The Ephemeral Scrapbook — Edition 2025-13

🗺️ Discoveries

1️⃣ I discovered a few weeks ago: Fastmail, a great email service that I switched to from HEY Mail. I shared my experience of switching to Fastmail in this article. If you want to unify all your mailboxes, Fastmail is the best discovery you'll ever make this week! 2️⃣ This article from Informations Architects discusses the gradual shift from traditional, heavily formatted word processing applications like Microsoft Word to simpler, more focused writing tools that utilize Markdown, emphasizing how this change promotes clarity in writing and reduces the distractions of excessive formatting. Speaking of Markdown, check out this online Markdown text editor.

"Why are we sending our kids to a school that looks like a Microsoft ad? To prepare them for the future. Does equipping children with Office tools truly serve this purpose or does it serve the purpose of cementing a life in the products of a software monopolist?" — Informations Architects

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

1️⃣ I wrote an article about privacy and data protection for Apple users. It's a different kind of project, and I shared a behind-the-scene look about it here. Then, I wrote another article following an unexpected refusal to submit an article for Medium. Even with generative AI, writing these days is more complicated than ever, not easier. Don't be fooled. 2️⃣ I’d like to write a new version of “The Rotten Side of Tim Cook’s Apple” following Gruber's piece about something rotten at Apple. I just don't know where to start. 3️⃣ Don't miss my monthly summary on Micro.blog.

🌄 Photography

1️⃣ This article discusses the importance of creating a hierarchical keyword system in Lightroom to enhance image organization and searchability. Photographers can efficiently manage their growing collections by categorizing keywords into parent-child relationships. The principles exposed in this article can apply to any app or service that supports tags. 2️⃣ Celebrating life is probably the best way to describe Lindsay Lee Giroux's work. I found her on Glass while surfing for photographers that don't fall into the usual photographic style category I like the most. Her visual style is colorful, joyful, and authentic. Those are the words that come to my mind when browsing her profile. She also has a beautiful online portfolio. 3️⃣ This video explores how to recreate the nostalgic look of film photography using just an iPhone, without needing a film camera. Using the Moment app for manual controls and RAW shooting, along with ND filters to mimic slower shutter speeds, they embrace imperfections that give photos a more authentic film feel. They edit using Dehancer, an app that simulates classic film stocks and effects like grain and halation, achieving surprisingly convincing results. While they acknowledge that mobile photography can’t fully replace the experience of shooting film, it’s a fun, accessible, and affordable way to capture a similar aesthetic.

Lindsay Lee Giroux on Glass Photography Community

Lindsay Lee Giroux. Monocular Photographer 📷 • Autistic • Mom to 5 • Lightseeker • Storyteller • Timekeeper • Photographing the Authentic, Beauty, & Magic in Every Day ✨

🍎 Apple

1️⃣ A stark warning from an app developer: in “Tim, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” Brian Irace warns that at this rate, it's faster to write an app using generative AI than go through the current App Store approval process. Something is wrong here. I'm getting nervous about Apple these days. 2️⃣ WWDC25 invites are out and look rather uninspiring. I'm not too fond of this glassy look for the “25” portion of the WWDC25. Judge yourself with the artwork below. 3️⃣ Remember Swift Playground? I’ve been wondering how this app could evolve in the context of generative AI. Is it still relevant without any coding assistant based on generative AI? Beyond support for machine learning-related integration, I don't see anything related to generative AI and LLM model integration. Am I missing something? 4️⃣ iOS 19 redesign looks more gorgeous by the leak! 😍 If the project code name is Solarium, it somewhat adds credence to the rumors. The use of the glass material metaphor for the UI also makes sense to me because it goes with the fact that we interact with our devices through the glass surface. 5️⃣ Before we get to iOS 19, we're getting iOS 18.4 (and all other .4 releases) with quite a few new features and tweaks. It's the time of the year when iOS feels the most stable and finished, just two months before the next WWDC. 6️⃣ Apple released iOS 16.7.11 with security fixes for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X. Yep, for iPhone 8 and iPhone X. 7️⃣ iOS 18.5 beta is out; nothing worth calling your mom..

Mac

The most powerful Mac laptops and desktops ever. Supercharged by Apple silicon. MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro.

Apple

🚧 Special projects

1️⃣ I recently finished copying my blog posts from the Craft-hosted documents to Micro.blog. The goal was to reduce my dependence on Craft and better align with open platforms like Micro.blog for hosting and sharing my content. The blog posts can be found here. The efforts were probably too high compared to the content value, but I needed to keep my content publicly available. You never know when something might be useful for someone.

📱 Apps & Services

1️⃣ Inoreader got a big Q1 quarter full of updates, and they said that Q2 will be even more significant. I'm not holding my breath too much. Still, Inoreader received many meaningful updates, making this service even better and more valuable to me. 2️⃣ I’ve been testing ChatGPT's new image generation capabilities, which are based on the 4o model. Compared to Apple’s Image Playground, it is awe-inspiring. I understand that ChatGPT is much less constrained than Apple's solution, which runs on the device, yet why would people waste their time with Apple's solution? I tested this on two images: one is based on my avatar, the other is from an image of Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone. 3️⃣ Craft announced Chaps, a new application that is somewhat hard to describe. It's like a conversational app between you and apps or services. I would have called it Chapps instead for a better and more obvious reference to chat + apps. I'm not sure how useful this will be in my workflow. The demonstrated use cases aren't very enticing to me. I prefer a chat client with my Craft content where I could ask questions like “Show me a list of recently updated documents” or “What is the XYZ document about?”. Also, Craft is a small team, and I hope their development resources are not diluted too much. As I wrote to someone on Reddit, there are still many unfinished and "work-in-progress" things in Craft that need attention. From their announcement: “Think of Chaps as a place to build smart, AI-powered agents each dedicated to a specific area or workflow of your life, helping you simplify tasks and focus on what genuinely matters.”.

📺 YouTube

1️⃣ I’ve been watching "Adolescence" recently, a poignant four-episode Netflix series. One thing that struck me was the filming: all episodes are shot in one continuous sequence. The following YouTube video shows how it was done. Impressive.

💎 Miscellaneous

1️⃣ In a recent blog post, Michael Flarup reflects on the decline of creative freedom in design, particularly following Dribbble's new restrictions that limit designers' ability to showcase their work and connect with clients outside the platform. In case you didn't know, Michael Flarup is a Danish designer and entrepreneur who runs Northplay game studio, Pixelresort design studio, and the Apply Pixels resource platform; known for his expertise in app icon design and as an international keynote speaker. 2️⃣ Are Apple and Google headed in the same direction? The article from Om Malik critiques Google's decline from a once-innovative tech leader to a company plagued by corporate indifference and bureaucratic stagnation, highlighting its struggles to adapt to changing user expectations and competition in the AI landscape. 3️⃣ Apple owes France some money over ATT. That’s too bad. I thought the EU, along with GDPR, was siding with users. It's not the case. Gruber's take on this. Is France going to use that money to finance unforeseen military expenses, thanks to MAGA and Trump, who are saying: fuck you, EU? I don't know, but it won't hurt to get some extra money. 4️⃣ Here’s a great April Fools from Basic Apple Guy.

“AI can produce code that works initially but falls apart under pressure, and only a good developer knows how to turn an AI’s output into something that stands the test of time” — Pete Sena on Medium

🔮 Looking forward

1️⃣ I’ve been busy more than usual in recent weeks, thanks to our home improvement project, which has been ongoing since early January. The dust should start to settle virtually and for real, and I should return to a regular schedule until I leave for a two-week vacation in Europe. 2️⃣ The iPhone 17 Pro mockup is getting more and more detailed. I’ve been a happy owner of the 11 Pro, 13 Pro and now the 15 Pro, but I will skip the 17 Pro for political and economic reasons. Anyway, I'm super happy with my 15 Pro Max; I don't see why I would change.

If you want to see how this newsletter is put together, watch this YouTube video.

I wish you a great week! ✌️ 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 🇪🇺 💪🏻