Matter

On a quest to build the perfect reader.

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[Matter @matter]

Pocket is shutting down. All respect to the pioneer of read-later apps. 🫡

We're here for the long haul and welcome displaced Pocket users seeking a new home.

1. Matter's core read-later service is FREE forever.
2. Pocket users get 50% off 1-yr Premium.
3. Matter is iOS-focused (no Android).

Email [email protected] for discount link.

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

I'm delighted to introduce Sundrop – a private photo app for parents. https://t.co/8c8dQTjJVb ☀️

Sundrop finds your best photos and turns them into delightful keepsakes.

See your kids side-by-side at the same age. Watch timelapses of them growing up. Relive your family's week. And lots more.

Everything happens on your iPhone; your photos never touch our servers. (We wouldn't trust a company with our photo libraries, either.)

Sundrop has brought a lot of joy to our own families. We hope it does the same for yours!

[Matter @matter]

@benspringwater 👀

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

In Sundrop we do a lot of fancy work to pull out your best family photos, essentially creating a filtered camera roll of just the stuff you want to see.

But beta feedback made it clear that folks are mostly not understanding this "see my best photos" value prop.

So, we built this new sequence to "show not tell" how it works. I'm pretty happy with how it's shaped up. (And open to suggestions for improvement)

Btw we are sending another batch of TestFlight invites today. Reply here if you'd like one and I'll DM you.

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

New app in the works and we're looking for 50 beta testers! If you...
- Have kids under the age of five
- Love taking and looking at photos of them*
- Use an iPhone 16 or higher
- Are willing to give active feedback about the app

then please reply here and I'll invite you to the TF.

*this is, indeed, a family photos app! Everything is local, 100% private, photos never leave your device.

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

I guess we should have a landing page https://t.co/gUgcAp76ey

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

It’s hopeful to see Shabbat/Sabbath gaining purchase across the cultural spectrum.

In recent months: @BenSasse's first piece of advice was to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy;* @ezraklein has done episodes about his Shabbat practice; @bryan_johnson has tweeted about his digital sabbath; and here’s Karlie Kloss with the Foster sisters: "I turn off my phone for the entire Shabbat."

(For those tracking, that’s a conservative Christian, liberal Jew, techno-utopian, and supermodel mom.)

Whether one is religious or not, the practice of taking a day to unplug from your phone and be present with family and friends is a deeply good one.

*Ben Sass’s “death bed” interview with @DouthatNYT is remarkable and everyone should listen.

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

And on the seventh day, man rested from the timeline.

Introducing Sabbath: Block X (and other addicting apps) one day a week.

 Now on the App Store. Link below.

[Matter @matter]

RT @benspringwater: Sabbath pause flow (I like how the glass slider turned out!)

ps we're sharing with first users next week. If you misse…

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

New Words That Matter site. Still needs polish (and better cover images), but coming along nicely.

[Hunter @HunterClarke]

Ben started keeping Shabbat months ago. Every week he would come back and lightly nudge us to give it a try.

Eventually it connected. I have fond memories of Sunday school followed by home-cooked meals and time to run outside in the Georgia heat. I remember connecting with my siblings. I remember dozing on a decades-old, worn-in couch at my grandparents' house.

I remember having a day that was rooted in being deeply human. You felt like part of a community. You were part of a family. And on occasion a spark of awe would stun you while you sat looking at the sky. There was nowhere else to be because there was nowhere else to go.

As the weeks went on and Ben kept raising the point, I found myself setting aside Saturday or Sunday to disconnect. I left the phone in the foyer and avoided other forms of work.

The benefits of the Sabbath don't immediately reveal themselves. The first few weeks are largely spent in a kind of agitation. You find yourself often reaching for a device that isn't there.

Then all of a sudden, you start to notice things. Small things. Like how how there are flowers blooming in a spot alongside your house that you never saw before. Or how there's one particularly nefarious squirrel with a spot on its chest that taunts your dog from the top of your fence.

Then there are the bigger things. Like just how often your daughter looks at you when she's playing. Not for attention, but just to know you're there and looking back. Or how earnestly your wife is trying to prepare a new recipe for your family. Or how your elderly neighbor seems to be struggling with their day to day chores now.

It's easy to give in to the eye roll reaction to hearing someone pitch the Sabbath as something new. It's obviously not. And all of these benefits are available without the ritual and especially without an app.

But for better or worse, we're steeped in cultural programming where if you're not on your phone, the people you're around are. And that feeling permeates your lived experience. There's always somewhere else to be, either physically or technologically. It's possible to "see" all of these things without noting their importance.

To Sabbath alone and with willpower is to take on a burden that makes surrendering to the day difficult. But if you Sabbath with the people in your life, surrender is something that can happen to you without effort.

This project is largely a labor of love by Ben. And we don't want to oversell what we've made. It's just a screentime blocker at its core.

But there's a rising chorus of people who are rediscovering this practice. And we think our product can help add to your experience (through subtraction).

If you're interested in giving it a try, reply to Ben. We'd love to have you.

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

Introducing Sabbath:

A modern app for an ancient practice.

Shipping in July. Reply here for early access.

[Matter @matter]

RT @benspringwater: Big @matter update today. In new Discover feed, we set out to strike a balance between new & timeless, personalized & s…

[Matter @matter]

Major update: Discover

We've rebuilt Discover from the ground up to bring you a daily feed of 30 articles worth your time.

• Recommendations based on your reading history
• Articles trending on Matter right now
• New posts from your favorite authors
• Timeless classics hand-picked by the team
• The most highlighted and read articles on Matter

The more you read, the better it gets.

Update in the App Store to try it now.

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

Have a bunch of limited edition black on black sweatshirts I want to give to @matter users! If you’re in SF and want one, reply to claim your size. You can swing by or send an uber courier. I’m by Alamo Sq, will dm my address.

[Matter @matter]

@feynon_ @benspringwater Totally hear you. We're bringing back "Send to top of Queue" in our next release. Will be out next week.

[Matter @matter]

👀 Big updates a-comin

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

This is awesome! Reminds me of a cross bt Cheeky Pint and How I Write, with a dash of How I Built This. Auto subscribe.

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

This collection by @ashleevance is full of delightful surprises. I would not have expected anarchist manifestos or odes to drinking from the Silicon Valley insider who reports on techno-capitalism and produced a Netflix documentary about Bryan Johnson, respectively. Calls to mind Whitman: Do I contradict myself? Very well I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.

As an aside - grateful to Ashlee, who is “kind of a big deal” as the kids say, for being a guest on our little newsletter and for being a mensch to work with.
https://t.co/Gut2o638uy

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

Preview of new @matter Discover feed

[Ben Springwater @benspringwater]

There's a certain genre of article I can't get enough but find hard to name. It's typically a numbered list of life advice, maxims, practical tips, principles, and so forth. Done well, it's a marvelous compression of wisdom, both quirky and universal.

Here are some of my favorite collections. Are there others that should be on this list? (I'm planning to write my own soon; it'd be cool if more people did this!)

103 bits of advice by @kevin2kelly
https://t.co/Rjvk4Lct8u

Principles by @nabeelqu
https://t.co/3j6bq5vlyz

50 things I know by Sasha Chapin
https://t.co/0ge9rIYq8C

50 things I know by @catehall
https://t.co/vAiY0yia9o

Observations on People, the World, and Everything Else by @mariogabriele
https://t.co/xGnj8riYuc

talking points by @visakanv
https://t.co/Z8mlauWMfM

28 Pieces of Life Advice by @david_perell
https://t.co/YNoOOSiQGO