Towards a better whiteboard & The web of choices

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.

This week's newsletter is sponsored by Griff Foxley, coaching creatives and consulting entrepreneurs towards holistic success.

Hey and welcome to Creativerly 293 👋

I am currently in the process of finishing up some case studies of projects I have been working on to showcase them on my personal website. Those projects are the final missing piece of my personal website, as I created already a blog, a page to share what I am reading and have read, another one for the apps I am using, and another one for the music I am listening to throughout my day. The projects page is the last one that is work-in-progress.

One of the case studies will be about Creativerly. While writing it, I had the chance to reflect on the last five years, writing, building, and maintaining Creativerly. It is an awesome feeling, working on one side-project for over five years consistently. It is great to see how the project evolved, how it started, and where it is at right now. It is also a perfect example of the work I would like to showcase on my website, a true passion project that highlights my skills across different practices. I really enjoy the current work on my personal website, as it is a pure pleasure to have a tiny corner on the internet that represents my work, interests, writings, and passions.

The Web of Choices: Why Finding the Right Browser is an such Overwhelming Task

While the calendar app space might be among the most busiest, crowded, and competitive areas, which makes it hard and overwhelming to find the solution that fits your needs, the browser space might be another strong contender when it comes to the overwhelming task of finding the right one, especially when you factor in privacy and security, as well as looking for an ethical solution. Today, there are loads of browsers available. Although, each comes with its own features, strengths, and weaknesses, there is a serious overlap when it comes to the general features, as the browser market has matured, core functionalities largely got standardized.

With the complexities of the modern web, personal preferences like speed, privacy, or customization, ecosystem lock-in, and constant updates, finding the right browser became such an overwhelming task. Besides that, it feels like there has not been that much of a browser innovation in recent years. Loads of browsers have been focusing on performance optimization, security enhancements, and compliance with web standards rather than introducing radical new features. I appreciate a browser that is fast, private and secure, and accessible. However, at the same time I would love to see exciting new approaches powered by the powerful platform the browser created. And let me tell you, a fancy design and tabs organized in a vertical sidebar is not the innovation I am talking about.

As I got on the journey of finding the right browser for my personal needs, I stumbled across a lot of browsers. Some of them were interesting and exciting, others were disappointing, and almost trash. In this post, I want to shine some light on the vast ocean of browsers, what I like and dislike about them, and why I am still on the hunt for the right browser.

Probably the most important factor when it comes to choosing a browser is privacy and security, at least for me. There is literally no logical and comprehensible reason why a browser should be able to track my online behavior, the sites I am visiting, and collect extensible personal data. It is unethical to make money of the data of your users, without their consent.

Read the whole post here:

The Web of Choices: Why Finding the Right Browser is an such Overwhelming Task
Finding the right browser is a tedious, hard, and overwhelming task. Browser feel weird right now. In this post you can find out why you can rule out a lot of browsers, and what are the ones that excite me right now.
CreativerlyPhilipp Temmel

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Fresh Updates & News

iA Writer takes its Android app offline →

After a Google API policy change, iA Writer's access to Google Drive on Android got revoked. What followed is a mind-boggling story of Google forcing iA Writer to rewrite privacy statements, update documents, and pass a series of security checks. All for nothing, as Google kept altering the requirements, until they stated that iA Writer is required to complete a Cloud Application Security Assessment, which requires hiring a third-party vendor like KPMG, and doing the whole assessment on a yearly basis. The recurring expenses of that procedure are not sustainable at all.

Therefore, the company decided to take the app offline, which is frustrating and, after you read the whole story, simply mind-boggling.

Raycast raises $30m to bring its app to Windows and iOS →

Raycast is one of my favorite apps, I use it everyday, it is a core part of my daily workflows, and it is simply a beautiful piece of software. Raycast just announced their $30m Series B to bring Raycast to Windows and iOS. I am incredibly excited for the whole Raycast team, and I am eagerly excited about experiencing Raycast on iOS. It is remarkable to see what a highly talented team of 30 people has achieved so far. Huge congrats to the whole team.

Frond introduces its iOS app →

Frond, which is a refreshingly simple take on forums, just announced the launch of its iOS app. Thanks to a native mobile experience, users are now able to enjoy all of Frond's features right from their iPhones. For members, this makes staying connected and engaged within a community easier and more streamlined. On the other hand, admins of those communities can leverage the iOS app to reach and interact with even more members.

You can download Frond's iOS app right now on the App Store. Besides that, the team at Frond also announced that they are already working on an Android app too.

Firefox tracks you with “privacy preserving” feature →

The noyb, a donation-funded NGO based in Vienna working to enforce data protection laws (known for their immensely important work against Google Analytics, Meta, and others) filed a complaint agains Mozilla for quietly enabling a supposed "privacy feature" in its Firefox browser. Firefox has been on a downward trend for some time now, especially since Mozilla suddenly decided to implement loads of AI features no one has asked for, as Firefox has been a popular browser within the community of privacy-enthusiasts, and people who were done with all the tracking happening in other browsers. With this technology, Firefox can track user behaviour on websites. Although, the fact that Firefox is now controlling the tracking rather than websites sounds like an improvement, Mozilla did not ask users if they wanted to enable it, and instead Mozilla turned it on by default.

While Firefox and Mozilla generally had a reputation for being a privacy-friendly browser compared to most other browsers based on Chromium, the current downfall is extremely worrying.

Figma re-ups its AI-powered app generator after it was pulled for copying Apple →

In June, Figma announced its AI-powered Make Designs feature which quickly got pulled down, as it mocked up a weather app that looked remarkable close to Apple's iPhone weather app. Figma insisted that the feature did not get trained on customer data. Now though, the feature is back, called First Draft, available in a limited beta.

Mental Wealth

❯ Six Writers on Getting Words on the Page – “If anyone really visualizes my routine—do they do that? I don’t do this, not really. But if they did, I suspect the surprise would be how little I’m glued to my chair. The process is typically one of brief outbursts of writing in the course of long spells of reading, cooking, housecleaning, playing computer chess, watching Mets games, and so forth. Then again, sometimes time inverts like a sock, and I discover that it was light out and now it is dark, and seven innings of the Mets game have gone by without my registering what happened, because I was writing.”

❯ Towards a better whiteboard – “A couple months ago, I wrote a short piece for the Sublime Zine about my vision for collaboration, What if We Could See Each Other’s Thoughts? When you asked me to do something, I would know why you think it matters. If I told you my plan, you would know the thinking behind it. Instead of debating what to do, we could discuss why we need to do it. Instead of hiding behind a powerpoint proclamation, we could share our truer selves, and our rougher thoughts, and figure it out together. The curse of humanity is that we can’t read minds, but we do need to work together. Every company I’ve ever worked with has struggled to connect what we need to do, to why we need to do it.

This is where whiteboarding comes in. The combination of writing and drawing anywhere you want can help us build ideas and solve problems together. No two whiteboards are the same because no two problems are ever the same.”

❯ Try 'Slow Productivity' to Increase the Quality of Your Work (and Prevent Burnout) – “My posts on productivity techniques and methods tend to resonate with readers, which makes me happy because I'm providing something genuinely helpful—but a little sad because it reflects just how desperate we all are to find a way to get even more done. I'm no stranger to the rat race, but it still sucks to sit back and realize how stressed everyone is all the time. For a few years now, "burnout" has been a cultural buzzword, but the concept isn't new: Working too hard and too fast just isn't sustainable, so while productivity techniques that advise you on how to prioritize multiple tasks in a single day are helpful in the short term, they can't last forever for everybody. I love structured to-do lists and days where everything comes together as much as you do, but in a world where work, school, personal wellness, family, and friends are putting endless demands on us, it's not always possible to get it all done in one morning, even with the most detailed, time-boxed schedule.”

❯ First Impressions that Last: How to Design Onboarding Experiences – “First impressions last a lifetime. This is an old saying that still holds true today, especially in the digital world. It can take as little as a tenth of a second to make a first impression. This is how quickly users will decide whether they will continue to engage with an app or website”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

I have been using Horse Browser exclusively for working on all my side-projects since a couple of months now, and it is always a joyful experience entering this minimal, quiet, and calm browser. If you want to find what makes Horse Browser such a special part of my workflows, make sure to check out my deep dive which I recently published.

❯ Quick Bits

Thank you to the sponsor of this issue, Griff Foxley, coaching creatives and consulting entrepreneurs towards holistic success.

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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