Raycast Notes is here & Designing for Gen Z
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.
Hey and welcome to Creativerly 299 👋
Short and quick newsletter for this week, as life is currently taking over and there are a couple of things I have to figure out and deal with at the moment. With the next newsletter, I should be able to be back to "normal", which means a new post, fresh new updates, and lovely articles as usual.
No matter how much mental load I have, it always feels relaxing sitting down and putting together a new newsletter issue, no matter if it is a rather short one as this week's or a more "full-length" one as usual. I am almost entering a meditative state gathering articles, quick bits, and fresh updates from the field of design and tech. So, I really enjoyed putting it together this week.
Enjoy reading it.
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Fresh Updates & News
Raycast Notes is here →
One of the most loved Raycast features is Floating Notes, a super simple, fast, light, and frictionless way to capture any kind of note, idea, or thought. What I love most about them is that the feature got created as part of a hackathon back in 2020.
With the newest update, Floating Notes become Raycast Notes. While it is still this super simple and fast way to capture notes, it got improved with new features offering more flexibility and control over your workflows. Among them, you can find markdown support, multiple notes, resizable window, and a lot more. The linked blog post gives you a great rundown of how Raycast Notes works.
Meco is now available for Android* →
Meco, the beloved app to move your newsletters to a space that has been build for reading and decluttering your inbox, is finally available for Android. Meco has attracted over 50,000 readers across its iOS and Web app. Now the offering of having an all-in-one inbox, AI-powered summaries, offline groups, themes, and more is available for Android too.
Obsidian introduces Web Clipper →
Obsidian just introduced its newest extension, which is a Web Clipper that helps you highlighting and capturing the web in your favorite browser. The Web Clipper is available for all major browsers on desktop and mobile. Following its principles, Obsidian's Web Clipper is private, customizable, and designed around the long-term durabilty of your notes.
Mental Wealth
❯ Beyond Overpreparation: How to Start Before You Feel Ready – “Back in 2018, I spent weeks learning everything about rare teas to start a new business; I studied every resource I could find, saved them in a folder, took copious notes, and then… Nothing. When it was time to take the first real step, I hesitated. The hesitation turned into procrastination, endlessly tweaking and perfecting my plans without any action.”
❯ Designing For Gen Z: Expectations And UX Guidelines – “Every generation is different in very unique ways, with different habits, views, standards, and expectations. So when designing for Gen Z, what do we need to keep in mind? Let’s take a closer look at Gen Z, how they use tech, and why it might be a good idea to ignore common design advice and do the opposite of what is usually recommended instead.”
❯ The Future of Design: How AI is Shifting Designers from Makers to Curators – “When we think about designers, two main characteristics often come to mind: craft skills and taste. Craft skills are the technical abilities that allow designers to manipulate tools—whether physical, like pen and paper in the early days, or digital design software like Photoshop and Figma today—to create their desired output. Taste, on the other hand, is the ability to perceive and refine quality in design, guiding the look and feel of an output toward something that feels refined and cohesive.”
❯ Existential uncertainty: how it affects your mind – and what you can do about it – “With near-constant headlines discussing the devastating crises humanity is currently facing – from climate change to political polarisation and war – many of us are experiencing feelings of existential uncertainty.”
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These are paid promotions or affiliate links to support Creativerly. If you are interested in putting your tool, product, or resource in front of over 2000 creative minds, consider advertising in Creativerly and book a sponsor or classified ad spot. Find all the important information at creativerly.com/advertise.
Appendix
❯ ICYMI
When you are publishing online or maintaining a personal website, you want your content to load fast and seamlessly once a visitor enters your site. One way to ensure that is by optimizing any kind of images you are using. In the fifth part of my series Tiny macOS utility apps I love, I focused on apps that help you convert, resize, edit, and optimize images with ease. Check it out.
❯ Quick Bits
- Elon Musk's America PAC Canvassers Faced Surveillance, Sickness, and Late Pay in Arizona (Makena Kelly, Jake Lahut / Wired)
- Perplexity Dove Into Real-Time Election Tracking While Other AI Companies Held Back (Will Knight, Elana Klein / Wired)
- Charger recall spells more bad news for Humane’s maligned AI Pin (Scharon Harding / Ars Technica)
- Nvidia advances robot learning and humanoid development with AI and simulation tools (Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat)
- Tech leaders congratulate Trump on winning 2024 election, pledge to work together on innovation (Emilia David / VentureBeat)
- Dropbox to shed another 500 staff, CEO takes 'full responsibility' (Iain Thomson / The Register)
- ChatGPT has a new vanity domain name, and it may have cost $15 million Benj Edwards / Ars Technica)
- Security researchers found a serious zero-click bug in Synology's Photos app (Igor Bonifacic / Engadget)
- The EU is looking into Corning for alleged anti-competitive practices (Jeremy Gan / Engadget)
- Where US Tech Policy May Be Headed During a Second Trump Term (Gabby Miller, Justing Hendrix / Tech Policy Press)
- With this latest deal, Flipboard looks to build a news ecosystem beyond X (Sarah Perez / TechCrunch)
- How Trump’s ‘new star’ Elon Musk stands to benefit from his presidency (Dan Milmo / The Guardian)
- Notepad.exe, now an actively maintained app, has gotten its inevitable AI update (Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica)
- Google accidentally leaked a preview of its Jarvis AI that can take over computers (Danny Gallagher / Engadget)
- Taylor Swift Fans Are Leaving X for Bluesky After Trump’s Election (Victoria Elliot / Wired)
- Flanked by Palantir and AWS, Anthropic's Claude marches into US defense intelligence (Brandon Vigliarolo / The Register)
- Bitcoin price tops $82,000 for first time amid ‘Trump pump’ (Jasper Jolly / The Guardian)
Till next time! 👋
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