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Synology Drops Branded Drive Requirement→

Brad Linder, writing for Liliputing:

Earlier this year Synology announced that you’d need to use Synology-branded hard drives in its 2025 line of “Plus” branded network-attached storage devices if you wanted full functionality. While you could theoretically use a non-Synology drive with the Synology DiskStation DS225+, DS425+, DS925+ and other models, you’d be unable to create data storage pools, or use volume deduplication.

As Linder reports, six months later, Synology has reversed course on what was a widely unpopular decision among Mac and PC users that was viewed by many as a way to lock them into overpriced drives unnecessarily. The change of direction was revealed in a Synology press release announcing DiskStation Manager 7.3, the OS that runs the company’s Plus line of NAS hardware.

This is great news for Mac users who felt betrayed by Synology’s previous announcement. However, as Linder also points out it does not change the fact that the same “Plus” series of 2025 NAS hardware does not include hardware-accelerated transcoding of H.264 and HEVC video, which previous models supported.

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Jump Into the Liquid Glass Pool: A MacStories OS 26 App Roundup

Liquid Glass is the sort of change that takes some getting used to from the perspective of both users and developers. The design language shifted a lot over the course of the summer beta season, which made developers’ lives tougher than in some years. This has resulted in a variety of Liquid Glass implementations across our favorite apps, which is a fascinating study in the range of designs Liquid Glass encompasses.

Today, we wanted to share some of our favorite implementations of Liquid Glass and other features debuted this fall by indie developers. We’ll have more coverage in the weeks ahead, but let’s dive into some of the best OS 26 updates we’ve seen so far.

Devon

Art of Fauna

From developer Klemens Strasser, Art of Fauna is a unique jigsaw puzzle game with a focus on accessibility and animal conservation. Each puzzle features a gorgeous wildlife illustration from the 18th or 19th century and can be solved either by aligning pieces of the picture or by rearranging written descriptions of the animal pictured phrase by phrase. Everything about the app, from the font to the colors to the complexity of the puzzle phrases, can be adjusted to fit each user’s needs. With its beautiful artwork, intuitive gameplay, ambient sound design, and adaptability, it’s no wonder the app won an Apple Design Award for Inclusivity this year.

Version 1.8 of Art of Fauna came out alongside iOS 26 with Game Center integration and Liquid Glass design elements in its navigation buttons. But the most interesting new feature is integration with a new app from the team behind Structured called Awake. Put simply, Awake is an alarm clock app that helps you wake up by challenging you to accomplish a task before you can disable your alarm in the morning. With this integration, you can choose to make an Art of Fauna puzzle your morning mission, starting your day with some brain training and a beautiful puzzle. In Awake, you can select the difficulty level of the puzzle you’re presented with each morning, as well as whether you’d like the app to prefer unplayed puzzles over previously played ones.

Art of Fauna is available on iPhone and iPad. It can be downloaded from the App Store and includes ten puzzles for free. There are 100 other puzzles available from five different biomes that can be purchased all at once for $8.99 or in packs of 20 for $2.99 each. 20% of all proceeds from the app are donated to nature preservation causes, and you can learn more about the supported causes in the app’s Giving Back section.

Play

Marcos Tanaka’s watch later utility is a go-to for many – myself included – when it comes to saving, organizing, and watching YouTube videos. With its latest update, version 2.6, Play has added several features enabled by iOS 26.

First up is a Liquid Glass redesign. The sidebar, toolbar, and buttons are all elevated above the content and incorporate the transparent glass material. Buttons and view transitions now feature some fun animations, too, like when the ‘+’ button morphs into the Add Video popover once it’s tapped.

The on-device Apple Intelligence model has enabled Tanaka to add a couple of new AI features as well. Each video’s detail view now includes a ‘Generate’ button that will create and present a text summary of the video’s contents. For those who want to get an idea of what a video is about before watching it, or for those who want a quick refresh on a video they’ve watched before, this feature will come in handy, and it’s a clever application of the on-device model now available to developers. Also, when adding tags to a video, Play can now suggest tags based on a video’s contents, both existing tags and new tags that you can create.

Play is available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, and Apple TV and can be purchased from the App Store for $2.99. Additional features, like subscribing to channels within the app and searching video transcripts, require a subscription to Play Premium, which costs $2.99/month, $19.99/year, or $99.99 for a lifetime subscription.

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Reports of Slide Over’s Death Were Greatly Exaggerated→

Well, that didn’t take long.

In yesterday’s second developer beta of iPadOS 26.1, Apple restored the Slide Over functionality that was removed with the debut of the new windowing system in iPadOS 26.0 last month. Well…they sort of restored Slide Over, at least.

In my review of iPadOS 26, I wrote:

So in iPadOS 26, Apple decided to scrap Split View and Slide Over altogether, leaving users the choice between full-screen apps, a revamped Stage Manager, and the brand new windowed mode. At some level, I get it. Apple probably thinks that the functionality of Split View can be replicated with new windowing controls (as we’ll see, there are actual tiling options to split the screen into halves) and that most people who were using these two modes would be better served by the new multitasking system the company designed for iPadOS 26.

At the same time, though, I can’t help but feel that the removal of Slide Over is a misstep on Apple’s part. There’s really no great way to replicate the versatility of Slide Over with the iPad’s new windowing. Making a bunch of windows extra small and stacked on the side of the screen would require a lot of manual resizing and repositioning; at that point, you’re just using a worse version of classic windowing. I don’t know what Apple’s solution could have been here – particularly because, like I said above, the iPad did end up with too many multitasking systems to pick from. But the Mac also has several multitasking features, and people love the Mac, so maybe that’s fine, too?

Slide Over will be missed, but perhaps there’ll be a way for Apple to make it come back.

The unceremonious removal of Slide Over from iPadOS 26 was the most common comment I received from MacStories readers over the past month. I also saw a lot of posts on different subreddits from people who claimed they weren’t updating to iPadOS 26 so they wouldn’t lose Slide Over functionality. Perhaps Apple underestimated how much people loved and used Slide Over, or maybe – like I argued – they thought that multitasking and window resizing could replace it. In any case, Slide Over is back, but it’s slightly different from what it used to be.

The bad news first: the new Slide Over doesn’t support multiple apps in the Slide Over stack with their own dedicated app switcher. (This option was introduced in iPadOS 13.) So far, the new Slide Over is single-window only, and it works alongside iPadOS windowing to put one specific window in Slide Over mode. Any window can be moved into Slide Over, but only one Slide Over entity can exist at a time. From this perspective, Slide Over is different from full-screen: that mode also works alongside windowing, but multiple windows can be in their full-screen “spaces” at the same time.

On one hand, I hope that Apple can find a way to restore Slide Over’s former support for multiple apps. On the other, I feel like the “good news” part is the reason that will prevent the company from doing so. What I like about the new Slide Over implementation is that the window can be resized: you’re no longer constrained to using Slide Over in a “tall iPhone” layout, which is great. I like having the option to stretch out Music (which I’ve always used in Slide Over on iPad), and I also appreciate the glassy border that is displayed around the Slide Over window to easily differentiate it from regular windows. I feel, however, that since you can now resize the Slide Over window, also enabling support for multiple apps in Slide Over may get too confusing or complex to manage. Personally, now that I’ve tested it, I’d take a resizable single Slide Over window over multiple non-resizable apps in Slide Over.

Between improvements to local capture and even more keyboard shortcuts, it’s great (and reassuring) to see Apple iterate on iPadOS so quickly after last month’s major update. Remember when we used to wait two years for minor changes?

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Podcast Rewind: Understanding MCP, Computer Coasters, and an Interview with Andrew Fyfe

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

AppStories

This week, Federico and John demystify Model Context Protocol (MCP), covering how it works, where it’s heading, and practical examples of what it can do.

On AppStories+, Federico and John experiment with whether AI can make sense of the information firehose.

NPC: Next Portable Console

This week, John and Brendon get excited about the rumors of an Anbernic DS clone, dig into weird and interesting news from Xiaomi, debate the merits of computer coasters, and update listeners on more pricey Windows handhelds and Lego’s Game Boy set.

On NPC XL, John shares his first impressions of GeForce Now’s NVIDIA 5080 performance, and he and Brendon wonder what Microsoft is thinking with recent changes to Game Pass.

First, Last, Everything

Andrew Fyfe is a musician originating from Scotland. After starting out gigging in bands and crossing paths with the likes of Biffy Clyro and Lewis Capaldi, Andrew started learning about artificial intelligence. Now living in Japan, Andrew is the CTO and co-founder of Neutone, a company introducing AI to the music-making process, aiming to do so in a way that respects artists and doesn’t replace creativity.

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Apps in ChatGPT→

OpenAI announced a lot of developer-related features at yesterday’s DevDay event, and as you can imagine, the most interesting one for me is the introduction of apps in ChatGPT. From the OpenAI blog:

Today we’re introducing a new generation of apps you can chat with, right inside ChatGPT. Developers can start building them today with the new Apps SDK, available in preview.

Apps in ChatGPT fit naturally into conversation. You can discover them when ChatGPT suggests one at the right time, or by calling them by name. Apps respond to natural language and include interactive interfaces you can use right in the chat.

And:

Developers can start building and testing apps today with the new Apps SDK preview, which we’re releasing as an open standard built on the Model Context Protocol⁠ (MCP). To start building, visit our documentation for guidelines and example apps, and then test your apps using Developer Mode in ChatGPT.

Also:

Later this year, we’ll launch apps to ChatGPT Business, Enterprise and Edu. We’ll also open submissions so developers can publish their apps in ChatGPT, and launch a dedicated directory where users can browse and search for them. Apps that meet the standards provided in our developer guidelines will be eligible to be listed, and those that meet higher design and functionality standards may be featured more prominently—both in the directory and in conversations.

Looks like we got the timing right with this week’s episode of AppStories about demystifying MCP and what it means to connect apps to LLMs. In the episode, I expressed my optimism for the potential of MCP and the idea of augmenting your favorite apps with the capabilities of LLMs. However, I also lamented how fragmented the MCP ecosystem is and how confusing it can be for users to wrap their heads around MCP “servers” and other obscure, developer-adjacent terminology.

In classic OpenAI fashion, their announcement of apps in ChatGPT aims to (almost) completely abstract the complexity of MCP from users. In one announcement, OpenAI addressed my two top complaints about MCP that I shared on AppStories: they revealed their own upcoming ecosystem of apps, and they’re going to make it simple to use.

Does that ring a bell? It’s impossible to tell right now if OpenAI’s bet to become a platform will be successful, but early signs are encouraging, and the company has the leverage of 800 million active users to convince third-party developers to jump on board. Just this morning, I asked ChatGPT to put together a custom Spotify playlist with bands that had a similar vibe to Moving Mountains in their Pneuma era, and after thinking for a few minutes, it worked. I did it from the ChatGPT web app and didn’t have to involve the App Store at all.

If I were Apple, I’d start growing increasingly concerned at the prospect of another company controlling the interactions between users and their favorite apps. As I argued on AppStories, my hope is that the rumored MCP framework allegedly being worked on by Apple is exactly that – a bridge (powered by App Intents) between App Store apps and LLMs that can serve as a stopgap until Apple gets their LLM act together. But that’s a story for another time.

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MacStories Deals Roundup: Amazon Prime Big Deal Days

Amazon’s Big Deal Days runs today and tomorrow (October 7–8), so I thought I’d share some of the best deals I’ve discovered so far. We’ll be keeping an eye out for other deals and posting them on the MacStories Deals accounts on Mastodon and Bluesky, too, so be sure to follow either for the very latest finds.

For prices, be sure to visit the MacStories Amazon storefront.

Portable SSDs: Samsung T9 and Lexar Armor 700

Events like Big Deal Days are always a great opportunity to pick up fast external SSD storage. I’ve used Samsung’s T line of external drives for years, starting with the T5. Lately, I’ve switched to the company’s T9 portable SSDs because they feature USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, which offers the fastest transfers you can get short of something like Thunderbolt 4 or 5, delivering 2,000 MB/s. That’s plenty fast for working with big files or moving a bunch of smaller files from one device to another. I’ve used the T9 for Carbon Copy Cloner backups, Time Machine backups, editing in Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, and moving my ROM library from one handheld device to another, and it’s been reliable in every case.

During Big Deal Days, the biggest discount is on the 2TB model, with the 1TB model a close second. Depending on your storage needs, you can’t go wrong with either.

More recently, I also started using Lexar’s Armor 700 Portable SSD. In fact, it was one of these drives that we used to transfer huge video and audio files from Apple’s podcast studio at WWDC back to my hotel room for editing.

Like Samsung’s T9, Lexar’s drive features 2,000 MB/s transfer speeds, plus an aluminum case for heat dissipation, a rubberized exterior to help protect against drops, and IP66 water and dust resistance. I’ve been using the 1TB model of the Armor 700, but it’s the 4TB model that’s on the deepest discount during Big Deal Days.

For prices, visit the MacStories Amazon storefront.

Logitech: MX Keys S, Keys-to-Go 2, and POP Mouse

Logitech has gone all-in for Amazon’s big sales event, too. There are a bunch of keyboards, mice, and other accessories on sale, but I’d focus on these three:

The MX Keys S for Mac was my go-to keyboard for years. I’ve switched to Apple’s Magic Keyboard more recently, but if you’re looking for an alternative low-profile keyboard made for the Mac, this is a great pick.

Keys-to-Go 2 is the keyboard I throw in my bag when I need to connect to a handheld gaming device, or when I want a keyboard “just in case” but don’t want to carry my iPad’s Magic Keyboard case. The replaceable watch battery it came with is still going strong, and the integrated cover keeps it from getting damaged. It’s not the most ergonomic keyboard ever designed, but it’s perfect for lightweight travel.

I got a POP Mouse for the same reason I have Logitech’s Keys-to-Go 2 keyboard. It’s a good lightweight on-the-go mouse I can connect to multiple devices. I love that it comes in bright colors, too.

For prices, visit the MacStories Amazon storefront.

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Digital Foundry Documents the iPhone 17 Pro’s Major Gaming Gains→

Yesterday, Digital Foundry published their review of the iPhone 17 Pro, which as you’d expect, focuses on the Pro model’s gaming capabilities. Tested against iPhone 13 and 15 Pros and using a series of benchmark tests as well as real-world gameplay, Digital Foundry’s tests revealed significant improvements in several areas, including:

  • GPU performance;
  • Ray tracing capabilities;
  • Second-generation dynamic caching; and
  • Improved thermals.

Benchmarks are one thing, but Digital Foundry’s tests also revealed real-world benefits to the iPhone 17 Pro, such as:

  • a 60% performance increase over the iPhone 15 Pro on Resident Evil Village,
  • the elimination of freezing and big frame rate drops in Assassin’s Creed Mirage,
  • more reliable 30 fps gameplay in Death Stranding.

Those are significant improvements in just two generations of the A-series chips.

What really caught my eye, though, was the impact of cooling. The iPhone 17 Pro uses a vapor chamber and aluminum chassis to help cool the device and keep its chips running at full speed longer. When Digital Foundry placed the 17 Pro on a desk fan, it became clear just how important that cooling is.

Running a benchmark stress test with air blowing across the back of the iPhone 17 Pro reduced the performance drop by roughly 50%. With those sorts of results, I expect external cooling solutions like this X5s telescopic controller and FX5 Cooler combo from GameSir to become a popular accessory in the coming year, so of course, I’ve ordered one and will report back soon.

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Gamery: A Sleek and Intuitive Game Library App for Casuals and Pros [Sponsor]

Gamery is the ultimate video game library app for iPhone and iPad—designed to look and feel right at home on Apple platforms.

With a simple, stunning design now refreshed for iOS 26 and a beautiful new app icon, Gamery makes managing your games as sleek and enjoyable as playing them. Everything is thoughtfully built to feel fast, fluid, and perfectly native across Apple devices.

Importing your games has never been easier. Gamery offers powerful importing options for PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, Epic Games Store, and more, so you can build your collection in seconds instead of hours. A brand-new Home tab keeps you updated with monthly PlayStation Plus titles, Xbox Game Pass releases, and Epic Games Store freebies, so you never miss what’s new.

Once your library is set up, Gamery helps you stay organized with powerful filters, collections, unified search, and widgets for quick access right from your Home Screen or Lock Screen. Whether you want to track your playthrough progress or just browse your collection in style, Gamery keeps everything in one beautifully designed place. And on iPad, use the power of multiple windows and keyboard shortcuts to move through your library with ease.

If you love great design, powerful features, and effortless importing, Gamery makes tracking your games simple, beautiful, and fun.

Download Gamery today for free and check out some limited-time discounts for the Gamery+ subscription by visiting gamery.app/sale.

Our thanks to Gamery for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Podcast Rewind: Cozy Sports, Wallpaper Wars, Southern Cooking, and Bad Bunny

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

Comfort Zone

Niléane gets sporty and frosty, Chris is drowning in new Apple products, and Matt oversees the battle for the nicest iPhone wallpaper (where everyone wins).

MacStories Unwind

This week, Federico tries to recover from a rough week, John brings some Southern cooking to the show, Federico has a long backlog of videogames to attend to, and John has an Apple TV+ show and an album to share.

Magic Rays of Light

Sigmund is joined by 9to5Mac editor-in-chief Chance Miller to highlight Paul Greengrass’s emotional California fire triumph-over-disaster movie, Apple Music’s next Super Bowl half-time show headliner, and the indefinite postponement of The Savant.

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