on your own, and shipping that code, whether as freeware or not, is an excellent first step.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:06 PaulKafasis

10:07

[Comment From TimTim: ]

Do you find there to be any limitations to the Apple development environment.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:07 Tim

10:07

MikeRoseTUAW:

I think Tim means the iPhone SDK, which we did discuss earlier

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:07 MikeRoseTUAW

10:07

[Comment From kalyankalyan: ]

trust Mike Ash. He tutored me CS - I think it was an elevator simulator for operating systems class.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:07 kalyan

10:07

PaulKafasis:

Yeah, for the Mac, I don't know of anything limiting.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:07 PaulKafasis

10:07

MikeRoseTUAW:

Fans of Mike!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:07 MikeRoseTUAW

10:07

PaulKafasis:

For the iPhone, the limitations are legal, as mentioned.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:07 PaulKafasis

10:08

Mike Ash:

Howdy Kalyan.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:08 Mike Ash

10:08

PaulKafasis:

You can't use private APIs, you can't do X, you can't do Y.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:08 PaulKafasis

10:08

ericasadun:

Paul, can you talk a little more about how you guys made the leap into commercial distribution for your Mac apps? What was involved?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:08 ericasadun

10:08

PaulKafasis:

Hmm.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:08 PaulKafasis

10:08

PaulKafasis:

You make it sound like a big thing, but for us, it wasn't.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:08 PaulKafasis

10:08

PaulKafasis:

That is, we just made some Mac software, and put it out there.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:08 PaulKafasis

10:09

PaulKafasis:

With the rise of the web, it's much easier than it's ever been to get started. You put up a site, you get a payment processor, and you're ready to go.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:09 PaulKafasis

10:09

[Comment From JohnJohn: ]

How secure do you feel about your future as a third-party Mac developers? Are you planning your retirements or still updating your resumes?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:09 John

10:10

PaulKafasis:

I'm not doing either - I'm planning to work for Rogue Amoeba for the foreseeable future. I don't even know if I have a resume anywhere on my hard drive.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:10 PaulKafasis

10:10

ericasadun:

Our next question has to do with Apple's one-app-at-a-time policy for the iPhone

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:10 ericasadun

10:10

Mike Ash:

I think the platform is pretty secure for developers right now. Apple is obviously very successful and I don't think we'll have to worry about the platform failing. Some of the new legal directions with the iPhone SDK are worrying but hopefully they'll stay away from the desktop Mac OS X for a long time to come.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:10 Mike Ash

10:10

PaulKafasis:

Rogue Amoeba has been growing, in sales and employees, since it was founded 5 years ago, and I don't see that changing (we hope).

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:10 PaulKafasis

10:10

MikeRoseTUAW:

A note on developer videos from a reader...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:10 MikeRoseTUAW

10:10

[Comment From imichaeldotorgimichaeldotorg: ]

Cocoa how-to videos are at http://developer.apple.com/mac/codingheadstarts.php

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:10 imichaeldotorg

10:10

MikeRoseTUAW:

and now the question

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:10 MikeRoseTUAW

10:10

[Comment From JaXXJaXX: ]

We all wan't deamonizing abilities on the iPhone don't we ;-)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:10 JaXX

10:11

PaulKafasis:

Hmm, is that the question? 8)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:11 PaulKafasis

10:11

Mike Ash:

There are a lot of interesting things that can be done on an iPhone with background applications, and it's definitely disappointing that Apple isn't letting us make them. I'm hoping that I can simply say, Apple isn't letting us make them yet.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:11 Mike Ash

10:11

PaulKafasis:

I mean, I know for myself, and for Mike Ash too, we want the iPhone to be a pocket Mac. It's not quite there right now, but I'm hopeful that it will be eventually. And part of that is background apps and more.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:11 PaulKafasis

10:12

[Comment From anoopranoopr: ]

I am an experienced web application developer. I'm working on some Cocoa apps, and my biggest problem is the non-linearity of the flow of control. I understand all the little sample apps, but once my own projects get even slightly complex, I really don't know how to architect them anymore. What resources would you recommend that are targeted towards the design and architecture of Cocoa applications vs. The syntax and technical details?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:12 anoopr

10:12

ericasadun:

That's a really good question. The runloop and all the non-linear notifications and threads can be really intimidating at first

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:12 ericasadun

10:13

Mike Ash:

For architecting Cocoa apps, I believe some of the books get into this sort of detail. Otherwise, look at sample code. There's a lot of good stuff out there. Apple provides the full source to TextEdit.app, and there are great open source projects out there like Adium which do all of this stuff and can be pulled apart to see how they're built.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:13 Mike Ash

10:13

MikeRoseTUAW:

A lot of readers are curious about Airfoil and its prospects on the iPhone...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:13 MikeRoseTUAW

10:14

[Comment From GuestGuest: ]

Did I read correctly that AirFoil now supports streaming audio in sync with video?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:14 Guest

10:14

[Comment From devondevon: ]

I absolutely love airfoil, and recently airfoil speaker was installed on every machine in my house to my great joy, can you say if you have any plans (given the discussion of the limits of iphone dev abilities) to develop an iphone version of those apps? either making an airfoil speaker (allowing the iphone to stream music from a computer's itunes) or (my big wish) airfoil, allowing the phone to send its music to an airfoil device?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:14 devon

10:14

Mike Ash:

Yes, Airfoil now supports synchronized audio and video using the bundled Airfoil Video Player.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:14 Mike Ash

10:14

PaulKafasis:

Which means you can watch local video with remote audio - go try it out.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:14 PaulKafasis

10:14

PaulKafasis:

As far as Airfoil for the iPhone, that's an interesting one.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:14 PaulKafasis

10:14

Mike Ash:

As for an iPhone version, we're once again limited by Apple's restrictions. A major problem for Airfoil on the iPhone is that we can't get access to the user's music, which means we have no material to broadcast.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:14 Mike Ash

10:15

PaulKafasis:

Right - we were bullish on it before the SDK. Now, it's sort of waiting, to see if some of these restrictions are removed.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:15 PaulKafasis

10:15

PaulKafasis:

It's not very feasible, in the current setup.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:15 PaulKafasis

10:15

PaulKafasis:

Airfoil Speakers, for the iPhone, where the iPhone can be made to receive a stream, is something I want to see though. That's simpler, and more likely at this point.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:15 PaulKafasis

10:16

MikeRoseTUAW:

One more question...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:16 MikeRoseTUAW

10:16

[Comment From friend-ofriend-o: ]

If a person were considering starting up a small 1-2 person software company, what would you recommend be budgeted for web hosting and providing support? Is it a large number? Dedicated servers? Shared hosting? How do you know what you'll need...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:16 friend-o

10:17

PaulKafasis:

Budgets, ha.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:17 PaulKafasis

10:17

PaulKafasis:

Time is the biggest thing you need.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:17 PaulKafasis

10:17

MikeRoseTUAW:

Yeah, we picked a hard question. :-)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:17 MikeRoseTUAW

10:17

PaulKafasis:

Web hosting, you can get decent hosting for less than $100, $200 a year. You don't need rock-solid hosting when you start - we went through a succession of crappy hosts to start, moving up as we got bigger.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:17 PaulKafasis

10:18

MikeRoseTUAW:

One more quick one!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:18 MikeRoseTUAW

10:18

PaulKafasis:

As far as support goes, I'd say that's about the most important thing you can do - set aside the time for it. Before you add new features, answer support emails.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:18 PaulKafasis

10:18

[Comment From TimTim: ]

REALbasic IDE? Your ideas on it ?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:18 Tim

10:19

MikeRoseTUAW:

If you've ever used it, that is.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:19 MikeRoseTUAW

10:19

Mike Ash:

I've never used Realbasic so please take my comments with a large grain of salt. However, any programming language with "basic" in the name automatically loses an enormous number of points, and my opinion on it is that you'll probably have difficulty making large, serious applications with it.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:19 Mike Ash

10:19

ericasadun:

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:19 ericasadun

10:19

PaulKafasis:

That seems to be borne out by reality. There aren't a lot of commercial apps in RB.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:19 PaulKafasis

10:20

MikeRoseTUAW:

In fairness

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:20 MikeRoseTUAW

10:20

Mike Ash:

Realbasic is much more modern than the old all-caps line-numbered BASICs of yesteryear, but it's still ultimately the same heritage.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:20 Mike Ash

10:20

MikeRoseTUAW:

commenters are pointing out that the BASIC in RealBASIC has nothing to do with 'BASIC'

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:20 MikeRoseTUAW

10:20

PaulKafasis:

I think it's probably a great way to get started, but for making commercial apps, I wouldn't personally recommend it.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:20 PaulKafasis

10:20

ericasadun:

Paul, Mike, can you spill the beans about what if any apps you're working on for the IPhone?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:20 ericasadun

10:20

Mike Ash:

I think Realbasic occupies the same niche as VisualBasic on Windows, which is not a particularly good thing.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:20 Mike Ash

10:20

PaulKafasis:

Well, Airfoil Speakers for iPhone is on the internal roadmap.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:20 PaulKafasis

10:21

ericasadun:

That's cool

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 ericasadun

10:21

MikeRoseTUAW:

A hearty "woo!" emerges from the readers...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 MikeRoseTUAW

10:21

ericasadun:

Any other goodies?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 ericasadun

10:21

ericasadun:

Like AHP?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 ericasadun

10:21

PaulKafasis:

Radioshift Touch is the big one right now

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 PaulKafasis

10:21

ericasadun:

http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 ericasadun

10:21

ericasadun:

But the iPhone doesn't have an FM receiver

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 ericasadun

10:21

PaulKafasis:

Radioshift on the Mac is a tool for listening to and recording all types of internet radio. On the iPhone, it'll be a listening tool

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 PaulKafasis

10:21

ericasadun:

http://rogueamoeba.com/radioshift/

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:21 ericasadun

10:22

ericasadun:

Neat!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:22 ericasadun

10:22

PaulKafasis:

Sure - but Radioshift picks up 10s of thousands of internet streams.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:22 PaulKafasis

10:22

PaulKafasis:

As far as Audio Hijack Pro goes, it's a question of "What do people need?"

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:22 PaulKafasis

10:22

ericasadun:

People want to record phone calls

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:22 ericasadun

10:22

PaulKafasis:

Do they need audio recording on the iPhone? For what exactly? If we make a recording tool, it will be a far cry from a direct port.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:22 PaulKafasis

10:22

[Comment From RobinRobin: ]

TO RECORD CALLS

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:22 Robin

10:22

ericasadun:

They say they need to

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:22 ericasadun

10:23

PaulKafasis:

Right - there are issues there with legality, two party consent, and so on, that need to be examined.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:23 PaulKafasis

10:23

PaulKafasis:

That's an idea on the list to consider, but we'll see.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:23 PaulKafasis

10:23

ericasadun:

But wouldn't it be cool to put an echo filter on your voice?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:23 ericasadun

10:23

ericasadun:

Turn you into Lurch?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:23 ericasadun

10:23

Mike Ash:

Not to mention that Apple's current terms for iPhone applications wouldn't let us record calls even if it were legal.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:23 Mike Ash

10:23

ericasadun:

That's true enough, Mike!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:23 ericasadun

10:24

[Comment From AntonioAntonio: ]

making the program to record calls is not illegal. There are many programs on palm platform

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:24 Antonio

10:24

Mike Ash:

It's not legal, certainly, as long as it's done properly. But we can't do it anyway, because Apple won't let us.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:24 Mike Ash

10:24

[Comment From TylerTyler: ]

Do you have any plans for developing apps for the iTouch?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:24 Tyler

10:25

Mike Ash:

Sorry, I meant to say it's not illegal.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 Mike Ash

10:25

ericasadun:

Yeah, especially with that VOIP SIP stack out there

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 ericasadun

10:25

ericasadun:

Wouldn't Rogue Amoeba + VOIP be a perfect match?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 ericasadun

10:25

PaulKafasis:

Sure, but it's still a concern that needs to be worked out, on the legal side. As a business, we have to address those concerns.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 PaulKafasis

10:25

PaulKafasis:

Any apps we make for the iPhone will carry over to the iPod Touch, of course.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 PaulKafasis

10:25

Quentin Carnicelli:

Heh, VoIP never really interested me terribly much. Too crowded a market place already.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 Quentin Carnicelli

10:25

ericasadun:

But there's no speaker or mic on the touch...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 ericasadun

10:25

PaulKafasis:

Hey, there's Quentin!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 PaulKafasis

10:25

ericasadun:

Quentin!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:25 ericasadun

10:26

Mike Ash:

Headphones can double as speakers, and microphones can be added through the docking port... but once again, only if Apple allows it.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:26 Mike Ash

10:26

ericasadun:

Quentin Carnicelli: Chief technical officer and skittles addict

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:26 ericasadun

10:26

PaulKafasis:

I believe Quentin has a very special link for us, regarding Radioshift Touch.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:26 PaulKafasis

10:26

ericasadun:

When asked, Apple said VOIP over WiFi was free-game, no?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:26 ericasadun

10:26

ericasadun:

I hope it's a beta link!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:26 ericasadun

10:27

MikeRoseTUAW:

Will the special link provide skittles?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:27 MikeRoseTUAW

10:27

ericasadun:

Skittles: eat the rainbow

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:27 ericasadun

10:27

MikeRoseTUAW:

Because otherwise, not all that special. ;-)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:27 MikeRoseTUAW

10:27

Mike Ash:

Yes, I believe that Apple's conditions only prohibit VoIP over the cellular network, not WiFi.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:27 Mike Ash

10:27

ericasadun:

http://www.skittles.com/

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:27 ericasadun

10:27

PaulKafasis:

We're not quite there yet, with a beta, but then, the SDK wouldn't allow it either 8)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:27 PaulKafasis

10:27

Quentin Carnicelli:

Don't download it too fast: http://bigblueamoeba.com/tmp/RST01.mov

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:27 Quentin Carnicelli

10:27

PaulKafasis:

I expect our server to crap out in 3...2...1

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:27 PaulKafasis

10:28

ericasadun:

Oh pretty!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:28 ericasadun

10:28

ericasadun:

Can I has review?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:28 ericasadun

10:28

PaulKafasis:

Soon, soon 8)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:28 PaulKafasis

10:28

ericasadun:

(I suddenly have developed an absolute need for this!)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:28 ericasadun

10:28

PaulKafasis:

This is a 0.1, at best. If you watch the movie, you'll see it doesn't actually play any audio yet

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:28 PaulKafasis

10:28

ericasadun:

By the way, full disclosure: I did radio shift beta'ing and loved it

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:28 ericasadun

10:29

Quentin Carnicelli:

Well thats one sale atleast...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:29 Quentin Carnicelli

10:29

PaulKafasis:

Sort of an important feature for an internet radio player.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:29 PaulKafasis

10:29

ericasadun:

Minor--but important

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:29 ericasadun

10:29

ericasadun:

Would you consider releasing this into Installer.app/Cydia?

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:29 ericasadun

10:29

PaulKafasis:

The iPhone jailbreak community is fascinating to me.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:29 PaulKafasis

10:30

PaulKafasis:

But from a business standpoint? I have doubts that it's workable.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:30 PaulKafasis

10:30

ericasadun:

Good point

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:30 ericasadun

10:30

Quentin Carnicelli:

Maybe if we spent a lot of time making an application which Apple refused to release. But otherwise...

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:30 Quentin Carnicelli

10:30

PaulKafasis:

Regardless of our feelings about it, the best bet right now is to go through the App Store.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:30 PaulKafasis

10:30

ericasadun:

That's about all the time we have for this live chat today. In fact, it looks like we went slightly over!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:30 ericasadun

10:30

ericasadun:

TUAW wants to thank Paul Kafasis and Mike Ash (and Quentin Carnicelli) of Rogue Amoeba for taking time out of their busy schedules to spend with us.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:30 ericasadun

10:31

Mike Ash:

Thanks for having us.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:31 Mike Ash

10:31

PaulKafasis:

Thanks for having us over guys! 8)

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:31 PaulKafasis

10:31

ericasadun:

Rogue Amoeba (http://www.rogueamoeba.com) is an independent Macintosh developer providing Audio-based shareware solutions.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:31 ericasadun

10:31

MikeRoseTUAW:

You're welcome anytime!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:31 MikeRoseTUAW

10:31

ericasadun:

Thank you to all you readers who participated today. We apologize if we were unable to get to your questions and thank you for stopping by and sharing your time with us.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:31 ericasadun

10:31

ericasadun:

Thanks especially to Mike Rose, whose invaluable assistance made this chat proceed so smoothly.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:31 ericasadun

10:31

ericasadun:

Once this chat has ended, an archival version will be available from this post.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:31 ericasadun

10:31

ericasadun:

If you liked this chat and want to see more chats like it, please drop us a note at http://www.tuaw.com/tips and let us know what topics you're interested in.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:31 ericasadun

10:32

ericasadun:

That's all for today's chat. If you're an OS X or iPhone developer and want to participate in a live chat, please let us know

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:32 ericasadun

10:32

Thank you for reading today.

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