One of my first-gen HomePods is slowly dying.¹😔

I’ve been working with Apple Shortcuts editor recently1, on my iPhone and on my iPad, and boy, what a shocking experience! This editor is nearly unworkable, thanks to scrolling sluggishness, object ordering bugs, object variables becoming empty, constant freezes, keyboard masking input fields, changes not being saved and plain and simple editor crashes. 😤 What is happening with this, Apple?2 I can’t believe Viticci is able to endure this for all his work around shortcuts. Continue reading →

My theory about what happened at Humane…

Founders pitch investors on a hand laser thing when it’s a napkin sketch. They raise too much money, hire too many people.

They build a prototype, but too late. Turns out the laser UI sucks and eats too much battery.

“Hmm. Investors are shopping for AI companies now… voice uses less power… pivot to AI!”

Suddenly tech has a downturn. Can’t raise another round of funding. They launch an alpha.

They know it’s doomed. It’s an advertisement for acquirers.

Sounds like a plan.

I’m working on something related to using AI in my creative work. I came up with this. AI is used through these front-end clients within my creative workflows: - ChatGPT website - Raycast AI Chat - MidJourney - Whisper - Micro.blog podcast episode transcription - Audio Hijack Transcription block - Kagi Summarize Results, Summary Document, Ask Questions - Craft Assistant - Grammarly And I expect this list to grow in the coming months. Continue reading →

👉🏻 One quick question for my followers or readers: for those using AI (often or not), did you think of any usage rules that could form your ethical view on AI in your work or personal life? Would you mind sharing those rules with me? I’ll start with one of mine: Use AI on non-controversial subjects.

Following the episode (#097) of Hemispheric Views, it’s my turn, I guess, with a little twist for the post title. 😜 ✉️ Mail Client: HEY mail 📨 Mail Server: HEY mail + iCloud Custom Email Domain 📝 Notes: Craft + Apple Notes ✅ To-Do: Things 3 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app + Halide.app (for travel) 📚 Photo Management: Photos.app + Adobe Cloud 🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app (Personal Life) + Fantastical.app (Work Life) 🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud 📰 RSS: Reeder connected to Inoreader 📇 Contacts: Contacts 🕸️ Browser: Safari (more and more using Kagi for searching) 💬 Chat: iMessage (WhatsApp when abroad) 🔖 Bookmarks: AnyBox 👓 Read It Later: Omnivore 📜 Word Processing: Ulysses 📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers 🛝 Presentations: Keynote 🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders 🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None 💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Numbers 🗞️ News: La Presse (Apple News for English news) 🎶 Music: Apple Music 🎧 Podcasts: PocketCast 🔐 Password Management: iCloud Keychain (also 1Password, I should merge with default) Continue reading →

Ok, I may be late to the Mac automation party, but Keyboard Maestro is really nice and powerful. And approachable. It’s an almost instant buy me! ¹ It’s super handy to automate portions of my newsletter creation and many tasks in Craft, too!

And here is the next edition (2023/44) of my weekly creative summary. The newsletter edition is coming out later today by email! Enjoy. 😅

I recently wrote about software is never really finished1. Here’s an example: Keysmith. I bought this utility in February 2021. I forgot to re-install it on my M2 MacBook Air. I just did. But under macOS Sonoma, it has some glitches which make it useless. The app hasn’t been updated for quite a while, same with the app website. Now what?2 The title should have been “Software Should Never Be Finished”. Continue reading →

For those who are curious, I just updated “my Micro-Workflows Explained” page to list all my ChatGPT and AI use cases. I’m not shy to expose when I’m using AI in my creative work¹. The list of use cases is growing and reflects the relative invasion of AI in our digital landscape.

Apple’s scary event: a B-team production | Ken Segall

Ouch.

👉🏻 I’m thinking about parking my “numericcitizen” name on Threads. Just in case¹. 😳 But, then, after doing a quick research, I was reminded pretty quickly that I need an Instagram account. It was at this exact moment that I thought that I should move on to something else².

💡 Thought of the moment: owning my own Pixelfed instance would be cool¹. But how much work does this imply? 🤔

I want to augment my creative capabilities1. I’m considering the best way to pay for Augmented Intelligence (AI) services2. I’m currently subscribing to MidJourney for imagery. ChatGPT with GPT-4 is not cheap at 20 $US a month, but I get Dall.E 3. Raycast enables GPT-4 for 8 $US on top of my 8 $US, totalling 16 $US monthly, but I don’t get Dall.E 3. I prefer MidJourney over Dall.E 3 as it seems to allow more diversity in requests. Continue reading →

I wish Inoreader offered some form of article summarization via AI for some of my feeds…

Following the release of Ghost’s new “Recommendations” feature this week, I set up my recommendations list. Some here might recognize themselves! 👀

This short behind-the-scenes look at Apple’s “Scary Fast” event is the highlight of a marketing masterpiece. First, Apple, a highly-respected company for producing top-quality new product announcements, released new iPhones capable of high-quality filming in September. Next, in October, the company made another top-notch production and announced the first M3-based Macs. Not to be missed, and that is the key here, they slip the following at the very last moment of the presentation: Continue reading →

It’s probably my best screenshot of yesterday’s Scary Fast event. Happy Halloween, everyone! 👻

My timeline right now: cynicism^3¹.

Apple to Intel-based Mac users: “It’s really the best time to upgrade!”¹.