Podcast Rewind: Apple’s AI Future, the Legion Go’s Return, Niléane’s App, and an Interview with MacSparky

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

AppStories

This week, Federico and John draw from their experiences using AI agents to imagine the sort of agent Apple could build with tight hardware and software integration if it had a LLM to orchestrate the pieces already in place.

On AppStories+, John asks where artificial intelligence falls on the spectrum of historical technology milestones.

NPC: Next Portable Console

This week, a PlayStation Portable update, Honda and Sony call off car-based gaming, Epilogue shows of the SN Operator and makes an app, the fate of Windows handhelds, Federico’s Legion Go makes a comeback, and more.

On NPC XL, Federico finally received his OhSnap MCON controller, John has the Genki Convert Dock 3, and a conversation about how to make handheld gaming accessible to a broader audience.

First, Last, Everything

Jonathan is joined by David Sparks, productivity writer, podcaster, and creator behind MacSparky, best known for the Mac Power Users podcast and his Field Guides, on getting the most from Apple devices and apps.

Comfort Zone

Niléane built an awesome Mac app, Chris bought a new monitor (but it’s not what you thiiiiink), and Matt grills the group on what they’d install if they could only install three new apps on their Macs.

On Cozy Zone, the gang has to guess what Matt subscribes to on YouTube by just the thumbnails.

MacStories Unwind

This week, space exploration, workflow shakeups, a buddy movie, and more.

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Coming Soon: What’s Next on Apple TV and Apple Arcade in April 2026

It’s a new month and you know what that means: time for a roundup of everything coming to Apple TV and Apple Arcade for April 2026.

Apple Arcade (April 2)

Apple Arcade is debuting a trio of games this month:

Dredge+

First off is Dredge+ a Lovecraftian fishing adventure game. Federico and I had the pleasure of interviewing two members of the Dredge team at WWDC last year and were impressed with the thought and care that went into the Apple Design Award-winning game. The Arcade version includes all of Dredge DLC content that has been released, too. If you’re an Arcade subscriber and haven’t played Dredge yet, check out Dredge+ on Arcade, because it’s a treat.

Unpacking+

Unpacking, which won an Apple App Store Cultural Impact Award in 2023, is another game worth checking out this month. It’s a low-key puzzle game that revolves around removing possessions from boxes and arranging them in your home, which is surprisingly relaxing.

My Very Hungry Caterpillar+

Parents will will know Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar from the classic 1969 children’s book. In the game, My Very Hungry Caterpillar+, that same beloved caterpillar becomes a pet you care for and play with, unlocking new activities along the caterpillar’s jounney to becoming a butterfly. Having had a bookshelf of Eric Carle books when my kids were little, I’m sure this game will be a hit with Arcade subscribers too.

Also, on April 9th, Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop is slated to get a new Puyo Puyo Garden mode to celebrate the franchise’s 35th anniversary.

Your Friends & Neighbors, Season 2 (Friday, April 3)

Jon Hamm is back as Coop Cooper, a hedge fund manager turned burglar who steals from his neighbors to cope with his messy life. The new season picks up where the last left off with 10 new episodes that reveal even deeper, darker secrets of the super-rich.

Add to Your Calendar:

Outcome (Friday, April 10)

Outcome is a new dark comedy from Jonah Hill who write, directed, and produced the show staring Keanu Reeves, who plays Reef Hawk, a Hollywood actor whose life is upended by someone who tries to blackmail him with a mysterious video. The show also stars Cameron Diaz, Matt Bomer, and Hill, himself, as they try to uncover the identity of Reef’s extortionist.

Add to Your Calendar:

Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Tuesday, April 15)

Elle Fanning stars in a comedy-drama about a college dropout with money problems and a newborn baby. Fanning, who plays Margo, is joined by Nick Offerman, who plays Margo’s former pro-wrestler father, and Michelle Pfeiffer, as Margo’s mother, a former Hooters waitress. Also staring Nicole Kidman and Greg Kinnear, the show promises to be an offbeat drama full of unconventional characters that I can’t wait to see.

Add to Your Calendar:

Criminal Record, Season 2 (April 22)

I’m really looking forward to the return of Criminal Record, a thriller set in London. Season 1 was fantastic, so I’m looking forward to seeing Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo reprise their roles as detectives navigating another high-stakes mystery.

Add to Your Calendar:

My Brother the Minotaur (Friday, April 24)

Apple has been quietly building a large catalog of high-quality family-friendly show. This month it’s My Brother the Minotaur, a story about a half-bull, half-boy raised among humans. The show follows the young minotaur and his friends as they seek to uncover his past.

Add to Your Calendar:

Widow’s Bay (Wednesday, April 29)

Apple will close out April with Widow’s Bay a new horror-comedy starting Matthew Rhys as Tom Loftis, the mayor of an island town off the cost of New England. Loftis comes up with a plan to make his island home a tourist destination, despite legends of a curse that haunts the community.

Add to Your Calendar:

That’s it for April. It’s not as busy as some, but there are what look to be some excellent debuts alongside the returning favorites. I’m personally looking forward to Outcome, Margo’s Got Money Troubles, and Criminal Record 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 along with our other media recommendations every week.

For Apple’s 50th Anniversary, Tim Cook Looks Back to Move Forward→

Today is Apple’s 50th anniversary, and for the occasion, Tim Cook sat down with Ryan D’Agostino of Esquire for a lengthy interview about Steve Jobs, Apple’s values as a company, and where the company’s next big idea will come from.

It’s an interesting read that doesn’t cover much new ground, but does reveal some of Cook’s personality, which is sometimes hard to gauge because he’s such a reserved person. During the interview, Cook addressed critics who would prefer that he not meet with politicians who don’t share Apple’s values, noting that:

These things [Apple’s values] can’t move around as the world is moving. They have to stay. They’re our rails—but that doesn’t mean that you don’t communicate and engage with people that have different views. That’s where I always come from, anyway. So you’ll see me everywhere, and you’ll wonder, Oh, he’s meeting with somebody that has a different view than him. I think that’s good. I think it’s good. I think a problem in the world right now is that it’s so polarized and different views aren’t shared or discussed. They just become hardened. And I don’t think that’s good.

Apple may not be a company that looks at its past often, but there’s a wisdom in Cook’s approach that’s ripped straight from a past when respectful debate of issues and compromise helped move society forward in a way we haven’t seen for quite some time. Maybe Cook is naive to believe that approach can still work or is looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but it’s a perspective that’s aligned with Apple’s values, is deeply rooted in its culture, and gives me hope for its future.

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Moods Faster: Effortless Mood Tracking

I’ve said over and over that the most important feature of any habit tracker is being able to get in and out of the app quickly. For some developers, that doesn’t always come naturally. After all, doesn’t every developer want their customers to use their app more than others? Sure they do, but it’s not always the right instinct.

That’s something Nick Leith has understood for a long time. Leith is the developer of Remind Me Faster, a companion app for Apple Reminders that accelerates task entry. I’ve moved in and out of Reminders annually for my macOS reviews and every time, the first app I download after the move-in is Remind Me Faster because it makes using Reminders much easier.

Leith has been thinking about how to make data entry simple and fast for years thanks to that app, and it shows with his brand new app, Moods Faster (Get it? Moods Faster -> Move Faster). Okay, you probably didn’t need that nudge, but I like the name. It’s fun.

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OpenAI Bets Big on Building an Everything App→

OpenAI is making a big bet. One as old as time – at least time as measured by the course of app history. Having abandoned Sora and SmutGPT, the company has put all of its chips on an everything app, raising $122 billion to build it and fund its other operations.

If you listen to AppStories, you know this is a topic that goes back to our earliest episodes. Everything apps, known more commonly these days as superapps, have beguiled companies big and small forever. The temptation of “what if we stuffed so much in our app that nobody would leave” is hard to resist, but often fails. Just ask Mark Zuckerberg.

OpenAI is up front about its ambitions:

As models become more capable, the limiting factor shifts from intelligence to usability. Users do not want disconnected tools. They want a single system that can understand intent, take action, and operate across applications, data, and workflows. Our superapp will bring together ChatGPT, Codex, browsing, and our broader agentic capabilities into one agent-first experience.

Maybe. Look, I think AI is one of the most significant innovations of my lifetime, but for my money, I also think this a classic example of the mismatch between what users sometimes say they want and what companies want to hear.

However, I’m willing to entertain the idea that AI might be different. After all, it’s closer to a natural language OS than your typical productivity app in just enough ways that it may just work as a sort of super-layer that sits on top of “real” OSes like macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.

Part of what OpenAI is imagining is straight out of the iOS playbook:

Our consumer scale becomes the front door for enterprise usage, as familiarity in daily life drives adoption at work.

I remember when my old law firm finally caved and swapped Blackberries for the iPhone its employees were demanding. So, it’s not unprecedented that consumer demand can drive enterprise adoption, but historically, it’s rare.

And, while I agree with OpenAI that “Moments like this do not come often,” its comparison of its product to electricity and highways strikes me as a bit much. Will the app that OpenAI is imagining be something that will fundamentally reshape your life or will it be just another thing that competes for your attention, like TikTok? That’s the $122 billion bet OpenAI is making, and based on my experience with everything apps, I’ll take the other side of that bet.

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NVIDIA GeForce NOW Adds 4K 90 FPS Game Streaming on Apple Vision Pro

Source: NVIDIA.

Source: NVIDIA.

NVIDIA has released version 2.0.83 of its GeForce NOW game streaming service with a couple of upgrades for Vision Pro users. First, games can now be streamed at up to 4K resolution at 90 FPS. Gaming at this quality requires a subscription to the service’s Ultimate tier and a Wi-Fi connection with a speed of at least 55 Mbps, and users have to enable 4K resolution manually in their settings. Still, it’s great that game streaming of this quality is available to those who want to play cloud-streamed games on a huge virtual screen, and the 4K option is a Vision Pro exclusive not available on other headsets. It’ll really put the device’s powerful screens to good use.

This version of GeForce NOW also coincides with the gradual rollout of H.265 video encoding in supported browsers. Because the service is still accessed via Safari on Vision Pro rather than a native app, H.265 browser encoding will be beneficial for the efficiency and quality of game streaming on the device.

This news comes on the heels of foveated streaming support coming to Vision Pro with last week’s release of visionOS 26.4. Apple and NVIDIA worked together to include support for NVIDIA’s CloudXR technology in the framework, giving developers a way to take advantage of foveated streaming in their own VR games and apps. Flight simulator X-Plane, motorsport simulator iRacing, and 3D visualization tool Autodesk VRED have already committed to adopting the feature on visionOS, and I imagine we’ll hear more similar announcements soon.

The full gaming story on Vision Pro is yet to be told, but these developments – along with the integration of spatial controllers into visionOS last fall – point towards a bright future for gamers on Apple’s newest platform, and I’m happy to see Apple working with partners like NVIDIA to make the experience as enjoyable and immersive as possible.

The MacBook Neo Takes on Retro Gaming→

I love when my interests collide, and today, thanks to Russ Crandall, that’s exactly what happened. You see, Crandall runs Retro Game Corps, a YouTube channel covering the world of videogame emulation, handheld consoles, mini PCs, and more. It’s an excellent channel that we’ve covered multiple times on NPC: Next Portable Console, and yesterday, Crandall made a video exploring the MacBook Neo’s emulation capabilities.

It turns out that the Neo pulls its weight with more than productivity apps. It’s also does quite well with game emulation, some Steam titles, and streaming, with a couple of caveats.

Seeing is believing when it comes to emulation, so it’s worth seeing how your favorite systems fare before diving into emulation on the Neo yourself, but I was surprised to see how well the Neo did even on systems as recent as the Nintendo Switch 1. Beyond the GameCube, it’s hit or miss what will run well, but older systems like NES, Game Boy, GBA, SNES, PS1, PSP, 3DS, PS2, Dreamcast, and Saturn games all ran well and in most cases at upscaled resolutions and with shaders applied.

Probably the biggest limitation Crandall ran into is when he tried running games from more recent systems on external storage over the Neo’s USB-C 2 port, while using the USB-C 3 port for a capture card. Games from more recent systems are larger, so for anyone who wants to stream their gameplay, the Neo’s 256GB or optional 512GB internal storage could be a limitation.

That said, I was pleased to see how well the MacBook Neo handled emulation. Paired with lighter-weight Steam games, streaming on services like GeForce NOW, thanks to the Neo’s Wi-Fi 6E, and the App Store’s own catalog of native games, the Neo offers a lot of options for your downtime too.

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