Artificial Intelligence continues to rock the world
February was a psychological roller coaster as the entire world struggled to reconcile the usefulness of AI with growing economic and political fears about its competence and ubiquity.
Major infotech companies saw their values plummet by nearly 20% on news that Anthropic would be moving into legal and accounting spaces, triggering a panicked selloff in the tech sector. Leaders in the AI field released dire predictions about the imminent disruption of nearly all work based on their impressions of escalating capabilities. And the US Department of War declared Anthropic a supply chain risk for its red line on the use of AI in autonomous weapon systems and mass domestic surveillance.
I can’t recall a time when the hype and anxiety over an emerging technology was this high. The expert predictions are wildly conflicting and therefore very unsettling. I’ve chosen to jump into AI adoption with both feet and eyes wide open, so if you ever feel the need to talk about what is happening in the AI space, feel free to reach out.
With this broad context in mind, this newsletter explores the notion that the tools that people use to get things done will matter now more than ever before.
New Apps: Capture and Enumerator 2.0.1
Sistnt’s highlight from February was the release of Capture, a privacy-first, on-device iOS application for capturing thoughts and ideas using visual and audio notes. Capture offers features found in subscription-based tools requiring a credit card, authenticated accounts, and cloud-based services, but using private and secure on-device iOS 26 features only - no additional account or setup required.
Capture takes the best parts of Apple’s Voice Memos and Notes apps and combines them into a single tool for collecting ideas on the go. I merged their core features, streamlining the extraction process, and added intuitive organization including categories and tags. To close the knowledge management loop, the app supports easy-to-use sharing with any productivity tool that users already employ like Notion, Obsidian or OneNote. This enables users to easily integrate Capture into whatever workflow they already work with.
Just as importantly, users can choose NOT to share that content with a third-party cloud service. With the data available only on the user’s device, no one, not Apple, not an employer, not even the developer of the app can gain access to that data. Privacy will always come first.
Enumerator also saw its first major upgrade since it launched in August 2025, introducing optional scheduled reminders, location-based triggers, and streak-tracking configurable by counter. This allows users to receive reminders to track actions according to a schedule, to reward successful habit formation, or to count number of visits to the gym or the bar or whatever highly personal activity it is that they want without having to remember to open the app.
However, I also had a learning moment where I recklessly released an update without thorough testing, introducing a critical potential bug. The 2.0.1 fix was released just a few days later and I learned a valuable lesson in both humility and trust in my automated testing and release management strategies. I wrote about it in my blog post “When AI tricks you with swag” that I encourage you to read to learn more.
What’s Coming Next: Orate (March 2026)
The next app scheduled for release is called Orate and it is another tool with wide ranging applicability. Orate reads text and uses on-device text-to-speech to convert it into audio that can be listened to with controls just like a podcast. In many ways, it is the reverse function of Capture which takes speech and turns it into text.
Pasting a URL from a webpage or blog and having the article clearly read aloud to me while I was walking between appointments this week was game-changing! This will be an amazing tool for anyone who commutes to work, runs or bikes, or just wants to multi-task their way through a long document while preparing dinner.
Users can upload MS Word documents, PDFs, text and markdown files, paste text, and submit URLs, and Orate will parse the text, look for chapter breaks, and add an “episode” to their content library. Users can choose whichever enhanced or premium voices they load onto their device, play the episode back at whatever speed they like, jump forward or backwards by 15 or 30 seconds at a time if they miss or want to skip something, and skip between chapters if the document had section headings.
There are subscription cloud-based services like Speechify that perform this function and they offer exceptional AI-generated voices to provide incredibly life-like synthesis. Orate is not that. Orate is privacy-first, on-device text-to-speech that you can use with your most private or sensitive documents without fear that they will be retained by a third-party and could be leaked or misused in the future.
Apple’s premium voice models on iOS 26 are leaps and bounds better than text-to-speech from even a few years ago. I urge you to try it once Orate launches in March.
The sistnt lineup so far
Capture was the third sistnt app, and Orate will make four in the seven months that I’ve been working on them. There are five more in development at the moment and once these are released, the foundational sistnt app family will be complete. Here is the current lineup and the function each app serves:
- Enumerator: relationship between you and your activities
- 4KWks (to be rebranded Peer): relationship between you and your mortality
- Capture: relationship between you and fleeting thoughts
- Orate: relationship between you and long documents
As more and more traditional capabilities become enhanced with AI services, fewer options will remain available that are truly private or secure. Also, people shouldn’t have to go all the way back to the CD-ROM era to have software that they can own and reliably use without a subscription. I truly believe that the world needs modern tools that use the latest technologies, but put privacy first and give users absolute control over their data as well as the tools that they use to manage that data.
Digital Cottages
The introduction of generative AI tools as a “force multiplier” has given small teams and individuals like me the resources they need to build new, innovative, tailor-made solutions quicker, cheaper, and better than any time before in IT history. The limitation now is only who you know (networking and marketing) and what they need (planning and execution).
This is similar to the model that stood for centuries within pre-industrial villages relying on cottage industries like the local blacksmith, tailor, or mason to provide solutions for their communities. In a post-industrial world, this Digital Cottage Industry model may become relevant again as large tech companies slash workforces and experienced, capable practitioners look for meaningful ways to leverage their expertise other than driving Ubers or delivering DoorDash.
In late February, I stood up digitalcottages.com. Digital Cottages is a beacon and a source of information for how I imagine the world could adapt constructively to meet the challenging new reality of a world with AI.
I hope that you’ll take a look at the inaugural post. Once Orate is out, feel free to convert it into a podcast and listen to it on your next 20 minute commute to the office.
What I Still Need From You (If You’re Willing)
Right now, feedback matters more than anything. If you’re using Enumerator, 4KWks or Capture:
- What works and what do you want to see more of?
- What doesn’t work?
- Would you pay $4.99 for Capture or Orate when it launches?
- Is there a specific tracking/reflection problem you wish existed as an app?
- What worries you the most about AI and what gives you the most hope?
Hit reply. I read everything.
And if you know someone who’d be interested in privacy-first apps for quantified self-examination, forward this along. Word of mouth is the only marketing that actually works for tools like this. Tell five friends about my apps - it’s free and it will help tremendously!
— george