Accenture reportedly laid off over 11,000 employees, citing a lack of demand for workers without the necessary AI skills. Additionally, Accenture warns that further layoffs could occur if remaining employees cannot quickly acquire AI skills in a rapidly evolving world. I believe we should look beyond the headlines and question the real motives. What were the laid-off employees doing? What value did they bring to Accenture’s clients? Or is it simply because there is less demand for consulting services? Is it more appropriate to frame the layoffs as linked to “AI”? If you’re aware of some AI limitations in a complex business environment, where layoffs are supposedly driven by AI replacing workers, I would argue that they didn’t significantly impact the company initially. Alternatively, framing AI as a questionable strategy is a dubious approach. And it’s only the beginning.

Today, I’m completing a four-day course from Microsoft (AS-104 if you are curious). It’s all virtual, of course, through Microsoft Teams, and instructor-led. We’re a group of 50 people from all around the world, primarily from the US, from what I can see. The one fascinating thing is how pushy the instructors are for us to use… Copilot. They use it all the time to answer questions and paste the answers in the group chat. They offer ways to utilize Copilot to prepare for the certification exam. Etc. Copilot is really their assistant, the undergraduate who’s doing the dirty job, the gopher, if you will. The course is so strictly structured and formatted that I’m seeing a future where there won’t be any instructors. Only Copilot. 😳

Journaling and documenting my experiences while travelling has always been something that I wish I could do effectively, without too much friction. I did it in Italy in 2022 using Craft and again this past summer with Apple Journal. Two different kinds of vacations, totally different solutions. I’m still not satisfied with either of these options. Next time, maybe I should consider using the real deal: Day One?

Finished watching the Awe Dropping infomercial from Apple. Quick thoughts. Impressive video production quality as usual. Apple Watch personal stories were touching. iPhone Air (not iPhone 17 Air) looks impressive without too many compromises. This iPhone 17 Pro Orange colour looks gorgeous, can’t wait to see that in person. Am I getting tired of Apple Headquarters shots? The jury is still out on that one. The AirPods Pro 3 is much better than rumours were predicting. I liked the new voice-overs for the iPhone Air design showcase as well as the iPhone 17 Pro. Somewhat similar to Jony Ive’s tone. Unibody for the iPhone 17 Pro, a first. Many features announced today are also available to previous-generation devices (hypertension for Apple Watch Series 11 is also available to Series 10). Cool. Same price as last year’s? Apparently, for a double the starting memory size configuration. Not bad. Who said Apple is greedy? Yet, I’ll probably pass this year and wait for next year. Thanks to Tim Cook’s relationship with some of the US government representatives.

Based on our experience earlier this year with Apple TV as the only way to watch TV content, along with rising costs and an unstable service, we are seriously considering cutting our cable service and keeping only our Internet service. Even though the apps on Apple TV are far from perfect, they generally allow us to replace cable service. Rumors suggest that Apple is working on a new iteration of the Apple TV, which could make the timing even more favorable.

Read later services (Readwise, Pocket, Readwise, Inoreader, etc.), bookmarking apps and services (Anybox, Raindrop, etc.), downloading, summarizing, and tagging—whether used together or separately—the issue remains the same: I rarely revisit content. Content quickly becomes outdated and loses relevance. This pattern reflects a common challenge in digital content management. Despite the ease of saving and organizing information for future reference, the practical use of these saved digital tidbits often diminishes over time. As new information emerges and contexts change, what once seemed valuable or interesting can fade into obscurity, making the effort of saving feel less worthwhile. This raises questions about the effectiveness of these tools and whether they truly serve my long-term informational needs.

We’re getting close to the end of August and moving into September, which means Apple’s usual rush of new product launches. We already know quite a bit about Apple’s upcoming iPhone. We also know that Apple’s unifying Liquid Glass is likely to cause major issues when it encounters hundreds of millions of devices. We can probably expect Apple to be in damage control again. And I’ll probably have to explain why Apple did this to my friends and colleagues.

Usually, around this time of year, I would have one or two articles ready to publish about all this. But not this year. I won’t upgrade to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, even though I normally would every two iPhone generations. I’m voting with my dollars by skipping this year, because I disagree with Tim Cook’s (and Apple’s) stance on the orange clown.

Something is wrong.

One of my rules for using generative AI is to avoid starting a creative project with AI prompts. Today, someone at the office challenged this rule, arguing that beginning with AI can effectively kick-start the creative journey. While that may be true, I prefer to keep the human touch at the center and use AI as a complement to the process. Starting with AI risks making us lazy in the long run.

Here’s a strange and frustrating issue with the Mac App Store on macOS Tahoe: I cannot re-download an app after testing it through TestFlight. This first occurred with Craft, which I tested this summer. When the version I was testing became official, I tried to download it, but the download froze at the end. Quitting the Mac App Store and rebooting my machine did not resolve the problem. Now, I am facing the same issue with Reeder. I tested the beta a few months ago, only to discover that the developer removed the build from TestFlight. When I went to the Mac App Store to download the official version, the download froze again and never completed. Now I’m unable to use an app for which I’m paying for. Submitted a feedback to Apple. Beta6 doesn’t fix the issue. I’m really hoping for a fix soon. See the behavior here.

My Medium membership is up for renewal on August 17th. I returned to Medium last year to share a special set of articles about my potential career pivot to freelancing. I wrote over a dozen articles on this topic, believing Medium was a suitable platform for personal and career-focused content. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Despite following all the SEO tricks, I earned only $1.64 in revenue, which I won’t receive since the minimum payout is $10. 😳 I expected my earnings to at least cover the cost of my Medium membership, but that didn’t happen. I also intended to read more content on the platform, but I didn’t. I thought I would gain more followers, but that didn’t occur either. I understand now that I need to move on¹, ².

Goodbye, Medium. It was one of my numerous experiments³. I’ll keep my account active but won’t write or share anything further.