MacStories Setups Update: Fresh Approaches, Wi-Fi Upgrades, and Handhelds →

Our setups.

It’s time for another update to the MacStories Setups page, where you’ll find all the gear and apps that Federico and I use for work and play. With Prime Day upon us, it’s a great time to revisit our setups and see what’s on sale. Plus, there’s a handy changelog at the top of the page for those of you who are only interested in what’s new. If you want to hear more about what drove the latest changes to our setups, we’ll be discussing them in more detail on this week’s episode of MacStories Unwind, too.

Federico’s PC accessories.

It’s been a little while since we last heard from Federico about his setup, which took a recent turn with the developer beta of iPadOS 26. The iPad Pro is back at the center of Federico’s workflow, but he’s been able to keep everything as streamlined as ever with the help of his ASUS ROG PG27UCDM monitor that features a built-in KVM switch. That display lets him easily switch between the iPad, an M4 Max Mac Studio, his custom-built gaming PC, and the Nintendo Switch 2. When he’s not at his work and gaming monitor, Federico has the latest Viture Pro XR glasses that serve as a USB-C connected external display.

One highlight of both of our setup updates is the TP-Link WiFi 7 Deco BE85 routers. Federico got a two-pack, and I have a three-pack, thanks to my three-story condo. Home Wi-Fi 7 mesh networks are still on the expensive side, but they are much faster than Wi-Fi 6 and 6E in my experience, and the models that Federico and I each installed earlier this year are discounted during Prime Day.

My 11” iPad Pro and GL.iNet portable Wi-Fi 7 router.

My setup has been simplified a bit with my latest update. I’m carrying a smaller tomtoc bag when I’m away from home (which I’ve been loving), I upgraded my travel router to Wi-Fi 7 with the GL.iNet GL-BE3600 (Slate 7) Portable Travel Router, and I’m a big fan of the compact elegance of the MOFT Invisible Laptop Stand that I reviewed earlier this year.

At my desk, I swapped a Belkin AirPlay 2 receiver for the more powerful Arylic LP10 AirPlay 2 Wireless Music Streamer, which drives my Harmon Kardon SoundSticks III speakers. I also replaced a pair of broken podcasting headphones with the inexpensive but very comfortable CCZ Yinyoo Melody In Ear Monitors. And I recently started using the Kensington SD5000T5 Thunderbolt 5 Docking Station to expand my Mac Studio’s peripheral options.

Finally, you’ll notice I’ve trimmed down my handheld console setup. There’s still a lot there, but I’ve been focused on flip-style handhelds and picking a favorite of each form factor instead of jumping endlessly from one handheld to the next. With this update, the big additions are the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 and the Miyoo Flip.

Both of us have added other apps and gear, too, so be sure to browse through the Setups page to find the complete listing of our current setups.

Permalink

Amazon Prime Day 2025: Our Top Picks

By John Voorhees

You’re sure to see a lot of Prime Day roundups around the web today, but ours is a little different. Although there are a lot of great deals during Prime Day, we gather ours from among the hardware we’ve actually tried and can recommend to readers. Here are the best deals we’ve found.

For even more deals, join Club MacStories+ or Premier to become a part of our Discord community, where members are sharing their favorite finds, too.

Storage

Lexar’s 1TB blue microSD card.

I’ve tried just about every major brand of microSD card at this point while testing handheld gaming consoles for NPC: Next Portable Console. One of my go-to brands is Lexar, which has a bunch of cards on sale for Prime Day:

Also on sale are Lexar’s portable external SSDs, which I most recently used at WWDC for transporting large podcast files. You can get the 2TB SL500 model, with USB-C 3.2 data transfer rates, for 31% off during Prime Day.

The Lexar Professional Go SSD.

If you shoot video with your iPhone, you might want to check out Lexar’s 2TB Professional Go SSD and Hub, which I used to shoot video for NPC during CES in January. On sale for 30% off, the SSD fits right on the end of your iPhone, adding a bunch of extra storage for video footage, and with the hub (also 30% off), you can add an extra port for charging as you shoot videos. The 1TB version of the SSD is on sale for 26% off, too.

Apple Gear

AirPods Pro 2.

There are some great Apple hardware deals available for Prime Day, including:

AirPods Pro 2, which are $79 off, their lowest price ever on Amazon
AirPods 4 without active noise cancellation for 23% off
Beats Solo 4 for 50% off
Apple Watch Series 10 for 29% off
The latest iPad mini with 128GB of storage and cellular connectivity for 18% off
The Apple Watch 2 Ultra with cellular for 18% off
AirTags for 21% off individually and 31% off for a 4-pack

Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Routers

Earlier this year, I upgraded my Wi-Fi to a TP-Link Wi-Fi 7 Mesh system. I came from a Wi-Fi 6E system and was pleasantly surprised to find that TP-Link’s Deco BE95 Wi-Fi 7 BE22000 routers are substantially faster. I’ve had the setup for about three months, and I love it. During Prime Day, you can get the routers individually or in a three-pack for 30% off.

Lighting

The Philips Hue Festavia string lights.

The 65-foot-long Philips Hue Festavia Lights that decorate my balcony are 30% off for Prime Day, as is the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box 8K, which Federico swears by for mood lighting behind his TV. A four-pack of Hue 60W equivalent A19 color-changing smart bulbs is 41% off, too. It’s a great deal, and so is the 33% you can save on a four-pack of the recessed Hue lights that Federico added to his setup today.

Logitech Peripherals

Logitech’s Keys-to-Go 2.

I’ve used Logitech keyboards and mice for a long time. For Prime Day, the company is offering its Keys-to-Go 2 keyboard, the slimmest and most usable small keyboard I’ve ever tried, for 25% off. The POP Mouse, which I use with a variety of handheld gaming devices and the Mac mini, is also on sale for 37% off. Finally, the Logitech C922x HD webcam is 37% off. I haven’t used mine since I went 4K, but if you’re looking for a 1080p webcam, the C922x is my personal favorite.

Elgato Gear and Gaming

Elgato’s Prompter.

Earlier this year, I purchased an Elgato Prompter that uses mirrors to reflect a second Mac screen in front of a camera for recording videos. It’s a clever setup that works not only with Elgato’s webcams, but also with DSLRs and even iPhones, which is how I use it. During Prime Day, the Prompter is 33% off.

Two other handy podcasting tools I use every week are on sale too. The Elgato Key Light is 22% off during Prime Day, and the Wave Mic Arm is 30% off.

Elgato’s 4K capture card, which is compatible with HDMI 2.1, is on sale during Prime Day for 20% off. It’s one of the best ways I’ve found for capturing videogame footage or anything else that connects via HDMI.

Razer Kishi Ultra.

Speaking of games, Razer’s Kishi Ultra controller for the iPhone is also available at a deep 33% discount during Prime Day. The Kishi Ultra is on the large size of iPhone controllers, but as long as that isn’t an issue, you can’t find a better controller to drop your phone into.

AppStories, Ep. 444 - 28 minutes

Inside our Summertime Review Toolkits

Federico

John

This week, Federico and John reflect on their preparations for the fall review season, how dealing with design changes is different than new features, and explain some of the tools their using for research and writing this year.

On AppStories+, John answers the question “What if the Stream Deck was $20 and fit in the palm of your hand.”

Subscribe here.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

To learn more about an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

AppStories Episode 444 - Inside our Summertime Review Toolkits

0:00
27:36

↓

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

MacStories’ ChatGPT Proofreading Prompt

By John Voorhees

Earlier this week in the Club MacStories+ Discord, members were discussing Grammarly’s acquisition of Superhuman and what it means for both services. I chimed in to say that I suspect Grammarly is looking to expand its AI services because its core spelling and grammar checking functionality is under pressure from AI chatbots. Even small, on-device...

Interesting Links

By John Voorhees

John

Writing for Wired, Boone Ashworth profiles the company behind TranscribeGlass, AI-enabled glasses that bring subtitles to everyday life to assist those who are Deaf and hard of hearing. (Link) In the same week that Google brought its Calendar app to the Apple Watch, it killed Keep for the Watch, as reported by Jess Weatherbed...

App Debuts

By John Voorhees

John

Project Indigo Project Indigo is a new camera app from Adobe that features manual controls and claims to offer a custom computational photography process that produces natural-looking images. The app’s development was led by a couple of former Google Pixel team members. Like other computational photography apps, Project Indigo captures multiple shots, combining them...

Cloudflare Introduces a Pay-to-Scrape Beta Program for Web Publishers

By John Voorhees

Governments have largely been ineffective in regulating the unfettered scraping of the web by AI companies. Now, Cloudflare is taking a different approach, tackling the problem from a commercial angle with a beta program that charges AI bots each time they scrape a website. Cloudflare’s CEO, Matthew Prince told Ars Technica:

Original content is what makes the Internet one of the greatest inventions in the last century, and it’s essential that creators continue making it. AI crawlers have been scraping content without limits. Our goal is to put the power back in the hands of creators, while still helping AI companies innovate. This is about safeguarding the future of a free and vibrant Internet with a new model that works for everyone.

Under the program, websites set what can be scraped and what scraping costs. In addition, for new customers, Cloudflare is now blocking AI bots from scraping sites by default, a change from its previous opt-in blocking system.

There are a lot of questions surrounding the viability of Cloudflare’s pay-to-scrape beta, and many details still need to be worked out, not the least of which includes convincing AI companies to cooperate. However, I’m glad to see Cloudflare taking the lead on an approach that attempts to compensate publishers for the value of what AI companies are scraping and put agency back in the hands of creators.

Why I Landed on Shortwave for Email and Stuck with It

By John Voorhees

Over the past six months, I’ve been on a costly quest for a better email solution that started with Superhuman and continued with Shortwave. Both are powerful email services designed to help users process a lot of email quickly, and there’s enough overlap between the two that I thought it would be useful to highlight...

Apple Music Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary with a New Campus, Radio Events, and a Special Playlist

By John Voorhees

Source: Apple.

It’s been 10 years since Apple Music launched the summer following Apple’s acquisition of Beats. To mark the anniversary, Apple has made several announcements.

First of all, the company will soon open a 15,000 square foot multi-use campus in Culver City, California. According to Apple’s press release:

…the new studio represents a major milestone in Apple’s continued mission to support artists at every level by giving them the tools, platform, and creative freedom to tell their stories in entirely new ways. More than just a studio in the traditional sense, the new space is a creative campus that reflects a decade of Apple Music’s commitment to high-quality sound, authentic storytelling, and artist-first experiences.

Source: Apple.

The facility includes two radio studios for Apple Music Radio, with Spatial Audio playback and adaptable configurations to accommodate interviews, performances, and more. Apple has also built a 4,000 square foot soundstage for live performances, multicam recording, events, and screenings. Other spaces are dedicated to Spatial Audio mixing, social media production, and isolation booths for songwriters, podcasters, and interviewers. Apple’s new California studio is designed to anchor its other locations that include New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, and Nashville.

Apple is also celebrating its 10th anniversary with a series of events on Apple Music Radio. “Don’t Be Boring: The Birth of Apple Music Radio with Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden” has concluded, but you can still catch:

“10 Years of Apple Music” featuring stories of big moments from the past decade which will air today from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. PST; and
“Live: 10 Years Of Apple Music” from 4 to 7 p.m. PST, which will be hosted by Lowe and Darden and feature the artists who have been integral to the service.

Apple Music Radio will also be counting down its 500 most streamed songs over the past decade, with 100 songs featured each day, culminating in the top 100 songs, which will stream on July 5th.

The Replay All Time playlist. Source: Apple.

Finally, Apple is rolling out individual Replay All Time playlists to its subscribers, which aggregates your most streamed songs from the past 10 years. The playlist hasn’t appeared for me yet, but I know Federico has it, so I expect it will show up for most subscribers soon.

I’ve been a subscriber of Apple Music since day one. While I’ve leveled my fair share of criticisms of the service over that time, it says a lot that I’ve stuck with it for a full decade. There’s always room to improve, but I’m glad I’ve had Apple Music as the soundtrack to my everyday life for so long. Ten years is a big milestone for anything, and judging from where things stand today, Apple Music has a bright future ahead of it.