Podcast Rewind: What’s Next for Apple Intelligence, Budget Android Handhelds, and an Interview with Joe Rosensteel

AppStories

This week, Federico and John discuss what might be next for Apple Intelligence and how it fits into the broader AI market.

On AppStories+, Federico and John cover the fallout from the Sora app and why AI can’t replace human creativity.

This episode is sponsored by:

Claude: Get 50% off Claude Pro, including access to Claude Code.

NPC: Next Portable Console

This week, Steam Deck, Switch 2, and Vision Pro accessory follow-up, Thunderbolt 5 eGPUs, Android handhelds break into the budget category, and the ROG Xbox Ally X is a bust.

On NPC XL, Apple’s M5 chip promise gaming advances on the iPad, but can it deliver?

First, Last, Everything

On this episode, we’re joined by Joe Rosensteel. Joe is a VFX artist who’s worked on big-name Hollywood productions as well as smaller commercial projects. He’s a writer on his own blog and for the Six Colors website, and he also has a podcast with Dan Sturm called Defocused.

AppStories, Episode 457, ‘Apple’s Intelligence Quest: Beyond Smart Siri’ Show Notes

Apps and Services Mentioned

Zapier

Tasklet

Shortwave

Notion AI

Exa

Small Language Models are the Future of Agentic AI

Less is More: Recursive Reasoning with Tiny Networks

AppStories+ Post-Show

Oatmeal on AI art

OpenAI’s Sora app can deepfake anyone — here’s what it did to me

NPC, Episode 53, ‘Budget Android Handhelds Rise as the Xbox Ally X Stumbles’ Show Notes

Follow-Up

Steam Deck Folios are now available for anyone to buy for $40

Apple Vision Pro PSVR 2 controllers are $250

Mechanism Switch 2 Basecase

The Latest Portable Gaming News

GIGABYTE AORUS RTX 5090 AI BOX Thunderbolt 5 eGPU launches at $2999, 27% slower than desktop RTX 5090 in gaming

OneXfly Apex handheld gaming PC with AMD Strix Halo is on the way

REDMAGIC 11 Pro could be the first liquid-cooled smartphone you can actually buy

MagicX One35 Finally Available For Pre-Order

MANGMI Air X Is Finally Here Snapdragon Power, Sub-$100 Price

Xbox Ally and Ally X review this is not an Xbox

Subscribe to NPC XL

NPC XL is a weekly members-only version of NPC with extra content, available exclusively through our new Patreon for $5/month.

Each week on NPC XL, Federico, Brendon, and John record a special segment or deep dive about a particular topic that is released alongside the “regular” NPC episodes.

You can subscribe here.

First, Last Everything, Episode 7, ‘Joe Rosensteel, VFX Artist, Podcaster, and Writer’ Show Notes

This Episode’s Links

Shake it off: Remembering Apple’s Academy Award–winning failure - Six Colors

Stunt Copter game - Nostalgic Mac on YouTube

ClarisWorks on Wikipedia

‘Cast Away’ and the story behind Imageworks’ in-house compositing software - before and afters

Joe on Mastodon

Joe’s blog, ‘Unauthoritative Pronouncements’

Defocused podcast on The Incomparable

Joe’s Picks

Joe’s ‘First’: Macintosh Plus on Wikipedia

Official Apple tech specs page

Joe’s ‘Last’: iPhone 16 Pro on Wikipedia

Joe’s ‘Everything’: Twitter on Wikipedia

Something

Apple Pippin on Wikipedia

512 Pixels: The Apple Pippin on YouTube