Blog
Thoughts & Notes
Posts on iOS development, 3D printing, photography and whatever else is on my mind.
From the maker · iOS app
PauseFirst: Friction Instead of Bans
Why my iOS app PauseFirst doesn't simply block apps but puts a short task in front of every unlock. And how to try the public beta.
Read moreFrom the maker · iOS app
Why I Built My Own Sudoku App
A making-of: how subscription banners and gem pop-ups led to my own Sudoku app, and why it deliberately has no leaderboards.
Read moreFrom the maker · iOS app
CLAUDIO, Your Audio Player: Why I Built It
Audiobooks, podcasts and music from four sources, and no app left my data alone. How CLAUDIO came about and what I deliberately left out.
Read moreA Photography Course in 52 Weeks: the Approach Behind 365 Lens
How 365 Lens teaches photography: one theme a week, a task every day, the terms that go with it and a short check for every photo. An overview of how the course is built.
Listening to ARD Podcasts Without ARD Sounds
tagesschau, WDR Zeitzeichen, Radio Tatort: many podcasts from Germany's ARD have an open feed and play in any podcast app. What works, what doesn't, and how.
Podcasts in CLAUDIO: priority list, Smart Speed, read-along, sleep timer and more
What CLAUDIO does for podcasts: directory, priority list, Smart Speed, read-along, chapters, sleep timer, intro skip and CarPlay.
The best lesser-known podcast apps for iPhone
Beyond Overcast and Apple Podcasts: iCatcher!, Downcast, Castro, Snipd, Fountain, Podverse and CLAUDIO compared, with prices and privacy labels.
Story Mapping for Product Owners: The Backlog as a Map
A flat backlog tells you what comes next, but not what for. How a user story map in Jeff Patton's sense comes together, and where it fails in practice.
Emissions Gap Report 2026: On Course for 2.8 Degrees
The new UNEP report puts the world on course for 2.8 °C by 2100 under current policies. What the number means, what changed, and what would need to happen.
25 Automations Later: What Actually Helps in a Smart Home
Motion lights, good-night scene, solar control, fireplace effect: which of 25 automations proved their worth, and which are mere gadgetry.
Solar, Storage, Spot Prices: My Smart Home Energy Setup
Solar on three roof faces, three batteries with net-zero balancing, prices from ENTSO-E: how Home Assistant orchestrates car, hot water and heat pump.
Accessibility on a Personal Website: What's There and What's Missing
No legal duty, but WCAG 2.2 AA as the benchmark anyway: what this personal website has in place, what is missing and what remains unchecked.
Cruelty Toward Claude: What Anthropic's New Usage Rule Covers
From November 12, Anthropic prohibits sustained, needless cruelty toward its models. What the rule covers, what it leaves out, and why it is still contested.
Product Owners and AI Agents: Who Writes the Requirements Now?
Coding agents build what the requirement says and guess the rest. What that shifts for product owners, and what stays with people.
Building Logic Puzzles With Exactly One Solution
Futoshiki, Skyscrapers, magic squares, Calcudoku: how a Python script proves each puzzle has exactly one solution, and why all the clues are not enough.
Why I Built My Own Language for Gamebooks
Story Weaver is my language for adventure gamebooks: Markdown syntax, ink-style story logic, dice and combat built in. Why it exists, what a book looks like.
When Your Agent Represents You Online
Browser agents already act in your name, but with your session instead of their own identity. Why real representation needs mandates, labeling and clear law.
When Your AI Agent Pays: Money on Two Rails
Visa, Mastercard and Stripe are building payment infrastructure for AI agents while Coinbase bets on stablecoins with x402. How agents will pay in our name.
Human or Machine: Who Is Acting There Online?
AI agents act autonomously on the web. Humans now need personhood credentials, agents need mandates, and both require an identity of your own.
Who Owns Your Identity Online?
Accounts are borrowed: why the Fediverse, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid and the EU's digital wallet are building identities that belong to people, not platforms.
An Energy Manager That Starts by Just Watching
Energy management as a custom Home Assistant integration: roles instead of entity IDs, an explainable heuristic instead of a solver, observing before acting.
A RAW Workflow Without the Adobe Subscription: My Path With DxO PhotoLab
Adobe raises subscription prices, DxO sells perpetual licenses: why PhotoLab with DeepPRIME became my RAW workflow, honest limits included.
What the Heat Pump Reveals When You Ask It Directly
High pressure, superheat, energy per heating degree day: which diagnostic values a Modbus-connected heat pump delivers, what they mean, and the dashboard code.
3D Printing in Everyday Life: What Actually Proved Useful After Years
An honest balance instead of a gadget catalog: which 3D prints are still in use after years, which categories pay off, and what gathers dust in the closet.
Mapping Unknown Modbus Registers Without Breaking Anything
No datasheet to hand? How to identify the Modbus registers of an unknown device: scanner strategies, an observation mode, and the rule to never write blindly.
Passkeys Instead of Passwords: State of Play and Pitfalls
Passkeys are ready for daily use in 2026. Where the switch gets tricky (recovery, ecosystem lock-in, password fallback) and how to do it right.
LG Therma V and Home Assistant: Modbus via ESP32
Connecting an LG Therma V to Home Assistant via Modbus RTU and an ESP32: terminals, DIP switches and the three pitfalls that decide whether any byte flows.
The EU AI Act in Practice: What Applies to App Developers in 2026/2027
Chatbot disclosure from August 2026, high-risk rules from late 2027: the AI Act timeline after the Digital Omnibus and a to-do list for app developers.
Heat Pump Without the Cloud: When the Gateway Died, the ESP32 Arrived
The cloud gateway of my LG Therma V failed and support barely replied. Why the fix was a 35-euro board, and what a heat pump actually does.
AI-Assisted Programming One Year Later: What's Left of the Promises
19 percent slower instead of faster, declining trust, more duplicated code: the AI coding balance sheet per METR, Stack Overflow and GitClear.
Smart Home Without the Cloud: Why My Home Runs Locally
1,744 entities, one server in the house, hardly any vendor clouds: a field report on why my smart home runs locally, and where compromises remain.
The agent won't object: cleaning up instructions in grown projects
Coding agents resolve contradictory rules silently, without warning you. A tutorial on cleaning up the instruction files of grown projects.
Local LLMs on the Mac: What Apple Silicon Realistically Delivers
Language models without the cloud: why Apple Silicon is suited for it, which model sizes run on 16, 32 and 64 GB of RAM, and where the limits are.
Redispatch and Negative Electricity Prices: Why Wind Turbines Stand Still
573 hours of negative electricity prices, billions for grid congestion: why wind turbines get curtailed although power is needed, and what is changing now.
Dynamic Electricity Tariffs: Who Actually Benefits From Tibber & Co.
Since 2025 every German utility must offer dynamic tariffs. What studies say about the savings potential, the risks of price spikes, and who should switch.
Listening Offline: Music for Your Flight Without a Streaming Subscription
Streaming downloads expire if you stay offline too long. How to buy music instead of renting it and get it onto your iPhone for good.
CarPlay and Music From Your Own Server: What Works, What Doesn't
Your own music on the car display: which apps bring Navidrome, Jellyfin or NAS to CarPlay, where Finamp stands, and why the offline cache decides.
Finamp and CarPlay: Jellyfin Music in the Car
Does Finamp support CarPlay? Not in the App Store build yet; the TestFlight beta has had it since June 2026. What works in the car, and the alternatives.
M4B Audiobooks on iPhone: Chapters, Resume, Players (2026)
M4B instead of 30 MP3 files: what the format does, how it gets onto your iPhone and which player features a 20-hour audiobook actually needs.
ShelfPlayer, Plappa, or Finamp?
ShelfPlayer, Plappa, Finamp, Fintunes and more: which iOS client fits Audiobookshelf, Jellyfin or Navidrome, with CarPlay and offline mode checked.
The Subsonic API: Navidrome, Gonic and Ampache Compared
Navidrome, Gonic and Ampache all speak the Subsonic API. What the API guarantees, what it does not, and why server and app are independent choices.
CLAUDIO vs Plexamp vs VLC: Which Player for Your Own Music?
Three philosophies for your own music on iPhone, compared honestly: CLAUDIO for every source, Plexamp for the Plex ecosystem, VLC the all-rounder.
How CLAUDIO works: the architecture behind the privacy
A look under CLAUDIO's hood: sources as plug-ins, privacy as architecture and on-device computing, from a solo developer who uses the app himself.
Listening to audiobooks on iPhone: what makes a good player
Chapters, speed, silence skipping and a sleep timer: what actually makes a good audiobook player, and why privacy is part of it.
The best podcast apps for iPhone: Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro & CLAUDIO
Overcast, Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Castro and CLAUDIO compared: which podcast app fits you, and which one works without an account or ads.
The Cheetos Secret: Why You Can't Stop Eating Chips
Why we can't stop eating chips or popcorn even when we should already feel full, and what vanishing caloric density has to do with it.
Tagging Your Music Library: Metadata, Covers, Structure
Why albums fall apart in Navidrome and Jellyfin and how to prevent it: album artist, compilation flag, cover art and folder structure done right.
Trained Under Censorship: The Quiet Danger of AI Models from China
Tested with 5,760 questions: Kimi answered in censorship mode in one of three cases, DeepSeek in one of four. What that means for anyone using these models.
Kimi K3: The Frontier Just Went Open
Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3, the largest open-weight model ever. What it means for OpenAI and Anthropic and what model weights actually are.
No-Tracking Music Player for Your Files
Free music apps get paid in data. How to read App Store privacy labels and play your own files with no account, no ads and no tracking.
tokensave: An MCP Server That Saved Me Millions of Tokens While Coding
tokensave is an MCP server that gives Claude Code a local code graph instead of file reads. What it does, the 94 percent benchmark, and where it falls short.
Tipping Points: When the Climate Flips
The IPCC distills climate science. Its most explosive part is tipping points: thresholds beyond which change becomes self-reinforcing and irreversible.
Audiobooks Without Audible: Building Your Own Collection
Buy DRM-free, rip CDs, keep chapters and metadata tidy: a step-by-step guide to an audiobook collection that truly belongs to you.
Silos Are the Natural Enemy of Good Context
A pharmacy sign with a mounting rod through a figure's head shows what happens when teams work in silos: context gets destroyed, on three levels.
Same Grades, Different Chances: How a Name Decides Who Gets the Apprenticeship
Identical qualifications, different name: why Ahmet needs seven applications where Lukas needs five, and what that means for equal opportunity.
Stream Your NAS Music to iPhone - Without Plex (2026)
Your music lives on a NAS and you don't want Plex? Three ways to your iPhone: direct SMB streaming, the vendor app, or your own music server.
Titan and Pluto: One Unexplained Signal
The James Webb telescope found the same unknown absorption at 5.11 microns on Titan and Pluto. What it could be, explained without the jargon.
What Spotify Knows About You
Listening history, location, mood: what Spotify collects according to its own privacy policy, who it shares the data with, and what you can do about it.
What Is Private Cloud Compute?
What Private Cloud Compute is, how its architecture works, what Apple's security whitepaper proves and what the move to Google servers changes.
CPA Over CPI: Fraud Doesn't Vanish, It Moves Down the Funnel
Switching from CPI to CPA doesn't stop app fraud: bots fake registrations, click flooding hijacks organic installs. Why banking apps are the prime target.
Climate Neutral by 2045: Germany's Energy Roadmap
How Germany can reach climate neutrality by 2045: the Fraunhofer ISE study on massive electrification, new state roles, and the cost of hesitation.
Climate Change and Public Health: Infrastructure at Its Limits
Record heat in Germany: 41.7 °C, tropical nights, over 1,300 deaths across Europe. Why health systems and occupational safety need climate adaptation now.
Project Panama: Why an AI Company Cut Apart Millions of Books
Anthropic's Project Panama, uncovered by the Washington Post: millions of books cut apart and scanned for AI training, with court records and the settlement.
Best Navidrome iOS Apps (2026)
Looking for a Navidrome iOS app? Amperfy (free, open source), play:Sub, Substreamer and CLAUDIO compared as iPhone clients: CarPlay, offline, prices.
The Power Grid Under Attack: AI as Attacker and Defender
Millions of connected inverters and batteries make the power grid vulnerable. How AI-driven attacks could trigger blackouts, and why defense needs AI too.
Battery Storage: The Grid's New Backbone
Germany is adding battery storage at record pace, yet 400 gigawatts wait for grid connections. The problems slowing the boom, and the opportunities it holds.
Between Disruption and Demographics: AI and the German Labor Market
Is AI killing jobs in Germany? The data points elsewhere: jobs are changing rather than disappearing, and demographics weigh heavier than automation.
Why 2 Degrees of Global Warming Means +6 Degrees in Europe
The 2-degree target sounds mild. For Europe it means up to 6 degrees more during heat waves, driven by oceans, Arctic amplification and the jet stream.
AI App Flood: Almost Nobody Wins
Since AI coding tools became routine, iOS app releases have exploded, but usage hasn't. Why shipping alone stopped being a competitive advantage.
The Illusion of Digital Relief: Why the Skills Shortage Persists Despite AI
AI and digitalization don't automatically solve the skills shortage. An analysis of why efficiency gains often mean more work, not less.
Jellyfin Music on iPhone: Best iOS Apps (2026 Guide)
Which Jellyfin music app does CarPlay? Finer Player, Jellify and Manet do, stable Finamp not yet. All five iOS players compared, CLAUDIO included.
Best Audiobookshelf iOS Apps (2026)
No official Audiobookshelf iOS app? ShelfPlayer vs Plappa, SoundLeaf and CLAUDIO compared as iPhone clients: CarPlay, offline mode, free tiers.
Vibe Coding: Democratizing Software or the End of Quality?
What vibe coding delivers and where it breaks: Veracode and METR data, the Replit incident, and why developers become architects and auditors.
Fraud as a Service: How Telegram Bots Bypass Banks' 2FA
An MIT Technology Review report shows how criminals use Telegram bots to get around online-banking security mechanisms, and what banks need to do now.