Foolish Chatter

The launch of the Monologue Notes feature encapsulates the sort of change I’d like to see in the productivity app space. In the age of coding agents and LLMs, features alone are no longer enough to differentiate your product from a competitor: they can copy you in a matter of days. Instead, it’s paramount to differentiate your product on narrative, user experience, design (now more than ever, I appreciate a great, human-made, non-vibe-slop design), data portability, and integration with AI agents. Monologue has all of these, and that’s why it’s now my default dictation app everywhere.

– https://www.macstories.net/notes/monologue-notes-cli/

I need to start documenting my adventures in AI more. I’ve quickly connected MCPs and CLIs across my productivity stack, and have been shipping working WordPress prototypes across the board.

Any new apps I use these days need to have the connected tissue for me and my agents like Federico mentions above. The human polish is now more important than ever to stand out.

I use AI to build WordPress blocks. I use AI to write plugin code. I use AI to generate custom CSS and prototype ideas in minutes that used to take days. AI hasn’t replaced WordPress in my workflow. It’s made WordPress better in my workflow. The two aren’t competing. They’re collaborating.

– https://regionallyfamous.com/nobody-rips-out-the-plumbing/

Welcome AI and introduce it to WordPress. I agree, the two can (and are) flourish together quite nicely.

My colleagues have been cooking up some fun (and powerful) WordPress AI tools. The latest is Telex, which Nick Diego describes as:

Telex is an experimental tool from the Automattic AI team that turns natural-language prompts into working WordPress blocks. You simply describe what you want, and Telex generates the block.

Read his post for the full rundown: https://wordpress.com/blog/2025/09/23/telex-turns-everyone-into-a-wordpress-block-developer/

Matt also took it an additional step to share a bit more resources and use cases. Give it a try!

• https://telex.automattic.ai/

There was clearly a point of maximum value of that strategy, and it probably culminated with 2019’s Endgame. Which should have been the logical conclusion of it all – the cherry on top as one of the highest grossing movies of all time as a result.

via: https://spyglass.org/marvels-fantastic-four-mcu/

Couldn’t agree with this more. Have discussed recently with friends and family how that should have just ended the saga. An insane run by everyone involved.

A fresh start with new characters — or moving into F4/X-Men territory — could have kickstarted the cycle again. Shame we won’t quite ever know.

Once you realize you can get certain kinds of questions answered without lifting a finger, you start to notice those questions more often and actually ask them.

via: https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/713532/gemini-wear-os-pixel-watch-hands-on

Here I am staring at Siri on my Apple Watch and iPhone. 😞

Do I really need those blue bubbles? 🤔

Google has felt like a product in decline for a long time. Kagi offers a new, better vision for search, but the only way it works is if you’re willing to pay.

https://www.theverge.com/web/631636/kagi-review-best-search-engine

I’ve been a happy paying Kagi user for quite some time now. It’s my default on desktop and I leverage the iOS app to route my searched that way, too. I’m a big fan of customizing my results and pinning certain sites I know I want to hit.

And the no ads is just the cherry on top.

Another kinda surprise issue for her has been the idea that when she downloads an app, she then needs to open this “weird” (her words) .dmg file, drag an icon to some Applications folder, and then find that app again to use it. She thought the .exe process was easier than the more “manual” (again, her words) process on the Mac. It was also not at all clear that she could delete the .dmg file afterwards either.

https://birchtree.me/blog/my-wifes-first-reactions-to-buying-a-mac-for-the-first-time-in-years/

Decades into using a Mac everyday, I also still don’t understand why this process isn’t better. Must be very weird for new users coming from Windows.

If you embrace “the Automattic way”, there is opportunity to dial in the intersection of passion, imagination, and productivity, to make a tangible impact on many different projects and efforts.

Automattic, one year later – Rich Tabor

Couldn’t agree more having surpassed my three-year mark back in September.

I’m glad to have met Rich in his first year, and be able to call him a colleague. Also happy to thank him in person for the theme powering this blog at WordCamp US.

But the actual reading experience often stinks — most articles from most publishers in Apple News are lousy with huge ugly ads, breaking up each article every few paragraphs. And the ads are often almost comically low-class chumbox scams. I posted screenshots of a few of them just a few weeks ago on Mastodon.

Daring Fireball: Apple Again Hikes Prices for Its Media Services

I don’t follow the news of the day via RSS, so I actually enjoy relying on Apple News to read quality journalism that I’ve selected. Luckily, my ad blocking at the DNS level removes a lot, if not all, of the crap Gruber mentions above. It’s really awful for a paid service from Apple to be so crappy.

What’s even worse for me is the below. Block a news source to tailor your experience? Instead of just not showing you that publication, we’ll still populate our news feed with it, but just show you that it’s blocked.

Um, how about just not showing it to me? Since, you know, I blocked it. 🤷‍♂️

Integrations allows the convenience of creating tasks without leaving your email or switching between applications. As a productivity boost, it saves you from distraction because you can stay in, or out of your inbox.

Integrations for Desktop: connect your favorite apps

These direct integrations are the reason I ever started using Spark in the first place. When the desktop redesign lost these, I stayed with the classic version, and consistently lived in fear the would one day stop supporting it.

Now, 😅, I can safely move over to the new Spark Desktop and continue to send tasks directly to my desired third parties. 👏