Podcast Rewind: App Gaps Filled, GameCubes Emulated, Quick Reads Released, Holidays Bridged, and Craig Hockenberry Interviewed

AppStories

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.

NPC: Next Portable Console

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

First, Last, Everything

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.

Comfort Zone

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!)

MacStories Unwind

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.

AppStories, Episode 482, ‘Filling the App Gap’ Show Notes

This episode is sponsored by:

Steamclock: We make great apps. Design and development, from demos to details.

Claude: For problems worth solving — get started with Claude today.

Apple Leadership Transition

Apple’s Executive Leadership Transition Announced

Community Letter from Tim

OpenAI Codex and Computer Use Follow-Up

OpenAI Codex

Claude Code

Filling the App Gap

HomeKit Automation

Controller for HomeKit

Home Assistant

Cross-Device Screenshot and File Transfer

CleanShot X

macOS Screen Sharing utility

Workspace Management

Workspaces+

Workspaces

Calendar Apps

Notion Calendar

Fantastical

Calendar 366

Dot

Bookmarking and Read-It-Later

Shiori, by Brian Lovin

Readwise Reader

Matter

AppStories+: Self-Built Tools and the Services Behind Them

ElevenLabs

Buffer

Google Gemini

Kokoro TTS

Defuddle

CrossPost (John’s cross-platform social media posting tool)

Research Feed (John’s ranked, filtered social media reader)

Dialog (John’s article-to-podcast converter using Defuddle, Claude, and Kokoro TTS)

Daily Star (John’s twice-daily magazine-style digest from Notion, RSS, and Matter)

Notion Daily Notes Appender (Federico’s quick-capture web app)

Notion Daily Notes Viewer (Federico’s horizontal tray viewer for open daily notes)

Ghost Reader (Federico’s Readwise Reader audio-preview tool using ElevenLabs)

CLI Chats (Federico’s session-log viewer for Claude Code and Codex)

Subscribe to AppStories+

Visit AppStories.net to learn more about the extended, high bitrate audio version of AppStories that is delivered early each week and subscribe.

NPC, Episode 78, ‘Triggers, Tico, and the Thor Tax’ Show Notes

The Latest Portable Gaming News

OnePlus reveals Marksman Gaming Controller alongside Ace 6 Ultra smartphone.

Tico 0.7.0 brings experimental GameCube and Wii emulation to Nintendo Switch via Dolphin.

AYN raises Thor Max price and downgrades storage to UFS 3.1.

Valve’s Proton 11 beta enables Steam on ARM-based Android handhelds via ROCKNIX.

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, Season 2, Episode 7, ‘Craig Hockenberry - Principal, The Iconfactory’ Show Notes

This Episode’s Links

Icon Dropper

Twitterific

Delicious Library

Withings scales

Tapestry

Tot

Tyke

Ollie’s Arcade

Craig’s Picks

Craig’s ‘First’: Teletype Model 33 ASR using a 300 baud modem connected to a PDP-11

Craig’s ‘Last’: Apple Watch and Health

Craig’s ‘Everything’: iPhone and iOS

‘Something’

Moog Synthesizer

Bob Moog Foundation

Follow Craig

Website

Mastodon

The Iconfactory

GitHub

Comfort Zone, Episode 98, ‘Dinosaurs Are From Space’ Show Notes

Things Discussed

Quick Reads

TinyStart

Async

brrr

Resend

Cozy Zone

For even more from the Comfort Zone crew, you can subscribe to Cozy Zone. Cozy Zone is a weekly bonus episode of Comfort Zone where Matt, Niléane, and Chris invite listeners to join them in the Cozy Zone where they’ll cover extra topics, invent wilder challenges and games, and share all their great (and not so great) takes on tech. You can subscribe to Cozy Zone for $5 per month here or $50 per year here.

MacStories Unwind, ‘Bridges, Beaches, and Blockbusters’ Show Notes

Unplugged Segment

Holiday bridging

Liberation Day — Festa della Liberazione (Italy)

International Workers’ Day — May 1

Dog Friendly Beaches in Italy

Wilmington and Beaches

One Tree Hill

John’s Pick

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Unwind Deal

Godzilla x Kong: 5 Film Bundle for $19.99 in the TV app