02025Q3 REYKJAVIK: This quarter's been a wild ride! We started a WebRTC video conferencing project that will last us all summer. We've also watched the exchange rate plummet and the value of our invoice drop. Undeterred, our camera app experiments move forward as we keep an eye out for new opportunities.

📷

New Camera App: Ornithoto

We love the spark that comes from seeing something inspiring and diving in to try it ourselves.

Our most recent experiment is an iOS camera app that saves a time-lapse photo capturing motion and light.

We wrote about the inspiration, process and more about the technology. You can read it on our website: https://optional.is/required/2025/05/22/ornithoto-camera-app/

Download it for free (for a limited time) on the Apple App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ornithoto/id1665382610?ls=1&mt=8

🐘

Mastodon Move

When Twitter collapsed, we joined a small, local, Icelandic instance. This is exactly what Mastodon is designed for: a local feed of like-minded people. This was our way to get back into the Icelandic community.

We looked into running our own personal instance, but the maintenance, storage and bandwidth put us off. We suspect that a lot of early adopters made the jump before realizing the effort and commitment needed. Fast-forward a few years, the dust has settled and instances are closing.

We're sad to see our local community Mastodon instance close.

You can now find us over at @briansuda@mastodon.social

🗒️

Q2 Writing

In Q2, we published 6 articles, 7 weeknotes and maintained our ◍Quarternotes newsletter schedule. 

Cellular Automata
https://optional.is/required/2025/04/11/cellular-automata/
⸻
Muscle flexes
https://optional.is/required/2025/04/25/muscle-flexes/
⸻
Sawtooth and Sine Wave
https://optional.is/required/2025/05/07/sawtooth-and-sine-wave/
⸻
Ornithoto Camera App
https://optional.is/required/2025/05/22/ornithoto-camera-app/
⸻
Disney Flowchart
https://optional.is/required/2025/06/06/disney-flowchart/
⸻
Blind Men and the Elephant
https://optional.is/required/2025/06/20/blind-men-and-the-elephant/
⸻

📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

🏔️

Chimborazo

Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador with an elevation of 6,263m (20,548ft). If measured, not from sea level, but from the center of the Earth, Chimborazo is 2.1 km (1.3 mi) farther than the summit of Everest. This is due to Earth's equatorial bulge.

Does that make Chimborazo Earth's tallest mountain?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimborazo

😀

World Emoji Day

In this year's proposal for Unicode Version 17.0 there is a Hairy Creature emoji.

Our favorite Hairy Creature goes by many names around the world: Almas, Bigfoot, Mapinguari, Orang Pendek, Sasquatch, Yeti and more.

We'll see in the September update if this elusive creature is finally caught.

July 17th is World Emoji Day. https://worldemojiday.com

📦

Merch

😀📅 Emoji Calendar. This is a free app to count down to the next holiday with simple two-glyph emojis. Available for iOS and Apple Watch.

Designing with Data eBooks. If you need to tell your story using data, pick up these books today. Now pay what you want for epub, mobi, pdf.

Triagemail: Get unread email under control. An iOS app to check any email account. With only 4 options, get through all your unread email fast so you never miss anything important. $1.99 on the App Store.

Ornithoto: long exposure photos An experimental iOS camera app to capture light or motion to create amazing images.

◍

Prototypes to Products.

(optional.is) have worked with teams since 02011 to realize their ideas. From workshops to prototypes to products, we're there to help. Our experience working with small to enterprise companies brings a unique perspective on what's possible.