Ephemeral Scrapbook

Contrary to persistent rumors, the web is still full of gems. This human-made newsletter tries to give you glimpse of this.

06 Nov 2025 — 5 min read

Facing the Internet at the age of AI

👤 Personal

#blogging

1️⃣ I’m taking a one-week vacation and will be right back in mid-November. This is why this edition is a little bit early (Friday instead of Sunday). 2️⃣ A very touching personal story from Manton, the developer behind Micro.blog. I can relate. Planting a tree is such a good idea. I wish I had done the same when my parents passed away, but I don’t have the space to do this at my house. 🌳🏡 3️⃣ An unexpected comment on Mastodon from someone who read an article I shared a while ago about being an open blogger.

🗺️ Discoveries

#chatgpt #appleshortcuts

1️⃣ I discovered that ChatGPT can help me have a better understanding of Apple Shortcuts. I’ve been writing shortcuts for a while, but my success has been relatively low. The writing experience is bad and getting the intended results is a challenge. I recently shared that writing and debugging shortcuts can be a frustrating experience. Thanks to ChatGPT’s explanations and examples, I have a much more positive view now. Moreover, ChatGPT can generate a text form of a shortcut. If the app developers diligently created shortcuts support in their app, I can ask ChatGPT to consider apps such as AnyBox and Paste.app, and their respective intents. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great way to learn building shortcuts.

“Grokipedia is not a ‘Wikipedia competitor.’ It is a fully robotic regurgitation machine designed to protect the ego of the world’s wealthiest man.” — 404 Media

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

#bloggerlife

1️⃣ Over the past month, my writing circled around two big currents: Apple’s evolving (and often exasperating) platform experience—especially on iPad—and a fast-rising reliance on AI-driven tools, led by ChatGPT Atlas. In between, I explored creator tooling, App Store governance, and a few cultural notes. What follows is a concise guide to the month: key themes, notable controversies, the apps and services that surfaced most, and the big takeaways shaping my workflows and outlook.

🌄 Photography

#glass #lightroom

1️⃣ Glass gave a small behind-the-scenes look at the engine, helping them manage the platform. It’s interesting, but I wanted to know much more than they were willing to share. A video would have been a good idea. 2️⃣ Adobe launched Lightroom Classic 15, which comes with a bunch of AI-related stuff. Who knew! I’m no longer using Adobe products for processing my photos, but I wanted to pass that information along, just in case you depend on it! This video has all the details. 3️⃣ Meanwhile, we are still waiting for Apple to provide meaningful updates to Photmator and Pixelmator Pro. 4️⃣ On Unsplash, bookmarks are now replacing likes. They made an announcement about it. Speaking of Unsplash, here’s a great picture from Zetong. I wonder how much post-processing was involved in that one. 👀

🍎 Apple & Tech

#appstore #apple #appletv

1️⃣ If you plan to get a new pair of Apple AirPods Pro 3 and are a frequent flyer, consider reading this blog post from BasicAppleGuy, who experienced weird noises during a flight while wearing a pair of the shiny new devices. 2️⃣ Apple made a lot of money in 2025. Apple reported record fourth-quarter 2025 results, with $102.5 billion in revenue driven by strong sales of iPhones and services, achieving double-digit year-over-year growth in earnings. Quite impressive. Jason Snell notes that Apple’s “values” messaging has shifted from human-focused themes, such as education, diversity, and social equity, to industrial priorities, including U.S. manufacturing, recycling, and AI investment—reflecting a move from moral activism to economic and technological nationalism. 3️⃣ Apple is marking the 10th anniversary of the Apple TV HD, Siri Remote, and tvOS launch, which introduced apps, gaming, and a new vision for Apple TV that reshaped the platform but never fully met its ambitious goals. Apple TV, the streaming service, not the hardware device, has a new introductory video that plays at the start of a movie, for example. I like it. It’s more colourful, but the sound seems too subtle to me. 4️⃣ Did you know you can browse the Apple App Store using your favourite browser? Yes, but please note that this is only for browsing, not for downloading the app. When sharing a link to an app with someone, the person clicking on it will likely see the web version rather than being directed to the App Store. Have a look for yourself here. Apple also offers a web version of Apple Music, in case you didn’t know.

🚧 Special projects

#craft #openai #mcp

1️⃣ Since the start of the following Craft beta round, I started testing MCP with Craft via ChatGPT. So far, I find it relatively simple to set up, but much more complex to think about all the implications for my content organization. The beta period should last all of November. I’m guessing things might change a bit and improve. This will allow me to settle on my workflow.

“Less isn’t more. Less is more honest.” — from the Design Lovers YouTube video channel

📱 Apps & Services

#digitalcreation #appleservices

1️⃣ At Canva’s keynote, Ash Hewson unveiled the all-new Affinity — a unified, high-performance design app combining vector, pixel, and layout tools under one roof — and announced that it’s now free forever for everyone, including future updates, with optional Canva AI integration that respects user privacy. I downloaded the app but didn’t install it. I’m curious about the photo-processing module, otherwise this is not really for me. 2️⃣ A recent 9to5Mac story highlights how Apple’s Family Sharing can be exploited by abusive ex-partners, as only the account organizer holds full control—leaving custodial parents powerless to move children’s accounts or prevent tracking, with Apple support unable to intervene. The case underscores the need for dual-organizer roles and stronger safeguards in shared digital ecosystems. 3️⃣ I posted an update about my current content creation ecosystem. It was long overdue. People rejoiced. Not really, nobody noticed. You can see the overview diagram below.

My content creation ecosystem as of 2025-11

📺 YouTube

#weather #apple #design

1️⃣ Flying through the eye of Melissa hurricane. Astonishingly quiet. And frightening. They do that for research and weahter forecasting. 2️⃣ Forest City, a completely abandoned ghost city, near Singapore. Let’s take a ride to this place through this video. 3️⃣ An intriguing and informative video about design and how it might explain many of Apple’s design pivots in the last 20 years.

🌟 Miscellaneous

#ai

1️⃣ A valid comment about coding vs software engineering from Matt Birchler. Generative AI is not about software engineering help, just yet. 2️⃣ Are you bored sometimes and find yourself endlessly scrolling your Instagram timeline or TikTok? Here are a few ideas for you to consider instead. I especially like this one: “Scroll through your photo timeline and browse past photos and memories.” 3️⃣ One last thing, if you aren’t able to play videos inside this document (the Craft version), this is a known issue and you must go to the website instead.

🔮 Looking forward

#automation #workflow

1️⃣ In the next few weeks, I want to spend more time explorer Apple Shortcuts. I feel they are a gateway to very powerful and customizable workflows. As Craft is also gaining much-wanted features related to AI (MCP, API), Shortcuts could play an important role here.

👉🏻 Main 🌟 Meta 🌟 Blips 🌟 Blog 👀

I wish you a great week! ✌️ 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 🇪🇺 💪🏻

📌

This newsletter edition is also available as a Craft shared document here. An index of past editions can be found here. This week’s edition is based on template version 1.8.2 and was put together with ❤️ mostly on an M2 15-inch MacBook Air, Craft Docs and many supporting subscriptions! If you like this newsletter, please consider supporting me via PayPal or becoming a supporter by visiting my Ko-fi page!