Podcast Rewind: Cozy Sports, Wallpaper Wars, Southern Cooking, and Bad Bunny

By John Voorhees

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 joined by 9to5Mac editor-in-chief Chance Miller to highlight Paul Greengrass’s emotional California fire triumph-over-disaster movie, Apple Music’s next Super Bowl half-time show headliner, and the indefinite postponement of The Savant.

Apple Removes ICEBlock and Similar Apps From the App Store Under Pressure From the DOJ →

Linked By John Voorhees

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 ICEBlock and similar apps saying:

We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps. Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.

Joshua Aaron, the developer of ICEBlock, which briefly held the top spot in the App Store’s social networking category, told Fox that the app has more than 1.1 million users. Aaron told Fox Business News that he intends to fight ICEBlock’s removal.

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Podcast Rewind: From AirPods Pro 3 to AYANEO’s Budget Handheld and Pok Pok’s Backstory

By John Voorhees

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 Claude Pro, including access to Claude Code.

NPC: Next Portable Console

This week, AYANEO introduces it’s most affordable handheld yet, but it’s not part of its budget line of devices. Plus, Qualcomm’s new chips pack a punch and the GDP Win 5 pack a punch, while Sony expands its Pulse line with desktop speakers.

This week on NPC XL, Federico’s disenchantment with the Sony PS5 kicks off a conversation about what’s been a very weird console generation.

First, Last, Everything

This week, Jonathan is joined by Esther Huybreghts. Esther is the Co-founder of the multi-award-winning app, PokPok. Since the app launched in 2021, it’s won an App Store award, an Apple Design award, and many other commendations. Pok Pok was also recently included on TIME’s list of the 100 Most Influential Companies of 2025. Pok Pok is a really special app, and Esther talked about its inception, plans for the future, and staying strong against negative – and sometimes hateful – feedback.

Coming Soon: What’s New in October on Apple TV+

By John Voorhees

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 2021 book “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire” by Lizzie Johnson. McConaughey plays a school bus driver trying to get a group of students and their teacher to safety during the fire.

Add to your Calendar:

The Sisters Grimm (October 3)

Also debuting on October 3rd is “The Sisters Grimm,” a new animated series that follows two orphaned sisters who navigate a town packed with people from fantasy and fairy tale stories. The series is based on Michael Buckley’s bestselling book series and features the voices of Ariel Winter as Sabrina and Leah Newman as Daphne. The series blends discovery, fantasy and adventure designed to appeal to all ages.

Add to your Calendar:

The Last Frontier (October 10)

The Last Frontier is a thriller starring Jason Clarke as Frank Remnick, a U.S. marshal in charge of wilderness in Alaska. The story follows the crash of a prisoner transport plane, which sets violent inmates loose across the rugged landscape. The series, which explores the mysteries behind the crash airs the first two episodes of a 10-episode run beginning next week.

Add to your Calendar:

Loot, Season 3 (October 15)

Loot is one of my favorite Apple TV+ comedies. Now in its third season, the series returns on October 15th. In season three, Maya Rudolph’s Molly Wells and her assistant head to a remote island to embark on what will be a 10-episode season that airs on Wednesdays.

Add to your Calendar:

Mr. Scorsese (October 17)

Mr. Scorsese is a 5-part documentary that follows the career of filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Directed by Rebecca Miller, the documentary follows Scorsese’s life and artistic journey from NYU film student to legendary director through interviews with luminaries such as Robert De Niro, Mick Jagger, and Steven Spielberg, as well as unprecedented access to the director himself and his archives.

Add to your Calendar:

Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost (October 24)

Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, which is directed by Ben Stiller, tells the story of his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. The documentary will debut on October 17th in theaters with the Apple TV+ debut coming the following week. Stiller explores what Apple calls a “home, where the lines between creativity, family, life and art often blurred,” an intriguing framing that should make the documentary a great complement to Mr. Scorsese.

Add to your Calendar:

Down Cemetery Road (October 29)

Down Cemetery Road is an eight-episode thriller written by Morwenna Banks, who wrote Slow Horses, one of my all-time favorite shows, for Apple TV+. The series is based on the book of the same name by Mick Herron who also wrote the Slow Horses book series. The story follows the disappearance of a girl from an Oxford suburb after a house explosion. The series, which stars Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson promises to be an exciting conspiratorial story full of twists and turns, which is the sort of show I love.

Add to your Calendar:

That’s up for now. If you’re not listening to MacStories Unwind, please give it a try. I’m sure you’ll hear more about some of these shows and movies from me and Federico in the coming weeks as they debut.

First Look: Logitech’s MX Master 4 Adds Haptics, Actions Ring, and a USB-C Bolt Receiver

By John Voorhees

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.

Apple Highlights Apps Using Its Foundation Models Framework

By John Voorhees

Source: Apple.

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:

It’s a group of apps that does a great job of demonstrating the breadth of creativity among developers who can leverage these privacy-first, on-device models to enhance their users’ experiences.

Apple’s happy to see developers adopting the new framework, too. Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, said:

We’re excited to see developers around the world already bringing privacy-protected intelligence features into their apps. The in-app experiences they’re creating are expansive and creative, showing just how much opportunity the Foundation Models framework opens up. From generating journaling prompts that will spark creativity in Stoic, to conversational explanations of scientific terms in CellWalk, it’s incredible to see the powerful new capabilities that are already enhancing the apps people use every day.

Judging what we’ve seen from developers here at MacStories, these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. I expect you’ll see more and more of your favorite apps adding features that take advantage of the Apple Foundation Models in the coming months.

Halide and Kino Developers Review the iPhone 17 Pro’s Cameras →

Linked By John Voorhees

Source: Lux.

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 my favorite annual iPhone camera reviews is from the team at Lux, the makers of Halide and Kino. Their experience with the iPhone 17 Pro’s cameras was similar to mine, but with a lot of nerdy camera detail that I love. The overall conclusion of their testing in New York, Iceland, and London is that:

This is, without a doubt, a great back camera system. With all cameras at 48MP, your creative choices are tremendous. I find Apple’s quip of it being ‘like having eight lenses in your pocket’ a bit much, but it does genuinely feel like having at least 5 or 6: Macro, 0.5×, 1×, 2×, 4× and 8× .

The story covers every camera and each zoom distance. Of the 2x, Lux found that:

Shooting at 2× on iPhone 17 Pro did produce noticeably better shots; I believe this can be chalked up to significantly better processing for these ‘crop shots’. Many people think Apple is dishonest in calling this an ‘optical quality’ zoom, but it’s certainly not a regular digital zoom either. I am very content with it, and I was a serious doubter when it was introduced.

Lux’s highest praise was probably for the 8x zoom:

The overall experience of shooting a lens this long should not be this good. I’ve not seen it mentioned in reviews, but the matter of keeping a 200mm lens somehow steady and not an exercise in tremendous frustration is astonishing. Apple is using both its very best hardware stabilization on this camera and software stabilization, as seen in features like Action Mode.

There are loads of beautiful photos in the post and a lot more detail than I’ve quoted here. Be sure to read through the entire post because what Apple is doing with camera hardware and software is really quite remarkable.

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Quick Subtitles Shows Off the A19 Pro’s Remarkable Transcription Speed →

Linked By John Voorhees

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 long video without scrubbing through it. In either case, I want the process to be fast.

As Matt prepared Quick Subtitles for release, he tested it on a MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip, an iPhone 17 Pro with the new A19 Pro, an iPhone 16 Pro Max with the A18 Pro, and an iPhone 16e with the A18. The results were remarkable, with the iPhone 17 Pro nearly matching the performance of Matt’s M4 Pro MacBook Pro and 60% faster than the A18 Pro.

I got a preview of this sort of performance over the summer when I ran an episode of NPC: Next Portable Console through Yap, an open-source project my son Finn built to test Apple’s Speech framework, which Quick Subtitles also uses. The difference is that with the release of the speedy A19 Pro, the kind of performance I was seeing in June on a MacBook Pro is essentially now possible on an iPhone, meaning you don’t have to sacrifice speed to do this sort of task if all you have with you is an iPhone 17 Pro, which I love.

If you produce podcasts or video, or simply want transcripts that you can analyze with AI, check out Quick Subtitles. In addition to generating timestamped SRT files ready for YouTube and other video projects, the app can batch-transcribe files, and use a Google Gemini or OpenAI API key that you supply to analyze the transcripts it generates. Transcription happens on-device and your API keys don’t leave your device either, which makes it more private than transcription apps that rely on cloud servers.

Quick Subtitles is available on the App Store as a free download and comes with 10 free transcriptions. A one-time In-App Purchase of $19.99 unlocks unlimited transcription and batch processing. The In-App Purchase is currently stuck in app review, but should be available soon, when I’ll be grabbing it immediately.

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iPhone 17 Pro Max: The First Three Days

By John Voorhees

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 iOS 26 for months, so the operating system isn’t a big change, but there are some notable differences that I thought I’d share.

Setup

This year’s setup process was smoother than usual. I was in a rush to set up my iPhone because it arrived at about 11:30 AM and Federico and I were planning to record this week’s episode of AppStories all about our hardware first impressions. Given time differences, that didn’t leave me much time to get up and running.

I decided to go with restoring from an iCloud backup, which gets your iPhone to a usable state faster than other options but can take a long time to download all of your apps. It was a good call because by the time we started recording about 45 minutes later, not only did I have access to the basics, but most of the apps assigned to active Home screens had already been downloaded, giving me a chance to play around with things a bit before recording.

I had plans to go out late in the afternoon and was hoping to get as much of the transfer finished by then as possible, so I connected my iPhone 17 Pro Max to an Ethernet adapter and let it do its thing. When I left the house around 4:00 PM, I was pleasantly surprised to find that nearly all of the 520 apps I had installed were already downloaded.

Heat

The 17 Pro Max dissipates heat with the help of a vapor chamber.

Apple made a big deal of the iPhone 17 Pro line’s new vapor chamber, which, combined with the aluminum case, is designed to dissipate heat better than before. In my experience so far, it absolutely does manage heat better, but that’s not to say the phone doesn’t get pretty warm. When I was setting up my new iPhone, it got quite warm, as did my old 16 Pro Max. However, while the 16 Pro Max got hot above the Apple logo on the back of the phone, the 17 Pro Max’s heat was more evenly distributed. That meant no one spot got as hot as the 16 Pro Max, but more of the phone got warm, including the sides, which I’d never really noticed with the previous model.

In the three days since I set up the 17 Pro Max, I’ve noticed it get warm now and then, but nothing close to as warm as the 16 Pro Max typically did. I’ve been out a couple of times on warm (80—85℉) sunny days taking photos and videos, and while the 17 Pro Max gets a little warm, it’s much less noticeable than before.

Hardware Design

Initially, I was a little underwhelmed by Apple’s iPhone lineup this year. I love the Air, but the camera tradeoffs were more than I was willing to make. As for the Pro line, I’m not a huge fan of the two-tone style and giant camera bump. It feels too industrial to me, which may be the point, but I prefer a sleeker look.

The orange case is great, but Cosmic Orange isn’t for me.

I was also disappointed by the Cosmic Orange color. I like orange but prefer something brighter like the orange Apple Silicone Case. As you can see from the image above, it’s brighter than the Cosmic Orange iPhone. I had a chance to compare them in person at a local Apple Store over the weekend, and all it did was confirm to me that I’d made the right choice getting the Deep Blue model.

Apple didn’t make a black iPhone 17 Pro this year, which led some people to expect the Deep Blue model would be closer to black than blue. As it turns out, although Deep Blue is a very dark blue, it’s not a blue that would be mistaken for black. It looks great and minimizes some of the phone’s industrial look that I don’t like, so it’s a big win in my eyes.

My Nomad MagSafe-compatible wallet usually covers the part of the 17 Pro Max with the Ceramic Shield.

The only caveat is that the Ceramic Shield on the back makes a rectangular patch that looks a little closer to gray than I’d prefer. It’s not a huge deal since I usually have a MagSafe wallet hiding that area, but again, I’m not that into the two-tone look.

I love the rounded edges of the 17 Pro Max.

Surprisingly, another aspect of the 17 Pro Max that I absolutely love is the unibody design. There’s something about how the metal wraps around from the back to front that really works for me. Part of it is that the edges are rounder than on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, making the 17 Pro Max more comfortable to hold. The unibody design also makes the phone seem more sturdy. Plus, while I know intellectually that my new phone weighs 6 grams more than the 16 Pro Max, it doesn’t feel that way when I hold both, which I think has something to do with the fact that the rounder edges of the 17 Pro Max make it feel slimmer than it really is. In what may be another mind trick, the front glass of the iPhone 17 Pro Max feels a little smoother, too.

As I mentioned, I swung by my local Apple Store on Sunday to check out the iPhone Air and the latest accessories. I’ll get to the accessories in a bit, but when I saw the Air, I had that moment of amazement that it could be so thin and light, but not one moment of regret. The Air looks great, and I’m excited for what that sort of miniaturization of iPhone hardware means for future models, but it’s not for me.

I just like having a big battery and three cameras too much to trade those for a thin iPhone. Yesterday, I charged my phone early in the day, used it relatively lightly while I was working at my desk, and then headed out in the afternoon to test the cameras some more. When I went to bed last night, I left my phone on the couch by accident, where it sat until I got up today. It still had about 50% of its battery left. I love that I rarely have to think about whether my iPhone is charged, let alone worry about it.

The Cameras

Over the past few days, I’ve been experimenting with the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s three rear-facing cameras. In Austin Mann’s review of the iPhone 17 Pro’s cameras that I linked to yesterday, he said:

On the 16 Pro, the 5x (120mm) often felt a little too tight. The new 4x (100mm) feels far more natural and much more familiar. It’s a classic portrait and landscape focal length in the photography world, and with the bump up from 12MP to 48MP I’ve been really happy with the results.

I’m no pro photographer, but having used the new zoom cameras, I have to agree. Both focal lengths feel great, but the real star is the detail both can capture thanks to their 48MP sensors.

To show off what these cameras can do, I picked three scenes of things I might snap a quick photo of while out on a walk. I left the cameras on the Standard Photographic Style and didn’t do any cropping or editing, taking 24MP shots, which is also a default setting, with the Wide, Main, 2×, 4×, and 8× options.

First up is an island in Lake Norman:

Next, I walked over to Davidson College and took a series of photos of the steeple of the campus church:

Finally, I took a similar series of shots of Chambers Hall on campus:

I’m really pleased with the results. It was a bright, sunny day, which always helps, but to my untrained eye, there’s a noticeable improvement in image quality now that all of the iPhone 17 Pro’s cameras have 48MP sensors.

Accessories

I like the Neon Yellow Silicone Case with the Deep Blue iPhone 17 Pro Max.

When I stopped by the Apple Store over the weekend, I checked out the latest accessories, too, but didn’t buy anything. I prefer to use my iPhone caseless, but I wanted to see what my “official” options are because I do use a case when traveling.

Purple Fog goes well with Deep Blue, too.

The TechWoven cases struck me as durable options, although I wasn’t wowed by any of the colors. Instead, I was drawn to the bright Silicone Cases. Historically, these cases aren’t the most durable, but as someone who gets a new phone every year, that’s less of a consideration. The bright orange is great, but for my Deep Blue iPhone 17 Pro Max, I think I’d probably go with Neon Yellow or Purple Fog.

I like the new Beats case but wouldn’t like having a lanyard full-time just to have a way to prop up my iPhone.

I also checked out the new Beats cases. I love the little pill on the lanyard that you can pull apart to create a perfectly sized divot for propping your phone up. The colors are nice in person, too, but in the end, I didn’t buy one because I don’t want a lanyard on my iPhone.

So that’s my mini-review of the iPhone 17 Pro Max. It does the same Pro Max things I love with some nice perks like better cameras and a unibody design that’s functional and comfortable to hold while making the phone feel more substantial. Photographers and fans of great battery life really can’t go wrong with the iPhone 17 Pro Max.