Matt Birchler
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Matt Birchler
@birchtree.me
1.9K followers 260 following 1.3K posts
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I'll tell you what. After doing a ton of iOS development over the past year, it is quite refreshing to have a customer report a bug on your web app and have the fix in production within minutes, not days.
February 2, 2026 at 8:15 PM
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iOS version should be rolling out shortly, but a really cool ChapterPod update just dropped that makes it way easier to lock in your chapter timings.

apps.apple.com/us/app/chapt...
February 2, 2026 at 6:12 PM
birchtree.me
🔗 + This one isn't a micro app… https://birchtree.me/blog/this-one-isnt-a-micro-app/
+ This one isn't a micro app…
Tech, Apple, and the vast grey area that is AI
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February 1, 2026 at 3:10 PM
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This would be pretty cool if it’s legit. Masking out parts of the screen at an angle is rad.

www.reddit.com/r/samsungga...
January 31, 2026 at 11:46 PM
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How Sherman spends most days during the winter.
January 31, 2026 at 8:40 PM
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🔗 Micro app 8: Capacities to Obsidian sorter https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-8-capacities-to-obsidian-sorter/
Micro app 8: Capacities to Obsidian sorter
This will be a short one because this app exposed an issue for me more than solved a problem long-term. I take my meeting notes in Capacities, which I think is a really good app for that sort of thing. It makes it super simple to integrate with your calendar,
birchtree.me
January 30, 2026 at 1:02 PM
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After getting a shocking amount of interest in this micro-app when I talked about it a few weeks ago, I decided to polish it up and turn it into a real app anyone can use.

Here's Yearly Run Goals!

birchtree.me/blog/yearly...
January 28, 2026 at 1:04 PM
birchtree.me
🔗 Yearly Run Goals https://birchtree.me/blog/yearly-run-goals/
Yearly Run Goals
I am once again happy to announce a new app is available. Yearly Run Goals is available now on the App Store for the iPhone, and it's a simple, visually delightful way to track your running goal for the year. Backstory This was the micro-app that kicked off my micro-app
birchtree.me
January 28, 2026 at 1:02 PM
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🔗 Quick Notes 2.0 is out now https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-notes-2-0-is-out-now/
Quick Notes 2.0 is out now
Quick Notes has a major update out now that has my favorite new feature in the app, a whole new design, the long-awaited ability to pause or restart recordings with ease, and oh yeah, iCloud sync. Brainstorm Mode Quick Notes has always been very good at listening to you speak
birchtree.me
January 27, 2026 at 2:00 PM
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🔗 UbiSoft is serious that this game is totally coming out https://birchtree.me/blog/ubisoft-is-serious-that-this-game-is-totally-coming-out/
UbiSoft is serious that this game is totally coming out
Zack Zwiezen: Beyond Good & Evil 2 'Remains A Priority For Us,' Ubisoft Says Ubisoft has confirmed with Kotaku that it is still working on the long-in-development sci-fi sequel Beyond Good & Evil 2. This follows previous reporting that the game survived Wednesday’s massive restructuring, which saw seven games canceled,
birchtree.me
January 26, 2026 at 9:00 PM
birchtree.me
🔗 + Don’t call me a vibe coder https://birchtree.me/blog/dont-call-me-a-vibe-coder/
+ Don’t call me a vibe coder
I think I'm an early adopting into the future of mainstream development.
birchtree.me
January 26, 2026 at 7:03 PM
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🔗 Trump invited his friends over and you’ll never guess who happily showed up (with movie snacks, I can only assume) https://birchtree.me/blog/trump-invited-his-friends-over-and-youll-never-guess-who-happily-showed-up-with-movie-snacks-i-can-only-assume/
Trump invited his friends over and you’ll never guess who happily showed up (with movie snacks, I can only assume)
McKinley Franklin: White House Holding VIP ‘Melania’ Screening Ahead of Doc Premiere With Mike Tyson, Tim Cook, Andy Jassy and More (Exclusive) Highlights Guests include director Brett Ratner; Queen Rania of Jordan; Zoom CEO Eric Yuan; Apple CEO Tim Cook; New York Stock Exchange CEO Lynn Martin; AMD CEO Linsa
birchtree.me
January 25, 2026 at 6:42 PM
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🔗 The White House is creating their own reality https://birchtree.me/blog/the-white-house-is-creating-their-own-reality/
The White House is creating their own reality
Violet Jira writing for NOTUS: White House Admits to Sharing a Fake Photo of Minnesota Activist After Her Arrest The White House communications team posted a digitally altered photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minnesota social justice activist, on Thursday that makes it appear that she was weeping during her
birchtree.me
January 25, 2026 at 12:09 AM
birchtree.me
I recently disovered GitHub Pages, which lets me host several of my websites for free, and makes deploying changes to them as simple as pushing a PR to main.

To help others, I made a tutorial that walks you through the whole process, including DNS setup.

youtu.be/DB_PGpJFU1A
January 24, 2026 at 8:32 PM
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🔗 Micro app 7: Quick Tier List https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-7-quick-tier-list/
Micro app 7: Quick Tier List
I'm excited to share another micro app with you today, and this time, I'm making it available for anyone who wants to use it. This one is called Quick Tier List, and it's a very simple website for creating tier lists. I think it looks really nice, it's lightweight, and
birchtree.me
January 24, 2026 at 6:51 PM
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🔗 Micro app 6: SRT Tester https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-6-srt-tester/
Micro app 6: SRT Tester
This is probably the quickest I've gone from zero to functioning app in this series so far. Last night I got a bug report telling me that the timing was slightly weird in the latest Quick Subtitles update. I lamented the fact that it was pretty annoying to test the
birchtree.me
January 22, 2026 at 10:57 PM
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🔗 What's making us stupid now? https://birchtree.me/blog/whats-making-us-stupid-now/
What's making us stupid now?
Nicholas Carr writing for The Atlantic: Is Google Making Us Stupid? Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—
birchtree.me
January 22, 2026 at 8:00 PM
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🔗 Thing that everyone with a functioning brain said about tariffs is indeed happening https://birchtree.me/blog/thing-that-everyone-with-a-functioning-brain-said-about-tariffs-is-indeed-happening/
Thing that everyone with a functioning brain said about tariffs is indeed happening
Tom Fairless writing for The Wall Street Journal: Americans Are the Ones Paying for Tariffs, Study Finds By analyzing $4 trillion of shipments between January 2024 and November 2025, the Kiel Institute researchers found that foreign exporters absorbed only about 4% of the burden of last year’s U.S.
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January 22, 2026 at 4:00 PM
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🔗 Everyone experiments a little in college (or, should I say, experiments with Linux, and by college I mean in 2026) https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-experiments-a-little-in-college-or-should-i-say-experiments-with-linux-and-by-college-i-mean-in-2026/
Everyone experiments a little in college (or, should I say, experiments with Linux, and by college I mean in 2026)
Stevie Bonifield writing for The Verge: I spent a year on Linux and forgot to miss Windows Customizing every visual element of my desktop has become one of my favorite parts of using Linux. It doesn’t offer any performance boost or practical benefit; it’s just fun. Two quick
birchtree.me
January 22, 2026 at 2:00 PM
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🔗 I'm learning so much non-AI stuff by using AI https://birchtree.me/blog/im-learning-so-much-non-ai-stuff-by-using-ai/
I'm learning so much non-AI stuff by using AI
Casey Newton quoting one of his readers: Meta’s scam problem, UK edition I did not know what an SQL database was, and GitHub’s interface used to give me hives. And through this process I have actually learned quite a bit about how to use them. That’s actually
birchtree.me
January 22, 2026 at 1:18 PM
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🔗 ROG Xbox Ally X review: amazing performance, but the worst software I've ever used https://birchtree.me/blog/rog-xbox-ally-x-review-amazing-performance-but-the-worst-software-ive-ever-used/
ROG Xbox Ally X review: amazing performance, but the worst software I've ever used
The ROG Xbox Ally X is a story in two parts. On one hand, you have hardware that is, in many ways, truly outstanding. On the other, you have a software experience that is an unmitigated disaster. It ruins the product in fundamental ways and is very possibly the worst
birchtree.me
January 21, 2026 at 11:29 PM
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I'm happy to announce ChapterPod, an app for adding chapters to podcast files, is now available to download!

I've been using this for about 6 months behind the scenes to do all the chapters for Comfort Zone, and it's easily the best tool for the job (for me, at least).
January 21, 2026 at 7:24 PM
birchtree.me
🔗 ChapterPod is out now! https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterpod-is-out-now/
ChapterPod is out now!
I'm excited to announce that ChapterPod, my new app for adding chapters to your podcasts, is now available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac! I've already written about most of the app's functionality elsewhere, so I won't rehash all those details here. Here's the basic pitch. If you're a podcast producer
birchtree.me
January 21, 2026 at 7:05 PM
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The trouble with ads is that they're a money lever you can pull to generate free revenue gains.

They begin as a little thing here and there, then they multiply and start to look more like normal content. And you can never go back because line must always go up.

9to5mac.com/2026/01/16/...
Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and search results - 9to5Mac
Apple is testing a new design for App Store search ads on iPhone. Some users on iOS 26.3 are noticing...
9to5mac.com
January 20, 2026 at 1:14 PM
birchtree.me
🔗 Micro app - MP3 Dreams https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-mp3-dreams/
Micro app - MP3 Dreams
MP3 Dreams was a little experiment to see how much of a viable music player I could create in an hour or two. I referred to a screenshot of iTunes from around 2005, back when it was generally loved and hadn't yet pivoted into the bloated mess it is today
birchtree.me
January 20, 2026 at 1:00 PM