The Pursuit of Good Writing & Affinity is now completely free

Philipp Temmel -

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 349 👋

I am currently in the process of writing a super exciting piece for my personal website. Over the course of the past week, I made some changes to my digital reading setup, which means how I am consuming RSS feeds and save links to articles and blog posts in order to read them later. As I made the switch to Reeder, I got faced with a little issue, related to a super niche use-case. So, Reeder features a share extension, which gives users the ability to save links from around the web to Reeder in order to consume them there. Lovely, exactly what I was looking for, a single app to subscribe to my RSS feeds, as well as use it as read-it-later app.

Since I am using Vivaldi, I unfortunately was not able to use Reeder's share extension. Why? Well, because Vivaldi does not offer a share button which triggers the macOS share sheet. Therefore, I had no access to the share extension. After a quick research, I found a workaround which triggered the share sheet via bookmarklet, but unfortunately, as it was using the Web Share API, it seemed like I ran into limitations of it, as the Reeder extension did not pop up. Switching browsers was not an option for me.

So, I sat down, took some notes, did some more research, and ultimately decided to build a small, simple, and super niche macOS app, which acts as a bridge between my browser and macOS in order to trigger the macOS share sheet and get access to all extensions.

And the piece I am currently writing is an in-depth story about this whole project. I am super excited about it. Earlier today, I submitted the app for review so I can get some external testers on board via TestFlight. I am not sure if anyone else had to deal with the same issue as I had, but if you are using a Chromium-based browser (which is not Opera, as it apparently build its own share menu in order to trigger the macOS share sheet), and you would like to access the share sheet, I hope I can share the TestFlight link with you soon. I will definitely share an update here in Creativerly, but you can also sign up for my personal newsletter Datest, where I will be sharing more information soon too.

And now, enjoy this week's newsletter.

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Fresh Updates & News

Grammarly is now called Superhuman →

Back in March 2025, Grammarly acquired Coda. Only three months later, Grammarly announced that it acquired Superhuman to accelerate its AI productivity platform. Fast forward to today, and Grammarly officially rebranded as Superhuman, offering mail docs, and AI as part of their own productivity suite. This means, if you are visiting superhuman.com, you will not get presented with what once was the home of the Superhuman email client, but you will rather see a new website housing information for and guidance on the Superhuman suite, consisting of Mail, Grammarly, Coda, and Go.

I assume that Grammarly's business got hit hard with the AI-hype around apps like ChatGPT. The acquisitions and the rebrand draws the impression of trying its best to stay relevant. But the reality might be that it became just yet another software company realizing that what they are doing is ephemeral, and people stopped striving for ultimate productivity already a while ago. Take a look at Notion, which probably falls into a similar realm. Heavily funded, hyped, and suddenly started to acquire all sorts of productivity apps in order to create their own productivity suite, since they might realized that it will be hard to pay back over $340M in funding with a fancy note-taking, database, project management app.

I used Superhuman (Mail) in the past for a total of 4 months. While I liked the interface and certain interactions, it was just a super expensive Gmail add-on. And besides that, I cringed because of the name. It is weird to associate becoming a Superhuman when using a specific piece of software, or blazing through your email inbox thanks to keyboard shortcuts, and reaching inbox zero. So, I cringed again when reading the news that Grammarly (although it still exists as a standalone product) rebranded to Superhuman, and housing all their apps under this brand now. It just gives me a weird feeling.

The new Affinity combines their whole suite in one app, and it is completely free→

It was probably one of the biggest announcements in the creative field, when Ash Hewson, CEO of Affinity, stepped on the stage to share that the new version of Affinity combines their whole creative suite (Photo, Designer, and Publisher) in a single app, and making it available for free. Yes, you read that right, you can now access Affinity completely for free. Well, in fact, it is more like freemium, as Canva (the company which acquired Affinity back in March 2024), decided to put AI-powered features like "Generative fill", "Photo colorization", or "Background removal" behind a paywall.

You can love or hate Canva, but I like this move, as it makes professional-grade creative software accessible to everyone. Sure, Canva is a huge corporation, a huge business, so they probably already have some plans on doubling-down on the "freemium" part of this announcement, but instead of being pessimistic about it, why not just enjoy the fact that a great piece of software just became free? I know that it is hard to believe, especially since promises like "forever free" hardly have ever been kept in the field of software, but nevertheless, I feel way better about the fact that this move will kick Adobe in the butt, and I am all up for that, since Adobe has been the biggest gatekeeper in the field of creative software since years.

Mental Wealth

❯ What's the difference between an artist and a creator? – “In 1973, experimental filmmaker Hollis Frampton wrote a letter to MoMA that captures a paradox that still defines creative work today. The Museum of Modern Art had offered the filmmaker a retrospective of his work. However he was also told there would be "no money included at all" and it would be "all for love and honor” instead.”

❯ To grow, we must forget… but now AI remembers everything – “AI’s infinite memory could endanger how we think, grow, and imagine. And we can do something about it.”

❯ Overestimating My Reading Capabilities – “Remember a few weeks ago, I wrote about how I had these plans to read a literal ton of books in October? I had been coming off my worse reading slump in ages, and dammit, I planned on finally getting some of the books off of my TBR list.”

❯ The Pursuit of Good Writing – “Over the last few weeks, I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos about doing handyman stuff around the house. You know, stuff like how to properly renovate your house. For example, I’ve used a drill many times to put together IKEA stuff.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

AI browsers like ChatGPT Atlas don’t improve the web, they replace it with corporate-controlled summaries and surveillance. People rush to adopt them, ignoring privacy risks and ethical flaws. The web thrives on openness, but AI browsers undermine that. Ask yourself: Who benefits? It’s not you. The web does not need AI browsers – It needs us to fight back.

❯ Quick Bits

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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