AppStories

This week on AppStories, John and Federico talk about Apple's new HomeView, the HomePod mini 2, and Apple TV 4K (4th gen). 

Then for AppStories+ subscribers, Federico and John dive into the world decomped video games, with a warning for what's to come for developers on Apple's platforms.

Also available on YouTube here.

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Links and Show Notes

Apple HomeView

Meet Apple HomeView: A New Way to Enjoy Entertainment and Manage the Home
Apple Unveils HomeView: A Smart Home Display Powered by Siri AI

HomePod mini 2

Apple Announces the Next Generation of HomePod Mini
Apple Reveals HomePod mini 2 with New Colors, Richer Sound, and Siri AI

Apple TV 4K

Apple unveils the new Apple TV 4K, supercharged by Siri AI
The Apple TV 4K Gets Siri AI, an A19 Chip, and a $299 Price Tag

Apple Home Collection

Introducing Apple Home Collection, a new lineup of smart home accessories

Siri AI, iOS 27, and the AI Landscape

Apple Is Slow-Rolling iOS 27 Adoption, So Far
Meta's New Muse AI Agent App Overtakes ChatGPT as Top iPhone App
John Ternus on the cover of Time

Streaming and Media Alternatives

NVIDIA Shield TV
Moonlight
fx-upscale

Apps Mentioned for HomeView Widgets and CarPlay

Overcast
Pocket Casts
Castro
Mercury Weather

AppStories+ Show Notes

Decompilation and Personal Software

AI is mass decompiling games. That's both awesome and scary
Xbox Encourages Recomp AI Craze With New Experimental Labs Division
Hopper Disassembler
New on Google Play: More ways to create, discover, and play

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This week on AppStories, Federico and John start realizing the benefits of their attempt to automate all administrative tasks and explain why Apple's vague developer blog post about Full Disk Access and AI agents should concern all Mac users whether or not they use AI.

On AppStories+, as John nears the finish line on his podcast production suite for the Mac, he explains how the project started and what it's done to improve his podcasting workflow.

Also available on YouTube here.

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Crickets: The First Alarm Clock for Families. For a limited time, get 50% off for 6 months with code MACSTORIES2026 by selecting Redeem on the app’s paywall.

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Links and Show Notes

Apple's Full Disk Access Announcement

Apple Announces Plan to Impose New Full Disk Access Controls on Mac Developers
Apple Developer Blog post
Meta’s New Muse AI Agent Read My Private Messages. I Never Asked It To
Meta denies its Muse AI agent read a journalist's private messages

Some Mac Utilities That Rely on Full Disk Access

Raycast
Alfred
Bloom
Setapp
CleanMyMac
DaisyDisk
Pixelmator Pro

AppStories+ Post-Show

Tools and services mentioned:
Riverside
Transistor
Libsyn
Logic Pro
Final Cut Pro
Hush
iZotope RX
Whisper

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Federico is @viticci everywhere
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Meet Dot: OpenAI's Always On Agent
This week on AppStories, John is back from OpenAI DevDay, so he and Federico cover the history of AI agents, the current landscape, and what OpenAI is doing with Dots. 
On AppStories+, Federico provides a sneak peek at what's in store for his Reminders, Notes, and upcoming CLIs.
Also available on YouTube here.
Links and Show Notes
AI Agents
OpenAI Dots and DevDay 2026OpenAI launches Dots, its bubbly agentic avatar (TechCrunch)
OpenAI’s Dots: A First Look

Self Hosted AgentsOpenClaw
OpenClaw on GitHub
Hermes Agent
OpenAI hires OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger

Hosted Agent CompetitorsMeta's Muse becomes App Store's hottest download
Grok Bot
Grok Bot Brings Always-On AI Agents to macOS and iOS

AppStories+ Post-Show:
RemCTL: GitHub
MacStories: Introducing RemCTL, the Power-User Reminders CLI for macOS and AI Agents

NotesCTL: Club MacStories download
MacStories: NotesCTL, a Club MacStories Preview of Federico’s Advanced Apple Notes CLI Tool

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This week on AppStories, John shares his favorite parts of macOS and watchOS 27 from his reviews of both.
On AppStories+, Federico and John begin revisiting new their long lists of automation projects.
Also available on YouTube here.
Sponsored By:
Scribe – AI-powered workflow documentation. Get your first month free.
Links and Show Notes
John's macOS and watchOS 27 Reviews
macOS 27: The MacStories Review
watchOS 27: The MacStories Review
AppStories+ Show Notes
AI Agents and Cloud Development
Claude Code Projects
Cursor Cloud Agents
Muse (Meta AI agent)
Grok Bot
Local AI on Mac Studio
Qwen3.8 Flash Next
Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6
MLX
LM Studio
Draw Things
oMLX
mlx-serve
DwarfStar
Open Minis
Tailscale
Leave Feedback for John and Federico
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Federico is @viticci everywhere
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This week on AppStories, John interviews Federico about his review of the M5 Ultra Mac Studio and it local AI capabilities.
On AppStories+, Federico takes listeners behind the scenes on how he tested the M5 Ultra Mac Studio.
Also available on YouTube here.
Sponsored By:
Workbench: Remote desktop for AI agents and headless Mac minis. Free to use for 20 minutes/day.
Claude – For problems worth solving — get started with Claude today.
Links and Show Notes
Running Local AI Models on Apple's Latest Macs
M5 Ultra Mac Studio Review: The Dream Mac for Local AI Agents
Apple Hardware
Mac Studio
Mac mini
Studio Display XDR
Local Models
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Qwen3.8-27B
DeepSeek-V4-Flash
GLM-5.3-Flash
Cohere Transcribe
Qwen3-TTS
Qwen-Image-2.1
Local Inference and Clustering
oMLX
exo
Agent Apps and Tools
Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent on GitHub
Open Minis
Cadu
OpenAI Brings Computer Use to Codex App on Windows
Frontier Models and Workflow
GPT-6 Astra
Claude Fable 5.1
Claude Projects
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index
Elyx
NVIDIA PC Comparison
GeForce RTX 5090
Lian Li A3-mATX
NVIDIA DGX Spark
AppStories+ Post-Show:
A preview of how Federico used local AI models to support his iOS and iPadOS 27 review.
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