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 284 👋

This week's newsletter is a bit different compared to the ones I sent out previously. The major difference is that there is no new long-form post. One reason for that is that I had a couple days off last week, which were much needed to recharge my batteries and gain some new energy for upcoming projects and challenges. And the second reason is that while I still found some time during those days to gather some bits and pieces for the newsletter, I realized that I had quite a lot of topics I wanted to include in the Fresh Updates & News section. Since I did not want to extend the newsletter that much, I decided to not write a new long-form post this week, or at least not publish a new one, as this week's newsletter is already quite information-heavy.

There were a lot of different topics I wanted to touch on and unpack in this week's newsletter. Anyway, the new post for the upcoming issue is already in the works, which means a new long-form post, a new deep dive is already on its way.

Until then, enjoy this week's newsletter!

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Fresh Updates & News

Napkin's iOS app is live on the App Store* →

Napkin for iOS is finally live on the App Store. Napkin is the safe space for your best ideas. It gives you the possibility to add thoughts, ideas, or quotes easily, and after that it helps you understand your ideas and connect them by topic, automatically. After getting constant feedback from thousands of beta testers, the iOS app is now live.

It is an incredible handy app to collect ideas that changed your mind, before they are washed away by all the noise. It is a very personal and private space to collect and reflect. And it happens right in the palm of your hand, with Napkin's new iOS app. Almost two years ago, I wrote one of my first deep dives every about Napkin. It gives you a glimpse into the folks behind the product, how they came up with the idea, and some initial features and functionalities. Since the iOS app is now out, I will make sure to update the deep dive accordingly. Anyway, check it out to get some more information about Napkin, and make sure to download the iOS app and give it a try.

Journal.do is shutting down →

I wrote about Journal in issue 204, which got published in January 2023. It struck my attention because of its playful yet minimalistic design. It offered some lovely features like Prompts which were aimed at helping users get inspired and motivated to start writing.

Unfortunately, Jarek Ceborski, the developer behind Journal.do announced at the beginning of July that the app will get shut down, as there was no product-market-fit. After two years, Journal attracted 1.5k total users, and 5 paying customers, to less to become profitable. Journal is shutting down on August 31st, 2024. All data gets deleted on that day, which means users need to export their journal before the data will be gone.

Google continues to allow third-party cookies in Chrome →

Google's Privacy Sandbox was once a promising project, however it is now coming to an end. This means, Google continues to allow third-party cookies in Chrome by default. After experiencing pressure from the advertising industry, Google bows down to the wishes. Chrome users will have the possibility to choose whether they want to allow those third-party cookies or not.

The Apple Maps Web Beta is here →

In a quite surprise announcement, Apple presented the web beta of Apple Maps, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browsers. No matter if you need driving or walking directions, find great places and useful information including photos, hours, ratings, and reviews, order food directly from the Maps place card, or browse curated guides to discover places to eat, shop, and explore cities around the world, Apple Maps on the web got you covered.

As of writing this, Apple Maps on the web is only available in English, and is compatible with Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, as well as Chrome and Edge on Windows PCs. Check out Niléane's story in MacStories for a deep dive into Apple Maps and its features.

Reddit blocks major search engines →

Reddit is continuing its crackdown on web crawlers. Google is now the only mainstream search engine that shows recent results when you search for posts on Reddit using "site:reddit.com" trick. In case you are using Bing, DuckDuckGo, and other alternatives, you will no longer see search results from Reddit. The reason for that is Google's $60 million per year deal with Reddit, giving Google real-time access to Reddit's data and use Google AI for Reddit's search.

Webflow lays off 8% of its workforce because of restructuring →

In a company announcement, the CEO of Webflow, Linda Tong informed everyone about the decision to restructure Webflow to prepare it for the next phase of growth. As a result of that, the company is laying off 8% of its workforce.

I have no insight into Webflow's business, current structure, or its future plans. However, it feels off to read in such an announcement that their business is healthy and their financials are strong, but since they decided to sharpen their focus to accelerate deliver in pursuit of their mission (whatever that means) they have to lay off that many people. When they need restructuring, why does it always mean to lay off people? Why can those people not be part of the restructuring and give them the opportunity to be part of it? Especially when your business is healthy and your financials are strong?

X automatically activated a setting to train its Grok AI on users' posts →

X silently turned on a setting that allows them to utilize your X posts as well as your user interactions, inputs, and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes. In case you would like to opt-out of that setting, you have to open up the settings page on your desktop, select the "Privacy and safety" button, select "Grok", and then uncheck the box.

Yet another example that AI's major alien concept is transparency. Instead of informing your users about those kind of changes, X decided to not care about them all, and rather just scrape their data for profit.

Stripe acquires Lemon Squeezy →

Lemon Squeezy launched in 2020, providing a Gumroad alternative, especially focused on providing a platform that would take the pain out of selling digital products globally. After launching publicly in 2021, they quickly surpassed $1m in ARR. Since then, the team received many acquisition offers and Series A term sheets from investors. According to the announcement blog post, they were looking for the right partner to take Lemon Sqeezy to the next level. It seems that they have now found it, as they announced that they got acquired by Stripe, the payment platform that powers millions of companies of all sizes to accept payments online, embed financial services, power custom revenue models, and build more profitable businesses.

Lemon Squeezy users probably ask themselves now what this will mean for the product. According to the information delivered in the blog post, the team is working on finding the best ways to combine Lemon Squeezy and Stripe. This sounds like Lemon Squeezy will not stay the independent product which it is right now, but rather get integrated into Stripe. However, this is only a assumption as I read between the lines.

Mental Wealth

❯ Cool Self – “Am I cool? What is cool? Is it ok that I’m thinking about what’s cool? We all go through life asking these questions. Usually we stumble upon some theory of life that doesn’t answer them, and instead prompts us to ask different kinds of questions. But I think that’s where the usual, often inscrutably deep theories of life miss the mark. Recently I’ve landed on my own theory, one rooted in a kind of common sense, one that answers some of my questions about cool. The theory, in brief: Life is about finding your cool self and then living as much of it as you can being that person.”

❯ Use A Work Journal To Recover Focus Faster And Clarify Your Thoughts – “You’re working on the most complex problem in computer science: fixing permissions on a deployment pipeline. It’s been 4 days you started on that simple task already. Your manager explained to you in no uncertain terms that your performance on the subject is well below the expectations she has from a midterm intern. Your colleagues stay as far away as possible from you to avoid getting tainted by your shameful failure. 4 days of sleepless afternoons, seeing that freaking status turning to “build failed” everytime, bringing you to tears. The weather is shit, rain taping on the window of your overpriced basement suite, reflecting the state of your soul. You never felt so alone. Even your partner left you, you loser!”

❯ Understanding the Eye-Mind Connection – “The connection between the eye and the mind is mysterious. It’s not that it is completely opaque to us; we understand many aspects of how our sense of sight interacts with the brain. But the obscurity of the eye-mind connection is also well represented by common phrases we often use in describing the choices we’ve made, our intent for them, and our analysis of how they work.”

❯ The Paradox of Builders & Users – “Product teams are wired to keep building. Product managers, designers, and engineers are constantly on the lookout for the next feature to add or the next problem to solve. This constant urge to build often turns out to be more harmful and most often leads to bad products over time.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

Are you on the hunt for a minimal, lightweight, and simple writing and note-taking app for macOS? Check out the third part of my content series Tiny macOS utility apps I love in which I focused on exactly that, simple and lightweight writing apps that are a joy to use.

❯ Quick Bits

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Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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