Fired By Robots Podcast - Episode 12: Escaping Apple Hell and Going All-In

Fired By Robots Podcast Hello, this is episode number 12 of Fired By Robots Podcast. My name is Paweł and this is my friend Ivers. I'm from Poland and Ivers is a Latvian man living in Bangkok, living his indie hacker dream life. How are you Ivers? How are you doing? How's life? I'm doing well. Hello. Hey everyone. Hi Paweł. Yeah, I'm from Latvia living in Thailand. It's kind of a little bit confusing to say where are you from? I answered those questions where are you living. It's kind of depends on moment. It's always confusion. But yeah, here I am living in Thailand, building mobile apps mostly. Mostly. Mostly mobile apps. Yeah, so I am building mobile apps mostly too. And last week we talked in the rough conditions, a little bit rough conditions. When I was going through the episode editing, I decided I'll try to make sure this episode won't be as edited hard. I did it hard as I needed to do in the previous episode because the flow of the conversation is kind of, I would say, pausing, editing, cutting. It's breaking. It doesn't provide a good listener experience. So I'll try my best to not to ramble too much right now. But I wanted to ask you, how are you doing? What have you been up to last week? I just this, we are recording this on Friday for the first time ever because I was traveling back home. I'm already at home right now. So I have been to the dentist yesterday and we didn't have enough time to record as usually on Wednesday. But how are you? What have you been up to? No, week was, week was quite busy. This is my second week back in Thailand after vacation holidays in Latvia. And I am slowly getting back into the regular kind of schedule. I started to stream again. That's kind of cool. And yeah, before I was quite busy working on my web app. That's feedback thread. It's a product that helps me to organize my work, collect feedback from users, organize AI work on that feedback. But that was web app. But now on live streams, I was back to iOS development and I shipped updates for three of my applications on basically on live stream. And yeah, I was happy to see that one app was already approved for release in less than 24 hours. But two of update applications are still waiting for review. So it seems that there is some kind of inconsistently, but I heard on Twitter, I saw that there was like very long kind of waiting for app reviews. And but very inconsistent kind of feedback when I posted about that also on on some, some, some, some said that reviews happening like usual, like fast and okay. And someone is saying that they are waiting for like update, not even new application, but just some small updates and waiting for review for many days on even or even weeks. So for me, it's also mixed experience. Three app updates released, shipped actually, and set for review and only one is released, two are still waiting for review. We'll say it's still okay. It's maybe third day in waiting. So it's, it's fine. Yeah, I think you are the part of the committee on, on Slack. This was created by one Polish mobile developer. Um, and I I've heard, like I've read multiple people right there that they've been waiting for more than two weeks for review. And I also was the one affected by this. I've added multiple mobile apps to review and I've been waiting for two plus weeks on review for them. Uh, I don't know. I think Apple team were on a vacation or something like that, like that. Whenever we talked last time, I don't remember if that was the, uh, my VidNotes app, which usually got the approval within like 48 hours. Uh, had been waiting for two weeks. Uh, and I've got an approval, uh, like just a few days ago, uh, for, uh, for my latest change. And like, uh, it's so crazy because I've been building tons of stuff on for web on the backend for VidNotes application. And for, uh, of course iOS and Android and, uh, um, Apple held me so much right now with this review that I needed to like think strategically. What, uh, what's landing next in the next version on update of VidNotes. I am planning rollout of new design, potentially switching from native Swift UI and Kotlin to React Native application for VidNotes. I haven't started any work on that yet, but right now I'm like, uh, hesitant, hesitant on, uh, what should I do? Because I am not sure how to work with Apple, but, um, I saw your post on, on X and, uh, and, uh, I think, uh, and I commented like, I think Apple review team just got back from holidays. Uh, it, uh, it, it felt like it because you've got approval and some, um, other people mentioned that, uh, I think this, uh, two weeks waiting for an app to be, um, reviewed, approved, or for me, like right now it feels so much, so insane. Uh, when you even say about this, uh, I think, uh, this whole system is so broken right now. I, I don't know. I hope Apple will fix that, but, uh, and you said that also, I think in one of your videos or, um, on, or on X that it was so cool, like working for the past, like two to three weeks on web product. Where you like click publish and it's available. Uh, and, uh, and like waiting for review is, it's so annoying, uh, having this kind of situation. Uh, for me recently, I've had very bad experience with Apple and this one thing is like, it just pisses me off. And I want, I want to like leave off the platform totally, uh, but, uh, hopefully they'll, they'll fix, uh, they fix things. Yeah, that's crazy. Those two weeks, uh, in review and, uh, that guarantee that does not guarantee that Europe will be approved for review. They can also reject it. And if they will reject it, those can be another two weeks. So you can basically can wait for months to get some kind of bug fix of something delivered. And, um, uh, which is talking, which is crazy right now because like, like in months you can build really, really complex, complex application right now. Actually. Yes, yes, yes. You can do that. And I was, I didn't try that. I, I didn't have a need, but, uh, one of my, uh, like, uh, one of iOS developers from Riga, um, iOS dev group messaged me and asked, you know, how, how things are going for you with app reviews? I basically said, I don't know. I'm working on web now. But, uh, he said basically he also waiting for, um, multiple weeks for update and they even asked it for that expedited review, you know, when you can basically ask to expedite it. Yeah. Expedited. Yeah. Expedited the review. And that also didn't help. So I don't know. It's, I don't know, somehow deeply broken, but seems fixed now. I don't know. Yeah. Uh, yeah. The system, the system is broken and. Uh, yeah. Uh, and with the flood of apps going to the app store like this, uh, this way they are doing it. It, uh, like it's impossible to work with. I don't know what they need to change in order to make this work, but, um, this whole Apple ecosystem is falling apart. And I've watched, uh, once again, I'm going to mention Tio from T3GG. I've watched his, um, his YouTube video about like basically a big 45 minute crash out on Apple. And I've like, um, I've shared it on the, uh, I've shared it on the, on X2. This, uh, and I wrote like, I am not, um, English is not my first language. So I am not, uh, well-spoken in English enough to have this kind of valid Apple crash out. But I signed with, uh, um, like my both arms and legs of this crash out because like, for example, I didn't know that because I like wasn't, uh, back then wasn't in, in the IT world. Uh, um, but whenever iOS first released app store and, uh, you could make apps, it was like, uh, uh, basically it was an, um, a free and open for everyone and you could build applications. Uh, um, I think, I don't remember exactly, but I think it was like, it's each HTML, HTML and, uh, uh, some, some, something, something there, but there was no review. Steve Jobs made, uh, like thought like about making it free and open for everyone and making the system better. And now, and then then like, they fucked it up basically right now with what, what it is right now, because they, they're getting the money from all the apps and the, like the 15%, the 30%, if you're like, if you release like, like $1 million per month from app, uh, per year, uh, from apps, I would say that you're, you're successful. So below that you're good, but you're not as successful, I would say, for example, but, but yeah, and above 1 million, they take 30% out of like everyone. So this is like, they're, they don't have an incentive to actually make this better because they really like the paycheck, you know? Yeah. But review times could be fixed, you know, just by throwing more people and so on. But yeah, I don't know. So, uh, yeah, me, it never will open. Like it's like, like, I don't know, like web. Do not, do not dream about that. It's, it will not happen that you have open platform where you can whatever, do your own submit applications and so on. And there are multiple kinds of reasons to do not do that. But big one of them, of course, is money. Of course they want to kind of have their cut. But, uh, also they kind of feel kind of responsible about what apps are there. Uh, and that is kind of very questionable how there are still scam apps, uh, scam apps in the app store and so on. How good the job is done by review team kind of approving them and so on. But yeah, there are still strong arguments to do not be like, like it was on beginning like, oh, whatever, just build, uh, web apps and those will work on, on life. Um, yeah, yeah. But like for me, like I didn't know about it. It was like a very, uh, um, like eyeopening experience how, um, how, how it all changed basically because I am in this field for the past 10 years. I am in the field of being, uh, app developer in the app developer for the past few years. And I actually didn't know it was, it used to be like this. Um, and I always talked about, uh, the diminishing returns of Apple giving us, which is, um, um, um, the organic, uh, installs for, uh, apps because of the flood of apps I already mentioned, uh, already. Yeah. But, uh, um, I, um, I wanted to ask, uh, I wanted to switch things on, uh, before I'm going to like turn this whole episode into Apple hate, I wanted to ask, uh, ask you, uh, about, uh, your back, your, uh, on and content creation because, uh, as Apple is, uh, like, uh, uh, like there is a, I think there are the reason for the system being so shitty right now, um, is because like, I think 65% of money made from apps is made on iOS while 80, I think almost 80% of people are on Android. So that's the reason. That's the main reason. That's the main revenue driver for Apple, the commissions from, from apps subscriptions. But I wanted to ask you like, so we need to go into the organic downloads are dying and we need to go to, uh, different areas and do some content. Um, for example, like you do, I saw your back on Twitch streaming a few, um, uh, I, I joined, uh, for a few minutes, a few days, a few days, uh, in a row. Um, how is it back to streaming? Well, it's fun. I like that community aspect of streaming, you know, because you can, you have real life chat and so on, uh, podcasts or YouTube videos. They are nice and, and, and, and cool. But even if you got comments, then even if you try to answer, if you, if you get comments on YouTube videos, if you try to answer them, this conversation basically is getting lost because there is no good way to follow up on, on long conversations in comments on YouTube. That's just nature of YouTube. You basically see on your dashboard that someone commented your video, you go answer this video and then basically this comment is gone. And, uh, yeah, this real life communication in live streams, that's, that's really nice. I like, I like that. And actually I was asked it on, on YouTube, uh, live stream. No, that was teacher, whatever. I was asked it on live stream, actually how I will start content creation. If I will start over what I would recommend Instagram, uh, TikTok, YouTube, or Twitch. Live stream on Twitch. And the answer is kind of tricky. Because if we will say, if we will somehow try to measure like value of the kind of follower on the platform and by value, I mean, how, how involved is this kind of person into your content? How good you can kind of communicate it. They are convinced someone to go and test your products and get feedback from them. I will say that the live stream is basically the best. And if you have like followers who are coming to your live streams, I will say those are like most like valuable. I don't like to kind of measure people, but in those terms, you know, I will say those are most valuable kind of followers. After that, I will say YouTube, like long form YouTube videos, kind of audience. That's second best for like value. If you will leave links on YouTube, like descriptions and so on to your products, if you talk about them, if you mention them, you can get downloads and it really works. But if you are going on short form video, like content platforms, like Instagram, TikTok, even YouTube shorts. That audience is less involved in whatever you are talking, you know, and you can understand that just by thinking of your content consumptions kind of habit. When you, whatever, scrolling Instagram, just to mute, you are not in the mood to go over to download something or whatever. You may be sitting on toilet or trying to, I don't know, get your last dopamine hit before going to sleep. Right. And, uh, yeah, but, uh, it's a question was what, what I was asking is basically how I will start to do this marketing again. And I will still start with a short form video content because that's is the easiest one to create. And, uh, one for YouTube, you really need like a thumbnail, you need title, you need to get click on that video on that process of making those videos is very long. And, uh, you are, you have huge time investment and you maybe will make one video in a week and we'll get 10 views on it. And so what's next, you know, but with short form content, you can record 10 videos in a day, you know, and in a week you will spend the same amount of time. Maybe that you spent on that one YouTube video, but that feedback loop is much faster. So I will still start on short form platforms, but I will try to move to the long form, uh, like YouTube videos. And maybe if it's a live streaming easier thing, then I will move to that. And I'm doing all of those and that kind of works for me. Yeah. It's very, very nice breakdown, uh, that you did. I think I've read somewhere that, um, basically if you're comparing like value is like, uh, uh, 100 K Tik Tok followers, uh, goes to equals like to 10 K Instagram followers equals to like one K YouTube subscribers. That's basically the breakdown. Um, but yeah, that, that's the breakdown that I've read. And I think it's accurate. It's accurate. It's way easier to, uh, to like get followers on a Tik Tok, but I think Gary V, uh, have been talking about, um, we are in, um, interest based, uh, social media right now. The social media isn't right now, uh, anymore about, um, followers. It's just about making great content. And if you are like doing great content, if you record a great video, it will get shown to people. The algorithms are good that they're shown. And I've actually seen that in a small scale of my Tik Tok videos when I was recording in English there. Um, I still got like 85% of my audience being from Poland because I have a, I recorded this on my phone without, uh, VPN and et cetera. And whenever I switched to a Polish and I talked for a month, I, my audience started growing and, um, and it can, and I had like very few videos, which are, I tried to do like a little bit, like interesting takes, trying, trying to think, uh, this way, a little bit, uh, Tik Tok way of making videos, I would say. And, uh, I've had as go a few videos semi viral. And I, um, uh, I think, uh, I think that's, uh, um, that's really, um, uh, I've lost my train off the top of what I wanted to say, but, um, yeah, Tik Tok, uh, uh, is quite, uh, easier to work on. And as you said on YouTube, I've, I haven't been recording like for Tik Tok when ever since I went on vacation, I recorded two, two Tik Toks because, because I, I, I wanted to take a short break and, uh, my phone broke down, but what I wanted to say that live streaming is cool and I would do it if my computer allowed me to do, but it is just not possible right now. And there is this, uh, Max blade on X, uh, uh, and he's been doing really, uh, really good in the par, like in the past few months, he built this kind of, uh, vibe coding platform. Which is cool too. And he just, uh, talks to it, uh, inside, um, on his stream. It, his streams are pretty cool, but the, the number one growth for, uh, um, for your Twitch stream and, uh, live stream in general are shorts. Basically you need to pump out short videos, uh, to, uh, showcase on other social media. And, uh, have them repurposed on, um, so you can see, um, okay, this, there's a longer version of that. There is this Twitch where you, you, you, you find, you find, you can find the person because Twitch, and I've heard multiple streamers talk about it. Twitch has no discoverability. You just open the website and you see, okay, which is the bigger streamer and maybe which has, like, you, you maybe go to the category, but, but it's hard. There's no like homepage on YouTube where you randomly are shown. Like I, I often very like videos, like from smaller creators. I get recommended like, oh, this guy has 10 K to 20 K, uh, subscribers. And this video, uh, has 125 views, but I like the thumbnail and I like the title that there is, this is interesting topic for me. I really like this feature of YouTube and I'm, uh, clicking, uh, quite often on those videos. And, uh, of course I'm, uh, watching the, the subscribe channels, but those videos are often very interesting and, uh, gets me to, um, watch some videos, uh, from unknown creators. So discoverability, discoverability, uh, yeah, something like that is very important for your live stream. And, uh, uh, I think, uh, I think, uh, I think your breakdown was great about this one. I think, uh, I think adding that discoverability part where you need to cut your stream, uh, uh, into shorts, into, um, maybe longer clips, like the, to put on your YouTube and TikTok and Instagram. And that's why clipping is like such a big thing right now. Um, I've, um, I've learned like whenever like Andrew Tate blew up, I think he was the, one of the first guys who like blew up on the clipping because everywhere you could see his clips, uh, on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, until they started blocking this guy. And, uh, I think Clavicular, which is another, uh, Twitch streamer with the LuxMaxxing mobile app, by the way, right now he created a LuxMaxxing mobile app and straight to 10K plus over MRR. Um, I don't know how much he, he has it. He even stole some, uh, App Store screenshot designs from somebody on X. I saw, I saw that a couple of weeks ago. Uh, it's crazy, but yeah. So, um, I, I'm not sure if I'll be back to like Twitch streaming and, uh, but for me, it, it feels like really, um, um, really, uh, uh, good. And, uh, I'm thinking, um, uh, in terms of like, uh, really approachable way to make, uh, content around personal brand because you, I saw you do that lately. And I think you're using your, um, your app that you've made, uh, to make shorts. I saw you pump out more shorts recently. Yep. Yep. I do. That's, I do that. I, I basically, that was, that's the problem you highlighted very well about this kind of live streaming. Yeah. That's nice to have that people, those people on live stream and talk with them, but. You have to kind of pump out those shorts and I build the tool just for that. Basically, I just dropping by live stream into my application and it finds some seven, eight, maybe 10 kind of clippable moments from it. And then I already have integration with PostBridge and I'm just kind of, and, uh, if we are kind of talking about streaming in general, it's always good to, when you, when you start the stream, if you just kind of work on your app and build something, it's fine. You can do that, but it's, it's better if you have in mind what kind of clips you will get from the stream or maybe even long form video. So because I just edited a long form video today and uploaded, scheduled it for next week. Uh, that's basically live stream was part of the recording, this long form video. I don't know how, how good that video will perform. We'll see, but generally it was like three in one. I, I, I did live stream. I, I had kind of interactions with chat. I recorded long form video during this live stream and still I have multiple clippable moments. This, basically the same question that we discussed about where to stream, how to stream, how, how to create content. And I was asked on chat, uh, in chat, uh, and, and basically that will be video as well. I will just clip it out from the stream. You know, so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, that's, uh, right. I think that's the strategy. Like I, I watched, uh, multiple YouTube, uh, Twitch streamers do basically the strategy when they start to show, they do reaction type of content. And, and I think, uh, uh, and they cut out, uh, clips from the streams for YouTube. That's, uh, like something that, uh, in my opinion, that was really, um, fine for, uh, I thought this about a strategy for me because I've, this has this structure to it that I would like to, um, follow. Oh, and I'm not sure. Uh, and I, I, I want, I tried to do this a little bit, uh, but like my, uh, 18 gigs of Ram MacBook cannot handle it. And I just, uh, it's, it's, for me, it's just crazy. How can 18 gigabytes of MacBook, if I were just streaming and talking, um, and not doing anything, maybe that I could do it, but that's not the point of stream. I, I want to like, uh, have like some kind of, uh, um, showcase. So, uh, that's kind of interesting. Yeah. And, uh, right now I cannot do it. I'm, uh, I'm, uh, I'm thinking about, uh, buying a new computer. I've talked about it for like, uh, already a few months, but, uh, I thought I'll be buying another Mac studio. And, uh, I think I've changed my mind recently. Um, yeah, but I'll switch to the topic, uh, in a moment. I just wanted to like, uh, uh, put, uh, put on, uh, uh, a bow on it, uh, on the content creation. I think, uh, what you talk, uh, what you mentioned is really cool. Like you have this tool where you put your stream, um, recording, you have this automated stuff. And this is very cool part of this because tons of, I have, I've had this built, this kind of, uh, also this tool where you just paste a screen, uh, paste, even paste a link to kick Twitch or YouTube video. It cuts it up for you. I'm going to finally be releasing that, uh, next week. And, uh, I, I, I, at some point, like last week, I thought, okay, um, I, I don't think I, I will be releasing this at all, even though it's live, it's, uh, it's working, but it, like, it requires a few changes. Um, I need to do, by the way. Um, yeah, uh, and I wanted to say that, uh, I, for my site, like I've been doing some TikTok videos about I've, uh, when I, uh, when I went on to, um, my holidays on the 1st of August, I started, uh, an automation for my social media for Vidnotes. And I've, uh, and I've, uh, tested this Fastlane platform, um, for this, uh, automation. And, uh, they, I think they had the best tool for this kind of automated, automated content, uh, generated out, uh, out, um, yeah, the, out of those that are available. Cause, like, I could choose from, like, a slideshow format, uh, uh, video, uh, kind of video format, uh, like, um, meme format. There were many formats adapted to my, uh, basically application. And I've chose the video meme format and it actually is doing pretty good. I've done, uh, like it does the best out of every content I try to do, uh, on social media for my Vidnotes application. And, uh, I'm very happy because like for, uh, I, I'm, I'm, I'm very limited, limiting myself here because, uh, I don't want to spam YouTube, TikTok and, and, uh, Instagram. But on YouTube, uh, itself, uh, the content I've been doing for, uh, Vidno, for this automated channel and it's fully automated. I, like right now I went to, um, the initial phase of testing out which content I think will be better, but it will get good. And for the, um, 12 days it has been running, I've gained almost 30K views for shorts. So on average is above 1K views per short and there are likes, there aren't too many comments, but there are likes there. So it boosts itself, but I've been seeing a steady growth for Vidnotes. Like, I don't know if it's tied to it right now, uh, yet, but it definitely, uh, something changed recently for me because I'm, I've been getting more and more, um, subscriptions. Uh, free trials on Vidnotes and is doing quite some numbers on Instagram and TikTok. So, uh, well, it, it, it hasn't been a fluke. I mean, I mean, it hasn't been like two to three videos. It has been doing consistently, uh, each video around above 1K, which is good because I don't pay a ton of, uh, for money for this subscription. I am trying to do some automation content for other app, uh, in doing similar pattern, but it doesn't work at all. And, uh, uh, only for Vidnotes it works. So I find it really cool and that I can do it. And I will be reporting on more, more information about what I'm trying to do, but it, it made me think also, um, too many products is like not possible for me. Like when, when, when you really try to focus and you have too many products for me, it's really hard to, uh, focus on, uh, more than one products. It's the way I want to, uh, do for Vidnotes app. I think, uh, at this point I can recommend Fastlane. You need to tinker around it to find your content. But I think like I have enough space for one type of content. Um, well, not, not type of content. One like in my head, I think of like, I, I, I think I can fit one app idea and multiple times try things of like how to, uh, create a content for this kind of application. That's why I'm, I'm probably going to, um, like deleting like 90% of my apps, which, uh, aren't making any money from the app store, trying to be as focused as possible. I have two, three apps mainly making money for me and, uh, I'm, I'm, uh, going to be focused only on one. That's why I wanted to talk about Shipathon where I'm going to ship two or three more apps. Sounds a little bit controversial. So you're, you, you don't need more apps, but you will ship three more. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that, that's me. Um, yeah, I, I wanted to switch to Shipathon because, um, I know you've been building like, uh, for the feedback thread and, uh, I actually haven't looked into it, uh, into the dashboard for the past week ever since I finally got my, uh, with notes app with this SDK added, uh, approved. I, I need to look at it, but I will do it after the recording of the podcast. But, um, how, how is it going for you? And then the mobile version. I was working on last stream. Uh, I was working yesterday. Actually, I was working on onboarding because. So the main application is you, it is like web app, uh, because you can read reviews, answer them and so on. Uh, I mean, upstart reviews, you know, and also you can see those feedback kind of, uh, incoming from, from the apps, but I mostly kind of using it throws MCP, throws my AI, whatever I'm using at this moment. Cloud codes or codecs, but yeah, I'm building this mobile application just to have option to kind of. See that on the go and also partly for that ship at on. And, uh, yeah, I, I, I built, uh, onboarding flow yesterday. So nothing crazy. I'm not trying to whatever convinced to buy in this onboarding flow. I just want to kind of show, okay, how it works, what it is just to be good enough for app store review to understand what's that product is. And for someone who accidentally download it without knowing about existence of this kind of web product, because if you download it. On the app store without kind of having that everything backend up and running doesn't make much sense, but. Uh, I, I don't want to kind of leave this kind of person, like whatever stranding you created accounts, you logged in in the application and then do not understand. Okay, what is this, why do we have this application? So it's a little bit tricky, uh, from that perspective. But, uh, I can make it, you know, like, uh, you, even if you don't have integrated SDK in your applications, even if you don't have integration with GitHub to fetch your issues on, even if you don't have app store reviews fetched, you can still add your own kind of tasks, but you would like to work on. So I am adding basically that part. And I will say it's very solid MVP after yesterday's live stream. I actually should probably ship it for review, especially taking an account that it can take more than two weeks. But, uh, I would like to, I would like to add in a purchases as well in the application just to qualify for Shipathon. And I was planning to add in a purchases like this web funnel to the Stripe because I'm using Stripe for the payments. But, uh, now I'm not sure that's good idea because that's probably will add one more week for review. Maybe, maybe I just should do regular, regular in a purchase and that's it, you know. Yeah. Apple may want to want a piece of that. I have this initial application. It's funny because I I've made some money out of this application, but you too have to have an account on Beehive platform or MailChimp platform and integrate with an API key. There inside the app. So whenever like you accidentally install it, you just without having this platform, you don't know what's what's going on. But yeah, I mentioned already, I think on last podcast that I'm not going to ship more applications, but I wanted to take part of this year's Shipathon somehow. And because I think that's the last Shipathon I will take part of. I don't know where we will be next year in terms of like coding, et cetera. And I'm very interested right now in like developing agents for marketing. That's that's something I'll I am coding right now and focusing on those type of stuff. But I wanted to take part of this because the rewards are great. And I thought I have like one or two decent ideas. I've decided to go with this app with like with this. We build this on top of Parrot, which is the open source version of Whisperflow on MacBook. We've built this kind of our versions of those apps on Mac OS. And I'm using it on to to talk on to talk to the computer, basically. And you mentioned that you I probably should try to have build this application on iOS and and like as an idea for Shipathon. So I build it. Well, I didn't. My agents build it in our iOS, which is an app for like replacement for Whisperflow local privacy first. The app, the data isn't not isn't sent anywhere. And I'm not using any like backend. Everything thing is happening locally. I need to test out the intelligence part of it because it's crucial. But you need to have like iPhone 15 or newer in order to use Apple Foundation models. So that's what I'm trying to do with the intelligence part of it. But I've been building this out. And when I like started testing the first day, because I've got my iPhone come back from service. And I realized like I just copy like reinstalled from the backup from the cloud, the iPhone. Everything seems seem to kind of work. And now after they replaced my screen, which I don't know why, but maybe when they replaced the logic board, they need to replace the screen. I assume that's the case. But they replaced something with Face ID sensor or something. I don't see any good reason for that. Yeah, it's strange because I didn't I didn't I didn't send it for like. So, yeah, I don't know what they did there. They replaced for me the and they didn't explain why did the place. But they did replace the logic board, the screen. And now my my cellular connection doesn't work. And they so I've like I used is a sim e sim card. And now I'm not using any one more. I've like went to the dealership and bought and took the physical card. But like it's crazy. I am so mad at this because last year my iPhone 13 mini has hit up and died for for no total reason at all. Just hit up and died. A month ago, my iPhone 16 Pro started smoking from USB-C port and I sent it to repair. They repaired it. I got it. I thought it's working finally. And now it's not not working with cellular data. I'm I'm so done with Apple. I'm I'm so mad that my 18 gigs of RAM laptop isn't like is failing me because I moved most of my agents work to cloud. I'm doing the on VPS. Yes. But still working on this laptop is crazy. One even one even one agent or two agents running in the background is like it's making it's making so hard to. To work on it. To work on it like I cannot stream on it. And I decide and I decide and I saw like again, the T3GG on X sharing like he moved most of his work onto Linux. And I and I and I and I wanted a desktop computer. I'm sitting at desk where I'm going to keep this just to build iOS applications. But you can do that in the cloud, too. And right now we don't need to have the MacBook. I I'll be switching to Linux and because like people say that the the the the the the there's way like better performance on everything regarding when you work on Linux. And I think I'm like Apple ecosystem has been failing me. And once again, like I realized that I'm so tied to like Apple ecosystem right now. I have my Apple photos there like iCloud backup. I subscribe to iCloud. It's so much right now. And I switched to Android and it's so easy to set up some some stuff whenever I get my iPhone. I'll try. I'll be in the process of moving away of Apple platform. I want to be platform agnostic. I think the good solution for being platform agnostic is like using Dropbox and Git for your file storage. And you you are dependent on Dropbox, but you can use it. You can use Dropbox on Apple on iPhone on Mac and etc. There is no no more of this lock in there. I need to like something I can customize for myself. I like I'm entering my Linux era and I remember specifically talking about like, yeah, of course, Mac OS is great. And it's it's enough for everything like if you need to build. But right now I feel so limited. I'm I've been having fun of people like praising Linux and open openness of this. But like right now, I finally reached the stage where I OK, I'm switching. I think I've been running on so many topics right now. I'm really sorry. Switched so many topics from ship and on to Linux. Yeah, I'm looking I'm looking forward how that will work for you, how this your Linux era will work for you, because I don't know. I'm I'm sitting on in between two machines. I have Windows on my right side, MacBook on left side. And also I have two external monitors. And I'm using Windows mostly for live streams and video recording when I'm recording on computer, basically because camera is connected. I'm just hitting record. It's recording throws OBS on on my Windows machine. I have kind of clips ready. Like if I want to record short form video when I'm sharing my Mac screen, that's OBS was just great for that. And gaming and I'm doing gaming live streams as well. So but that could work on Linux as well. Right. And then if I have that running on Linux, then I could use it for development as well, because currently the problem is when I'm leaving, when I'm taking my laptop with me while I'm moving around, it's sleeping and my AI agents can't work, you know. And therefore, I often leave it at home and then kind of connecting to it from my phone just to kind of check out, OK, what's going on? What are we doing? So are you are the agents waiting on something from me and so on? So, uh, I'm not sure about switching to Linux, but because I think I will miss, for example, like a decent video editing app. Like, uh, currently I'm using a final cut pro. Okay. The winter resolve is also an option, just a little bit more heavy to use for me personally. But, uh, yeah, I'm not sure if there are options on Linux to do that. There are plenty of limitations. I think there are people, people are using, but I, I, I, I, I understand you. I won't be like getting rid of this Mac book. And, but I'm definitely going to be switching to, um, Linux. Um, I think, uh, um, I, I, maybe next to, within next two months, I think there'll be some new releases on. I've been looking, uh, onto like which, uh, which basically computer to buy. And I've been looking at a framework desktop and the thing. I don't want another laptop. I think Mac book is still the best laptop. Um, but yeah, I was, we will see how this works. I don't do too much video editing and, uh, I, I want power. I want power right now. We'll see. We'll see how this goes. Yeah. People forgetting how good desktop PCs actually are, you know, because you can swap GPU. You can add more RAM if you can afford it. You can add, you can add old hard drives, you know, if you need more storage. It's not a problem at all. I'm fighting for storage on my one terabyte SSD in the Mac book. That's never was a problem in PC. If I will have like storage problem problem, I will buy another one slow hard drive and whatever, you know, 16 gigabytes, 14, whatever. It doesn't matter, you know, uh, yeah. If, if you are working for mostly from home, desktop computer is still great option. I just started missing one and I've been tolerating Apple's limitation and, uh, annoyances for some time already. But like, it started last year for me, like when my iPhone 13 mini, like just died. And, uh, same goes, uh, same goes, uh, for my new, my new iPhone. And like, I'm being slowly, slowly getting into like this, uh, thing. Okay. I, this is not a very old Mac book. I have like, this is 2024, uh, Mac book. I think, uh, is it 2024, 2023, 2024? I'm not sure, but it's like not, not a bad, bad, uh, Mac book at all. And like, for some reason, it's just like, it's just not performing well enough. I don't know. Maybe I should like take it apart and clean it out. I'll probably do that whenever I switch to, uh, Linux and make me, maybe there's some dust in there inside. Uh, I heard you should actually do that. Uh, maybe you can, uh, uh, restore it's like, think I've been fighting with a space on the disc for, uh, for a year right now. Yeah. It's like multiple, uh, different, uh, um, like multiple different things that call, uh, reasons that are, that are like making me think about switching. And, uh, yeah, I've like recently saw so many, uh, great things. And I, I, I actually think that like being, building this, uh, uh, this ARA application, open source application, like made me want to like go, uh, deeper into this kind of, uh, openness. Uh, uh, because yeah, of course I have this locally and I can distribute it. There's no like limitation to that right now, but there are some limitations to other things. And, uh, and I, I, I, like, I felt quite, uh, encouraged, encouraged to, I might be doing like something like dual system where I do Linux and potentially install, um, uh, windows on, uh, on it too. Just to see, uh, but I, uh, the thought of, uh, having, uh, to, uh, using windows is like just hurting my stomach right now. Uh, for development, that could be kind of tricky. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think I, I don't, uh, I don't expect, uh, to be doing too much gaming. And if there's any gaming I'll be doing, I'll be probably doing to, uh, through, uh, cloud gaming. GeForce now is quite good in my opinion. Um, I'm not playing these kinds of games, like where you like life, like the Orc Raiders that you do. So, uh, it's, uh, like, uh, slower games. Uh, I've, I'll be doing that. We'll see what, what else were we supposed to talk about? I don't know. Where is it? I don't know. Notes didn't open for me. I have error opening. My, I, I really like that we are using for a podcast notes, my shitty website that doesn't work. I, I think, uh, I should, uh, that's, that's, that's just. You could, you could keep them, you know, just whatever, you know, on, for example, GitHub, like GitHub page, you know, something like that. No, why? Yeah. Yeah. Because that works. I will, yeah, we'll, uh, no, but for me, it's like kind of funny. Like, like we, we have this, but yeah, uh, yeah, we'll, we'll switch to something like, um, I'll try to organize everything. Like for the past two weeks, I've been working inside the bars and I've, uh, actually used Grok recently quite more because I had some offer for a cheaper Grok. Like three months for like, uh, uh, I don't know how much, but like $50 for three months, which is really cool offer. Yeah. And Grok recently came out. And they have, uh, um, really, uh, on some benchmarks better, uh, better, um, results than even the 5.6 Sol, which I think is really good. And, uh, for the type of work I'm doing recently, I think it's, it's good. Uh, especially when I work within bars where I like make a talk. Okay. Grok, Codex, uh, talk together, Claude, make design for this and make sure it's looking nice. And all of them work together inside it. I think I really love this kind of thing because one, one, uh, I have like my Grok being like the lead team leader, basically set up as a agent team leader, which like he takes, uh, uh, uh, on his like responsibility of doing some tasks and, uh, and like distributes the, um, the task to Codex, to Claude and checks, uh, even if, if it's like visible kind of work that he, that, uh, the other agents are doing. So, uh, I really like playing around with, with this one, this type of model. I, I think, uh, um, I think Grok is really good. There is this Grok bot that came out, but you have to buy subscription to Grok heavy, super heavy or something like that. I don't have money right now to like buy another subscription. So I'm, I'm, I'm holding out, uh, out on that. Have you tested anything of this? No, I'm jumping in between, uh, Codex and Claude. And those are two kinds of agents that I'm using now. And mostly because of, you know, uh, just do not distract myself even more, you know, with kind of jumping to another kind of AI agent and, or another kind of workflow. So that buzz, uh, sounds interesting for me, but that doesn't solve any kind of real problem for me now. And, uh, I didn't even take a look. I, I, I didn't even kind of look at it and, but I planning to do that someday later because that day of kind of multiple agents working together. I kind of like it because now, now my workflow is that I basically giving a task to one of the agents to do. And another one asking to verify the results, just do double checking, you know, on each other. So that's my mind workflow for now. I'm, of course I'm using kind of like, uh, like launching multiple agents from one system. Not that I'm using just one, uh, like, uh, I'm for example, using Fable for planning, but they am saying specifically, okay, use sub-agents for implementation and use, uh, agents which are kind of suited for the task. Because sometimes you don't even need Opus. Haiku is good enough for some sub-task and Fable is good enough to manage that. Uh, Codex, I think it launches sub-agents automatically, but it seems that, uh, Codex just launching whatever agent is used in mine task. He launching the same sub-agents to do basically work in parallel. So that's my workflow for now. I heard about Grok, but I don't know, okay, how, how much better it can be. You know, it's always, you know, like some kind of benchmarks and so on. And it's, uh, I don't think that my products will significantly, will have significant benefits if I will switch to Grok right now. You know, I think Fable is good enough. Uh, ChatGPT 5, uh, 6, whatever, 6.5, I think Sol, whatever, uh, is good enough. Uh, yeah, if I will have good offer on Grok, probably I will take it just to save money. Why not? But yeah, I didn't test it now. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like right now, um, I use mainly Codex for all of the coding I do. I use Cloud for some coding, but mainly designs. And that's why I'm keeping like right now the $200 subscription for Cloud because I, um, because the design work takes some tokens. It takes quite a lot of tokens, I would say. Um, but, uh, and I tried to switch to $100 subscription because I wanted only, uh, the design part. And, uh, uh, well, uh, well, uh, it didn't, uh, it didn't, uh, it wasn't enough for me right now for just doing the design. And I'm going to need some more of design work. Um, uh, uh, but like right now, uh, uh, I, I lowered down Codex to $100 subscription and I still cannot use it enough. like tokens which is crazy for me uh it's great because it's my main code driver i like i have five like pretty big prs inside vidnotes right now which are made entirely by codex and grog together and there are some nice changes nice updates i i want to i want to do um so uh i think like we right now and that's a good thing to mention like i think we're finally out of this token maxing era and managing managing agents uh which agents to use and token efficiency um is a kind of understanding which model is good for that and i think it's good to know which model is which or that i'm using for example code the codex subscription gives you like 5.3 uh spark codex spark something like that i'm using this like as an office manager for the inside bus and i'm using this inside my hermes agent um and like it's really good model for like all all the not so so complicated stuff like real real life stuff i think this is uh uh really good to understand and i'm using for example uh sonnet in a cloud app whenever i want to automate something inside on my computer on cloud because i'm trying to learn like a computer use with cloud what what's possible what's even possible in in there to do um yeah i i have one 20 subscription to hermes agent uh desktop and they um this gives you like a hermes desktop um experience i i think we're getting closer to the end of this episode i didn't play prepare too many topics but i wanted to ask you how how is your uh i think you recorded quite recently the video like your two two months uh in the hacker uh full time in the hacker how's your app how are your apps doing uh what's the what the status here can you can you share with the audience oh yeah it's it's it's doing well it's growing so um the renew i i was looking on like month by month revenue and uh that was july data and it is kind of more better than it was in june i don't remember exact number but in sales it was something like 6k plus basically 6 200 something like that in in sales so it's good it's good it's growing it's a single digits uh growth something like five percent plus from previous months but it's uh like real money and uh yeah it's still growing and i'm happy to see that yeah awesome awesome it's great to see i personally i hit another milestone for all of my apps i uh hit over 3k revenue and right now if i could if i check it um it's um i'm over 3k of revenue in the last 28 days and over 2.1 mr right now which is all awesome uh it's growing vidnotes is growing for me and i hope it will be growing i have uh so many ideas for this application where i want to take it but uh yeah i i need to like start closing all the things i don't want to focus on and one of the things i want to close is this episode so thank you for listening everyone i was have you do you want anything to get into anything right now uh else or or we're finishing no i think it's a good point to wrap up and stop our episode and uh yeah i think that uh that you said yeah basically focus on uh less things to have better progress that's kind of good ending of the episode yeah yeah thank you for everyone for watching and listening yeah see you next week thank you for listening that was fired by robots podcast see you in the next one bye bye fire by robots podcast