04MAY2025: May the Fourth Be Upon You
Making a cafe at home, a killer camera sling, screensavers for your iPhone, tech to improve your social life, and more...
Happy Sunday everyone!
This week, I've been jailbreaking my old PS Vita to make yet another retro gaming handheld, thinking about the pros and cons of wearing a wire, seriously considering backing this nature observatory in a pod on Kickstarter, debating grabbing another pair of AirPods Pro 2 while they're on an absurd sale*, and dreaming of building this totally insane micro note-taking device.
On to the good stuff!
☕ HomeGrind for iOS - HomeGrind is a super fun indie app that released this week for us home baristas that are constantly taking drink orders from the rest of the family. The app lets you make a custom drink menu for your home cafe, listing all the drinks you can make and giving your guests options for the different milks and sweeteners you have to offer. Family and guests can download the app and place orders, upon which you'll receive a notification on your phone of the specifics of their orders. Your home "customers" can even leave tips in the form of emojis. I love this idea and am even feeling inspired to maybe do a free pop-up cafe for my friends in the neighborhood.
🧳 Nomatic 5L Camera Sling* - Ever since getting my Leica M10-P, I've really made an effort to try and bring it with me just about every time I leave the house. It's small enough and hardy enough to really be able to lug it everywhere. That said, there are times where I don't want to worry about it flopping around my neck, or when I want to bring a spare lens or two, so I started looking for a really small everyday carry bag I could use for my outings. After trying a bunch of options, I've settled on this awesome 5L camera sling Peter McKinnon made in collaboration with Nomatic. It's got a customizable internal padded section for a camera and a lens or two, as well as small pockets for SD cards and batteries, while still leaving just enough room for me to throw in a wallet and sunglasses, or notebook and pen. I particularly like the structured outer shell that zips completely open for visibility and easy access to the camera compartment. The sling works great both as a shoulder bag and as a fanny pack, and doesn't scream "I've got a fancy camera in here." I dig it.
⏰ Clocks App - This is a really cool little iOS, iPadOS and macOS app that essentially offers alternative screensavers to replace the default Standby Mode baked into the iPhone. It offers 28 different animations that you can customize with overlays of the time, date, and weather. Thanks to clever use of Shortcuts, the app will teach you how to set up your iPhone to automatically open the app and display the screensaver of your choice when you plug in your device to charge. If you like it on your phone, you can also use these screensavers on your iPad and Mac at no extra cost.
🫂 Friendzone Friend CRM for iOS - This new app offers something that I've long wanted- a simple, organized way to keep notes and reminders about the people you meet. In my professional career outside of my secret underground Hiro Report laboratory, I use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to keep track of my conversations with prospective customers and current/past clients. I've often thought it would be great to have something similar for one's personal life— An easy way to remember things about the people you meet, notes on those casual acquaintances you keep running into at mutual friends' parties so that you don't have to keep asking them where they're from and what they do every time you run into them, the names and backstories of the kind wait staff at restaurants you frequent, etc. Personally, I don't see myself using it for keeping track of my close relationships… but, at the risk of sounding like a total sociopath, I can see it being helpful for being able to build deeper relationships over time with folks that you are not in regular touch with.
📲 Raycast for iOS - Longtime readers will recall that Raycast* is one of my most used and beloved Mac apps. After months of teasing, they finally released their iPhone app this week. On its face, the iOS app is pretty simple— Due to the limitations of iOS, the Raycast team was unable to bring over the full suite of capabilities from the Mac. What they did bring over was their clean, minimalist, Markdown-powered, synced notes capability, quick access to all of the major LLMs via both their voice and chat AI interfaces, and access to your synced text snippets and quick links from your Mac. It's clear this is a first step towards something larger, however, and Raycast has already acknowledged they are working on developing an iOS keyboard so you can access more of this functionality in-line while writing on the iPhone and iPad. That said, Parker Ortolani has already written about the possibilities for using quick links and shortcuts to use Raycast for iOS as a modern day replacement for the vaunted Launch Center Pro. I'm excited to delve in and experiment more.
That's it for this week! May you have a fruitful conversation with a woodland creature in the days ahead.
*Asterisks indicate links that may generate a small commission to support the site at no extra cost to you. These links are not sponsored, and I have no relationship with the makers of these products.