Numeric Citizen Blog Posts Monthly Digest
Numeric Citizen Blog
Please, would you be kind enough to explain this graph to me (the top portion)?
2025-10-02 ∞
Are there any Craft users here? I’m curious to see if sharing short videos1 about Craft would be of some interest.
-
Micro.blog is soon launching better video hosting; I might take advantage of that instead of YouTube. ↩
I guess I was right to call the Apple Vision Pro a failure in my recent piece on Apple Failures.
2025-10-02 ∞The M4 iPad Pro battery health after 18 month of use and 127 cycle count: 87%. I consider this to be bad. Battery life on this device is not good at all to be frank.
2025-10-04 ∞ Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #1
I just started a one-hour work session with my M4 iPad Pro connected to an external display (LG 5K Ultra Fine) running iPad OS 26.1 beta 1. I should probably update this article I wrote more than a year ago: “Using the iPad With an External Display — Space Oddities”. Let’s see how it goes.
First issue: I started writing this blog post in Micro.blog client. Sadly, Micro.blog’s iPad app is buggy with an external display: I cannot set the blog post category… the little gear icon is missing and iPadOS 26 menus aren’t supported, yet. My fallback plan: Ulysses. Works great. Next step: doing some files management with Files.app using an SMB share on my Synology NAS. Let’s see how it goes. Oh, and ShareShot works… but not without strange visual issues.
2025-10-04 ∞Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #2
Working with Files.app is still very frustrating and unpredictable. For some reason, I cannot drag & drop a file from my iPad downloads folder to a specific folder (on my Synology). The only way to get around this is to go up in the folder hierarchy, drop it there then later move it inside the intended target folder. Also experienced one crash with numerous “Content Unavailable” conditions like shown on this screenshot. So far, no file management done. WTF? Let’s try harder.
2025-10-04 ∞Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #3
Doing serious work on the iPad now feels… exhausting. The efforts that you have to deploy to avoid the too many paper cuts is exhausting. I don’t know who, at Apple, is working on Files.app but the team should get in touch with those who work (if they are still there) on the Mac Finder. I ended up doing many of the files management tasks on… the Mac.
Photomator doesn’t work well with files located on a remote SMB share, apparently. After granting permission to the root folder as requested, Photomator is stacked in a “Processing…” loop. Not good.
2025-10-04 ∞Yesterday night I got one of my macOS feedback answered by Apple. It was about the Mac Appe Store app Reload menu item not being enabled which prevented me to reload and refresh apps with pending updates. It was fixed in macOS 26.1 beta 1. I can’t remember when was the last time one of my feedback reports being processed.
2025-10-04 ∞Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #4
Locking the iPad while the iPad is using an external display is brutal. Dragging an app from the built in display to an external display is also brutal, forcing a full app content redraw, nothing compared to the Mac experience. I couldn’t record the experience with screen recording, so I used my iPhone.
Video 2025-10-04 ∞Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #5
One of the most frustrating and hard-to-understand behaviours in the new iPadOS 26 multitasking is when iPadOS, for some reason, breaks all the running apps and window arrangements. I often find myself in need of relaunching the apps and doing window placement to my liking. Again, iPadOS 26 is exhausting to use. I think this happens if I disconnect the external display. Restoring computing state is a basic principle in UI and UX design. Am I demanding too much?
2025-10-04 ∞The most troubling thing about iPadOS 26.1beta1 is that I don’t see any improvements to Liquid Glass or the general multitasking experience.
2025-10-04 ∞Contrary to their usual bullshit about the App Store, Apple has lost control over it in a sense… The App Store is a junkyard. I find it disheartening to see the current state of the App Store; it is a place where deception has been flourishing for ages. It’s un-Apple.
2025-10-05 ∞Weirdly, Apple Music Replay are web-only…. even when using music.apple.com, Replay is located on a separate website.
2025-10-05 ∞What a beautiful day it is. I had an 11 KM hike today. We touched 30 °C, which is astonishing for October 5th. I mean, this is autumn, guys!
2025-10-05 ∞OpenAI unveiled some impressive developments today at their developer conference, including apps in ChatGPT and Agent Builder. I’m much more impressed by this than by Sora. 👀
2025-10-06 ∞For a few reasons, I’m tempted to subscribe to… The Verge. This would be the first such case of subscribing to a news site. I kind of like the site design and content; there is a community vibe if commenters are any indication. However, even as a subscriber, I may still receive ads served to me. 😑 Anyone subscribing to The Verge here? Thoughts?
2025-10-07 ∞I’m juggling with two options to make Liquid Glass bearable: Reduce Transparency and Display Borders. The latter is a newly discovered option. Moreover, beta 2 of iOS 26.1 seems to include tweaks to Liquid Glass effects and transparency. I’m hoping some YouTubers will highlight those tweaks, if I’m not mistaken.
2025-10-07 ∞
I agree with Eric Schwarz, yep, it’s utterly curious:
2025-10-07 ∞Curiously, I am surprised that the iWork suite, as well as GarageBand, Pixelmator Pro, and other Apple apps have not been updated—it’s a really weird thing when Cupertino’s own have been sent to squircle jail.
As reported by 9to5Mac, AltStore is to support Fediverse with its own Mastodon instance:
AltStore is embracing ActivityPub and the fediverse, with its own Mastodon server, allowing developers and users to have a more direct channel of communication and interaction.
This is, among other things, what we are missing with Apple’s tight control on its App Store.
2025-10-07 ∞It’s sad to see Micro Social being abandoned. Are there other ways? Why not make the source code open source? Or sell it? Can someone take over the development?
2025-10-10 ∞Watched: The Gorge. I don’t watch enough movies, but yesterday I was tempted by The Gorge on Apple TV+. The trailer hinted at a science fiction film with a vibe similar to Silo. Despite an atmosphere that sometimes reminds me of Severance in terms of the soundtrack, the shift toward a romance between the two antagonists was a bit too easy. The environment deep inside this gorge is sometimes surprising and well done, though. I never would have guessed the presence of these… creatures. I don’t want to reveal any more.
2025-10-11 ∞Not only Apple is losing its touch for desktop operating systems, apparently.
2025-10-11 ∞I’m done with the latest edition of The Ephemeral Scrapbook newsletter (Craft-based version). Enjoy. BTW, past editions are available here (Craft-based versions).
2025-10-11 ∞The Illusion of Decline: Apple, Complexity, and the Myth of Falling Quality
Reading The Great Software Quality Collapse by Denis Stetskov reminded me of a recurring conversation in the Apple community: that Apple’s software quality isn’t what it used to be. Every release cycle brings the same chorus—bugs, regressions, performance oddities—and the sense that the polish once synonymous with Apple is fading. But Stetskov’s essay helped me reframe that perception. Modern software isn’t just “worse”; it’s exponentially more complex. Apple now maintains multiple platforms—macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, visionOS—each with deep integrations and overlapping technologies. What once felt like craftsmanship at the scale of a single ecosystem is now a sprawling web of dependencies that even Apple struggles to tame.
So, maybe the cracks we see aren’t evidence of negligence but of scale. Perfection doesn’t scale well. The discipline that Stetskov calls “boring engineering” still exists within Apple, but it’s buried under layers of ambition, abstraction, and velocity. His piece is a reminder that our expectations of elegance must evolve alongside the complexity of what we ask these systems to do. The problem isn’t just that software breaks—it’s that we’ve forgotten how miraculous it is that it works at all.
2025-10-12 ∞If Apple TV+ now becomes Apple TV, how Apple should name Apple TV next generation of hardware?
2025-10-13 ∞TV is hard, and Apple not only never shipped a TV set, but it also never quite figured out the whole Apple TV branding (hardware, software, service). Removing the + from Apple TV won’t help unless something else comes along. I’m betting that Apple will double down on the HomePod brand moniker1.
-
The HomePod TV is a good bet. ↩
It took one question from someone who watched my latest video to realize that I might have rushed that one out a bit. I failed to explain and mention the reasons why I still need an app like Craft while I use Ulysses, another app for writing. 🤦🏻♂️
2025-10-13 ∞iOS 26.1 b3 breaks the folders appearance in a big way if you are using tinted icons. WTF! 🫣😵💫
2025-10-14 ∞As reported by 9to5Mac:
“Apple will be leaning into the vertical stack of Apple TV in Apple TV on Apple TV”
All bets are on the table.
2025-10-14 ∞At work, I moderate a user forum for iOS and iPadOS products. I recently asked community members for their general opinion of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. Although it’s not a scientific survey, the responses I received surprised me. A majority of respondents say they have a generally positive impression of the latest versions of iOS and iPadOS. Well… 🤷🏻♂️
2025-10-14 ∞<script src="https://cdn.micro.blog/quoteback.js"></script>Statistically, nobody cares about Liquid Glass. There has been no user revolt, no viral TikToks, no nothing. Nobody's even complaining about the Music app. On the flipside, nobody is proclaiming its virtues, either. It just kinda… is, and everybody is moving on with their lives.
The only thing anybody seems to care about is transparent & tinted icons — which a certain kind of person seems to *love*
True.
2025-10-15 ∞I’ve just noticed that YouTube appears to offer an “Ask” button for each video, as shown in this screenshot. I tried it twice and found the summary quite clear and helpful. The consequence is profound: I didn’t watch the videos. As someone who creates videos, I’m pondering the implications for my and all other video creators.
2025-10-15 ∞Existential question: I follow a very popular author who writes constantly about Apple. I know he uses a lot of AI-generated artwork. One caught my attention today. Since he didn’t create this artwork himself, am I entitled to copy it and use it without permission? 👀
2025-10-16 ∞Thinking of subscribing to VSCO pro plan. Just for fun. This would be the third photo-sharing service that I use. But it feels so different than Glass and Pixelfed. It’s all about filters!
2025-10-17 ∞I visited a friend this weekend, who had an Amazon Echo Show 8 in his kitchen. Physically, not a bad-looking device, but man, this thing is slow, and Alexia isn’t that good. I’m really curious to see what Apple will do in this space in the coming years. I would probably get such a thing if software execution proves to be better.
2025-10-19 ∞Apple cemetery: Aperture. iWeb. TouchBar. iTunes Ping. iTunes Radio. iTunes. iPhoto. iLife. Clips. I very much like the first two.
2025-10-19 ∞We are not out of the woods but this new Apple Liquid Glass toggle in iOS 26.1 beta 4 makes a significative improvement. We wish we had a more gradual toning, but hey, it’s better than nothing.
2025-10-20 ∞I would be curious to do the exercise of going back in time and counting the number of occasions where Apple, after introducing a significant change in the design of a user interface element or its functionality, following users outcry, reversed its decision by adding a parameter in the Settings app to appease frustrated users. I applaud this change.
Hot Take on ChatGPT Atlas
From the initial download, install up to a few visited websites and prompts. Here’s my hot take. Nice icon. Nice onboarding, but with a few typical sets of questions (default browser, import current bookmarks). Minimalistic browser window. Just like Dia! Another Chromium wrapper? It better be good. I like the integration with ChatGPT and the browser memory. I wonder if it is linked to my ChatGPT memory. It seems yes! I wonder if ChatGPT Atlas could replace the ChatGPT client altogether because all my past conversations are available in a collapsible left sidebar. The integration of ChatGPT’s past conversation, memory, and current browser context seems a powerful combination. Bye-bye, Dia, please, return to developing the ARC Browser. More to come soon.
2025-10-21 ∞Hot Take on ChatGPT Atlas - More Thoughts
The original ChatGPT Mac client is now mostly integrated into this new web browser. Chrome extensions are supported. My use of the Mac client might decrease significantly over time. Having ChatGPT inside the browser has big implications for my reading and information workflows. Processing YouTube videos is easy; everything happens within the same app. Thought: Google’s cautious AI integration in its browser (Gemini) might stem from a fear of conflicting with its business model, which involves tracking users to sell ads. How do you sell ads within AI-generated content? I could try using ChatGPT Atlas as my main desktop browser for a few days to see if it truly makes a difference.
2025-10-21 ∞Using ChatGPT Atlas for my personal browsing activities offers an unexpected plus: at the end of the day I can ask to summarize my browsing activities and group them by subjects and themes. It’s very cool.😎 But is it secure? 👀
2025-10-22 ∞I can’t remember when the last time I visited an Apple Store. This means I didn’t go to see the new iPhone 17 series. Now with the availability of the M5 iPad Pro or M5 MacBook Pro, I might decide to go even if I’m not upgrading any of my things. What’s wrong with me?
2025-10-23 ∞**OpenAI acquired Software Applications Inc **— a startup building an AI-powered user interface for Mac desktops. I’m not to aware of the product that company was building, but I wonder how portable it was. OpenAI is a multi-platform company, so focusing on a Mac-only app is strange. As a Mac user, I’m very curious to what will happen with this.
2025-10-23 ∞In “Creative neglect: What about the apps in Apple?” Joe Rosensteel from SixColors discusses the lack of attention and updates for Apple’s creative apps. Of particular interest to me: Photomator. It didn’t receive meaningful updates since its acquisition. Don’t get me started with the Apple Intelligence support, it’s a gimmick. At the same time, I’m afraid of the Liquid Glass treatment Photomator will eventually get. It’s a strange vibe, not to be excited about any impending updates.
2025-10-23 ∞I’m reading some pushback against ChatGPT Atlas — or, more generally, against browsers that aren’t really web browsers but skins on top of Chromium that enable user behaviour and data collection in novel ways. I’m not sure how I feel about these opinions. For now, the way I’m using ChatGPT Atlas is like ChatGPT client. I don’t use agents. I never will. It’s mostly about content summarization and analysis.
2025-10-24 ∞MCP support is coming soon to Craft. They are taking a more cautious approach than Notion’s. Oh, and APIs are also coming, too. I like that. We will see how things go. So far, it’s fun to play with.
2025-10-25 ∞Why would an Android developer would use Apple’s Swift language now that it’s available for Android? Single code base?
2025-10-26 ∞It appears that Apple will go ahead with paid ads in Maps sometime next year. I’m not happy about this for a few reasons. One is that Apple is becoming… less and less… Apple. Two, I hate ads. I despise the implications behind a platform that supports ads (user tracking, data collection, etc.). I hate the business model behind that, too. I hope that it’s a false rumors, but if recent years are any indication, it’s going to be a thing.
2025-10-27 ∞If ChatGPT could read RSS feeds for summarization and other tricks, it would probably be a game-changer for me. Inoreader offers such a thing, but it’s a paid addition on top of an already rather expensive subscription.
2025-10-27 ∞John Gruber is asking:
But even if Apple is correct about that, at some point, after being handed loss after loss in rulings from courts and regulatory bodies around the globe, shouldn’t they change their strategy and start trying to offer their own concessions, rather than wait for bureaucrat-designed concessions to be forced upon them?
I’m glad he is asking this question. If Gruber is fed up with this attitude, I guess it’s time to think differently, Apple.
2025-10-27 ∞If Apple were to introduce a new MacBook (not in the Air or Pro line), smaller than the 13-inch Air, in the 12-inch range, with an iPhone-class processor, I would probably buy one. Why? Because for me, having an ultra-portable yet powerful macOS-based machine for travelling would be a killer.
2025-10-30 ∞ChatGPT Atlas is for?
I’ve been testing the ChatGPT Atlas browser heavily in recent days. It’s already controversial, but I’m in the camp that likes it. Of course, this is Chromium with a ChatGPT button bolted on. But that’s the point: helping eliminate app switching that I was constantly doing anyway. Of course, it’s not the real web experience, but who said OpenAI was pretending to offer the classic web as we’ve known it over the last 30 years? Those years are already behind us, you like it or not. One thing I do is summarize my browsing activities, focusing on reading my RSS feeds in Inoreader. It’s very impressively done, complete with a back link to each Inoreader article. I’m not using, and don’t plan to use, agentic browsing activities due to their apparent lack of maturity and highly questionable security issues.
Speaking of Inoreader: the service allows you to summarize a bunch of selected articles using AI, but it’s an extra that costs more! With ChatGPT Atlas, a simple prompt while browsing an RSS feed or a group of RSS feeds does the job wonderfully.
More to come soon.
2025-10-30 ∞I hate creating Shortcuts in Apple Shortcuts. There is no easy way to debug this shit. No quick start for anything. It’s not fun at all. There, I said it (again).
2025-10-30 ∞Building a 'Relationship' With Corporations
I tend to be super loyal. I’ve been an Apple fan forever (read “The Roots of my Passion for Apple”), even though there are things that put me off (too many to list here). The same is slowly happening with OpenAI. I’ve tested alternative services but always come back to OpenAI’s offerings. They’re far from perfect—just like Apple—both from a corporate point of view and in terms of products and services. And yet, I’m increasingly hooked on ChatGPT, Atlas, and their LLM “personality.” The conversation memory in ChatGPT and the browser memories are helping build this relationship on the knowledge OpenAI is slowly building on me. It’s scary.
2025-10-31 ∞Apple’s strong quarter in services revenue shows that people are willing to pay for additional storage, among other things. I don’t think Apple will feel the need to increase the free storage tier beyond 5 GB anytime soon.
2025-10-31 ∞I experimented with a few agentic prompts using ChatGPT Atlas browser on my Micro.blog timeline. I asked it to list my posts for the day. It took only 17 seconds, and voila! It’s quite impressive when it functions correctly.
2025-10-31 ∞I just rewatched Thriller, like I do every year on Halloween. What a great music video! Everything is in there: music, storytelling, special effects, dance, great décor, and a good ending. Pure and genuine entertainment.
2025-10-31 ∞Just pushed an update to the Projects section on my personal landing page.
2025-11-01 ∞