For the longest time I have been a huge supporter of keeping iOS locked down as tight as possible. Not budging a single inch, because that is what is best for the consumer, and I shudder a little when I think about a future with Android style ‘openness’ on my iPhone.
Sure, Android provides much more customisation than iOS. It allows you to do a lot more things. Not absolutely anything you want, but not far off it.
I know what most people think straight away. How many of todays posts are going to be about Apple watches? It was my first thought, because I do love my watch, but something more important watch related currently.
The world is in lockdown and we are all running out of stuff to watch. I feel like I have consumed the entire catalogue of Netflix series that are any good, and a few that were terrible but it couldn’t stop watching them (has anyone watched Living With Yourself?
This game has been the best one I have picked up in ages. Yes I am aware I keep banging on about it.
I don’t play loads, I try and grab 20-30 minutes at a time on work breaks or in the evening but I’ve really enjoyed playing. It’s made me fall in love with gaming again, and because I can play Stadia anywhere it suits me perfectly. More than the Switch ever did, but I’m not quite sure why.
I often wonder why I publish things to the internet. It doesn’t matter if it’s a tweet, a photo or a full-on blog post, the whole idea of it seems futile when you really think about things. I don’t show ads, I don’t have a Patreon, I don’t make any money at all, so what is the point.
Yet there is one. Take for example the ‘How To” guides that I write.
It was by absolute chance that I remembered to post today’s blog post for the March blogging challenge. Even on the second day I almost didn’t make it to write out something, maybe I need to build this into a routine!
By pure luck I checked my RSS reader of choice (Reeder is the best) and I had at some point subscribed to the prompt feed. So, as luck would have it, the gods of chance were on my side.
I wouldn’t say that daily routines are essential to me, but they are very highly ranked. I am a big creature of habit, and love to do the same things at pretty much the same time every day if possible. Working from home has only highlighted this further, and although it’s pretty weird to some people I have always loved to be in a routine.
Simple things like walking the dog in the morning completely throw me off if I can’t do them.
When you first start out writing anything it’s daunting. It feels like it’s one of those things that anyone can do, but instantly feels like it’s something you can’t do very well. The reasons it feels like that is a complicated thing to work out but there are millions of people ready to tell you you’re wrong —- and that doesn’t help.
There are courses all over the internet to teach you how, as well as loads people to pick faults in the way you do it.
When I first started writing on the internet it was a weird time. I wasn’t the first to do it, but I did zero research and just decided that was what I wanted to do. Without any clue how to use WordPress, or any CMS of that matter, I would write HTML pages and link them all together. A static site of sorts, but one I was prepared to put loads of work in because I wanted to be a ‘writer’.
Jacob Kastrenakes on Twitters new features:
Direct payment tools have become increasingly important for creators in particular in recent years. Patreon has been hugely successful, and other platforms including Facebook, YouTube, and even GitHub have all launched direct creator payment features. Growth growth growth. That’s the name of the game in big tech and there is no room for excuses. Instead of developing and building in what your platform offers, the current state of play is stuffing everything that is good about other platforms into your own.
Andy Nicolaides on the new ‘blogging’ in Hey
One of the guiding principles of Hey, to me, seemed to be some simplicity and relaxing of email norms such as inbox zero and the like, so a blogging platform in an email service does, at first glance, seem a bit odd. It is, however, as I said a really interesting approach and idea and it’s something I’d definitely jump on trying if it does every become a shipping product.