This week on Next Portable Console, we finally have RG Rotate specs and prices, get excited for the Steam Controller, update listeners on the latest grips available for the Switch 2, and cover the GameHub for Mac beta.
On NPC XL, we revisit GameNative, and Federico turns his Legion Go 2 into a SteamOS device.
Jonathan is joined by Niléane Dorffer, a French-Réunionnese podcaster, writer, and activist, known for being the co-host of Comfort Zone, her writing at MacStories, and her advocacy for trans rights.
With Chris out getting a puppy, Matt and Niléane hold down the fort, celebrating an app and lamenting a mouse. Then, everyone pretends to be someone else for fun.
On Cozy Zone, the gang compares their Mac Docks, and you won’t believe it, monsters were revealed!
This week, Federico wins the wild kingdom award, John is defending against vultures and has a creepy new show to recommend, and Federico closes with a TV check-in.
Spotify introduced a new feature called Personal Podcasts today that’s really clever. It’s a CLI, a set of agent skills, and a Claude plugin available from GitHub that, once installed, lets users prompt AI agents to create personalized audio that can be listened to like a podcast.
People are already starting to use their agents to create personal audio that guides their day: from summaries of class notes before an exam to briefings of what’s on their calendar. And they’re asking for a way to listen to it on Spotify, where they already listen to everything else.
Now, we’re making it possible to save and play Personal Podcasts on Spotify. Your agent can generate a daily briefing, private to you, and it’s saved alongside everything else in Your Library. And as always with Spotify, it’s seamlessly integrated across the devices you use.
This is a lot like a tool I built for myself that lives on a Mac mini server and generates a podcast feed from articles I save. I’ve enjoyed the experience so much that I plan to expand my server setup to handle exactly the sort of daily briefings Spotify envisions. What’s great about Spotify’s solution is that it eliminates the sort of tinkering I went through to build a suite of tools on a personal server. Yes, you still need to install a command-line tool, but with an AI agent to help, that’s simple.
I’m actually surprised that no indie developer of a podcast app has built a CLI for side-loading audio yet. The closest thing I’ve found is a Python CLI that automates the web-based uploading of audio to Overcast for premium subscribers. That’s an okay solution, but it’s unofficial, which means changes to the Overcast website could break it. Hopefully we’ll see something like this from more than just Spotify soon.
Earlier today, Apple profiled the accomplishments of Swift Student Challenge winners. The 350 students who built the winning app playgrounds come from 37 countries and were chosen from the largest pool of participants ever. Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations said of the competition’s entries:
The breadth of creativity we see in the Swift Student Challenge never ceases to amaze us. This year’s winners found remarkable ways to harness the power of Apple platforms, Swift, and AI tools to build app playgrounds that are as technically impressive as they are meaningful. We’re incredibly proud to support their journey and can’t wait to see what they create next.
Of the 350 winners, 50 have been invited to attend WWDC, which kicks off next month.
Apple’s press release spotlights four winners who built app playgrounds. Among those profiled is Gayatri Goundadkar, who built an app called Steady Hands that uses the Apple Pencil’s stabilization technology so people with hand tremors can draw more easily. As Goundadkar says:
When a person draws, my app uses Apple’s PencilKit and Accelerate frameworks to analyze stroke data and recognize tremors. It detects what is intentional and what is not, and removes the tremor component. Every drawing is then displayed in a personal 3D museum, because I wanted them to feel like artists, not patients. When users saw the stabilization working, they felt more confident.
Another winner, Karen-Happuch Peprah Henneh, was inspired by floods in her home country of Ghana to build a real-time pathfinding app called Asuo to help people in flood-prone areas to stay out of harm’s way.
Sign & Say by Courey Jimenez (left) and NodeLab by Aayush Mehrotra (right).
Earlier today, I had a chance to talk to Susan Prescott and two student winners: Courey Jimenez and Aayush Mehrotra. Jimenez drew on her experience working with nonverbal children as a behavioral technician to create an app that combines American Sign Language and Picture Exchange Communication Systems. As Jimenez explained to me:
When you can’t speak your needs, it’s a frustrating thing. So I knew I wanted to build something that was very user friendly and appealing to help mitigate that stress.
Mehrotra, who is just 14, built an app that allows students to explore the complexities of neural networks in a visual and interactive way. He was driven to build something friendly and approachable for students like himself who are interested in machine learning, too.
Every year I’m struck by the creativity of the students who participate in the Swift Student Challenge. Their inspiration is drawn from personal, family, and community experiences and their own passions. And, while their projects vary widely, they all have one thing in common: the excitement of building something and sharing it with others. It’s the same infectious enthusiasm we see over and over in the developers whose apps we cover, which propels the app world forward. Like the students I spoke to today, I can’t wait for WWDC.
There are a lot of ways to connect remotely to a Mac, and I’ve tried most of them. Today, though, I want to focus on one in particular: Astropad Workbench, an app and service for remotely connecting to your Mac that includes unique features that make it a compelling choice on the iPhone and iPad, but less so when connecting from one Mac to another.
Apple has released its annual Pride Collection, including a new Apple Watch Pride Edition Sport Loop band, watch face, and iPhone and iPad wallpapers celebrating LGBTQ+ communities.
The commemorative Sport Loop uses 11 colors of nylon thread that blend the colors together in a unique way. As Apple’s press release puts it:
The intricate weaving blends one color into the next, creating depth and movement across the band. The resulting design is joyful and vibrant, showcasing a full spectrum of colors that reflect the unique identities that shape LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
Source: Apple.
The watch face and wallpapers share a similar style of gradient strips of bright colors radiating out from the watch face’s analog clock design and in vertical strips on the wallpapers.
As usual, Apple’s designers have done great work with the band, watch face, and wallpapers. There’s a vibrancy and energy to them that brings them to life.
The Apple Sport Loop is available to order today online and in the Apple Store app for $49 and will be in retail stores later this week. The watch face and wallpapers will be available as soon as the 26.5 releases of watchOS, iOS, and iPadOS are released to the public.
It’s a new month and it’s F1 season, which means it’s time for a roundup of everything coming to Apple TV and Apple Arcade in May 2026.
This month we’re adding F1 and other sports airing on Apple TV this month, starting with tomorrow’s Miami Grand Prix, and continuing below with the Canadian Grand Prix and Friday Night Baseball at the end of the month.
Sunday will see the very first U.S.-based race of the 2026 Formula 1 season in Miami, Florida. In addition to Sunday’s race, Apple TV subscribers can watch qualifying round coverage beginning today at 3:25 PM Eastern U.S. time, with qualifying beginning at 4 PM and the race itself beginning at 4 PM Eastern Sunday.
Apple has also created a 3D view of the race track in Apple Maps, a Maps Guide of local hot spots for race attendees, an Apple Music playlist that Apple says captures the energy and excitement of F1, and many other race weekend tie-ins you can check out in this Apple press release.
The game I’m most excited about this month is Perchang World, an update to a classic indie game first released about a decade ago. The version debuting on Apple Arcade for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV is an evolution of the original physics puzzler that requires you to use a variety of switches and platforms to guide balls through the game’s brightly-colored, playful environments. The game is narrated by British comedian James Acaster, who judging from the game’s trailer, adds a great sense of humor and fun.
If you’re a fan of pool, Ultimate 8 Ball Pool+, an Arcade adaptation of the HypGames’ App Store version will be available for Arcade subscribers on May 7 too. The game features photorealistic graphics and 3D perspectives as well as one-on-one multiplayer, tournaments, trickshot challenges, and more.
Next Thursday, Apple Arcade will also release Nick Jr. Replay!, a family-friendly game starring characters from Nick Jr. shows like Dora the Explorer and Blue’s Clues & You! and over 50 minigames designed to help kids with math, reading, art, and other learning skills. Finally, Good Pizza, Great Pizza+ is an adaptation of an App Store game, but without In-App Purchases. The game is a cooking simulator where your goal is to take orders, bake pizzas and get them to customers.
Unconditional promises to start May off with a bang. The brand new thriller follows Orna, whose daughter Gali is arrested for drug smuggling in Russia. The eight-episode show follows Orna as she fights for her daughter’s freedom, which pulls her into the dangerous criminal underground of Moscow.
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is a dark comedy/thriller starring Tatiana Maslany as a newly divorced mom who believes she witnesses a murder. Deciding to investigate what happened, Maslany’s character, Paula, is drawn into what appears to be a dangerous larger conspiracy, while also dealing with a battle over custody of her child.
Star City is Apple’s For All Mankind spinoff. Based on the same alternative history events where the Russians land on the moon before America, the show follows the story from the perspective of the Russians. The eight-episode show follows Russia’s cosmonauts, scientists, engineers, and government officials as they race to the moon.
Propeller One-Way Night Coach is an Apple Original movie based on a 1997 children’s book of the same name. The film, which is John Travolta’s first directorial credit, follows Jeff, who loves airplanes, and his mother as they travel to Hollywood. Their one-way journey transforms everyday travel into an adventure filled with an unusual cast of characters.
Round 5 of the 2026 Formula 1 season will take place against the skyline of Montreal, Canada from May 22-24. The semi-permanent 4.36 km track is on Île Notre-Dame, a man-made island in the St. Lawrence River. F1 racing on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve began in the late 70s and has a reputation of unpredictable weather that can cause chaos on the track.
It’s hard to believe that Apple is in the midst of its fifth Friday Night Baseball season. In May, viewers will be treated with the following two game lineup every Friday:
May 8
Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Guardians (7:00 PM Eastern)
St. Louis Cardinals at San Diego Padres (9:30 PM Eastern)
May 15
Toronto Blue Jays at Detroit Tigers (6:30 PM Eastern)
New York Yankees at New York Mets (7:00 PM Eastern)
May 22
Houston Astros at Chicago Cubs (2:00 PM Eastern)
Detroit Tigers at Baltimore Orioles (7:00 PM Eastern)
May 29
Minnesota Twins at Pittsburgh Pirates (6:30 PM Eastern)
Philadelphia Phillies at Los Angeles Dodgers (10:00 PM Eastern)
That’s it for May. I’m personally looking forward to Perchang World and Star City the most. If you’re a Club MacStories Plus or Premier member, drop by the TV and Movies channel in Discord to chat about what you’re looking forward to from Apple TV this month, and be sure to listen to MacStories Unwind, where I’m sure Federico and I will cover some of these shows and games, along with our other media recommendations every week.
This week, John and Federico cover Apple’s executive transition, follow up on OpenAI’s super app, share the apps they’re looking for, and give each other suggestions on how to fill their app gaps.
On AppStories+, we round up the tools we’ve built for ourselves that fill gaps we haven’t found apps for.
This week, OnePlus makes a phone controller with only triggers, Tico 0.7.0 brings GameCube and Wii emulation to the Switch, Ayn raises prices, and Steam comes to Android via ROCKNIX.
On NPC XL, Brendon shares his experience installing ROCKNIX and Steam on the Ayn Odin 2 M
Jonathan is joined by Craig Hockenberry, a longtime software designer and developer at The Iconfactory, known for building influential Mac and iOS apps like Twitterific, Tapestry, and Tot.
Matt has released Quick Reads, Niléane has entered her M5 (and Jonny Ive) era, and the whole gang throws their monitors away in favor of that laptop life.
On Cozy Zone, the gang tier lists the Olympic logos from 2000 through 2036. (Yes, 2036!)
This week, Federico and John get ready for the summer with a conversation about vacation bridging, bringing your dog to the beach, and cooling off in the mountains. Then, John shares a blockbuster movie recommendation and a movie bundle deal.
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