What I was interested in during the fourth week of 2023 (teaser: podcasts, iOS, macOS playdate)

I still felt sickly, so I refrained from cycling. Hope that I get the curve then next week.

  • 🍿 Watched Raymond & Ray (2022) - ★★★★☆ and enjoyed it.
  • 🎙️ Listend to a bunch of different Podcasts:
  • 🎙️ This was my first episode of Launched. It was a rather intimate podcast. And both the developers of the Darknoise app and Sofa seem to be very nice people. After what they said about software subscriptions, I'm afraid that sooner or later all apps will have to switch to the subscription model. I personally don't like that, but if there's no other way for indie developers, you probably have to think about what you're willing to spend per year and then keep an eye on your subscriptions, e.g. with Bobby, and limit them accordingly.
  • 🛋️ Speaking of Sofa. I really like the app, but I think I'll try to stay away from software and services where it's not possible to get your data out again with open standards, an API or at least an RSS feed.
  • 🫰 Speaking of subscriptions, after all this back and forth, I cancelled my Strava subscription. I'll see if I can enjoy cycling without all their pro features.
  • 🚴‍♂️ Speaking of (I know, I know ...) cycling, once again I have felt annoyed, no, threatened by SUV drivers. I really don't know where all this is going. Fittingly, the post about the size of cars.
  • 🐘 I had a look at Tusker, a new iOS Mastodon client. It's still fun to see all these many ideas for Mastodon clients. There hasn't been so much dynamism in the scene for a long time. Even though IceCube gets a lot of praise, I keep coming back to Ivory, which was finally released in the App Store this week. You can only have missed it, though, if you've been living under a rock. Even though I find the development speed of IceCube absolutely remarkable and the app is certainly one of the most impressive in terms of features, I am still bothered by the many small bugs and especially the bad scrolling performance. (I think SwiftUI might be the one to blame here.) Ivory, on the other hand, is really fast and performant. The great thing is that you can change at any time.
  • 🕹️ I've played the two new playdate games that were released for me this week: Flipper Lifter and Echoic Memory. I am really bad at audio and don't know if I enjoy Echoic Memory and I haven't found any access to Flipper Lifter yet. In general, with some playdate games, I sometimes feel like I don't really understand the mechanics of the game, and just do anything that will somehow get me to the goal. I sometimes wish the games would introduce you a little more and not leave you completely out in the cold.
  • 🕹️ In the end, everything was overshadowed by the fact that my playdate probably has a faulty battery. I have, surprisingly unexpectedly, received an answer from Cabel, but unfortunately not yet from support. They seem to be quite overwhelmed by support requests right now.
  • 📱 On iOS, I looked at Countdown to Anything! but I think I'll stick with Countdowns.
  • 📱 This screenshot of Jason's homescreen inspired me to tinker a little bit with Widgy. I also bought Opener, don't know why 😇
  • 💻 On the Mac, I've been looking at the new Arc browser, which is kind of hyped right now. I really don't know why though. I have a bit of a suspicion that it might just be the invite system. To me, the browser seems extremely sluggish. My password management and Apple Pay don't work, which is probably not the browser's fault. It's too early to judge, but so far I always go back to Safari after a short time.
  • 💻 It came to my mind, that you can use Markdown links of hooked items together with One Thing, an App that I really enjoy. It gives you one click menu bar item to the one file you are just working on.
  • 💻 I had a look at HiDock, for Mac and Lasso - Window Manager for macOS.
  • 💻 Thanks to Matthew I became aware of Menubar X (Setapp). This works pretty well together with DeepL / DeepL Write and elk.zone.
  • ✅ I've moved all my todo item for work from OmniFocus to Apple's Reminders app. I want to see if I can separate them enough thanks to smart lists and tags. The only thing I miss so far is the ability to filter by focus modes, like it is possible with Calendars, etc. Only Apple knows why this is not possible yet, I guess.
  • ❤️ Thanks to Faisal Misle, I now also know that you can publish to the omg.lol weblog via github. I have no idea about all these things, but thanks to the many great tutorials, even I managed to do it. Speaking of omg.lol and how clueless I am about all this internet stuff, I managed to change my status.log via the API, again thanks to the awesome docs. I control this with a Shortcuts shortcut and can trigger it from my Stream Deck and Keyboard Maestro. You can do so many funny things with this 🥰

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PS: I've also posted my thoughts on the first, second and third weeks.