Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts: Comfort Zone Niléane gets sporty and frosty, Chris is drowning in new Apple products, and Matt oversees the battle for the nicest iPhone wallpaper (where everyone wins). MacStories Unwind This week, Federico tries to recover from a rough week, John brings some Southern cooking to the show, Federico has a long backlog of videogames to attend to, and John has an Apple TV+ show and an album to share. Magic Rays of Light Sigmund is...| MacStories
Late yesterday, Apple pulled ICEBlock and similar apps from the App Store under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to Fox Business News. ICEBlock is a crowd-sourced app used to track the location of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so, [Attorney General Pam] Bondi said in a statement to Fox News Digital. In a statement to Fox, Apple acknowledged pulling I...| MacStories
Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts: AppStories This week, Federico and John follow up after a week with new Apple hardware and dig into watchOS and visionOS 26. On AppStories+, John is mixing up his link and data organization systems - again. This episode is sponsored by: Claude – Get 50% off| www.macstories.net
Old and new through the liquid glass.| www.macstories.net
There’s a lot coming to Apple TV+ this month, and this is your handy guide to all of it, including trailers, and calendar links you can use to be sure you don’t miss their premieres. Let’s dig in. The Lost Bus (October 3) First off this month is The Lost Bus, which is premiering this Friday. The movie, which is directed by Paul Greengrass, stars Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera. The story is based on the real-world events of the 2018 Camp Fire in California and is based on the 20...| MacStories
Source: Logitech. Today, Logitech introduced an updated version of its MX Master series mouse dubbed the MX Master 4. It’s a good upgrade, but the changes are largely incremental; while I like it a lot, the MX Master 4 won’t be for everyone. Logitech sent me the MX Master 4 to try, and I’ve been using it for the past couple of weeks, so I thought I would share what the experience has been like so far. I’ve been a fan of Logitech’s MX Master line of mice since the 2S, and before the ...| MacStories
Earlier today, Apple published a press release highlighting some of the apps that are taking advantage of its new Foundation Models framework. As you’d expect, indie developers and small teams are well-represented among the apps promoted in the press release. Among them are: Smart Gym Stoic Journal Motivation CellWalk VLLO Detail Signeasy Essayist Agenda OmniFocus| www.macstories.net
Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts: Comfort Zone https://youtu.be/nFa7NESZpXIVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Comfort Zone, Episode 68: The Things That Pinch (https://youtu.be/nFa7NESZpXI) Matt wants to wrap up conversation on Liquid Glass, Niléane has a music app that feels like it’s from 2004 (and we mean that in a few good ways), and Chris judges everyone on how well they relaxed last week. On Cozy Zone, the gang compares what they do ...| MacStories
Earlier this week, I shared my early impressions of the iPhone 17 Pro Max and included a few galleries of photos I’d taken at each of the model’s standard zoom levels. I was impressed by the results, which made me all the more excited to learn more of how Apple pulled this off. One of| www.macstories.net
Late last Tuesday night, after watching F1: The Movie at the Steve Jobs Theater, I was driving back from dropping Federico off at his hotel when I got a text: Can you pick me up? It was from my son Finn, who had spent the evening nearby and was stalking me in Find My. Of| www.macstories.net
Matt Birchler makes a great utility for the iPhone and iPad called Quick Subtitles that generates transcripts from a wide variety of audio and video files, something I do a lot. Sometimes it’s for adding subtitles to a podcast’s YouTube video and other times, I just want to recall a bit of information from a| www.macstories.net
Last Friday, just before midday, my new iPhone 17 Pro Max arrived at my home – a Deep Blue model with 512 GB of storage. Since then, it’s dropped neatly into my daily iPhone routine. In many ways, it’s not that different from the iPhone 16 Pro Max that I’ll be trading in. I’ve been on| www.macstories.net
Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts: AppStories https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIVjxkvSVHsVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Fall Hardware: First Impressions | AppStories | Episode 453 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIVjxkvSVHs) This week, Federico and John shared their first impressions of the iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and AirPods Pro 3. On AppStories+, Federico asks John about his plans to unwind now that his macO...| MacStories
I always enjoy iFixit’s teardowns of new Apple hardware. I’m not the sort of person who’s interested in taking my own devices apart; I’m just not that handy. However, I do like to see how Apple’s gadgets are assembled, and the iPhone Air is the most fascinating teardown in a while. https://youtu.be/woya8vjeFpoVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Apple’s Thinnest iPhone Ever… Is Actually Repairable? iPhone Air Teardown (https://youtu.be/woya8vjeFpo) As Apple no...| MacStories
Today, French entertainment company CANAL+ is releasing immersive documentary MotoGP: Tour De Force for Apple Vision Pro users. The 30-minute film follows French championship rider Johann Zarco during the French Grand Prix weekend this May, where he became the first French rider to win the race in over 70 years. One of the first third-party partners to receive access to the technology behind Apple Immersive Video, CANAL+ captured the race and the behind-the-scenes action using four Blackmagic...| MacStories
Professional photographer Austin Mann published his annual tests of the new iPhone’s cameras. This year, Mann traveled to the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy to bike and photograph the mountain landscapes. It’s probably not surprising that the 17 Pro’s telephoto cameras were a perfect match with the Dolomites: After extensively testing the iPhone 17 Pro camera system, I can confidently say the biggest improvement for photographers this year is the new 48MP 4x lens and the 8x teleph...| MacStories
Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts: Comfort Zone https://youtu.be/n1Xcb7tdpqQVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Comfort Zone, Episode 67: All of Comfort Zone Agrees (https://youtu.be/n1Xcb7tdpqQ) Matt brings a new phone (but it’s not what you thiiiink), Chris finally got the iPadOS update of his dreams, and Niléane oversees the PopSockets challenge, which ends up being an all-time Comfort Zone disaster. On Cozy Zone, the gang shares their t...| MacStories
While the highlights of Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 reveal seemed to be the addition of heart rate sensors, increased battery life, and improved Active Noise Cancellation, Dallas Taylor on YouTube went a bit deeper on the actual listening experience. Taylor is a sound designer and the host of the excellent Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast. (I| www.macstories.net
Apple news, app reviews, and stories by Federico Viticci and friends.| www.macstories.net
You’ve probably heard that Perplexity – a company whose web scraping tactics I generally despise, and the only AI bot we still block at MacStories – has rolled out an iOS version of their voice assistant that integrates with several native features of the operating system. Here’s their promo video in case you missed it:| www.macstories.net
I was as surprised as anyone when Apple announced that Logic Pro was coming to the iPad. I was excited too. Logic Pro is an app I use every week to produce MacStories’ podcasts, and I’d wanted the freedom to do that work on the iPad for a very long time. However, my excitement was| www.macstories.net
Today, Apple released Final Cut Pro for iPad alongside Logic Pro. I’ve been testing the app for about a week with sample projects from Apple and some drone footage I shot with one of my kids during the winter holidays. Like Logic Pro for iPad, Apple has packed a lot of sophisticated features into Final| www.macstories.net
The promise of portable dual monitors has always been compelling, but the execution has consistently fallen short, until now. JSAUX’s FlipGo 16” Dual Touchscreen Monitor breaks new productivity ground for Mac users. Unlike some alternatives, the FlipGo Pro leverages both DisplayLink technology and native connectivity to deliver true dual-screen functionality on Apple silicon Macs with| www.macstories.net
Apple news, app reviews, and stories by Federico Viticci and friends.| www.macstories.net
Apple news, app reviews, and stories by Federico Viticci and friends.| www.macstories.net
Apple released the first public betas of iOS and iPadOS 26 last week, and I’m going to cut to the chase with this story: although I’m still wrapping my head around Liquid Glass and trying to understand where this new design language will land, iPadOS 26 has fundamentally revolutionized my workflow in just a little| www.macstories.net
Longplay by Adrian Schönig is an excellent album-oriented music app that integrates with Apple Music. The app started on iOS and iPadOS, then later added support for visionOS. With today’s update, Longplay is available on macOS, too, where it adds unique automation features. If you aren’t familiar with Longplay, be sure to check out my| www.macstories.net
I never expected my game controller obsession to pay automation dividends, but it did last week in the form of the tiny 16-button 8BitDo Micro. For the past week, I’ve used the Micro to dictate on my Mac, interact with AI chatbots, and record and edit podcasts. While the setup won’t replace a Stream Deck| www.macstories.net
Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts: Comfort Zone https://youtu.be/AGfhgaDRSxw Niléane is out on assignment, so Chris and Matt hold down the fort, discussing what “pro” tools look like, the most pro Thunderbolt dock you can buy, and how they automated their note-taking. This episode is sponsored by: Ecamm Live – Broadcast Better| www.macstories.net
DEVONthink is a difficult app to review because its flexibility means it can serve a wide variety of purposes. I’ve been using it for the past few weeks as an archive and research companion that houses thousands of plain text files, but the app is capable of effectively replacing your Mac’s file system, storing and| www.macstories.net
We’re days away from WWDC, and I’m excited. As much as I enjoy a good Apple hardware event, it’s WWDC’s focus on software that I truly love. But what WWDC means to me runs much deeper than the OS updates we’ll hear about next week. Of course, Apple’s announcements are a big part of what| www.macstories.net
DeepSeek released an updated version of their popular R1 reasoning model (version 0528) with – according to the company – increased benchmark performance, reduced hallucinations, and native support for function calling and JSON output. Early tests from Artificial Analysis report a nice bump in performance, putting it behind OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini-high in their Intelligence| www.macstories.net
Over the course of my career, I’ve had three distinct moments in which I saw a brand-new app and immediately felt it was going to change how I used my computer – and they were all about empowering people to do more with their devices. I had that feeling the first time I tried Editorial,| www.macstories.net
It all started because I wanted a better keyboard for my Vision Pro. I had no idea that, in looking for one, I’d accidentally create the hybrid Apple computer of my dreams. As I quickly discovered after working on the Vision Pro daily, you can get by without an external trackpad, but a keyboard is| www.macstories.net
In working with my iPad Pro over the past few months, I’ve realized something that might have seemed absurd just a few years ago: some of the best apps I’m using – the ones with truly desktop-class layouts and experiences – aren’t native iPad apps. They’re web apps. Before I continue and share some examples,| www.macstories.net
Yesterday, it was reported that Apple had resumed advertising on X (formerly Twitter). The company ceased advertising on the site without comment in November 2023, but earlier this week, ads for a Safari privacy feature and the Apple TV+ show Severance began appearing on X. Apple has not commented on why the change was made.| www.macstories.net
Apple news, app reviews, and stories by Federico Viticci and friends.| www.macstories.net
John: The process of picking the MacStories Selects awards is simple. During the past year as we used and reviewed hundreds of apps, Federico, Ryan, and I kept a shared note in Apple Notes with a list of the apps that struck us as potential candidates for one of our 2019 awards. Not long ago,| www.macstories.net
John: 2024 was a big year for apps, but it was also different from most. More often than not, app innovation is driven by new Apple APIs; that wasn’t the case this year. Instead, it was other trends that shaped the apps we love. Artificial intelligence played a big role, with some apps adopting it| www.macstories.net
The headline may be a little provocative, but this article by Matt Birchler encapsulates a lot of the feelings I shared on the latest episode of Connected following Apple’s decisions regarding the Patreon iOS app. Part of this is that Apple is no longer the underdog, they’re the biggest fish in the sea. It’s simply| www.macstories.net
Today, Patreon alerted creators who use its platform that Patreon must begin using Apple’s In-App Purchases system in its iOS app or face the app’s removal from the store. According to Patreon: This has two major consequences for creators: Apple will be applying their 30% App Store fee to all new memberships purchased in the Patreon| www.macstories.net
Apple news, app reviews, and stories by Federico Viticci and friends.| www.macstories.net
Let me cut to the chase: sadly, I don’t have a new iPad Pro to review today on MacStories. I was able to try one in London last week, and, as I wrote, I came away impressed with the hardware. However, I didn’t get a chance to use a new iPad Pro over the past| www.macstories.net
I just came back to my hotel from the media event Apple held earlier today in London at their Battersea Power Station headquarters. I had high expectations for the new generation of iPad Pros that Apple unveiled today – some of which were exceeded by reality (hardware), and others that were, regrettably but unsurprisingly, faced| www.macstories.net
Last year at this time, I beta-tested Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad. I was impressed with both and found editing podcasts in Logic Pro for iPad surprisingly easy. That said, both apps were still limited compared to what their sibling versions could do on the Mac. With today’s update, Apple appears to| www.macstories.net
The big news for the new iPad Air is that it comes in two sizes now: 11” and a new 13” model. The Air has also upgraded from the M1 to the M2 chip and moved the front-facing camera to the landscape side of the tablet, and it has higher storage configurations, works with the| www.macstories.net
At its Let Loose video event today, Apple introduced new 11” and 13” iPad Pros. Both models come in Silver and Space Black and feature OLED displays, the M4 chip, and more. Based on the specs Apple shared, both iPad Pro models appear to be significant upgrades over the existing M2 models. The Design Apple| www.macstories.net
Today, the European Union announced that it has added iPadOS to the products and services subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The designation gives Apple six months to comply with the DMA. In a press release, the European Commission said: The Commission’s investigation found that Apple presents the features of a gatekeeper in relation| www.macstories.net
What a week. When it began to look like Apple would announce how it planned to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), I expected small changes at the margins that wouldn’t significantly move the needle in the EU or anywhere else. Boy, I was wrong. Instead, we got a far-reaching, complex response that| www.macstories.net
Just ahead of the macOS High Sierra update, Bjango released iStats Menus 6, an update to its comprehensive suite of tools that sit in your Mac’s menu bar and monitor its systems and now, even the weather. With highly customizable notifications, iStat Menus is an excellent way to know what’s going on with your Mac| www.macstories.net