My name is Philipp and you are reading Creativerly, the internet corner where I unpack my musings, curate and write about noteworthy apps and software, and explore the latest trends in design and tech.

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Hey and welcome to Creativerly 290 👋

Wow, with this newsletter we are closing in on almost 300 newsletter issues, what an amzing journey it has been so far. I recently thought about, that it has been quite some time since I wrote about the status quo of Creativerly. In the past, I reflected on reaching 500 and 1000 subscribers, but after that I stopped writing about what I have been up to with Creativerly, how it is going, what I have planned for it, and so on. Therefore, I am planning such a post for the 300th issue of Creativerly. It is always great to take one step back and reflect on all the things you have achieved with a certain project. However, we should also take our time to look back on the things that did not work out. I have a lot of those things too.

Until now, writing, maintaining, and building Creativerly has been mostly pure joy. From the top of my head, I can not think about a specific situation or timeframe during which writing the newsletter felt like a burden. Last year, I did indeed not enjoy writing it as much as I did in the years before, but after a content switch up, I was back with my usual sense of pleasure whenever I sat down, and started writing the first few lines of the next newsletter issue.

Whenever I get to engage with one of my readers and realize that there are indeed a couple of folks who enjoy reading Creativerly, I feel incredibly thankful. It is such a fulfilling experience to hear that people learned or found something useful from reading Creativerly. This is amazing. And I would have never thought about that, when I sent out the first newsletter back in 2019.

Thank you for that. Thank you for reading. And thank you for your ongoing support.

The state (and issues) of AI-powered writing apps

I had this post in my drafts for a while, to be exact for two years now it sits in my backlog. Back then, AI was the hyped technology everyone was talking and posting about. The loudest voices were the ones that said it will take over and replace thousands of jobs over the upcoming years, how it will literally change everything, and that we are all not prepared for it. I do not have the data, but my impression is that it did not take over as much jobs as experts predicted. Besides that, it produced a lot of nonsense, caused harm, and provided a lack of transparency. Loads of companies within the field kept growing, making a ton of money on users' costs, as they scraped data and trained their models on that data.

The New York Times sued OpenAI, Perplexity lied about respecting sites that block their bot scraping data after a The Verge report appeared that got initiated by a research from Robb Knight, Microsoft's CEO of AI said that it is ok to steal content on the web, and there are countless more stories of AI companies bypassing web standard to scrape publisher sites. EU Digital Markets Act identified so many privacy concerns regarding Apple Intelligence, that Apple decided to not ship it the EU at all. Multiple news outlets already reported that the AI will increase the energy consumption of data centers remarkable. A ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search. According to a report by World Economic Forum, the computational power required for sustaining AI's rise is doubling roughly every 100 days, it is imperative that we balance the progression of AI with the imperatives of sustainability, however it also delivers ideas, steps, and foundations that we can lay out today to manage AI and its green transition.

This and a lot of other issues that came with the rise of AI, make it hard to have a balanced and healthy approach to that technology. I remain skeptical and critical, while also being open to such technologies. However, I do not think AI is going to replace my favorite writers, since I am reading what they are writing for a reason. I also agree with Ted Chiang that AI is not going to make art, as an artist makes choices that are fundamentally alien to artificial intelligence. However, it is in my nature and part of the work I do at Creativerly to explore new technologies and apps. Therefore, this post (which initially should have given you an overview of all the AI-powered writing apps) will focus on the current state and issues of AI-powered writing apps, exploring why we should or should not use them, how they changed the industry, concerns, and their effects on creative work.

Read the whole post here:

The state (and issues) of AI-powered writing apps
AI-powered writing apps are still on the rise. In this post, I explored the current state and issues of them, why they are not turning you into a better writer, and why you should avoid using them.
CreativerlyPhilipp Temmel

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Fresh Updates & News

Deta Space shutting down →

To my surprise, Deta just announced that it is going to shut down Deta Space, a product that provided users with a personal cloud hosted by Deta and which gave those users the possibility to run sandboxed version of certain apps. When you are heading to deta.space, you will see a farewell message from the Deta team, including the information that users can still log into Deta Space until October 17, 2024. After that date, Deta will start deleting all Horizons, apps, and data in collections.

In case users need to export their data, and developers who need to export their code, Deta provided tutorials within their docs. Besides the announcement of shutting down Deta Space, there is also information on what the Deta team is working on next: Deta Surf.

We are taking ideas from the personal computer, web browser, and latest in Al, to create a computing experience that's powerful yet delightfully human – sounds definitely interesting and leaves room for interpretation.

Grab Superlist at 30% off →

Superlist is currently running a Back to work offer, which gives you 30% off your first year of Superlist, but only for a limited time. You can give Superlist a try for free, but in case you need access to all the features, you can use the code BACKTOWORK30 during the checkout process to grab the deal.

NaNoWriMo says condemning AI is 'Classist and Ableist' →

NaNoWriMo, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that promotes creative writing, recently shared their position on Artificial Intelligence. The post backlashed as it stated that the condemnation of AI is "classist and ableist". The post has been updated as it went viral, and an increasing number of people and staff involved in NaNoWriMo spoke up against the organization and its position on AI.

NaNoWriMo got faced with additional criticism recently as they introduced ProWritingAid, an AI-powered writing app, as one of their 25th Anniversary Sponsors.

Canva's subscription prices are skyrocketing because of AI features →

Over the course of the last few years, Canva introduced loads of AI-powered features. Users are now reporting that they have received emails which stated that their subscriptions for Canva Teams are getting increased from $120 per year for up to five users, to an astonishing $500 per year. Global customers for Canva Teams can expect price increases by just over 300 percent in some instances.

Silvio Rizzi's new Reeder app is live →

Silvio Rizzi, developer of the beloved Reeder read-it-later and RSS reader app, just launched its new and updated Reeder experience. With this launch, the old Reeder app will still exist, but it is now titled Reeder Classic. The new Reeder app is not built on the typical RSS reader experience users might know already from Reeder Classic, but it rather rethinks the traditional approach to keeping up with feeds.

Mental Wealth

❯ To be a designer is to be a facilitator – “Close your eyes and picture what a facilitator looks like. What image comes to your mind? For many, I bet you see a person standing in front of a group, effortlessly guiding people through a series of creative exercises. AKA someone running a workshop. While yes that is a facilitator, when we do design work in collective and community spaces the image we hold of a facilitator needs to expand. After speaking to other professionals in social impact design and drawing from my own experiences in the industry, I believe it’s time to shift facilitation from an event-specific role to a principle aspect of how we design.”

❯ How to Stop Overthinking Your Happiness – “All humans strive to be happy in some form. While there are intriguing variations in what exactly it means to be happy, this tenet is one of the rare human universals, transcending differences in culture, geographic location, age, ethnicity, and gender. As the Dalai Lama put it, simply, “The purpose of life is to be happy.” That might lead to the expectation that we should all be happy, at least when circumstances afford it. Yet this is not the case. Even when people’s lives are good, many feel less than happy, and may be beset by anxiety and depression.”

❯ What Is Hyperphantasia? How to Tell If You Have an Extremely Vivid Imagination – “If someone asked what you had for breakfast, you might imagine maple syrup drizzled on a stack of pancakes or the satisfying crunch of granola topped with fruit. Perhaps you remember these details because breakfast wasn’t that long ago, or you tend to eat these foods regularly. For people with hyperphantasia, recollections of breakfasts from months or even years ago can be so vivid that it’s almost like having actual pancakes right in front of them.”

❯ Selling Happiness Through Illusions – “Capitalism can be likened to a spiral staircase. Every economic advance is like a circle completed, then comes a new problem, followed by a new circle above the old one, which means solving the problem, only to give rise to another problem and another circle, and so on. So it was with globalisation, which produced global prosperity but also hastened the spread of COVID, which led to the creation of new vaccines; or cars and planes, which led to mobility and loneliness, which led, in turn, to social media and new forms of connectedness. Out of these circles rising aloft comes the never-ending spiral we call our economy.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

The defragmentation of social networks has lead to a revived desire for smaller community spaces, focused on specific topics, and fostering meaningful connections and conversations. In my post Intimacy, trust, and friendshipI explored why people are seeking for smaller and more private community spaces.

❯ Quick Bits

Thank you to the sponsor of this issue, Exist, personal analytics for everything you do. Supercharge your Apple Health data with context about your productivity, your habits, and more, to uncover the patterns that lead to a happier, healthier, and more productive you.

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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