My Weekly Creative Summary for the Week of 2024/02

JF Martin (@numericcitizen@pixelfed.social)

So cute. #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography

Pixelfed

Welcome to the second edition of 2024. It was a busy week at the office, requiring some overtime, which meant less time for my hobbies! I hope you enjoy this edition!

👨🏻‍💻 32 articles posted 😃
🏞️ 8 photos shared 🙂
🎙️ No podcast episode published 😔
📺 No YouTube video published 😔

👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Personal

1️⃣ Compared to last week, I feel a bit more lethargic and tired. As I write this, it's Thursday; I don't feel too inspired. I have not accomplished much yet. I'm wondering if I'll be able to finish this edition. Last weekend, I intended to practice DJing, but I didn't and felt terrible about it. Instead, I chose to work on different creative projects, making no meaningful progress. 2️⃣ I went to see Madonna Saturday night. What a great way to finish the week. I am sharing one of my best pictures of the show below. It was taken using my iPhone 15 Pro Max with the 2x lens. The photo was not reprocessed and was taken during the show segment where Madonna pays tribute to people who died of AIDS. Very touching.

📖 Reading

1️⃣ I read many pieces this week about Apple and the App Store. Apple looks bad, again

“Apple’s brush with bankruptcy may be more than 25 years ago, but the mindset is still there and it comes across very badly” — R. J. Faas in "Apple – You’re not a struggling company anymore so stop acting like it”

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

1️⃣ Sunday afternoon, I wrote a long piece about volunteering for Micro.blog. At first, it didn't get the expected attention, which made me feel bad. It was directed to the team behind Micro.blog. They were busy with their life and didn't see it. I came back on Tuesday and directly tagged the people. This time was different, and many people reacted to it, including Manton and Jean. Now I know why they didn't respond in the first place. This whole little saga means to me that writing is communicating, and it's not always producing the desired results. We have to be patient so that the message gets through. I guess spending time on Micro.blog's help forum and writing post like this one is one way to volunteer? 2️⃣ Matt Birchler asks a great question: when is he going to retire from writing? I'm 56. I don't see the day when I'm going to stop. In fact, I want to write as long as possible. I believe in passions having a positive effect on longevity.

🌄 Photography

1️⃣ If you want to join Glass, use this link to get a small rebate. You'll thank me later. 2️⃣ If you are on Micro.blog and want an easy and efficient way of uploading photos on Micro.blog, consider downloading and configuring this shortcut from Jarrod Blundy. He is the guy who made the shortcut to get Plausible analytics to display on a widget on the iPhone (read my article about this). 3️⃣ GuruShot is still alive and doing quite well apparently. I used to play a lot on this game but stopped after realizing how much time sucker this thing was. The game has evolved since the last time I played, but I prefer spending time sharing my photos on Pixelfed. 4️⃣ According the Marques Brownlee, the iPhone 15 Pro is the best smartphone for photography for 2023. It might be a matter of preferences, but for me, the best camera is the one you've got with you when you need one.

🎙️ Podcasting

1️⃣ After all these years of GarageBand, I still wonder why Apple never created a podcast studio within GarageBand. Apple popularized the podcast, but it seems they missed this opportunity to support the indie podcasters.

🍎 Apple

1️⃣ Apple Vision Pro is going for sale this week. Information coming out from people who tried it in recent weeks lays the ground for mixed success. Great for consuming content (with limited availability of optimized content), no killer app, pricey, heavy. All the ingredients of a version 1.0 product. I wonder how fast Apple will iterate on this product and expand its availability internationally. It will be exciting to read reviews from non-tech pundits. 2️⃣ There is a lot of pushback on Apple's reaction to the new App Store rules allowing developers to direct users to payments outside the App Store. I'm not an expert in these matters. I have difficulty convincing myself to read all the news about Apple's legal challenges. But one thing is clear: developers are angry, and Apple looks bad. Bad enough to tarnish their brand. There is a limit to which you can make developers constantly angry. I don’t know if Apple will ever cross the line, but they should read the room temperature more carefully. 3️⃣ Speaking of Apple. Many were quick to mention that we shouldn't love a company like Apple. Humans should love other humans, not corporations. Apple doesn't love its customers. Why should we love them? It made me think that in fact we can be passionate about Apple (I am) or a hockey team or chasing butterflies, but love is for humans.

“What Apple has done by locking down the platform is far worse than anything Microsoft ever did with Windows.
It hurts users, it hurts developers, and I think it hurts the platform overall. Imagine how much more powerful our pocket computers could be if, for example, the folks at Panic were afforded the freedom necessary to make Transmit and Coda work on iOS.
How many developers gave up on an incredible idea because they knew it would never be approved by Apple, because the business model just wouldn’t work without the ability to sell upgrades, or because it wouldn’t be feasible with Apple taking a 30% cut of the revenue?” — Mike Rockwell on his blog

🚧 Special projects

1️⃣ After watching a video about Apple Reminders’ possibilities, I wondered if I still need Things 3. I mean, Reminders looks like features complete in many ways: Folders, templates, column views, smart lists, tags, link previews, etc. Content presentation is totally different than with Things 3—both are great designs. I do have a small preference for Things 3, but it lacks smart lists and a columns view that can act as a Kanban board. I think I will reproduce all my Things 3 setup in Apple Reminders, run both setups in parallel for a while, and decide which one to keep. I could even create a video about this project once I decided. Saturday afternoon, I discovered one major deal-breaker, though.

📱 Apps & Services

1️⃣ Craft version 2.6.1 came out on Monday but without release notes. We had to wait the next day to get the gist of it. After close to two months of waiting since the last update, how can you not put release notes on the same day? It's beyond me. 2️⃣ I'm testing HyperFocus on the Mac, a utility allowing easy automatic application window placements in a user-defined arrangement. After spending a few moments with the utility, I was perplexed. Stage Manager needs to be disabled, something that I don't want. It's clear users with more than one screen are the target users of this app. I'm running on a 7-day trial period. I'll make my final call at the end of it. 3️⃣ I discovered this video on YouTube about Apple Reminders’ advanced features. This video made me think that Apple Reminders could replace Things 3. I couldn’t see anything in this video that I do with Things 3 that I couldn't do in Reminders. Apple Reminders offers the columns view that Things 3 doesn't offer. Maybe I should consider switching? 4️⃣ The makers of iA Writer are making a physical product: a notebook. Looks really nice. It's a great object in itself. My handwriting is so bad that it would ruin the book, so I'm staying all digital! 5️⃣ 37Signals HEY Calendar is finally available. They circumvent Apple’s stupid rules by introducing a way to browse Apple history, presented in a calendar view if you don't have a HEY account. Clever.

Newsletters

Numeric Citizen Blog

📺 YouTube

1️⃣ Marques Brownlee released a video that really clicked with me as a compulsive creator. I don't consider myself a YouTuber but produced many videos last year. Brownlee shares many analogies to explain what it entails to be a serious YouTuber aiming at success. I really like when he talks about how, during the YouTuber journey, it will go from being a great creator to a great manager if success takes off. Then, highly successful YouTubers become managers, and the creative side takes a back seat. 2️⃣ I was supposed to record my next YouTube video on Saturday morning, but I didn't feel like it. I must be in a particular mood to set up myself for video recordings.

💎 Miscellaneous

1️⃣ I wrote a longer-than-usual post on Micro.blog earlier this week. The subject was about my desire to become a volunteer for Micro.blog itself. The post didn't get any reaction. I was expecting something different. A few days later, I expressed a little sadness about this. This time, I explicitly tagged the two people behind the Micro.blog so that I get the desired attention. They responded, and I shared how busy they were but that they would eventually return to me. So, I will see where it goes. I want to invest some of my time in a project that I believe in. 2️⃣ I continue to spend quite some time reading my Micro.blog timeline and interacting with members of the community. It's a great place to be compared to other digital spaces like X or Facebook. I like it a lot. I would say that I get 20 times more interactions on Micro.blog than I ever had on Twitter. It's priceless.

🔮 Looking ahead

1️⃣ I hope the upcoming week will prove to be a better one. 2️⃣ I plan to make some changes so that The Craft Bible gets more visibility and more people subscribe to it. One thing would be to use a custom domain for it, like “thecraftbible.com” or “the.craftbible.com” or “craftbible.com". I did finally settle on the first option. It's live.

I wish you a great week!

Exhibits 👀

The Roots of My Passion for Apple

Apple has a special place in my life because of my passion for the company, its history and most importantly because I share the same values.

Numeric Citizen SpaceJF Martin