Chris Hunsanger

Early days, but I took @viticci@macstories.net ’s excellent REMCTL work and input it into my a vibe-coded weekend project to make an updated Things-esque app for Reminders.

Not fully functional yet, but neat to get sub-sections working as well as proper tagging.

I decided to give Google wearables another shot after receiving the new Fitbit Air this past week. While our family has unfortunately been dealing with a death recently, it’s honestly been nice to have a small piece of tech to explore and tinker with during a difficult few weeks.

First and foremost, I have a long history with Google hardware, which I think is relevant context here. I owned a Motorola Xoom 4G (later LTE), after all.

At one point, I was the Google fanboy.

In no particular order, I owned:

• Motorola Droid
• Droid X
• Samsung Fascinate
• HTC Thunderbolt 4G
• Droid Incredible

And of course several Nexus devices:

• Galaxy Nexus
• Nexus 4
• Nexus 5
• Nexus 6
• Nexus 5X

Plus a handful of tablets and oddities:

• Motorola Xoom 4G LTE
• Nexus 7
• Pixel C
• Pixelbook
• The original Logitech Revue with Google TV (yes, that one)

I’ve also owned several Fitbit devices over the years, and we still have multiple in use around the house today — including a Fitbit Charge 6 that my spouse uses daily.

I even started a now-defunct blog called HoloEverywhere back when Holo was introduced. I was genuinely fascinated by the direction Matias Duarte was taking Android design at the time, and I loved highlighting apps that embraced that aesthetic.

Needless to say, I’ve been around the block a few times with Google hardware.

Then eventually… I was done.

I watched Google abandon the Pixel C in favor of ChromeOS tablets — only to later swing back toward Android tablets again. I watched my beloved Moto 360 (still the best-looking smartwatch ever made, in my opinion) slowly lose support despite Google owning Motorola Mobility at the time.

And I refuse to discuss the Xoom 4G LTE any further, which remains one of my least favorite tech purchases of all time.

Meanwhile, over in Apple land, my iPad Air 2 just kept going. Years later it was still receiving updates and support long past what I considered a reasonable lifespan for consumer tech. That experience eventually pushed me fully into the Apple ecosystem.

So all of that history adds a bit of hesitation when it comes to jumping back into Google hardware.

But a few things happened:

• I had kids — specifically kids who wanted fitness trackers
• My wife and daughter started competing on steps, and I wanted in
• Apple still refuses to make a non-watch wearable
• Google seems to finally be opening Fitbit data up more broadly, including Apple Health integration
• And some of the newer health features — including the AI health assistant — actually look genuinely interesting (even if it comes with a $99/year subscription)

So now I’m a few days into using the Fitbit Air.

Not a ton to report yet, but early impressions:

• Battery life has been excellent — I’ve barely used 10% after two days
• The default black band is surprisingly comfortable, though I’ll probably look into third-party options eventually
• I’ve genuinely enjoyed the insights from the revamped Google Health app
• I’m also trialing the AI health assistant just to see how useful it actually becomes over time
• And while I’m still wearing my Apple Watch Ultra, the Fitbit is subtle enough that wearing both doesn’t feel too ridiculous

I’ll report back after I’ve lived with it for a few more weeks.

File over app

Steph Ango writes -

File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read. Use tools that give you this freedom.

File over app is an appeal to tool makers: accept that all software is ephemeral, and give people ownership over their data.

One of the reasons for the Obsidian renaissance has been the rise of the AI era, which thrives on parsing and interpreting open standards such as .txt, .csv, and Markdown (.md). Steph has already touched on this idea on social media, but Obsidian was uniquely positioned for this moment by embracing the “file over app” philosophy from the beginning and building around portable, accessible formats.

Notion has deservedly received a lot of positive attention from AI enthusiasts, and there are real strengths to its approach. However, exporting your data from Notion still often involves:

1. Using their relatively limited export tools
2. Relying on MCP connections, APIs, AI tooling, tokens, or subscriptions to transform and migrate that data into another format

I completely understand the appeal of the Notion model for many users — simplicity, collaboration, polished UX, managed infrastructure, and secure cloud storage are all meaningful advantages. At the same time, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn toward open formats that are not locked behind proprietary systems or dependent on a single application to interpret them.

Apple has taken some encouraging steps here as well. Last year’s addition of Markdown import/export support in Apple Notes was a notable improvement. But even today, directly reading from or interacting with the Apple Notes database remains cumbersome for AI workflows because of its proprietary structure.

What makes Obsidian compelling is that by embracing Markdown as a foundational standard, it gives users confidence that their data remains theirs. If Obsidian disappeared tomorrow, those notes would still be readable, searchable, accessible, and usable across countless other applications and AI systems.

That increasingly feels less like a niche preference and more like an important long-term design principle for the AI era.

Switching from the iPhone 17 Pro Max to the iPhone Air has been… surprisingly easy.

My wife had been missing the extra cameras on her iPhone Air, while I had been quietly interested in the Air since launch. Every time I picked up her phone, I found myself thinking about it more. So eventually, we swapped this past week.

She is now using my glorious orange iPhone 17 Pro Max, and I’m using her “light gold” iPhone Air.

A few quick thoughts after making the switch:

1. The lightness
My goodness — the lightness of this phone cannot be overstated. It is immediately noticeable every single time you pick it up.

2. Battery life
The battery life is absolutely worse than the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and noticeably so. That said, it becomes far less of an issue if you have regular access to a charger throughout the day, which I do. Accessories help a lot here as well, especially the iPhone Air MagSafe Battery, which has been excellent so far.

3. The camera
What surprised me most is that I miss the ultrawide camera more than the telephoto lens. Really though, what I miss most is macro mode, since it relied on that ultrawide lens.

That said, I rarely used telephoto, macro, or ultrawide photography enough for it to become a major issue. At least so far, I’ve missed those features far less than I expected.

As for cases, I’ve mostly used the phone naked. I tried the bumper case, which was fine, and eventually picked up the Frost Apple Clear Case at 50% off. It’s solid, and I especially like the open bottom design for swipe gestures.

But overall, my biggest takeaway is simple: I really do not want to go back to a heavier, bulkier phone anytime soon.

The iPhone Air is so light that I regularly forget it’s in my pocket. For one-handed use, especially while reading or resting the phone on my pinky, it simply feels fantastic in hand.

#rainbow in the smokies

I’ve been spending time vibe-coding to stay close to where AI tooling is actually heading. Along the way, I’ve been running experiments, shipping small systems, and learning what works (and what doesn’t) in real use. This is another post in that series where I’m sharing one of those builds and what I’m learning from it.

A few months ago I posted that I got bored and built a native macOS BlueSky app.

This is still very much an experiment, but it’s turned into a legit daily driver for me in bursts.

What’s working well now

• OAuth login is stable enough for regular use
• Timeline refresh behavior is much better (newer posts show up reliably at the top)
• Load-more behavior is smoother for older posts
• Posting / replying / bookmarks / profile views are in good shape
• Feed selector is more useful now (including followed lists, not just lists I created)
• Link previews and media handling are noticeably better
• GIF rendering/scaling is improved and fits the window better
• A lot of under-the-hood performance cleanup happened (token refresh flow, image caching, request deduping, and timeline merge logic)

Still rough (or not done)

• DMs are still the biggest sharp edge due to OAuth chat scope + token behavior complexity
• Notifications are not where I want them yet
• Search quality is still behind what I’d consider “done”
• There are still occasional UI/layout oddities in edge cases

Why I’m still doing this This project has become my sandbox for building an app the way I want to use one:

• native first
• minimal friction
• fast to open
• opinionated about the core flow (read, post, reply)

I also like how quickly this app reveals where protocol-level details (OAuth scopes, token expiry, chat endpoints, moderation labels, etc.) collide with real product UX.

Next up

• Finish DM support end-to-end in a way that is actually reliable
• Keep shaving latency from initial load and resume-from-idle
• Keep simplifying code paths after each feature pass (less clever, more obvious)

I still don’t know how far I’ll take this.

But it continues to be one of the more fun things I’ve built lately.

I’ve been spending time vibe-coding to stay close to where AI tooling is actually heading. Along the way, I’ve been running experiments, shipping small systems, and learning what works (and what doesn’t) in real use. This is the first post in a series where I’ll share those builds and takeaways.

Primary coding agent(s): Codex

Honeybooks

Honeybooks is the glue layer between requests and Audiobookshelf.

What it does

• Tracks requested books by title, author, requester, notes, and priority
• Lets me mark real availability state (audiobook, kindle, audible, both, or blank)
• Supports fast filtering for queue cleanup:
• requested (unresolved requests)
• available / unavailable
• requester-specific views
• priority-only views
• Supports direct edits and bulk actions from admin views

Audiobookshelf integration

When I mark a book as available, Honeybooks can do an ABS lookup before finalizing.
If the match is uncertain, I can confirm the correct ABS item from an overlay.
Once confirmed, Honeybooks stores ABS linkage (abs_id) and metadata without clobbering fields I want to keep.

So the workflow is:

• request enters Honeybooks
• book is matched to ABS
• availability is updated
• notification gets sent

Notification pipeline (technical)

Honeybooks uses event-driven notifications, not just UI-side actions.

• A Postgres trigger queues an availability_event only when a book transitions from not-available to available
• notification_rules control destination and filtering (Telegram / Pushcut / webhook)
• notification_deliveries logs sent/failed status per event/rule pair
• A dispatch endpoint processes queued events in batches

This keeps notifications predictable, traceable, and easy to troubleshoot.

Why We use it

Honeybooks gives me one operational view of “what was requested” vs “what’s actually available,” with ABS verification and notification delivery built in. And my spouse is actually using it and enjoying having this all centralized (and notifications!) without needing to parse a never-ending list in Apple Notes.

Below is the list of apps I use in various categories. I have excluded my strict work-usage-only applications.

• 📨 Mail Client: Mimestream (macOS/iOS) ✨

• 📮 Mail Server: Gmail, Fastmail, and some iCloud hosting with a custom domain

• 📝 Notes: Notes.app (ad-hoc/personal), Obsidian (work). ✨

• ✅ To-Do: Obsidian/Todoist - Late shift to Obsidian full-time using a single page method.

• 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera / !Boring Camera

• 🟦 Photo Management: Lightroom, Photos.app, Google Photos

• 📆 Calendar: Calendar.app, Outlook (macOS/iOS) ✨

• 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive, Google Drive

• 📖 RSS: feedly + Reeder Classic (macOS), and Lire (iOS/iPadOS) ✨

• 🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Contacts.app, Cardhop (for birthdays)

• 🌐 Browser: Chrome / ChatGPT Atlas, Safari (iOS). I still bounce between these three evenly ✨

• 💬 Chat: iMessage, Telegram, Discord, Slack

• 🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io, Plinky (end of year testing out). Capture. I’m still deciding what to use full time, but bounce between these options. I also have dabbled with Totmark… which will require a post to explain how that works. ✨

• 📑 Read It Later: Matter but admittedly using RIL apps less and less.

• 📜 Word Processing: Drafts ✨

• 📈 Spreadsheets: Excel

• 📊 Presentations: PowerPoint (occasionally dabble with Keynote)

• 🛒 Shopping Lists: Instacart/Meijer app or Walmart direct

• 🍴 Meal Planning: N/A (I use shopping apps to plan)

• 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Monarch Money

• 📰 News: Apple News, RSS

• 🎵 Music: Apple Music

• 🎤 Podcasts: Apple Podcasts

• 🔐 Password Management: Keychain/Passwords.app (1Password is only used for licenses and secured notes)

• 👨‍💻 Code Editor: Nova and Antigravity to finish the year.

• ✈️ VPN: Tailscale

• ✨ AI Platform: Gemini (post 3-Pro), ChatGPT, and Claude, with some dabbling in local LLMs

Other Apps I Rely On:

• Search/Utility: Raycast • Screenshots: CleanShot X • Clipboard Manager: Raycast ✨

Here is a link to my App Defaults 2024 post.

For background, I was inspired by Hemispheric Views 097 - Duel of the Defaults! and this post by Robb Knight.

Reading: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson 📚

Started Reading: Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson 📚

Finished reading: Oathbringer: Book Three Of The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson 📚

Got bored, built a macOS swift BlueSky app.

Working:
- Posting to BlueSky
- Replying to posts
- Timeline
- Bookmarks
- Profile view

Not Working (yet):
- Notifications
- Quality search

I’m not sure how far I’ll take this at this point, but a fun exercise in creating a macOS app.

Gut feel is that 🍊iPhone 17 Pro Max is calling my name, despite the obvious better looks of the 17 Air in all aspects but the color.

Really happy with how things have been improving in the Obsidian space of late. Bases feature looks to be a game-changer (at least for me personally, databases are fun!), and has pulled me back into Obsidian from the comfy confines of the still excellent NotePlan 3 app.

Pumped to finally have a date for getting fiber internet in my home for the first time. 🌐

Finished reading: Edgedancer: From the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson 📚

Finished reading: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson 📚

Cabin season is the best season.

Finished reading: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson 📚

MacUpdater

MacUpdater has become an essential part of my digital toolkit – a rare utility that solves a genuine problem without creating new ones. It scans your Mac for outdated applications (tracking over 100,000 apps) and updates them with a single click, eliminating the fragmented update experience across different apps. What impresses me most is its thoughtful design: a clean interface that clearly highlights outdated apps, a privacy-first approach that requires no account creation, and a refreshingly straightforward one-time purchase ($12.59 for Pro Edition) licensing model.

I have been interested in sharing more online, and decided to finally do a true deep-dive into the options out there to host a blog.

Background and Evaluation

I have been a happy Micro.blog subscriber but never really used it to the fullest for “blogging”. I am not a big writer by any means, but enjoy sharing interesting things I come across. Maybe it’s a link to an article, or an attempt to share a take on the latest tech thing in my life.

This eventually led me to evaluate the services in my life and how I use them. Previously I had my “homepage” which was just a link to this blog hosted on Micro.blog. I decided I wanted to change that up, and found that “hunsanger.blog” was available, and decided to move my blog content to that dedicated site, while moving my new “webpage” (omg.lol terminology) to be my home-base for my socials at hunsanger.com.

After seeing praises sung by Robb Knight, I decided to check out Eleventy which honestly I came very close to using. I liked that I could have a clean Obsidian → GitHub → Netlify workflow that would allow me to do most of my blogging in my current note-taking application of choice. The customization options were limitless, and there was certainly a level of freedom about it that did call to me. The #1 feature I loved was the ability to locally view and tweak my theme and then push changes to GitHub.

I also evaluated Weblog.lol (service offered through my omg.lol subscription) and it really is a good balance of functionality and convenience all while natively supporting markdown. I found the handling of templates to be a bit fiddly for my taste and customization was especially tricky but I’m anxiously going to check out Neato offered by Neatnik (who is behind omg.lol) when it is released.

How I landed on Micro.blog

• Responsive developer (I emailed Manton Reece about an issue I ran into with my theme and received multiple emails the same day answering my question)
• It jives with how I want to use this space, which is as a collaborative easy to use multi-platformed hub of content. For example, Manton was quick to add BlueSky and Mastodon posting and integration with Micro.blog which I already am using and enjoying.
• Great linkblogging support. Here is a great rundown on link-blogging from Manton that I came across when figuring out how to set this up with Micro.blog Linkblogging · Indie Microblogging
  • Solid input support
    • Does it have an app? Yes
    • Does it work with Drafts? Yes
    • Does it work with MarsEdit? Yes
    • Does it support Markdown natively for posts? Yes

Plans

• I want to post more, and specifically like the idea of doing more linkblogging in my admittedly limited free-time. I have four kids to entertain when I’m not working, and squeezing in time to write lengthy blog-posts just are not in the cards. Linkblogging with quick-takes feels doable.
• I’ll re-evaluate the long-term blog platform when Neato comes out. I do like the idea of having things even more customizable (like Eleventy) and I would say that is not off the table by any means.

For fun here are some blog screenshots I played around with during my evaluation period.

Eleventy

Weblog.lol

The Future of Search isn’t Google

From David Pierce at The Verge:

I’m still using Kagi, and it’s hard to imagine switching back. It’s now _Google _that looks bizarre and unfamiliar every time I open it. As Google has become more visual, more chaotic, and consistently less good at simply finding the things I’m looking for, Kagi has stayed simple and straightforward. It is a page full of links, and they’re usually the right ones.

This has been my exact experience since switching to Kagi around a year ago, I’ve already made Kagi my go-to search engine on all of my devices.

Below is my updated list of apps I use in various categories updated from 2024. I have excluded my strict work-usage-only applications.

Main Apps

• 📨 Mail Client: Mimestream (macOS) / Mail.app (macOS/iOS), Mail.app, and Gmail (search only) (iOS)

• 📮 Mail Server: Gmail, Fastmail, and some iCloud hosting with a custom domain

• 📝 Notes: Notes.app (ad-hoc/personal), NotePlan, and a late shift back to Obsidian (work). I still bounce between these apps but lately enjoy using Obsidian more for most notes.

• ✅ To-Do: OmniFocus, with some dabbling in Todoist

• 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera

• 🟦 Photo Management: Lightroom, Photos.app, Google Photos

• 📆 Calendar: Calendar.app, BusyCal (included with SetApp)

• 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive, Google Drive

• 📖 RSS: Feedbin + Reeder (I use both the new Reeder and Reeder Classic)

• 🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Contacts.app, Cardhop (for birthdays)

• 🌐 Browser: Safari and Vivaldi (when Chromium is required)

• 💬 Chat: iMessage, Telegram, Discord, Slack

• 🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io

• 📑 Read It Later: Matter, Obsidian (using the excellent web-clipper)

• 📜 Word Processing: Paper (via SetApp)

• 📈 Spreadsheets: Excel

• 📊 Presentations: PowerPoint (occasionally dabble with Keynote)

• 🛒 Shopping Lists: Instacart/Meijer app or Walmart direct

• 🍴 Meal Planning: N/A (I use shopping apps to plan)

• 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Monarch Money

• 📰 News: Apple News, RSS

• 🎵 Music: Apple Music

• 🎤 Podcasts: [[Apple Podcasts]]

• 🔐 Password Management: Keychain/Passwords.app (1Password is only used for licenses and secured notes)

• 👨‍💻 Code Editor: Nova

• ✈️ VPN: Tailscale

• ✨ AI Platform: ChatGPT (preferred model for API usage in other apps), with some dabbling in local LLMs

Other Apps I Rely On:

• Search/Utility: Raycast
• Screenshots: CleanShot X
• Clipboard Manager: Paste

Here is a link to my App Defaults 2023 post.

For background, I was inspired by Hemispheric Views 097 - Duel of the Defaults! and this post by Robb Knight.

I was inspired by Hemispheric Views 097 - Duel of the Defaults! and this post by Robb Knight.

Below is the list I use in the various categories mentioned. I have excluded my strict work usage only applications.

📨 Mail Client: Mimestream (macOS) / Mail.app (macOS/iOS), Gmail (search only) (iOS)
📮 Mail Server: Gmail, Fastmail
📝 Notes: Notes.app (ad-hoc), NotePlan. I do still occasionally dabble with Bear and Obsidian.
✅ To-Do: Reminders, Things 3
📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera
🟦 Photo Management: Lightroom, Photos.app, Google Photos
📆 Calendar: Calendar.app
📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive, Google Drive
📖 RSS: Feedbin + Reeder
🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Contacts.app, Cardhop (for birthdays)
🌐 Browser: Safari, Arc (when Chromium required)
💬 Chat: iMessage, Telegram, Discord, Slack
🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io
📑 Read It Later: Matter
📜 Word Processing: Ulysses
📈 Spreadsheets: Excel
📊 Presentations: PowerPoint, dabble with Keynote
🛒 Shopping Lists: Instacart/Meijer app direct or Reminders
🍴 Meal Planning: N/A (use Shopping apps to plan)
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Copilot / Chronicle
📰 News: Apple News, RSS
🎵 Music: Apple Music, Tidal (via Vault subscription)
🎤 Podcasts: Apple Podcasts
🔐 Password Management: 1Password, but migrating slowly to Keychain
👨‍💻 Code Editor: Nova
✈️ VPN: Tailscale

Other Apps I rely on:

• Search/Utility - Raycast
• Screenshots - CleanShot X
• Clipboard Manager - Paste

• The 15 Pro Max seems (as of iOS 17.2 Beta)to run more warm then my previous iPhones. Definitely more noticeable to me than I ever remember with the 14 Pro Max.
• Titanium finish is fantastic. In fact, the feel of the device was so good, I decided to go case-less for a bit, and ended up dropping my phone on cement almost immediately after making this decision.¹
• The 15 Pro Max weight differences (and re-balancing of the device) are significant. The phone has a better balance in hand, and the albeit small differences in weight, do make a difference.
• I went with the Natural Titanium finish, and its fine. I think it’s the best of the overall even more toned down color palette for the Pro series.
• The fine woven cases are not great. I think if you are someone that enjoys the feel of suede this case may appeal to you.
• The action button is a cool inclusion, but I still do not feel like I have found a great daily use case for it (much like the action button on the Ultra).²
• The 15 Pro Max 5x lens is fantastic, and I am already getting a lot of use out of it for my kids soccer games.
• USB-C is… fine? I am glad to have nearly all of my primary Apple hardware with a few exclusions³. I do worry about lint buildup in the port which has been an issue with USB-C ports in the past on the Pixel phones I have owned, and USB-C is still a messy spec.

Overall, minus the heat issue, the iPhone 15 Pro max has been my favorite iPhone to date, bumped specs aside, it was nice to see Apple focus on the materials (titanium is fantastic), and find ways to reduce the weight/feel of the device in hand.

I have been testing out the new iOS 17 Podcasts app, and for the most part it gets me 90% of what I want in a Podcast app.

Biggest drawbacks:

• Missing trim silence/smart speed feature. I did not realize how many of my podcasts I regularly listen to had so much dead air.
• Additional incremental / custom per podcast speed settings People speak at different speeds, and it is really helpful to have custom settings per podcast
• Quick access to show notes The iOS 17 Podcast app has the show notes available, but they require multiple taps to access, which is an added frustration.

Favorite features:

• Cross device application support (macOS, Apple TV, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS)
• Design aesthetic.

For now I am still bouncing between Overcast and the Apple Podcasts app, but I am happy to see Apple catching up in this space.

Tried a spray painter for the first time today, and I am officially a believer. Worked perfectly for tackling a cabinetry paint job.

Only downside is the lengthy (and messy) cleanup process.

Working on getting iOS Focus modes properly configured this weekend.

I am feeling fairly confident that iOS 17 dev beta 2 has broken Focus modes a bit though, as Do Not Disturb keeps getting enabled without any intervention on my side.

Checking out micro.blog and downloading the macOS Sonoma beta after returning from our camping trip early (due to thunderstorms), as one does.

testing out micro.blog