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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Feeling Good

I feel like I’ve reached a stage where I’ve completed all the projects aimed at improving my digital ecosystem. The native apps I wanted to replace have been replaced, and the new apps perfectly suited to my wishes are now a reality. I’m entering a stage of sporadic fine-tuning. It’s sometimes satisfying not to always have to work on the toolbox and instead simply be in a mode of using these tools.

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.

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.