AppStories, Ep. 446 - 28 minutes

A Secondary Device Check-In

This week, Federico and John explain how they use their secondary systems, which for John is the iPad and for Federico, the Mac.

On AppStories+, Federico asks whether technologies like web-based MCP render Apple’s native App Intents irrelevant?

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AppStories Episode 446 - A Secondary Device Check-In

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

Interesting Links

By John Voorhees

Federico

There’s been a flurry of Qi2.2 announcements this week. For starters, the Wireless Power Consortium has certified eight Qi2.2 products from different manufacturers, teasing the arrival of 25W wireless charging accessories including power banks, car mounts, and 3-in-1 stands from companies like Ugreen, Belkin, Anker, and AUKEY. Ugreen announced what it claims to be...

The Browser Wars Are Back, and They’re Going to Fundamentally Change the Web

By John Voorhees

It’s been a long time since the early browser wars of the late ’90s and early 2000s. That all felt very settled a long time ago. But the web is undergoing a fundamental shift in 2025 that has reignited the browser wars. The web’s transformation into an applications platform isn’t new. It’s been building for...

App Debuts

By John Voorhees

John

NameQuick NameQuick is a new app for the Mac that leverages AI to rename files. It’s a simple concept but something that AI is very good at. Hook up your own API key or use the model offered by NameQuick, and the app will suggest new file names based on the contents of the...

New Emoji Announced for World Emoji Day →

Linked By John Voorhees

Source: Unicode Consortium.

Every year, the Unicode Consortium announces new emoji that will be added in the fall and incorporated in iOS and other OSes in the months that follow. The latest batch that were announced today to coincide with World Emoji Day will be part of Unicode 17 and include:

Trombone
Treasure Chest
Distorted Face
Apple Core
Fight Cloud
Ballet Dancers
Hairy Creature
Orca

As usual, it’s an eclectic mix that rounds out certain categories and includes other emoji that are just plain fun. I look forward to Federico trying to guess these on Connected. There’s an almost one-to-one overlap between the ones I know I’ll use the most and those that I think Federico will never guess.

Permalink

Ars Technica Takes CarPlay Ultra for a Spin →

Linked By John Voorhees

Michael Teo Van Runkle, writing for Ars Technica, spent eight days testing CarPlay Ultra in an Aston Martin DB12 Volante. Van Runkle walks readers through the setup process, covers the themes available, and describes the experience of monitoring and controlling the car’s systems using Apple’s next-generation version of CarPlay.

By and large, Van Runkle’s experience was positive:

Ultra’s biggest improvements over preceding CarPlay generations are in the center console infotainment integration. Being able to access climate controls, drive modes, and traction settings without leaving the intuitive suite of CarPlay makes life much easier. In fact, changing between drive modes and turning traction control off or down via Aston’s nifty adjustable system caused less latency and lagging in the displays in Ultra. And for climate, Ultra actually brings up a much better screen after spinning the physical rotaries on the center console than you get through Aston’s UI—plus, I found a way to make the ventilated seats blow stronger, which I never located through the innate UI despite purposefully searching for a similar menu page.

That said, it was not without glitches and hiccups along the way, some of which were difficult to pin on CarPlay Ultra versus Aston Martin’s systems.

Precious few auto makers have signed on to offer CarPlay Ultra, but Kia and Porsche have said they will, too, which is a start. I remember when CarPlay debuted in 2014 with a similarly small lineup composed mostly of luxury brands like Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz. So, it’s not surprising Ultra is debuting in a car that starts at $265,000. It took years before the original CarPlay trickled down to ordinary, everyday cars. But they did, and now, with a few notable exceptions, like Tesla, Rivian, and GM EVs, you can find CarPlay in most makes and models.

I hope CarPlay Ultra follows a similar trajectory. It looks great, and I’d love to have it in my next car, which I can confidently predict now will not be an Aston Martin.

Permalink

CD PROJEKT RED Publishes Mac System Requirements for Cyberpunk 2077 →

Linked By John Voorhees

Yesterday, I wrote about the upcoming release of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on the Mac. Today, CD PROJEKT RED published a support document, listing the game’s Mac system requirements. As I wrote yesterday, the company says the game will work on all Apple silicon Macs; however, the beefier your CPU and memory, the better.

As reported by Tom Warren at The Verge today, the support document summarizes the game’s system requirements in four categories: Minimum, Recommended, High Fidelity, and Very High Fidelity. It’s worth checking out the support document and Warren’s coverage before buying Cyberpunk 2077, which still hasn’t shown up on the Mac App Store for pre-order, because if you want the Very High Fidelity experience, you’ll need at least an M3 Ultra or M4 Max with at least 36 GB of memory.

Permalink

Longplay for Mac Launches with Powerful AI and Shortcuts Integration

By John Voorhees

Longplay by Adrian Schönig is an excellent album-oriented music app that integrates with Apple Music. The app started on iOS and iPadOS, then later added support for visionOS. With today’s update, Longplay is available on macOS, too, where it adds unique automation features.

If you aren’t familiar with Longplay, be sure to check out my reviews of version 2.0 for iOS and iPadOS and the app’s debut on the Vision Pro. I love the app’s album art-forward design, collection and queuing systems for navigating and organizing large music libraries, and many other ways to sort, filter, and rediscover your favorite albums. Here’s how Adrian describes Longplay in a post introducing the Mac version:

It filters out the albums where you only have a handful of tracks, and focusses on those complete or nearly complete albums in your library instead. It analyses your album stats to help you rediscover forgotten favourites and explore your library in different ways. You can organise your albums into collections, including smart ones. And you can go deep with automation support.

With the introduction of Longplay for Mac, the app is now available everywhere, with feature parity across all versions. Plus, Longplay syncs across all devices, so your Collections and Smart Collections are available on every platform.

Cyberpunk 2077 for Mac Arrives Thursday

By John Voorhees

Source: CD PROJEKT RED.

Last fall, alongside the announcement of the M4 MacBook Pro, Apple and CD PROJEKT RED said that Cyberpunk 2077 was coming to the Mac in early 2025. But when WWDC rolled around last month with no more news about when the game would come to the Mac, I thought it might slip to the fall when macOS Tahoe is expected to be released with Metal 4 and other game-friendly features.

So it was a pleasant surprise to find out that Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, which includes the Phantom Liberty DLC, will be out this Thursday on the Mac App Store, as well as on GOG.com, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Cyberpunk, a notoriously demanding game when it comes to system resources, will run on any Apple silicon Mac with 16GB of memory that is running macOS Sequoia (or the Tahoe developer beta).

Source: CD PROJEKT RED.

To support every 16GB Apple silicon Mac since the M1 MacBook Air, Cyberpunk relies on the latest Metal technologies, including Tile-Based Deferred Rendering and tools like Metal’s C++ interface and the Metal Shader Converter, to optimize for Apple GPUs. The game also takes advantage of Apple’s MetalFX Upscaling.

CD PROJEKT RED has gone all out with other compatibility features to make its game feel at home on the Mac, too, including:

“For This Mac” graphics presets that are optimized for the Apple silicon hardware running the game, which promises to take the guess work out of configuring graphics settings;
AMD FSR upscaling and frame generation optimized for Apple silicon Macs;
Support for Spatial Audio and head tracking for those playing with AirPods;
HDR support that is dynamically optimized for Apple’s XDR displays and HDR output for calibrated external displays;
Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and controller support; and
Cross-progression across all platforms.

In the fall, Apple says Cyberpunk will get a boost from the videogame technologies announced at WWDC 2025. Those include MetalFX Frame Interpolation to increase and stabilize frame rates, which Apple says will allow the game to hit 120 fps using the game’s Ultra settings when combined with MetalFX Upscaling. Cyberpunk will utilize MetalFX Frame Denoising to clean up the noise produced by its path-tracing renderer, too.

Source: CD PROJEKT RED.

I’m looking forward to trying Cyberpunk on the Mac. I already own it on Steam and have played it on the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch 2, both of which should be excellent points of comparison to the wide range of Macs that Apple says will run Cyberpunk 2077.

The Mac version of Cyberpunk 2077 will debut this Thursday, July 17. There is no additional charge for the Mac version if you already purchased the game from one of the stores that offers it. Alternatively, you can purchase the game from the Mac App Store, where Cyberpunk 2077 is making its debut.

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AppStories Episode 446 - A Secondary Device Check-In