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 316 👋

I spent the majority of my weekend outside in nature, cycling through woods and long and lonely roads, as we experienced two very early spring days in my hometown, with temperatures peaking at 19°. As I spent the majority outside, I spent a fraction of my weekend on my phone or in front of my Mac. While I am pretty good with heading outside regularly during my working days, the fact that I started incredibly energized and motivated into the new week, was yet another indicator how important such breaks, fully disconnecting from our devices, from the internet are, at least for me. Probably because I spend most of my week looking into a lighted rectangle, typing on a clickity-clack keyboard, and moving my mouse enthusiastically, spending time outside is a gateway to detach, recharge, and simply taking a breather.

Yeah, nothing new here for most of you probably, but just a friendly reminder that if you are currently feeling stuck, overwhelmed with what is going on in the world (I am surely am), or if you are struggling to stay focused, get up, do some quick stretches, and simply head out for a walk, take a couple of deep breaths, recharge, and settle.

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Fresh Updates & News

Tapbots (makers of Mastodon client Ivory) introduce Phoenix for Bluesky →

Tapbots, the makers of the beloved Mastodon client called Ivory, just announced that they are working on a Bluesky client called Phoenix, with a planned release sometime in summer. Tapbots is known for their hugely popular app Tweetbot, which was a superior Twitter client until it had to shut down because of Elon Musk's initiated changes to Twitter's third-party API. As Tapbots left Twitter behind, and set up on Mastodon as their new social home, they launched Ivory in 2023 which resembled a lot of the look and feel Tweetbot featured. Quickly Ivory became one of the most popular Mastodon Clients.

After the recent Ivory v2.3 update, which introduced features like the merging of mentions and notifications into a single tab, Tapbots stated that development of Ivory will slow down in order to work on Phoenix and strive for a release sometime in summer. I have been a long-time Tweetbot user, which is also the reason I immediately became an Ivory user, as Mastodon is still my preferred social network (although you can also find me on Bluesky). And therefore, I am excited about the news that Tapbots is using and leveraging its craft and style to develop a Bluesky client too. Make sure to follow them on Mastodon and Bluesky to be among the first to know when they introduce the Alpha version of Phoenix to give it a try.

Capacities releases a rewritten PDF viewer and new AI editor →

The second release of 2025 for Capacities introduced a complete rewrite of the PDF viewer with a dedicated focus on performance and usability. With this update, the PDF viewer should now render pages much faster and be more responsive and smooth, even when you are viewing larger PDFs. The new PDF viewer also introduces better support for zooming in and out. Besides that, this update brought a new AI editor which allows you to interact with your content directly without the chat interface. With ease you can select words, paragraphs, or multiple blocks and ask questions about them.

Furthermore, this updates included unified data view headers for collections, tags, objects, and queries, calendar integrations in beta for Capacities Believer, and a lot more improvements and fixes.

Ghost teases that it has a larger update about its ActivityPub public beta soon →

For those of you who don't know, Ghost has been full force working on integrating with ActivityPub and the Fediverse. Every single week they kept us up-to-date about how the work is going through a dedicated newsletter. In its newest version, Ghost announced that it will share a larger update about the public beta of Ghost's ActivityPub integration public beta, which is beyond exciting.

Mental Wealth

❯ What is value, and how to define it for a product? – “Have you ever encountered a conversation where terms like “What’s the value it provides?” or “It doesn’t align with the value we wish to offer our customers?” are casually tossed around? If so, you are not alone. Many of us — especially within the professional world — are constantly grappling with the concept of value. Having traversed both sides of this question more times than I can count, I am inevitably led to the exact existential reflection: What is value, and how does one define it?”

❯ The Liberating Effect of Uncertainty – “When I was seven, I wanted to be a paleontologist. I collected rocks and fossils, memorized dinosaur names, and could tell you exactly which period the Stegosaurus lived in (it’s the Late Jurassic, in case you’re wondering). Then it was veterinarian, astronaut, fashion designer – each passion consuming me completely until the next one came along.”

❯ What’s the Goal of the Goal? – “Occasionally, you might discover that your actual work is making a mockery of your mission. To see how that could happen, consider the experience of Ryan Davidsen. On July 15, 2022, Davidsen bought a new pickup truck. A Ram 1500. To celebrate, he planned to take it on a camping trip the next weekend. Then, a few days after he drove it off the lot, the survey shakedown began.”

❯ Clear communication: the silent architect of good design – “Behind every successful design project is a foundation of clear communication. Missteps can derail even the best ideas, but with a few key strategies, designers can keep their work on track and relationships strong.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

If you are planning to build a website with a modern website builder, chances are high that you stumbled across Webflow and Framer while doing your research. But let me tell you, there is an open-source, powerful, feature-rich, and flexible alternative that is catching up with Webflow and Framer fast. I am talking about Webstudio another website builder packed with features that help you create and design consistently. Check out my deep dive on Webstudio to learn more about it.

❯ Quick Bits

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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