Numeric Citizen Blog

CIOs ready for another role-change as AI becomes agent of chaos — The Register

As software generates software and autonomous agents execute work, the CIO’s center of gravity shifts from building systems to governing outcomes.

We’ve been delegating so much stuff in the last 10-15 years… like moving the on-prem data centers to cloud providers… transforming manager’s roles from hardware acquisition and planning to contractual surveillance, FinOps, etc. AI will accelerate this but in a new direction.

While reviewing my list of potential tech purchases, I found that the Rodecaster Video now has a new variant: the S model. It is more affordable but still retains most features, with fewer inputs and outputs that are still sufficient for my potential needs. The key question is: do I actually need it? Would purchasing this device allow me to resume producing YouTube videos?

Apple Stops Selling Mac Mini With 256GB of Storage, Starting Price Rises to $799 — MacRumors

Apple has removed the 256GB storage option for Mac mini worldwide, raising the starting price from $599 to $799.

While this move might be seen as greedy, it probably helps Apple dedicate assembly-line resources to building more capable Mac minis, which are in high demand.

Feeling Tired of Apple Keynote?

Since I started making YouTube videos, I’ve used Apple Keynote to design all my thumbnails because I found it approachable, easy to work with, and capable of helping me quickly create acceptable designs. However, this morning I feel that my approach needs reevaluation. I briefly tried Canva, but the free version is too restrictive, and I dislike software with constant subscription prompts, as if I’m using a demo. I also thought about Acorn, but it never really resonated with me. For now, I plan to stick with Keynote unless someone suggests a better alternative I haven’t considered.

Give It a Title or Not? That Is the Question

I’m still uncertain about whether I should include titles for my blog posts here. Do all posts need a title? Why do some have titles while others might not? It seems that the unwritten guideline is that long posts should have titles, whereas short ones might not require them. I like titles because they better define each post, either on the timeline or in a blog post digest. Your thoughts?

Apple Watch Face Store?

watchOS 27 to Offer New Watch Faces, Including ‘Modular Ultra’ Variant — MacRumors

Apple is testing multiple new faces for watchOS 27, code-named “Orchid,” with one being a “simplified take” on the Modular Ultra design.

When is Apple going to introduce a Watch Face Store? Will Apple ever do this? Beyond Apple Watch Apps, it seems Apple is missing an opportunity to make even more money, even if it is open to a select few Watch Face developers and designers…

On Micro.blog's Blog Post Title Handling

When using Micro.blog, if a blog post has a title, once cross-posted to Bluesky (and probably Mastodon), only the title is included, with a link to the original post. If I want to include a teaser, I need to generate a text summary of the blog post that will be included in the cross-posted content. If my blog post includes an image, that image will appear, too. All this to say: I’m going to include a post title as often as possible and have a post summary generated. This blog post was more or less a test. Now returning to normal programming. Thank you for your attention to that matter.

Here is the blog post on Bluesky.

Come On Apple, Take It!

Manton Reece is struggling with Apple’s efforts to publish Inkwell on the App Store. He shared some details about his recent difficult experience, and I hope he will reveal more once the app is available.

The state of the App Store is astonishing, in a bad way. I recently spent a few minutes browsing the Mac App Store to find an iPhone app and check its compatibility on a Mac. The number of poorly made apps is incredible. It appears Apple no longer recognizes when an app is genuinely well-designed and serves a real purpose.

I use the TestFlight version of Inkwell every day.

Read The Fuckin Manual!

I received this device yesterday and started experimenting with it. As someone with limited experience in video production, I find it a bit intimidating to learn and use. I tend to skip reading the manual on my first use, which is usually a good test of a device’s design. A well-designed device shouldn’t need a manual, but in this case, it does.

One surprising aspect is that while there is an online documentation, it lacks depth. Specifically, it would be helpful to have a range of production setups, from simple to complex, along with descriptions for each configuration.

I plan to use the mixer with my Mac mini (for recording my screen), my iPhone (to record myself), an external Samsung T5 SSD (for ISO recording output), my Bose QuietComfort headphones, and my RODE WirelessME pic. I might add another video input, such as my Nikon Zf or my Logitech BRIO webcam, and use my iPad as an external display.

On Mac SKUs Optimization

Apple Cuts More Mac Studio and Mac Mini RAM Options as Memory Shortage Worsens — MacRumors

Apple has removed more desktop Macs from its online store as the global memory shortage continues. Mac mini models with 32GB and 64GB of RAM are no longer available for purchase, nor is the M3 Ultra Mac Studio with 256GB RAM.

While some RAM configurations were removed, I find it surprising that you still can configure your Mac with up to 16 TB of storage, another electronic component that is becoming scarce. Apple is, in fact, reducing CPU SKUs¹, but might also reduce storage options in the future.

AirPods Ultra?

AirPods Pro With AI Cameras Reach ‘Advanced’ Testing Stage — MacRumors

The AirPods Pro will have built-in cameras that will feed visual information about the wearer’s surroundings to Siri. While there will be a longer stem for the camera in each AirPod, the device will otherwise look similar to the AirPods Pro 3.

I would take an AirPods upgrade over any pendant-like device for augmented reality with AI twists. I feel this is more socially acceptable than a pendant.

Enjoying Stable Apple OSes?

It’s the time of the year where Apple’s operating systems are the most stable, right before the next WWDC edition. But, really, this year, it is the case? I’m not so sure. As of today, I see bugs in every OSes that Apple didn’t fix since their dot zero release. I home Apple will change course in 2026.

The RODECaster Video: A Downgrade?

Another morning spent digging into RODEcaster Video S setup and configuration. I’m starting to get a better picture of what this device will help me improve, but also what I’m leaving behind if I drop Mac-only video production. One example is the lack of flexibility in dynamically framing the Mac desktop to hide or show the Mac menu bar. High-resolution video recording (4K @ 60 FPS) is also something I must leave behind when using the RODECaster Video; it’s not a surprise, but a reality check.

An Update About Me

Just in case you didn’t know, I maintain an extensive “Who Is Numeric Citizen” page, built with Realmac Software Elements and hosted on their hosting service, Elements IO.

In recent days, I made a lot of tweaks and updated some details about me and my digital journey. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I guess it’s reflecting what I’m doing online! 😜

Sometimes I wonder if it is a good practice to put so many details about myself online. In the age of AI, I can imagine bad actors using AI and this website to build malicious impersonation tools.

Apple, Copy This!

Bauhaus Clock for iPhone and iPad:

Bauhaus Clock for iPhone and iPad is a design-first, utility-second sort of app. It’s simple, doing nothing more than tell the time in one or two locations. But how it tells the time — with its gasp-worthy combination of visual, haptics, and audio features — make it one of those delightful apps you’ll love to have on your device.

I wish Apple offered more stylish and easy-to-read watch faces for the Apple Watch. While the hardware has been lagging a bit, perhaps Apple could improve the watch experience through a better time-reading experience.

Where is the right balance?

The pace at which I prepare and send my newsletter is slower than I would like. The attractiveness of this newsletter is probably affected by that. So I get anxious about it. Conversely, if I were very consistent, my newsletter could become much more popular. In that case, I would probably also feel anxious, thinking I need to maintain this high publishing rate. There must be a right balance, where anxiety doesn’t rear its head.

Test Micro.blog Native App

This is a test blog post from the Micro.blog app for Mac. This nifty 5 MB app, which is rather extremely small by today’s standards, keeps slowly but surely improving. Now returning to normal programming.

Open Web + People = ?

Reddit Starts Blocking Mobile Website, Pushing Users to App Instead:

Social network Reddit recently began blocking mobile visitors to its website while pushing them to download the official Reddit app, and it’s fair to say that the move is not going down well with users.

Two things come to my mind about how Reddit was even possible in the early days: the open web and people. Now, Reddit put the first part of the equation in the trash. The second part might already be happening, thanks to AI.

iOS 26.6 Betas: No Thank You

Dear Apple, I don’t want to see a new round of betas, skip iOS 26.6 entirely, and focus all your energy on iOS 27. Since iOS 26.0, I’ve seen many bugs that are still not fixed, nine months later, so I guess iOS 26.6 won’t do it either. I don’t know why some glaring bugs are still among us, poor iPhone users, but it is what it is. I hope that pouring all your efforts into iOS 27 might be the best strategy if coupled with a maturing use of AI to help your engineers in their journey. Who knows. 😑

I Want To Beleive But... No, I Can't.

Meta AI App Gets ‘Incognito Chat’ as OpenAI Faces Lawsuits Over Stored Chat Logs:

Zuckerberg also said that Meta AI’s incognito mode is the first major AI product where there is no log of conversations stored on servers. Zuckerberg likened the feature to end-to-end encryption, and said no one will be able to read the AI conversations, not even Meta or WhatsApp.

There is nothing incognito in Meta. I don’t believe him. Do you?

Who Wants To Pay Fees In a Commodity Market?

Apple Working on Plan to Allow AI Agent Apps on the App Store:

Some developers are hesitant to work with Apple to integrate their apps into ‌Siri‌ because they are worried about providing new ways for Apple to collect commissions. Apple is telling some developers that it does not plan to charge commissions during the early stages of the partnership, but that fees are a possibility in the future. Apple has held talks with Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent about ‌Siri‌ integration in ‌iOS 27‌, but the companies do not want to end up paying fees to Apple.

In the early days of the App Store, every developer aspired to be part of it because it was the ultimate platform. Today, the difference is stark and disheartening. I hope some people at Apple recognize that something is amiss. Developer adoption of the Apple Vision Pro has been hesitant, mainly due to concerns about the market size. This is an area where Apple could improve by adopting new strategies. Fees and potential fees are major obstacles that Apple can easily control or eliminate, and doing so could significantly boost perceived value.

Can't Make It Work

I’ve been trying to make Claude Code work with Chrome for development purposes and failed miserably. I’m doing all the required setup, and no, nothing seems to work. Claude Code isn’t able to preview changes on my local browser. Is it because it doesn’t support the ARC Browser? I tested Codex, and it worked right from the bat! Mmmm.

I'm a Loyal Guy

Now that I am comfortable with Claude Code and the Anthropic ecosystem, I find it difficult to switch and explore Codex for developing a new web application. I know I will eventually do it, but I tend to be loyal to a platform if possible.

Really?

Apple has won a prestigious award for iOS 26’s Liquid Glass design — 9to5Mac

The ADC (Art Directors Club) Annual Awards have recognized iOS 26’s Liquid Glass design with four honors, including a prestigious Gold Cube in the category of Interactive / UX / UI.

There is something that I don’t get.

Cancelling Apple Shortcuts

This morning, I tidied up my to-do list. Most of my ideas or projects involving Apple Shortcuts are now cancelled because I found alternatives using Claude AI. That’s a rather positive, as I never really embraced the Shortcuts mindset.

My First ChatGPT Ads! YEAH! 😑

This morning, while chatting with ChatGPT to learn how to block access to one of my websites for a specific country (Russia, for example), I got my first ads in ChatGPT since I’m on the free tier. How cool is that?

Side note: I’m considering blocking access to my websites for specific hostile countries and replacing the content with a “GTFO” page. Yep, I’m like that. 💪🏻👊🏻 I’m still trying to figure that out because using DNS Proxy on Cloudflare is discouraged by Ghost and many other hosting services.

The end of the App Store as we know it?

Apple is blocking AI coding apps because its entire review model assumes software holds still — but AI-generated apps dissolve that assumption entirely. The real conflict isn’t regulatory; it’s ontological. The infrastructure built around static software artifacts — version numbers, review queues, bug reports — wasn’t designed for code that generates itself at runtime.

It’s fascinating, even fun, to watch models evolve and being challenged like this.

On Apple AI Chat Beta

iOS 27: Dedicated Siri App to Include Auto-Deleting Chats Feature:

Apple in iOS 27 will include an enhanced Siri with a dedicated app that gives users options to keep conversations in memory for a limited time, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

Clearly, Gurman knows someone at Apple willing to share secret information about the upcoming AI chat app. We’re getting a pretty well-formed idea of what Apple is brewing behind closed doors. I’m looking forward to seeing how Apple will tackle memory management, if they ever decide to expose that portion to the users. Also, will the AI chat support the share extension for uploading images or sharing a website for summarization? All the types of things that we take for granted these days.

Internet in 2026: Closed Platforms

I experimented this weekend with the YouTube APIs to realize how much the platform limits the exposure of its features. It’s a shame and reflects what the internet has become nowadays: a collection of private gardens.

Above all that, the setup of the APIs in Google Cloud seems obscure and unintuitive to me. Luckily, I always have Claude AI nearby to help me.

Playing With The Digital World

Since last year, I’ve been tracking my daily creative activities using Craft Daily Notes. Today, I tried out Claude AI and asked it to create a visual timeline for a specific day (yesterday in this case). Pretty interesting, isn’t it? Useful? I’m uncertain. I enjoy experimenting with digital tools and AI; it really elevates the experience. The challenge is to automate this and have a consistent format from day to day.

I Love Dashboards

Continuing my experiment with using my Craft Daily notes, I discovered and experimented with Claude Cowork Live Artifacts. These are interactive HTML-based dashboards that can be automatically updated on a schedule or on demand. This one is built using the Craft Daily notes data and presented inside Claude Cowork. I already have a big dashboard that I have created and hosted on Vercel, so it’s a different approach, a much more expensive approach because Claude Cowork consumes tokens after each update.

Seizing Triggers to Reconsider

I struggle with my current AI usage because I frequently reach my token limit¹. I see two options: upgrade to a bigger plan² or use the limit as a signal to shift my approach—try something different or adopt a new strategy in real-time. A few years back, I didn’t rely on AI at all for my creative work. Now, with AI’s vast potential, I have found new creative possibilities that depend on it, so it’s hard not to upgrade or buy more.

AI Data Centers Are Deeply Unpopular, Across the Political Spectrum, John Gruber’s comment:

It’s hard to overstate how unpopular this polling paints AI data centers. It’s just an absolute messaging and marketing disaster for the entire tech industry.

In case you missed it: I’ve been working in IT and data center-related tech and projects for more than three decades. Not all data centers are meant to host AI-related stuff. But the trend is clear: it’s becoming harder and harder to find general-purpose data centers… why? Because hosting AI is much more profitable per square-foot. Like Gruber said: Money talks.

AI-Powered Title Suggestions Are Now Built Into My Micro.blog Editor

I made a small but useful improvement to my Micro.blog frontend: I added a Suggest Title option right to the title field. The prompt sent to Antropic’s cheapest model is:

Suggest a short, compelling blog post title for the following content. Reply with only the title, no quotes, no explanation.

This blog post was created to test the feature. Worked on the first try.

Shortcuts AI

iOS 27 to Let Users Generate Wallpapers and Build Shortcuts With AI — MacRumors

Bloomberg says the Shortcuts app has a prompt that says “What do you want your shortcut to do?” with a text field to enter a description. Shortcuts that are created using AI are then automatically installed and immediately available for use.

If true, I can’t wait to try it out! Shortcuts are out of reach for me. Too complicated, bad editing experience. With AI, this could flip the table and make them usable for me!

Bye Bye Grammarly?

Apple Expanding AI Writing Tools With Grammar Checker in iOS 27:

Apple is planning to introduce a dedicated AI grammar checker for Writing Tools that will work like Grammarly. When writing in Messages, Mail, and other apps there will be a translucent menu that slides up from the bottom of the iPhone’s screen, and it will show suggested revisions next to the original written text.

I feel Grammarly is a hack and offers spotty integration with apps like Craft. For something like writing and text editing, Apple has always been ahead of the pack compared to Windows. It’s time for a complete system-level solution.

When Does Using Tools Become Laziness?

Yesterday, I was criticized for adding an AI-powered feature to my Microblog frontend. It was suggested that, since AI can generate blog post titles, I might appear lazy. I explained that I’m not a native English speaker and sometimes need help with writing. Is that really wrong? For those using spell checkers and grammar checkers, are they lazy, too? At what point do the tools we choose to develop and utilize indicate our laziness?

The Irony of the App Store

Why is Inkwell stuck in review:

I submitted Inkwell for iOS to Apple for review on April 21st. It has gone through numerous rejections, code changes, resubmissions, clarifications, one phone call, and one appeal to the review board, which I’m still waiting to hear back on.

What a bizarre yet expected journey for a small developer trying hard to secure a little place in the App Store sun. I wish Manton a sooner-than-later resolution to this matter. It would be sad to see such a nice, little, and useful app not make it to the App Store. An app that can exist because of the open web, but can hardly live on a closed platform. How ironic. 😔

Where Life & Tech Collide

I have some personal news to share.

Yesterday, my wife had a bike accident that broke her jawbone, among other injuries. She’s currently undergoing surgery, and the next few weeks will be challenging for her.

Here’s what happened:

We usually bike to work. As we were leaving the bike lane, we parted ways to head to our offices. When I arrived at my office, I received an SOS notification on my watch and iPhone. Apparently, she had hit something hard. I tried to call her back, but she couldn’t speak. I assured her I’d go back and pick her up. Using Find My, I discovered she was only 400 meters away from my office. The ambulance eventually arrived because her iPhone automatically called 911. She was quickly taken to the nearest emergency room for examination and treatment. Thankfully, she’s doing well.

Thanks to the iPhone, Apple Watch, and our mutual emergency contact setup, I was immediately notified of the accident and needed to come to her aid. It’s a testament to the power of technology when used responsibly.

Doctors Surprising Practice: Texting X-Rays Using WhatsApp

Our healthcare system does miracles, but it also relies on practices that are sometimes questionable.

Yesterday, when I went to pick up my wife from the hospital after her jaw surgery, she needed to have one last X-ray. The device is the same as at a dentist’s office, with a rotating head that can turn 360 degrees around the patient’s head. This device is connected to a PC running imaging software. Once the X-ray was taken, the doctor examined it and decided to share it with a remote specialist for a second opinion. The method used was quite surprising.

The doctor started Chrome, opened WhatsApp Web, and authenticated with his WhatsApp account on his personal phone. Then? He took a screenshot of the X-ray using Windows’ utility and sent it in a WhatsApp chat with his colleague. It’s an unusual procedure, but it stems from a flaw in the medical imaging software: the lack of a secure messaging feature. Is this approach approved? I doubt it, but I can’t blame the doctor. His action allowed all of us to save time. And what about the quality of the image on the other end? Using the Windows screenshow utility is certainly not the best way to share a detailed view of my wife’s jawbone.

Oh, and another surprise: the PC had a label with a password written on it to enable a recovery function in case of problems. I thought this practice was outdated. Apparently not.

Using AI to Capture My Next iPhone Upgrade Story?

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be upgrading my aging iPhone 15 Pro Max to the iPhone 18 Pro Max this coming September. For each upgrade, when I upgraded to the iPhone 13 Pro, and then to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, I wrote a personal take. Both are quite different, and I’d like to put another one this year. The big difference: the place AI could take to help me put this together. I have all summer to think about this. And I know what some people might be thinking about those who use AI and write about using AI to do their things.

Now That Google Broke Its Promise to the Web, What's Next?

In “Google Betrayed the web”, Mike Elgan argues that Google has broken the foundational “Grand Bargain” of the internet—trading traffic to content creators in exchange for indexing their content. Google now uses creator content to train AI models and serves answers directly to users, bypassing the original sources. This shift eliminates referral traffic to publishers and independent sites while allowing Google to profit from their work twice over. Elgan calls for a post-Google internet as a response to this betrayal. His response centers on Google’s alternatives: Kagi, Perplexity, Fastmail, and Antropic. All alternatives that I personally use, except Perplexity.

Other Browsers Keep Disappointing Me

From time to time, I open a different browser to see if I’m missing anything. I tried the Dia Browser again, but I still don’t quite like it. I feel unsure about it. Its design doesn’t appeal to me, and it seems slower than the ARC Browser. My default choice remains Apple Safari. Oh, I want to like the Zen browser, but I don’t like it to be based on Firefox.

Burning Tokens

So far so good with OpenAI Codex. I prefer Claude Code’s look and feel, but Codex seems more like something Microsoft would build: plain, without soul. My data model is completed and implemented in AirTable. The basic web UI is running, but is lacking many basic operations like create, update, and delete for tasks, projects, etc. It took me less than two hours to deplete my token allotment. It’s a slower rate than with Claude Code… but still, it’s quickly gone.

WordPress 7 shipped with new AI features, where are they hiding?:

The latest version of WordPress (WP), seven, which shipped a few days ago, comes with, according to the accompanying release notes/marketing copy, a number of AI features.

I’m yet to see even one of these, despite installing version seven last week now. The only noticeable difference I can discern — to date — is a change in some of the hyperlink colours on the dashboard.

Not that I’m looking forward to it, but Ghost still doesn’t have any AI-related features.

Making Progress

Well, well, well, it seems to be happening much quicker than originally thought. I’m about 70% done with this already! I still like Claude Code more, but Codex is more efficient at testing the UI in its browser than Claude Code. And the in-browser cursor, which is 100% independant than the Mac cursor, is super cool to see in action.

Switching DB Backend Easily

After largely completing the transition from Things.app to a version built with vibe coding on Next.js and hosted on Vercel, I decided to switch from Airtable to a Postgres backend. The free-tier on Airtable only allows 1000 public API calls, which wasn’t sufficient. To avoid hitting this cap constantly, I, with the help of Codex, migrated to a Postgres database called Neon, available through Vercel’s marketplace. I already use Neon for my bookmarking web app, so the change was quite smooth. I didn’t need to move any data since I am still in the late development phase. Now returning to other fine-tuning tasks.

You know Apple created chaos when Apple Publishes Document to Help Users Tell Creator Studio Apps Apart. 🤔🤦🏻‍♂️

Daydreaming All The Time

While moving my tasks out of Things 3, I noticed that many possible projects or tasks were really just daydreams. Migration is an ideal opportunity to reevaluate everything with a fresh perspective. Then, the new digital home will host a new set of daydreaming projects and tasks that I’ll revisit with a smile and kill right off the bat.

I'm Done With Things

It took me the drive, Codex and Claude Code, four days, and voilà! Things 3 is now a thing of the past; I’m using a perfect-for-me custom-built task manager web application running on Vercel/Neon. Things 4 might go subscription-only; I don’t care.

So Many Questions, Still So Few Answers

Report: Apple Plans to Make On-Device AI a Key WWDC Focus:

The arrangement represents a noticeable departure from Apple’s original Apple Intelligence announcement, in which the company said all cloud-bound queries would be handled exclusively by its own Private Cloud Compute infrastructure running on Apple silicon. Apple is likely to retain the Private Cloud Compute branding despite the change, people familiar with the partnership told The Information.

There is much left unanswered in this article. How much of Private Cloud Compute is in use today and for what purpose? How much of this capacity will be running the new Apple Intelligence? Will Apple expand PCC into Google’s datacenters? If so, what is Apple’s own infrastructure going to serve? And how much of an improvement can we expect to run local models on our devices compared to the original Apple Intelligence model?

Melius’ Ben Reitzes raises price target on Apple to $385 — Asymco

An agentic version of Siri could boost 2030 revenue by as much as $65 billion, Wamsi and his team estimated, adding up to $2 billion in incremental earnings over the next four years.

Siri+. I hope Apple don’t read his blog.

Still Looking for the Killer App

iOS 27 might convince a lot of people to upgrade to a new iPhone — 9to5Mac

Before now, Apple Intelligence arguably hasn’t provided enough reason to motivate upgrades for most users, but in iOS 27, that could very well change.

Unless Apple hits a home run with this year’s Apple Intelligence upgrade, I tend to think that we overestimate the attractiveness of AI for ‘ordinary’ iPhone users.

Food for Thought on a Rainy Friday

What if, as soon as we shared content on the Internet, you couldn’t remove it as soon as someone was referring to it or embedded it in some other content? I’m thinking about the open web here… would this hypothetical web be called the open web anyway? Would we be more intentional when sharing content having this rule baked in? This chain of thoughts was triggered when I came across a website with a blog post with some embedded content from YouTube. Some videos were no longer available and made the blog post more or less diminished.

Archiving Micro.blog Bookmarks

I just completed a new workflow: automatically saving new bookmarks stored on Micro.blog to my custom-built bookmark manager web app running on Vercel. Since Micro.blog doesn’t support webhook calls, I had to resort to a scheduled n8n workflow that pulls any newly saved bookmarks via Micro.blog APIs and saves each one using a new API route on my bookmark manager web app on Vercel. It’s much more efficient than asking Claude AI to do this using a skill (which was working perfectly, by the way) to save into a Craft Collection block entry.

Under the Hood

I don’t remember the last time I built a full automation workflow from the ground up in n8n, thanks to Claude AI and MCP support. I started manually before knowing n8n had MCP support integrated, which makes me feel more competent in understanding what’s going on. It reminds me of when I bought an iPad touch so that I could learn to build apps with Objective-C and Xcode; I like to understand what’s going on under the hood, in the digital world, at least.

My Reading Workflow Revealed

I’m getting there… by myself. I’m finally getting the reading workflow and tools that I always dreamed of. It might sound complex, but it isn’t. I can start at any reading circle level; no need to go with the smallest one (my blog roll). Seventy percent of the time is now spent in Ink⋅well. More to come.

Disconnecting for a Short While

Taking a short break today for a 50 KM bike ride around Montreal Island. The expected weather is cloudy and rather cold, at 12C, with a 40% chance of scattered showers. I wished for better weather, but hey… could be much worse. Have a great day. 🚴🏻‍♂️

On Apple's Next Disruption

Apple AI glasses launch pushed back to late 2027, Vision Air to arrive by 2029: report — 9to5Mac

Apple believes it has a massive opportunity here in the eyewear space, and wants to potentially capture billions of people who depend on prescription glasses, casually wear sunglasses, or use glasses as a fashion accessory.

Until Apple released the iPhone, wireless providers dictated everything about the buying experience, but Apple sidelined them. Could Apple repeat a similar tour de force with prescription glasses? Imagine getting your prescription, then heading to the Apple Store to pick up your smart glasses. I do see this as Apple’s next disruption. Really.

Is Apple Really Working on iOS... 28?

If this year’s OS releases are Apple’s way of fixing its software, do these rumors still make sense if work has already started on next year’s major updates? How can Apple manage to do both and maintain them simultaneously? I understand that some features take months or even years to develop, but this doesn’t seem to fit with the rumors. Alternatively, the rumors might just be reflecting common expectations.

The Solution Was to Double Down on my AI Subscription

Since reading David’s article, “the solution might be cancelling my AI subscription”, I cannot stop thinking about how different our experiences are.

Six months ago, right before subscribing to Anthropic’s Claude AI, none of the following custom-built apps existed: a useful, personally fitting bookmark manager; a purpose-built RSS reader that works hand in hand with my bookmark manager; and a simplified task manager that also works in conjunction with the other two. As an experienced user of many RSS readers, bookmark managers, and task managers, knowing my friction points with these apps, I have always dreamed of what would be perfect-for-me versions of them. So I built those, one by one.

Thanks to Claude Code and my vision for what would make the perfect versions of each of these apps, I could build them without being constrained by not knowing Next.js, TypeScript, CSS, etc. I don’t plan to make commercial versions of these nor open-source them. There are a few, and I can tweak them as I see fit and as my needs evolve; this is where I’ll keep focusing. AI empowered me and will continue to do.

You see, the solution for me is to keep iterating and keep my subscription. Two different stories, two different outcomes. Maybe there is something that I didn’t catch in David’s experience.