For each video about Micro.blog that I make and share, I lose subscribers.😔 People don’t like the mixing of videos about two different things I guess: Craft & Micro.blog. 🤷‍♂️

This blog post was created, edited and posted using the venerable and excellent MarsEdit text editor. Before switching to Ulysses, MarsEdit was my go-to choice for writing posts of a certain length and complexity because of its simplicity and for supporting posting to Micro.blog.

This blog post was used for recording an upcoming video about apps that I use for posting content on Micro.blog. The video will be published soon on my YouTube channel.

Something that bugs me with Micro.blog. Nothing serious, but still. The questionable sidebar arrangement. Why is Replies at the near bottom? Why not have a “Website” category with Plug-ins + Design inside of it? Why plans not into Account? Why “Feeds” sits inside Accounts? Why not rename “Feeds” to “Digital hub”? I’m just wondering out loud, @manton!

Apple Entering the Journal App Landscape Soon? Hell Yeah, Count Me In!

As reported by the Wall Street Journal (since it’s paywalled, look at MacRumors report instead), Apple is supposedly working on its own journaling application. Code named « Jurassic », many interesting details are emerging from this report.

As an avid user of Dayone (read « Documenting My Numeric Life With Dayone »). , I find the prospect of having Apple entering the journaling apps landscape quite exciting. The idea of using journaling to help users with mental health issues is pretty clever. There is so much information available on our devices from which, I guess, we can infer some mental states. I’m guessing machine learning can be of some tremendous help here. Coupled with Apple’s stance on privacy, this provides a potentially very compelling story for a lot of people. Me included. Yet, some people could find this move to be crossing a line that is not acceptable for them. We will see.

The WSJ story is referring to very specific detailed aspects of the rumoured app. For example, journaling suggestions would be based on call history and iMessage conversations, and be ephemeral. After four week they would vanish from suggestions. I’m guessing this would help automate some aspects of daily journaling.

I asked this question to ChatGPT: « _Is the young generation into journal as much as older generations? _». Here is what it has to say:

_ There is no definitive answer to this question, as attitudes towards journaling can vary widely among individuals of all ages. However, some studies suggest that younger generations may be more likely to engage in forms of expressive writing such as blogging or social media updates, which could be seen as a form of journaling._

The debate might still be out if the youngsters generation is very into the writing journey, but having some part of the journaling automated would alleviate some rebarbative aspects of maintaining a journal.

Can you imagine having the journal app assembling photos, messages, phone calls, geo locations into pre populated journaling suggestions? Wow. I’m really looking forward into that one.

My wife recently told me how she was looking and considering tools like ChatGPT in her work. She considers ChatGPT like having an intern working with her. The intern will do the work she asks, but she knows she will have to give it a critical eye on the results just in case any errors creep in. If using interns in companies, why is ChatGPT not considered at the same level? Open for debate.

I like this intern analogy.