OCT.04.2025 - #43

Hi all 👋, this week while writing clicks 'n clacks I've been experimenting with !Boring Camera and Retro's latest collaboration, playing free browser-based game Messenger (thanks Aftermath), and reading Lux Camera's (folks behind the Halide camera app) review of the iPhone Air. Super exciting film news…Kodak has released their own new film stock for the first time in over a decade! It's called Kodacolor—after the film of the same name from the 60s and 80s—and there is a great Reel which helps outline all the company, licensing, and brand differentiation going on with Kodak and this new film.

Rapid-fire keeb news—previous feature FRUMPZKEYS has a 25% off sale until tomorrow, NovelKeys introduced a bundle-deal collection, Kool Keys wants to remind you of their keeb-cable-customizer, and there are still tickets available for the Canadian (Toronto) meetup!

Follow me and let's start talking about this week's amazing features!

clicks 🔗

Welcome home, reader 📚

→ There are a lot of Goodreads alternatives out there—StoryGraph, Bookshelf, Fable, Bookly, or Libib…just to name a few. I've tried a lot of these but never fully clicked with any one app, especially newer entries. Bookshelf was a little overwhelming, very data-focused, and AI-based features turned me off entirely. Fable also looked promising, however I found its attempt to include TV show tracking/discussion into the mix odd. Then I found Pagebound, which checks many of my boxes—passionate independent devs, anti-Amazon, anti-AI, and simple enough for an irregular reader like me. They are self-described as “if Goodreads and Reddit had a baby” and that's a great way to distinguish this app. Right after creating an account it was easy to add books (import from Goodreads if you'd like), the app dropped me right into interesting discussions, discovery felt so easy, and I appreciated how spoilers and book progression were handled. The community is young—but alive and active, the founders participate a lot, and the vibe it brings is just plain fun! On top of that, they recently released their Android and iOS apps!

Arc, who?

→ Adding to the list of applications, browsers, and extensions popping up in the wake of the “Arc is dead”-era is SupaSidebar. A macOS exclusive app that lives in your menu bar, emulates an Arc-like slide-out tab, and acts as a global bookmarking system. You can pin websites, view browsing history, create folders, and quickly search all saved items. As I've stated before, I'm a big Raindrop+Raycast extension user for all my bookmarks, but this could be a contender to replace those as development continues—things like importing and cross-platform syncing are big for me. If you're interested, it's a great time to pick up the app's “supporter” tier for a discounted price and give feedback to dev Kshetez Vinayak!

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

→ Graphic designer Connor Fairclough walks us through a short and sweet examination on the re-emergence of ASCII. Connor's observation of ASCII art's recent prevalence is something I've noticed as well in things like James Wrigley's E : M ASCII Editor (previously featured in Issue #19) or Mozilla's brand refresh. This is a nice, quick read that includes some neat links to projects that utilize this retro form of digital visualization.

clacks ⌨️

Ring, ring…keyboards are calling 📞

→ Ever since 2010, Google Japan has been making unhinged, outlandish Gboard creations for April Fools. When Google as a whole decided to give up April Fools gags in 2021, Google Japan continued their keyboard creations with a self-declared “Keyboard Day” on October 1st—since a US Traditional Keyboard has 101 keys (10/1). On these days in past years they've announced the Yunomi “tea cup”, G-Bar, Caps, and the double-sided möbius strip board. Every board they “make” is never intended for actual release, but they always provide the files and instructions to build, open-sourced here on their GitHub. The energy and passion that goes into making these keyboards, and their equally silly announcement videos, are such a blast to witness and smile at.

Watch out for this artisan

→ Muji, creator of keeb vendor Sneakbox, released an amazing new keycap artisan this past week—it is a fully-functional watch in the footprint of a 1u-sized cap 🤯. Outfitted with a Miyota 5Y20 quartz movement and encased in a stainless steel enclosure in 3 colourways (steel, black, and rose), this is truly a feat of craftsmanship and design I have never seen before in a keycap. The fact that all the mechanisms fit inside of this tiny footprint is surprising. This limited drop (only 150 units total) is a bit on the pricier side coming in at $300 USD, but I think that price is totally fair for this totally unique concept.

Ice Age caps

→ Previous feature Awekeys has started the pre-order for a brand new all-metal keycap set called Wild Ice. Taking inspiration from a bygone, frozen era, the caps come in 5 colourways (Frost Blue, Sunrise Gold, Blizzard Silver, Glacier Copper, and Abyss Black) that have a rough “Frost Finishing” that give the keys a textured feeling. Just like their other series, they are made with recycled metal and have that same super-thocky sound signature. Love to see Awekeys innovate and come up with intriguing ideas/themes for all their keycap sets.

That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed it, and now it’s time to hear from YOU 🫵. I want to know your opinion—what you liked, what you loved, what you didn’t like, what you skipped. Reach out at mail.clicksnclacks.com (or reply to this email!) and have a great weekend!!