Your camera roll is a lot of interesting stuff you've seen over the years. That's why I think everyone should curate their photo library, similar to how we curate Instagram. For me, part of it is personal: I just really like the aesthetics of the Instagram grid. That layout is beautiful and kind of unique. So why isn't there more pressure to do that?
The Story you tell yourself
You tell yourself a story, and at the end, you believe it. That's basically what this whole curating is about. It's not so much about signaling to the world; that has no value at the end. The only value at the end is the story you're telling yourself. And that is what you should be seeing in your camera roll.
So why not give the camera roll the features of a social app, just for yourself? It starts with a Story. You should have one. For now, I'm using an album for that; it's simply called "Story". Then, with an MCP for the photo library, an agent could send you notifications and build your own timeline.
And comments. The same way I comment on Instagram or other photo-sharing apps, I want to comment on my own photos: to make notes about them, to capture what I still want to do with them, and so on. In essence, the photo library becomes social, but single-player.
Screenshots as harness
This gets even more interesting with screenshots. You take them, they land in your gallery, and afterwards the AI becomes proactive and makes something out of them, for example creating calendar entries based on what you screenshotted. The photo library basically becomes the harness layer and the memory for your personal AI assistant.
I wonder why there isn't more happening here. Apple already does this to some extent with suggestions after you take a screenshot. But this needs to happen much more in the background, and the AI should then proactively get things done. Software needs to be proactive.
Screenshots are also where my inspiration ends up. I want to easily build inspiration sites out of them, like design swipe files. Apps like Mymind or Cosmos are awesome and pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. But I don't want to use another app again.
Notion Photos
So who should build this? I didn't like it when Notion acquired Cron and Skiff. I wish Cron had stayed independent. I wish Skiff had stayed independent. That orange #FF4700 still lives with me. But it is what it is. And if Notion is already on its way to taking on Google, Microsoft and Apple, then please, Notion: launch a Photos app next. It would fit right into the lineup, and it could glue the gap between my photos and my inspiration sites. A camera or Photos icon, right there in Notion for macOS.
Until then, I'll keep my "Story" album. Instagram, for an audience of one.