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The Latest from Comfort Zone, MacStories Unwind, and Magic Rays of Light

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

Comfort Zone

Matt made an app and brings a very, very unbiased take on it, Chris has solved some of his tech paper cuts, and Niléane probably won yet another challenge by bringing a really rad Apple TV remote.

MacStories Unwind

This week on Unwind, I make a Kuzu discovery that may amuse Italian listeners, we explore bars and aperitivo, and we share a music and TV show pick, along with a great deal.

Magic Rays of Light

Sigmund and Devon highlight the premiere of Apple Original Spanish-language comedy Love You To Death, break down the changes coming to MLS Season Pass this season, and recap immersive film Man vs. Beast.

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New ‘Apple Invites’ App Debuts on the App Store

Apple Invites is now available on the App Store as a free download. The app, which Apple just announced, is iPhone-only and allows users to send and receive invitations to events – yes, invitations, invites is not a noun.

Here’s what the onboarding looks like:

The app can generate full-screen graphics for invitations to any sort of event. The invitations allow you to mix a combination of photos and AI-generated images that are combined with details about the event and the Memojis of the people you invite. There are multiple font choices, the option to add a playlist from Apple Music, and sections for draft invitations, upcoming events, events you’re hosting, those you’re attending, plus past and upcoming events. Invitees can send notes back to the sender too.

Here’s one Federico made for my imaginary birthday party:

I won’t be using the Image Playground integration.

Fortunately, you aren’t required to use Apple Intelligence to make your invitations, although it is notable that this is one of the first Apple apps we know of that is calling the Image Playground API directly. The app also has a wide variety of backgrounds and supports multiple frameworks and apps system-wide, like Photos, Contacts, Maps, Weather, Calendar, Music, and more.

Here are some more screenshots of the app and what it offers:

Anyone can receive and respond an invitation using the app, but only iCloud+ subscribers can send invitations. I won’t be using Apple Intelligence to generate images for invitations, but putting the Image Playground integration aside, the app looks nice and is a fun way to approach what is usually a chore of back and forth emails or text messages. You can download Invites from the App Store using this link.

The Latest from Comfort Zone, Magic Rays of Light, and MacStories Unwind

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

Comfort Zone

Matt is unable to defend himself as he’s on the lamb, Chris is exploring that Mac life, and Niléane has some snazzy new headphones. Then Chris edited with AI to pretty good effect and Niléane tried using an AI search engine to much less success.

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Magic Rays of Light

Sigmund and Devon highlight the return of Mythic Quest for its fourth season on Apple TV+ and share their ideas for how Apple can improve gaming on Apple TV this year.

MacStories Unwind

This week, Federico and I do some regional grocery shopping, Federico pursues pasta perfection, plus a documentary and podcast recommendation.

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Apple Reports Q1 2025 Financial Results

Apple's Anhui, China store. Source: Apple.

Apple’s Anhui, China store. Source: Apple.

Last quarter, Apple reported revenue of $94.9 billion, which was a 6% year-over-year gain.

Today, first-quarter 2025 earnings are out and Apple reported record revenue of $124.3 billion, a 4% year-over-year gain. The diluted earnings per share was $2.40 a 10% year-over-year gain.

Tim Cook had this to say:

Today Apple is reporting our best quarter ever, with revenue of $124.3 billion, up 4 percent from a year ago. We were thrilled to bring customers our best-ever lineup of products and services during the holiday season. Through the power of Apple silicon, we’re unlocking new possibilities for our users with Apple Intelligence, which makes apps and experiences even better and more personal. And we’re excited that Apple Intelligence will be available in even more languages this April.

Going into today’s earnings call, Apple’s stock was downgraded by multiple analysts. Factors cited in the downgrades included weak sales in China, an expectation that Apple wouldn’t meet earnings expectations, and the the lack of any boost in iPhone sales from Apple Intelligence.

It’s possible that some of the most powerful Apple Intelligence features that have yet to debut will drive future sales of iPhones and other devices even further than last quarter. That’s not a bet I’d necessarily take, but irrespective of hardware sale accelleration, the volatility among the companies behind the leading artificial intelligence models may insure to Apple’s benefit as investors move their investments into stocks that are perceived as safer.

The Latest from AppStories and NPC: Next Portable Console

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

AppStories

This week, for episode 420 Federico and John are joined by Matt Birchler, co-host of Comfort Zone and many other projects to talk about web apps, email, AI, and more.

On AppStories+, Matt, John, and Federico confess their tech secrets.

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NPC: Next Portable Console

It’s a packed episode with a post Switch 2 reveal vibe check and more on iPhone game controller innovation, plus John’s early impressions of the Ayn Odin2 Portal, Brendon’s review of the Miyoo Flip, and Federico’s long 2DS/3DS emulation journey.

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iOS and iPadOS 18.3 Tweak Apple Intelligence and Add a Few Features

Starting them young. Source: Apple.

Starting them young. Source: Apple.

The drip, drip, drip of Apple Intelligence continues with iOS and iPadOS 18.3. There are still some big-ticket features announced at WWDC 2024 that are yet to come, but with today’s release, Apple keeps ticking items off its list.

The biggest change is one that is largely hidden from view. Starting with iOS and iPadOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence is turned on by default. That should result in greater adoption of the features, and it’s a good indicator that Apple is confident LLM hallucinations won’t come back to bite the company in its reputation. We’ll see about that last bit, but given the size of the iPhone market, Apple’s guardrails have held up reasonably well so far.

That said, Apple is walking back one feature a little. Notification summaries will no longer be applied to news apps, after some high-profile confabulations. Given that news apps typically send headlines, which are inherently summary in nature, I don’t think that’s a great loss, although the change is reportedly temporary. However, one change to notifications is not temporary: starting with iOS and iPadOS 18.3, summarized notifications appear in italics to help distinguish them from other notifications.

Visual Intelligence has been updated in iOS 18.3 as well. Accessed by pressing and holding the iPhone’s Camera Control, Visual Intelligence can now add events to your calendar, identify animals and plants, and get information about places around you, such as a store or restaurant’s hours.

The latest update also adds back a Calculator feature. When you tap the equals sign repeatedly, the Calculator app will apply the last-used operation each time.

Finally, Apple introduced its latest Black Unity Collection earlier today. The iPhone and iPad wallpapers are part of iOS and iPadOS 18.3, and the new Unity Rhythm watch face is included with watchOS 11.3.

DeepSeek Tops the App Store Charts and Sends AI Stocks on a Wild Ride

DeepSeek's newfound popularity has made it impossible to log in as of the publication of this story.

DeepSeek’s newfound popularity has made it impossible to log in as of the publication of this story.

And just like that, ChatGPT has been dethroned from its perch at the top of the App Store’s free app list, replaced by DeepSeek, another AI app. What’s interesting is that DeepSeek, which was developed by a Chinese startup, was reportedly created at a fraction of the cost of ChatGPT and other large language models developed in the US, which has tech stocks in turmoil.

Last week, DeepSeek revealed its latest LLM, which matches or outperforms OpenAI’s o1 model in some tests. That’s nothing new. AI companies have been one-upping each other for months. What’s different is that DeepSeek was reportedly built with a fraction of the hardware and at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s o1 and models like Anthropic’s Claude.

DeepSeek is also open source, potentially undermining the financial viability of U.S. and other for-profit companies that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing models that require a paid subscription. And, because it’s free, DeepSeek rocketed to the top of the App Store’s free app list, passing OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has been at or near the top of the list for months.

That has caused a stir in Silicon Valley. As VentureBeat’s Carl Franzen puts it:

The open-source availability of DeepSeek-R1, its high performance, and the fact that it seemingly “came out of nowhere” to challenge the former leader of generative AI, has sent shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and far beyond, based on my conversations with and readings of various engineers, thinkers and leaders. If not “everyone” is freaking out about it as my hyperbolic headline suggests, it’s certainly the talk of the town in tech and business circles.

Now, as DeepSeek is starting to look like the real deal, the stock market is causing competitors’ stocks to drop, including NVIDIA’s, which, according to the Financial Times, fell 13% at the opening of the New York Stock Exchange.

If there’s one thing that has been a truism of the AI industry over the past couple of years, it’s that it moves very fast. Today’s leaders are tomorrow’s laggards. Will DeepSeek dethrone the U.S. AI companies? It’s far too early to know, but it certainly is beginning to look like there’s a new horse in the race.

Apple Announces the 2025 Black Unity Collection

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

To honor Black History Month, which starts in February, Apple has released a new Black Unity Collection. Similar to 2024’s collection, the 2025 edition includes a Sport Loop band, iPhone and iPad wallpapers, and an Apple Watch face.

According to Apple’s press release:

Black creatives and allies at Apple collaborated on the design of the new collection. The collection, Unity Rhythm, weaves together the colors of the Pan-African flag: black, green, and red. The Black Unity Sport Loop is woven in a custom pattern of raised and recessed loops that creates a lenticular effect, revealing green on one side of each loop, and red on the other. When the band is worn, the colors appear dynamic, shifting from green to red as a user moves their wrist, and the color yellow appears in the transition, as if by magic.

The wallpapers spell the word “Unity,” which matches the pattern on the Watch face and colors of the Watch band. The Unity Rhythm watch face also includes a rhythmic chime on the hour and half-hour.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple is also supporting several organizations with grants, including the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music in New Orleans, Battersea Arts Centre in London, Music Forward Foundation in Los Angeles, Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and The National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Apple Watch Black Unity Sport Loop is available to order online today and will be in stores this week for $49. The Unity Rhythm watch face and wallpapers will be available in a future software update.

The Latest from Comfort Zone, Magic Rays of Light, and MacStories Unwind

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

Comfort Zone

Matt has an announcement to make (and a cool app to talk about), Chris brought a bag of goodies, and Niléane brought a fun challenge around using our mice in interesting ways.

Magic Rays of Light

Sigmund and Devon highlight the premiere of Apple Original thriller Prime Target, share their perspectives on the conversation surrounding dark scenes in shows and films, and recap the gripping second season of Silo.

MacStories Unwind

This week, a neighborhood explosion, oats, root vegetables, and coffee, plus a classic sitcom, a unique videogame, and an action-packed movie.

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