Creative Year-in-Review 2024

With another year nearly in the books, it's time for my annual look back at what I made. This will be my third creative year-in-review, and now, it's complemented by the creativity log I've been keeping in the Collections app. Numbers aren't everything – or even the most important thing – but they can be helpful, so I'll be sharing some stats along with reflections on my creative output for 2024.

Let's see how I did.

Writing

Looking purely at numbers, it might seem like my writing slowed down this year. I published 42 blog posts here, down from 2023 by quite a bit. But I don’t consider that a problem for a couple reasons. First, my writing (and creative work in general) has spread out this year to new places. And second, this is a pressure-free zone. This blog has always been my place to express myself and my interests the way that works best for me, and it's continued to be that this year; I’ll consider that a success.

The rest of my writing this year took place at MacStories. I joined the team in January as a podcast host and took on an editor role in March. In addition to that work, I’ve also had the opportunity to write several times for the site and the Club. In total, I wrote ten articles for MacStories (including my visionOS 2 review) and seven columns for the Club MacStories newsletters.

Writing for MacStories has been an incredible experience in so many ways. The visionOS 2 review was my biggest undertaking as a writer yet, and I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out thanks to some amazing guidance from the team. I got to help cover Apple events for the first time, which I really enjoyed and learned a lot from. Club MacStories is the first place I’ve ever written behind a paywall, and I was nervous that the community wouldn’t consider my work worth their literal, hard-earned money, but the response from Club members was overwhelmingly kind and welcoming. It’s been surreal to the say the least.

So even though I’ve been writing here less and doing more behind-the-scenes work that we’ll get into later, I’m still very happy with my writing output this year. Come to think of it, if you combine my MacStories writing with my blog posts here, I’ve actually written 59 articles this year, one more than last year. Add to that the fact that some of that writing was published on my literal favorite website of all time, and well, let’s just say it’s been awesome.

Podcasting

Of course, I’ve also been covering the world of Apple TV every week on Magic Rays of Light with my buddy Sigmund. We’ve gotten into a really nice groove with the show that I think listeners appreciate. There’s always so much exciting stuff to talk about, and I love doing it.

I co-hosted 45 episodes of the podcast this year, though we actually published 46. (I took a week off for a work trip, and Chris Lawley kindly filled in for me.) That nearly averages out to one per week, and it’s the most we’ve published in a single year. Like I said, we’ve found our groove.

To help maintain that regularity, I took on some new intermittent responsibilities with the show. Sigmund has hosted episodes without me in the past, but I’d never done one without him until this year. Due to circumstances beyond his control, Sigmund had to miss an episode here and there, but I was able to bring in our good friend Jonathan Reed to co-host with me on those occasions. We had some great discussions.

I also edited the show for the first time this year; out of our 46 episodes, I was the editor on nine. We didn’t receive any outcry from listeners, so I guess I did a good enough job emulating the style Sigmund’s established as the show’s sole editor for years. It was cool getting involved in that part of the process.

It’s been a great year for Magic Rays of Light, and I’m thankful that I get to help make the show every week.

I also appeared on two other MacStories podcasts (AppStories and MacStories Unwind) this year, returned to iPad Pros for the show’s 200th episode special, and guested on two episodes of Tim Chaten’s new Vision Pros podcast. It’s always an honor to be invited on another podcast, and it’s a fun creative exercise, too.

Editing

This was the big addition to my creative process this year. Since March, I’ve had the privilege of working day in and day out with an amazing group of writers on the MacStories team, editing and proofreading stories before they’re published to the site or the Club. This experience has been unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and I absolutely adore the work I get to do with these spectacular people.

I’ve always loved words and the writing process, the effort it takes to communicate a thought clearly and get a sentence just right. But aside from helping out friends, family, and colleagues with the occasional assignment, I’ve never approached writing as a collaborative venture before. I’ve been a self-editing solo writer for years. Being a part of a team is something completely different; it’s been so enriching, and it’s made me better.

The writers I work with at MacStories are downright phenomenal. They make my job so easy, and so much fun. It feels like I just get to play with words every day and make cool stuff with my friends, and I can’t get enough of it. Becoming an editor has been the most creatively enriching thing I’ve done this year by far.

In terms of stats, I’ve edited 189 stories this year between MacStories and the Club. 115 of those were regular articles on the site, three were OS reviews, and 19 were other featured stories. For Club MacStories, I edited 40 editions of MacStories Weekly, nine editions of the Monthly Log, and three Club-exclusive columns.

Other Stuff

I also released my first shortcut this year, Watch History Journal, along with three subsequent updates. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to being a developer (and still very far from it), but it’s been a fun new challenge. It means a lot anytime I hear from someone who uses it and finds it beneficial.

Calling it “creative output” might be a stretch since it’s just for me, but I’ve kept up my expanded journaling practice this year, and I’m starting to see it reflected in my year-ago entries. It’s cool to see the seeds of reflection I planted last year reap benefits now. Journaling has been amazing for my mental health and creativity.

And of course, none of this includes the creative work I do in my day job at the church. It’s been a productive and enriching year there, too, as I continue to learn and push myself professionally.

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I’m really glad I did this creative review. Going into it, I assumed that my external creative output would be lower this year because of the time and effort I’ve devoted to behind-the-scenes work at MacStories. But in reality, that work has only fueled my other endeavors! I’ve never felt more creatively satisfied or energized than I do right now, and I’m so glad I can say that.

2024 was a year of big steps and major change for me. I’m thankful for every moment, every opportunity, and every person who chose to take part in this journey with me. It’s been amazing, and I believe the best is still yet to come. Let’s do this again the same time next year.

What Is a Memory Worth?

On the past couple episodes of Connected, Federico Viticci has spoken about a change he's noticed since switching from the iPhone 16 Pro Max to the iPhone 16 Plus: he's taking significantly fewer pictures than before. Although he thought giving up the telephoto camera lens wouldn't be a big deal day-to-day, it turns out that it did impact the way he was documenting his life – so much so that he's now back on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Listening to Federico speak about this really resonated with me. There's a tension between using the device he likes best and capturing moments from his life consistently. What's more important: your phone's color and weight or the photos you take with it? That's a tough question to answer in theory; in practice, it starts to become clear.

When the iPhone 16 line was announced and the consensus seemed to be that the non-Pro phones made more sense for most people this time around, I feared that I was selling myself short by sticking with the Pro Max. The colors on the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are so compelling. Just look at that ultramarine! Like many, I wondered if the enhancements offered on the Pro line were worth the tradeoffs.

The deciding factor for me really was the camera. Taking pictures is one of the most important things I use my phone for – if not the most important thing – especially since my son was born last year. I can send texts from my iPad, take calls on my watch, and check social media on my Vision Pro. But none of those devices can replace the iPhone when it comes to giving me access to a high-quality camera everywhere I go. It's the phone's "killer use case" in my book.

To be clear, I'm not a mobile photographer. I don't know that the pictures I take are "good" in an objective sense; that's not really my concern. What I care about is capturing memories. I want to flip through my Photos app and be reminded of times I had with my wife, son, family, and friends.

Because I care so deeply about getting the best pictures possible in the most scenarios possible, I opted for the iPhone 16 Pro Max this year. (I also like unreasonably big phone screens for some reason.) Even though the colors were tempting, even though it felt like I was going against the trend, even though I knew some of the pro features would be wasted on me, I went for the iPhone with the best camera available.

Almost instantly, any doubt I had in that decision evaporated. Here's a photo and caption I shared less than a month after my phone arrived:

Post by @devondundee@mastodon.social

View on Mastodon

I took that picture standing on the far side of a sandbox my son was in at a pumpkin patch. He was playing with his uncles and some other kids, having the time of his life, and I didn't want to get too close and risk distracting him. So I pulled my phone out of my pocket, zoomed in to 5x using the telephoto lens, and snapped this shot with the Camera Control.

Is this an objectively good photo? I don't think I'm qualified to judge that. But to me, it's an incredible picture that represents a memory of my son that I never want to forget. It's a moment in time that I'll cherish for the rest of my life. And if I didn't have the Pro Max's camera system available to me in that moment, I might have missed it.

Buying tech is a complex process that's different for everyone, and I'm privileged to even have the ability to ponder such questions. But in my circumstance, considering what I would be willing to give up to take pictures of my son like that one, it's a lot. I'm happy to make tradeoffs on price, weight, thickness, and – yes – even color options if it means I can keep capturing memories in the best way possible.

In 20 years, I won't care what color my phone was, or what model. I'll probably forget which number the iPhone was even on this year. But I'll still have the pictures I took with it. I'll still have that photo of my son's smile to look back on. I'll still have the memories, because they last forever, and to me, they're worth everything.

Pinning

In the November edition of the Club MacStories Monthly Log, I got a chance to write about an app that’s been on my list to cover for many months: Pinning. On the surface, it’s a straightforward countdown app, but Pinning has so many integrations and features built in that it’s hard to summarize everything it’s capable of. Rather than try (and fail) to do so, I instead shared some tips I’ve picked up from my personal use of the app to help others get the most out of it.

I hope you’ll check out the story if that sounds like something you’d be into, and even if not, I highly recommend giving Pinning a try. It’s an app that I’ve come to rely on more and more over time, and it’s constantly surprising me with the way it continues to grow and improve.

Bluesky

Below is the transcript of a conversation that took place at home yesterday. My wife noticed that I was on my laptop early in the morning, which is unusual for me. So she made a decision she’d soon regret: asking me what I was up to.

Katherine: What are you doing?
Me: Signing up for a website.
Her: Which one?
Me: It’s called Bluesky. It’s like Twitter.
Her: But… you just…
Me: *sighs* I know.

I’m not sure how many text-based social media networks I have space for in my life, but I’m giving Bluesky a try because it’s where a lot of people I want to interact with are going. That’s the same reason I joined Mastodon nearly two years ago and Threads after that. I want to hang out with cool people online, and since Twitter lost its place as the go-to for that sort of thing, I’ve committed to at least trying to be where everyone else is.

The Bluesky interface is the most familiar I’ve seen from a post-Twitter social network. The onboarding was painless and almost instant, and I was even able to connect my domain name without any trouble. It’s been a fun place to hang out the past 24 hours, as the trendy social networks always are. Only time will tell how big a part of my online life the service will remain, though.

Personally, I’m rooting for ActivityPub to win out as the social media standard going forward. I love the idea of only needing one account to interact with people across services. Bluesky’s popularity and its alternative protocol adds a wrinkle to that fantasy, but maybe one day, the two will at least be able to communicate with one another.

In the meantime, I’ll be splitting my time between all of these services and looking out for cool people to hang out with on each. If you’re on Bluesky, I’d love to connect. You know what they say: the sky is always bluer on the other side.

Ticci Tabs

A couple of months ago, Jonathan Ruiz released a new app called Ticci Tabs that I’ve really been enjoying. Why did it take me so long to write about it? Great question. Let’s just say I was waiting to publish this in honor of the first birthday of Jonathan’s other app Bridges, shall we?

My tardiness aside, Ticci Tabs is a great tool for saving websites that you visit frequently. Instead of bookmarking a link in a browser where it might get lost or you might get distracted, you can save it in Ticci Tabs to quickly access it anytime. I’m using it as a quick way to get to a bunch of pages I open often, like Wordle, my Walmart orders page, and Netflix’s network speed test.

I’ve been following the app’s development from its origin as a rapid response to Federico’s request on the Connected podcast to its maturation into a full-fledged product and beyond. It includes some really nice touches like support for sign-in links sent via email, an optional retro UI, Shortcuts actions, and alternative app icons. And it’s gotten some major new additions in its short life, including the ability to organize links with tags and support for iOS 18’s system-wide controls.

From its laser-focused purpose to its development story to its continued growth, I love everything about Ticci Tabs, and I use it every day. It’s a free app with very straightforward functionality that can fit a lot of different use cases, so I recommend trying it out if you haven’t yet.