Festivitas Brings Fresh Whimsy to Your Mac, iPhone, and iPad for the Holiday Season

By John Voorhees

Last year, Simon Støvring released Festivitas, a Mac app that lets you string holiday lights from your menu bar and across the top of your Dock. This year, Simon is back with an update to the Mac app and a new version for the iPhone and iPad.

The default set of lights consists of traditional multi-colored bulbs that blink on and off as you use your Mac. That’s the set I use the most, but Festivitas offers many more options. You can control the lights’ opacity, whether they appear along both the menu bar and the Dock or just one of them, and the colors of the lights and the cable from which they hang. You also have more than a dozen light styles to choose from, including round holiday lights, bats, clovers, eggs, stars, hearts, snowflakes, cocktail glasses, beer mugs, “2026,” “WWDC,” and more, covering a wide variety of holidays and festive events. Plus, you can control how the lights blink. It’s a lot, but it’s also just plain fun to tweak everything to suit your tastes.

This year, the Mac app adds a virtual snowstorm that you can start from the app’s settings or menu bar item. It’s a great addition that looks amazing against a dark backdrop like the Obsidian theme I often use to write. A fun touch is that the snowflakes avoid your pointer, and you can adjust the sensitivity of this feature in settings. You can also use your pointer to push around the lights hanging from the menu bar, which is handy for those times when they obscure Safari’s menu bar or other content.

The snow is lovely. I highly recommend pairing it with the Animal Crossing Snowy Day soundtrack on Nintendo Music. It’s an incredibly peaceful and relaxing combination.

Festivitas supports Shortcuts, too. Simon has created some fun example automations that you’ll find in the app’s settings to do things like turning on the snowstorm when snow is forecast and activating your lights when you play music.

Festivitas on iPhone.

New this year is a Festivitas app for the iPhone and iPad. The app lets you build small, medium, and large widgets to place on your Home Screen. You can either frame a photo with twinkling lights or create a transparent-style widget so the lights frame an element of your Home Screen. I love that the lights framing the photos are animated, an effect I know isn’t easy to do with a widget. You can also add text and make other adjustments to each widget.

Festivitas isn’t going to help you get more done. In fact, it might even slow you down a little bit, and maybe that’s the point. Taking a moment to enjoy the app’s lights and be mesmerized by the falling snow is a good reminder to slow down a little and have some fun.

Festivitas for the Mac is available directly from the app’s website for any price you want to name between $3.99 and $9.99. The iPhone and iPad version is a free download on the App Store with a range of in-app purchases from $3.99 to $9.99 to create a similar name-your-price system.

Our Top Amazon Early Black Friday Picks

By John Voorhees

If you haven’t noticed, it’s not Friday, and Thanksgiving is still a week away. Yet here we are, talking about Black Friday deals. That’s because every year, Amazon pushes the start of its deals a little earlier.

This is far from the first article you’ll come across about Black Friday deals, and it won’t be the last. But what’s different about our approach to Black Friday is that we’re pickier than most sites.

When I sat down to consider Amazon’s Black Friday deals, I looked at a long list of factors, including:

whether we’ve reviewed and recommended a product on MacStories,
the percentage of the discount,
the absolute dollar amount of the discount (which we can’t list due to Amazon rules),
whether each deal beats past deals,
and a bunch of other factors.

What we’ve come up with is a list of a couple dozen excellent deals that will save you loads of money on everything from great holiday gifts to nerd staples like storage, networking gear, and upgrades to your computing setup.

Every time I write one of these roundups, I inevitably run across even more great deals after the story has been published. So in addition to this story, we’ll be posting deals on the MacStories Deals Mastodon and Bluesky accounts.

Club MacStories Plus and Premier members will be sharing their Black Friday deal finds on Discord too. If you’re not a member, you can sign up here. The Discord server is just one of the many perks of joining the Club.

Finally, please note that the Amazon links in this article are affiliate links. If you follow one of our links and buy something, we make a small commission.

Storage

Some of Amazon’s best deals are on storage.

Storage is a staple of Black Friday, with excellent deals on hard drives and SSDs of all shapes and sizes. This year is no different. Whether your Mac’s drive is filling up and you need to offload some large files or you’re looking for a backup solution, now is the time to pull the trigger and get more storage.

I mention Samsung portable SSDs a lot on MacStories and the MacStories Deals accounts because I’ve used them for years and they’re reliable. Samsung’s fastest model – the T9 – is my favorite because it uses USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x2, making it equally good for quick backups and working on large files externally.

Currently, both the 4TB Samsung T9 SSD and the 2TB model are on sale on Amazon, with the biggest discount on the 4TB model. You can save a little more with SanDisk’s 2TB external drive, but it runs at half the speed of the Samsung T9, so I recommend the T9. However, if you want to go really big with an SSD, SanDisk has Samsung beat with an 8TB model that, while expensive and half the speed of a Samsung T9, will be far faster than a mechanical hard drive for backing up a Mac with lots of internal storage. Samsung sadly does not offer an 8TB T9 drive.

SSDs are great, but even on sale, they’re more expensive than mechanical hard drives. If you don’t need the fastest speeds and can tuck your hard drive away somewhere the heat and noise won’t bother you, Amazon has a great deal on a 14TB Western Digital Elements hard drive. I’ve used Elements drives a lot over the past several years for archiving big projects and Time Machine backups, and I’ve been very happy with their performance. If you need a big drive, now is the time to pick one of these up; they’ve never been cheaper.

Smart Home

For starters, the Aqara 4MP Camera Hub G5 Pro is deeply discounted for Black Friday. I reviewed this outdoor HomeKit-compatible camera earlier this year and love it. From the feedback I’ve heard, MacStories readers seem to love the camera, too.

I also reviewed the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box 8K this summer. Paired with Philips Hue lights, it’s remarkably capable, syncing the colors of your lights to whatever is on your TV. While it’s not a smart home essential, it is a lot of fun, and if you need a little push to pull the trigger on this sort of gadget, this discount is a great excuse.

On the more practical end of the spectrum, Philips Hue is also offering a great deal on its Go Smart Portable Table Lamp, which works plugged in or via its built-in battery. I’ve had my eye on this lamp for a while because it’s very portable and would add nice accent lighting when I’m working on my balcony in the evening or anywhere else with less-than-ideal lighting.

Finally, as I mentioned on the Setups video that Federico and I recently released, I love my new SwitchBot Smart Desk Fan. It oscillates left and right as well as up and down, and it has nine speed settings. Best of all, I can control it from the buttons on the front of the device, using the included remote control, or with Shortcuts because it works with HomeKit.

Apple Announces 45 App Store Awards Finalists for 2025

By John Voorhees

Source: Apple.

Today, Apple announced the finalists for the 2025 App Store Awards. The App Store Awards are Apple’s annual celebration of exceptional apps and games across 12 categories spanning the company’s platforms. It’s an excellent collection that includes solo developers, small indie teams, big companies, and many MacStories favorites.

Here’s the complete list of finalists.

iPhone App of the Year Finalists:

iPhone Game of the Year Finalists:

iPad App of the Year Finalists:

iPad Game of the Year Finalists:

MacStories Setups Update: An Apple Gear Refresh, Dual-Screen Gaming, and HomeKit →

Linked By John Voorhees

Our desk setups. Federico (left) and John (right).

As we head into the final weeks of 2025, Federico and I figured it would be a good time to update the MacStories Setups page. There’s an ebb and flow to the gear and apps we test each year, and as the fall OS update season fades into the past, it’s not unusual for one or both of us to take stock of our setup and make changes. That’s been very true for both of us this year, but in different ways.

Federico has been focused on simplifying his hardware setup and testing a long list of apps and services. In contrast, I’ve made fewer gear cuts, focusing more on strategic changes to the gadgets I use and settling on a core set of work apps.

The result is that Federico’s hardware setup changes have primarily been updates to his Apple and portable gaming gear. He made the transition from the iPhone 16 Pro Max to the iPhone Air, and couldn’t be happier with the result. He also replaced the M4 iPad Pro with the latest M5 model and moved from the AirPods 4 to the AirPods Pro 3.

Both of us ditched our previous Apple Vision Pro head strap solutions for the Apple Dual Knit Band, which has been a big upgrade. It’s comfortable, and having one dial to adjust both bands is both clever and far simpler than other solutions I’ve tried.

Ayn Thor.

Federico also added the Ayn Thor to his handheld gaming lineup. The Thor, which I also bought this fall, is a dual-screen OLED gaming handheld that runs Android. It’s perfect for emulating dual-screen systems like the Nintendo DS and 3DS, but it has also been excellent for game streaming and testing the emerging world of emulating SteamOS on Android. If game tinkering is your thing and this sounds intriguing, we have two episodes of NPC: Next Portable Console that go in-depth on the Ayn Thor.

Apple Beefed Up Its Rule Against Copycat Apps →

Linked By John Voorhees

Last week, I wrote about Apple’s new policies surrounding mini apps. However, that wasn’t the only change made to the App Review Guidelines last week. Apple also added a new subsection “c” to its rule against Copycat apps:

4.1(c) You cannot use another developer’s icon, brand, or product name in your app’s icon or name, without approval from the developer.

As I wrote earlier this year, this isn’t a new problem, especially for developers of popular games on other platforms. Copycat versions of Blue Prince, Palworld, Wordle, Cuphead, Balatro (before it was released on the App Store), and Unpacking have all appeared on the App Store in recent years.

The update to App Guideline 4.1 shows that Apple is aware of the problem, which is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, the awareness will lead to better enforcement, too.

Permalink

Apple Introduces a Mini App Partner Program Featuring a Reduced Commission

By John Voorhees

Today on its news site for developers, Apple announced a new Mini Apps Partner Program for the App Store. The announcement is brief but backed by a more detailed explanation about the eligibility requirements. Here’s how it works.

As Apple explains, mini apps are “self-contained experiences that are built using web technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript” that are hosted within a native app. That’s not something new. Companies like WeChat and Line have offered this sort of thing for a long time, and Apple has supported mini apps officially since 2017. What’s different is that now, developers who meet Apple’s eligibility requirements can offer those mini apps at a reduced commission. That means for any mini app not made by the developer of the native app that hosts them, the hosting developer will pay Apple a flat 15% commission.

To be eligible for the program, developers must ensure that the mini apps they host support certain APIs, including the Declared Age Range API and the Advanced Commerce API, the In-App Purchase system, and the Send Consumption Information endpoint that enables the processing of refunds. In other words, native app developers who do the work to ensure that mini apps meet the program requirements will pay Apple a reduced commission on mini app sales in return.

If you’re wondering what constitutes a mini app, Apple has provided some examples. Mini apps are “software packages, scripts, or game content that are added after app installation and executed on the device, provided such code is written in HTML5 or JavaScript, or another language approved by Apple”, such as mini games, streaming games, chatbots, plug-ins, and game emulators. As I mentioned above, it’s also important to keep in mind that mini apps are apps that are not controlled by the developer of the native app that hosts them.

Also, to participate in the Mini App Partner program, developers must apply – that link takes you to a form requesting information about the mini apps a developer wants to offer, so eligibility can be determined.

App Store users stand to benefit from the program, too. APIs like the Declared Age Rating API will help ensure that only age-appropriate mini apps are available to kids. Plus, by supporting the Advanced Commerce API, mini apps will include more metadata, providing users with a richer experience in places like their App Store purchase history.

Mini apps based on web technologies are a growing part of the App Store. The App Review Guidelines have accounted for mini apps since 2017 and the rules around them have continued to adapt to the market ever since. The Mini App Partner Program reflects the further evolution of the category, promoting privacy and transparency for users, while offering the carrot of lower commissions to developers.

What will be interesting to watch is the extent to which developers sign up for this new program. The program isn’t required (although compliance with App Review Guideline 4.7 still applies), so it will come down to whether the reduced commission provides sufficient incentive for developers to further police the mini apps they host.

Edge Light Brightens Your Video Calls in the macOS Tahoe 26.2 Beta

By John Voorhees

Edge Light doesn’t show up in screenshots.

The latest macOS Tahoe beta 26.2 includes a new video-calling feature called Edge Light, coming to Apple silicon Macs later this year. It’s a video effect that you can access from the menu bar, just like Backgrounds, Center Stage, and Portrait mode, that creates a virtual ring light on your Mac’s screen, helping to light your face on FaceTime, Zoom, and other video calls as the days grow shorter.

The idea is simple, and the implementation is clever. When you enable Edge Light, the outer edge of your Desktop is replaced with a bright, adjustable border. The brightness of Edge Light is adjustable, as is its color temperature, allowing for a range from warmer to cooler colors, just like many physical LED lights designed specifically for video production. The virtual ring light sits on top of your Desktop and windows, but it fades away as your pointer approaches, allowing you to see everything on your screen.

Edge Light’s brightness, temperature, and other controls, including the Automatic option available on Macs released in 2024 and after.

Edge Light is made possible by Apple silicon, using a combination of the Mac’s Neural Engine, which detects your face, and the Image Signal Processor, which measures and adjusts Edge Light’s brightness based on surrounding lighting. Edge Light will work on all Apple silicon Macs when Tahoe 26.2 is released, but Mac models released in 2024 or later will also have the option to turn the feature on automatically when low light is detected.

Edge Light off. Note, Edge Light isn’t captured in screenshots.

Edge Light on. Note, Edge Light isn’t captured in screenshots.

In my brief testing of Edge Light, I noticed that the effect is noticeable in a very dim room, but as you’d expect, less so as the room brightens. I also noticed that Edge Light was brighter when set to turn on automatically rather than manually, even though switching between the two didn’t move the brightness slider. I’m not sure what’s going on there, but it’s a beta, so that may change. I also enjoyed how the virtual ring light widened as I increased the brightness.

I have a couple of lights set up along the back edge of my desk because we record video for our podcasts, but most people don’t have that setup. For them, Edge Light will be a nice addition, reducing those early-morning and late-afternoon shadows. And despite the lights I have installed, sometimes it’s just easier to turn on something like Edge Light, so I expect to get use out of it too, whether I’m away from my desk on a laptop or sitting at my desk.

We’ll have more macOS Tahoe 26.2 coverage when it and Apple’s other 26.2 releases exit beta.

Picmal Streamlines Batch Conversion and Compression on the Mac

By John Voorhees

One of my favorite aspects of macOS is the endless supply of great utilities for doing anything you can imagine. If there’s something you want to do on your Mac, the chances are that there isn’t just one good utility to accomplish your task; there are several.

My latest discovery is a file conversion and compression app called Picmal. The app has a wonderfully simple, modern interface that sits on top of a lot of complexity, enabling batch conversion and compression with minimal effort.

You can mix and match file types in one conversion or compression operation.

Picmal handles images, videos, and audio files in a single-window utility that features a Convert/Compress toggle at the top and a lot of empty space to start. The center of the window invites users to “Drop Your Files Here.” Once you do, the window animates into something a little closer to a Finder window with alternating white and light gray rows that make it simple to track metadata about each file.

Files can be dragged into Picmal from anywhere on your Mac, allowing for batch processing without moving your files to one location first, which I appreciate. Once converted, files are saved as new files in the folder they came from with a prefix or suffix that you can specify in the app’s Settings. You’re not limited by file type either. You can drag any combination of images, videos, and audio files into Picmal’s window, picking and choosing what to convert them into as you go.

For some file types, Picmal includes metadata.

Next to some file types is a small info button that reports the sort of basic file metadata you find in the Finder’s info panel. That’s followed by a column that lists the file’s starting type, and a column with a dropdown menu for picking the destination file type. The list of supported file types is long, too, with the exact number of options dependent on the type you begin with.

If you want to check the file you’re about to convert before doing so, there’s also an arrow button on the far right of each file’s row that will take you to it in the Finder. The other columns report the output file’s size, any compression savings, and the status of each conversion. Whenever you want, you can add more files for conversion, kicking off a new batch once any ongoing conversions complete.

Most file conversions I tried went well, but I couldn’t manage to convert large MP4s to the MOV format.

In my testing, Picmal performed well overall. I converted images, audio, and videos to and from a variety of common formats such as PNG, JPEG, PDF, MP3, AAC, WAV, MP4, and MOV. However, I did run into trouble trying to convert a 1.55 GB MP4 of an episode of MacStories Unwind from MP4 to MOV. The conversion failed, even though much smaller files worked. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed in an upcoming update.

Another smaller issue I ran into is that there’s a checkbox next to each file in the Picmal file conversion interface that appears to be intended as a way to change the conversion file type for multiple files at once. However, the dropdown that appears when selecting multiple files of the same type didn’t give me an option to pick a new conversion type. The developer is aware of this and the large video file issue and is working to resolve both.

The other primary use for Picmal is file compression. The workflow is largely the same as converting files, with the size savings reported in a dedicated window column. By default, compressing files requires you to click on Picmal’s Compress button, but you can change the process so that it happens automatically instead. From Settings, you can also add compression to your file conversions, completing both steps together.

Compressing images.

Audio and video compression quality are set to 85% by default, while image compression quality is set to ‘balanced.’ However, in each case, you can tweak the compression settings with more fine-grained controls. Another nice touch is that your compression selections and a link to Picmal’s Settings are both accessible from the bottom of the Picmal window, making your compression choices clear and simplifying the process of making any adjustments.

Aside from a couple of hiccups in my testing that the developer will likely have fixed soon, my experience with Picmal has been great. About the only thing I’d love to see added is support for Shortcuts. Otherwise, Picmal is an excellent way to manage file conversion and compression jobs of any size. There are other apps that accomplish something similar, but the simplicity and speed with which you can manage batch conversion and compression with Picmal sets it apart and makes it worth checking out.

Picmal is available directly from its developer for $9.99. That gets you the use of the app on one Mac at a time, which can be expanded to more Macs at an increasing per-Mac discount based on the number of licenses you purchase.

Apple and ISSEY MIYAKE Introduce a Limited-Edition iPhone Pocket

By John Voorhees

Source: Apple.

Apple has announced a new limited-edition iPhone accessory, the iPhone Pocket, created in collaboration with design brand ISSEY MIYAKE. Here’s how Apple describes the accessory, which will be available in select Apple Stores and online beginning Friday:

iPhone Pocket features a ribbed open structure with the qualities of the original pleats by ISSEY MIYAKE. Born from the idea of creating an additional pocket, its understated design fully encloses iPhone, expanding to fit more of a user’s everyday items. When stretched, the open textile subtly reveals its contents and allows users to peek at their iPhone display. iPhone Pocket can be worn in a variety of ways — handheld, tied onto bags, or worn directly on the body. Featuring a playful color palette, the short strap design is available in eight colors, and the long strap design in three colors.

The short version of the iPhone Pocket comes in eight colors, the longer strap version, just three. Source: Apple.

The iPhone Pocket comes in two styles. A short strap version will be available in eight colors: lemon, mandarin, purple, pink, peacock, sapphire, cinnamon, and black, while the longer strap model, which is long enough to wear like Apple’s Crossbody Strap, is limited to sapphire, cinnamon, and black.

The iPhone Pocket will be available starting Friday, November 14, for $149.95 for the short strap version and $229.95 for the long strap version from Apple’s online store and ten retail stores worldwide:

Apple Canton Road, Hong Kong
Apple Ginza, Tokyo
Apple Jing’an, Shanghai
Apple Marché Saint-Germain, Paris
Apple Myeongdong, Seoul
Apple Orchard Road, Singapore
Apple Piazza Liberty, Milan
Apple Regent Street, London
Apple SoHo, New York City
Apple Xinyi A13, Taipei

Echos of the iPod Socks. Source: Apple.

The iPhone Pocket makes a bold design statement that Apple says was “[i]nspired by the concept of ‘a piece of cloth.’” I’m not going to venture to guess what that means. Still, the Pocket fits neatly into few Apple knit products that came before it echoing the thick ribbing of both the Vision Pro Solo and Dual Knit Bands and the iPod Socks, a comparison that is inevitable though left unstated in Apple’s press release.

Apple’s connection with ISSEY MIYAKE goes back further, though. It was Miyake who designed Steve Jobs’ signature black turtleneck, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs. Now, all these years later, your iPhone can have a turtleneck of sorts for itself, too.

Apple accessories have always been about fashion. Source: Apple.

Fashion is nothing new to Apple accessories, but the company’s emphasis on it has ebbed and flowed over the years. However, with the fashion-forward iPhone Air in its lineup and rumors of folding iPhones coming as soon as next year, it’s not surprising that Apple is fanning the fashion flames. Some may see the Air as an iPhone that costs more but does less, but a big part of its appeal is its striking profile, for which others are willing to pay a premium. The iPhone Pocket fits that narrative perfectly.