Looking back over Q2, we closed out one prototype project and started two more.

We got called into a 'need-to-know' meeting with a client on the last day of June. It felt like an upcoming HR disaster, but turned out to be yet another secret prototyping project with a quick deadline!

Our latest focus has been in reaction to the updates from Apple's World Developer Conference; we've added Shortcuts and Siri support to a few apps to explore the new Siri AI advances.

Our growing suite of experimental iOS camera apps now includes six unique apps: Blocks Cam, Camelut, DejaView, Ornithoto, SF Camera, Trichromacy.

You can read more about all our camera apps here: https://optional.is/apps/cameras/

We have a 78-week publishing streak. In Q2, we published 6 articles, 7 weeknotes and maintained our ◍ Quarternotes newsletter schedule.


Hatena Burger Permutations
They claim over 270,000 different burgers and we put that to the test.
https://optional.is/required/2026/04/09/hatena-burger-permutations/
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100 Year Old Spatial Images
Converting old Stereograms into spatial images.
https://optional.is/required/2026/04/23/100-year-old-spatial-images/
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USB-C Non-Power Delivery
Sometimes USB-A not being PD is what you need.
https://optional.is/required/2026/05/07/ubs-c-non-power-delivery/
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Split-Fount Camera
Our newest experimental camera will put a smile on your face.
https://optional.is/required/2026/05/22/split-fount-camera/
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TIL DB
Our daily news headlines now have a new clickable home.
https://optional.is/required/2026/06/04/til-db/
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Worldmapper VR
We released an app to explore traditional 2D maps in VR.
https://optional.is/required/2026/06/19/worldmapper-vr/
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📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

Hapax legomenon is Greek word for a term that appears only once within a body of text. That could be a single work, a complete corpus, or an entire group of written records.

When we look back over the 466 articles posted on optional.is/required/ we've written ~734,000 words, of which 21,010 are unique and therefore hapax legomena.

Today the meaning of cliché is something that is so commonplace that it contributes nothing new, but it wasn't always that way.

Cliché is a 19th-century French word meaning "to produce or print using a plate to create multiple versions of the same design".

While the analog machines worked, the printing press workers heard a "clicking" sound. This gave rise to the onomatopoeic word cliché.

Over time, cliché evolved from describing the repetitive clicks to describing repetitive and overused phrases or ideas.

It's kind of a big dill that this year's proposal for Unicode Version 18.0 contains a Pickle emoji.

We'll be dill-irious in September if we can relish its inclusion.

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