What’s my wish for the next iPhone?

I often think about what I use my gadgets for and try to imagine how they could serve me better. But usually I come back to how all I really want is do better creative work every day.

This is one of the moving targets of my life.

It’s the same moving target all makers have. Regardless of our profession or the tools we use, we all just want to get better at doing better.

While my tools do help me accomplish certain things faster and more efficiently — leaving time for me to do other things — they can’t actually do my creative work for me.

Naturally I want the best tools for the job. And I want something faster, thinner, lighter, and cheaper just as much as the next guy.

But tools do not a craftsman make. If what I have right now isn’t enough, then neither will be what I get next.

Today marks episode 400 of my members-only podcast, Shawn Today.

It’s a good milestone to do something fun, so I thought I’d mix things up from my usual 7-minute show. For one, I’m posting today’s episode here for everyone to listen to. Secondly, I asked my good friend Ben Brooks to be the first-ever guest on the show.

Ben and I talk about iOS 7, the march of technology and our resistance to it at first followed by our love for it later, valuing down time and letting our minds rest, and other fun miscellany.

Download the MP3 (15.7 MB; 43:19)

Links:

• Sean Sperte
• The Droid Noise
• Chris Bowler’s Typekit comparison article
• Managing Your Day to Day
• Anil Dash’s 10 Rules of Internet

A huge thanks to all for your support of the site!

Recently I was talking with a friend who was considering deleting his weblog and starting all over. Tossing his archives into the trash, changing the domain, and re-focusing on the sort of writing that he most wants to do.

His premise was that a new domain and new “brand” would help set the tone for the new voice he wants to write with. And that by trashing his archives of the work he’s written so far, there will be nothing on his new site which he’s embarrassed about. Nothing juvenile or off topic.

I told him he was being silly and then linked him to this article by Zeldman where he writes: “If your old work doesn’t shame you, you’re not growing.”

Looking back at past work and cringing means you’ve grown since then. (Thank goodness!)

I read through my old software reviews and interviews from time to time and though I’m still very proud of them, I also cringe at my massive lack of a grammatical style and my goofy tone.

And then there’s the super-random posts from when I first started writing here. Like my article about mullets (really, Shawn?). I could take them out because they’re pretty off-topic with the now-established nerdy tone of shawnblanc.net, but I leave them in there because they are a part of this site’s history and who reads the archives anyways?

The desire to “start fresh” and get rid of all your old work so that nothing in your archives is of any embarrassment is to assume that your best work is now at a plateau and that you’ll never move to a different interest or topic to write about.

If you think you’ve reached a point where you can create work that never makes you cringe again, then you’re saying that what you do today will be just as good as what you do next month, next year, and in 5 years from now.

And, well, that’s just not fair to your future self.

What happens when our vision and desire to create amazing work reaches further than our ability to actually create that work? How do we handle it when we know we can be better, and we want to do better work, and we know how it should look in the end, but we don’t yet have the skills to meet our goals?

I think most artists and makers live in this state perpetually.

And if we’re fortunate, we’ll stay there. Ideally our talent will never surpass our drive to make things, because if we wake up one day with more skill than drive, we’re probably burnt out.

Though the feeling of lack sucks, it’s also proof that we’re hungry to do better and go farther in our work.

And I think the pain and frustration we feel when we’re confronted with our lack of talent and skill is also the path to overcoming our talent ceiling. The pain an athlete feels when exercising is the proof that they are getting stronger.

Which is why I think the most important character trait of a successful maker is perseverance.

* * *

Last week I asked if anyone wanted to share their story of how they’ve overcome their own talent ceilings. The emails I’ve received so far have been much more encouraging and personal than I could have imagined. I’m still trying to read through them all and I’m realizing this is such an important and personal topic.

Here are a few excerpts from some of the emails I’ve read so far:

• Chase McCoy: Talent ceilings are a burden and a blessing. They restrict our work, but they force us to think around a problem and find our own way to the solution. Sometimes that journey is more important than the end goal.

• Michael Schechter: I’m banging my head against that ceiling daily. Seems to be the only way I’ve found to raise it.

• Guido O.: I guess that overcoming your own talent ceiling just requires you to trust yourself, to give yourself space and time to grow. Talent may grow indefinitely, but it is not an immediate process.

• Larry D.: I got around my talent glass ceiling by enlisting the help of others who do have the talent and exciting others in the company about the benefits.

 What I’ve learned professionally is that we need to dream big, dream beyond our own capabilities. We can enlist others to help us on our journey because we can’t all be good at everything. The talent ceiling may exist for an individual, but not for a team of the right people. I’ve found people want to help if you have a big, great idea.

As Larry mentions just above, I think the second most important character trait of a successful maker is relationship and community. In fact, community and perseverance go hand in hand, like two sides of the same coin. Have a community to go to and work with and get feedback from gives us continued energy to persevere.

* * *

Right now I am working on a project for people who make things. And in it, I go into more detail about this topic as well as many others related to the making of things. If you want to get an email when it’s ready, I’ve made a little signup form.

I’m working on something, and it’s for people who make things. As part of this project I would love to hear your story about overcoming the ceiling of talent.

If you’re someone who makes things — a designer, developer, writer, photographer, singer, musician, painter, sculptor, entrepreneur, podcaster, et al. — then you know what I mean about hitting the limit of your skills and being in that place where your vision and desire to do amazing work is bigger than your ability to actually create that work.

What do you do when your desire to do good work is bigger than your ability to actually create that work?

I’d love to hear about your own talent ceilings and what you have done / are doing to overcome them. And then, I’d love to share some of your stories here and as a part of this thing I’m working on. (If you’re not okay with your story being shared, or if you want it to remain anonymous, just let me know.)

Send me an email: [email protected]

Thanks!

— Shawn

P.S. You may have noticed that I put this same question to Twitter and ADN yesterday. The emails I got were so inspiring and encouraging that I wanted to cast the net larger.

Apple has stated that 93-percent of active iOS users are on iOS 6.

That’s fantastic. It’s great for us users because it means almost all of us are on the latest and greatest version. And it’s great for developers because it means they can have their apps support the latest APIs without fear of losing the vast majority of their potential customer base.

Based on some publicly available info from Apple, James Dempsey (Via Matthew Panzarino) put together this chart showing which iOS devices will be able to update to iOS 7 this fall. (You could preemptively add the new iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and iPad mini that will all (presumably) be announced and ship this fall with iOS 7 pre-installed.)

Note that there are two devices on Dempsey’s chart that can currently run iOS 6 but won’t be able to run iOS 7: the iPhone 3GS and the 4th-generation iPod touch.

The question is: of the 93-percent of active iOS users who are on iOS 6, how many of them are using a 4th-generation iPod touch or iPhone 3GS, and thus won’t be able to update to iOS 7 this fall?

It’s certainly not a majority, but also likely non-trivial.

Which means it’s a tricky line for 3rd-party developers to walk while considering updating their apps for iOS 7. As a developer, you want to adopt the newest APIs and technologies and go “all in” with the latest iOS version. But you don’t want to abandon your customers who are on older versions of iOS. And the alternative of having 2 versions of the same app (one that is iOS 7-only, and one that is for iOS 6) can be a nightmare on many levels (logistics, marketing, customer support, etc.).

However, Apple is pushing iOS 7 as the biggest deal since the original iPhone OS. And I’ve talked to many developers who are getting the hint and strongly considering making brand-new versions of their apps which are “all in” on iOS 7, or else they’ve got an aggressive plan to turn their current app into one that requires iOS 7 as soon as they can.

Certainly the ease of use for all the current iOS 6 devices to update to iOS 7 via an over-the-air update will fuel adoption rates. And there will be a flood of new devices shipping this fall with iOS 7 pre-installed.

So the questions in my mind are about the short-term iOS 7 adoption rate be? And how long will it take iOS 7 to be running on more than 90-percent of active iOS devices?

I’ve got a guess, but I’m still working the math out.

The latest update to Rdio’s iOS app includes Song Stations:

Start a station based on any song to hear more from that artist and other related artists.

It’s basically like Pandora — you pick a song you like and then Rdio does the rest. But you can chose to play songs from only the artist you selected, or you can play songs from related artists as well.

Rdio’s Song Stations are powered by The Echo Nest, which boasts over one trillion data points regarding their known songs, artists, and customer base of music providers (such as Spotify and Twitter Music).

I listen to Rdio most of the day, but the Auto Play feature that kicks in when an album or playlist is over usually stinks at picking songs I actually want to listen to at the time they come on. Because Auto Play is basically just a shuffle of my entire collection. Which means, say I’m listening to a John Mayer album, and when it’s over the instrumental version of Montell Jordan’s “This is How We Do It” will come on (I don’t even know how that song made its way into my collection in the first place). Not exactly what you’d expect to hear next, is it?

Yesterday and today I’ve been listening to the new Song Stations and so far, compared to Pandora, they’re hit and miss. Pandora’s algorithms are second to none — when I set up a station in Pandora I almost always get nothing but good picks. It’s still my preferred way to listen to jazzy Christmas music.

I’d love for Rdio to incorporate a setting for Song Station so that when I’m done listening to an album, Rdio would use that artist as the basis for auto playing the next songs. Thus keeping in the same audio stream as opposed to just a random shuffle from my whole collection.

Tweetbot shipped just over two years ago. In my review I wrote:

Tweetbot has more personality than any other Twitter client out there. Every single pixel has been hand crafted in order to build the most custom looking UI of any Twitter client I’ve seen. Moreover, the sounds, the animations, the actions — everything has been thought through with intent, care, and fun. It all adds up to create a Twitter Experience Extravaganza.

When Apple revealed its stark design changes in iOS 7, one of the things I first thought about was how 3rd-party developers would respond to the massive design changes. And one of the first apps that came to my mind was Tweetbot.

Comparing the current design aesthetic of Tweetbot to that of iOS 7, there’s more than just the contrast between the “light” design of the latter and the “heavy” design of the former. In iOS 7 most buttons have become just tappable text, whereas one of the most prevalent design elements in a Tapbots app is the custom button.

I’m using Tweetbot as an example here because it has a strong, customized design aesthetic all its own. An aesthetic that will need revisiting in order to fit in with iOS. But also, I’d hate to see Tapbots just slap on the iOS 7 skin and call it a day. Fortunately, that’s not going to happen.

Paul Haddad, during a sidewalk interview with Lex Friedman at WWDC, talked about if and how Tapbots plans to respond to the aesthetic changes in iOS 7:

I don’t think we have to match exactly what’s there, but we definitely have to take some of the cues they’re giving us and probably make some changes. […] I’m guessing there will be some [design elements] that take the iOS 7 look and some things that take our custom look.

Obviously this is an off-the-cuff conversation, and it’s still early since the iOS 7 beta was released. However, this morning Paul tweeted that, “if you are an iOS developer and don’t think iOS 7 is the biggest opportunity in years, you need to find a new job.”

For as long as Tapbots has been making apps, I’ve been a fan of their aesthetic and style. With the entire foundation of iOS changing this fall, I am very curious about what direction Tapbots will go with their app design and how their custom look will evolve and mature.

I’ve already spoken with a few developers who are planning to go “all in” with their apps in iOS 7 by releasing a major updates that closely align with the new aesthetic of iOS 7. And I think that’s good and right. There is a lot of great change in the new version of iOS and it won’t do any one any good if apps cling to their legacy design for the sake of arguing against where Apple is going.

But it’s also fair to say we don’t want every single app to mimic the iOS 7 look and feel without adding any personality and innovation.

Jared Sinclair, designer of Riposte, in an article, “Apps are content, too“:

Here is a quote from one of the iOS 7 marketing pages:

> Conspicuous ornamentation has been stripped away. Unnecessary bars and buttons have been removed. And in taking away design elements that don’t add value, suddenly there’s greater focus on what matters most: your content.

The implication here is that third-party apps that pride themselves on tasteful toolbars and easy-to-recognize buttons don’t add value for the user, that the app itself isn’t content.

Bollocks.

User interfaces are as just as much a part of the experience of an app as the text, photos, and videos that it displays.

Agreed.

What makes an app great is the little things — the small details that take something normal and turn it into something extraordinary. I see iOS 7 as a blank canvas — an “un-design” if you will. The goal of a 3rd-party isn’t to copy the stock apps pixel for pixel (that wasn’t the goal for iOS 1-6, and it’s not the goal now). Rather this is Apple saying it’s time to re-imagine what mobile software should look and act like. Five-hundred million people are using iOS devices, and it’s time for the training wheels to come off.

And Tapbots, among others, are in an excellent position to set an example of custom design done right in iOS 7. They have the skill to take the designs they’ve built over the past years and merge them with the new foundation Apple has laid.

So yes, strip away conspicuous ornamentation, but don’t strip away feeling and personality and delight.