Six Colors’ Apple in 2025 Report Card

Average scores from the 2025 Six Colors report card.

Average scores from the 2025 Six Colors report card.

For the past 10 years, Six Colors’ Jason Snell has put together an “Apple report card” – a survey to assess the current state of Apple “as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple”.

The 2025 edition of the Six Colors Apple Report Card has been published, and you can find a summary of all the submitted comments along with charts featuring average scores for the different categories here.

I’m so grateful that Jason invited me, once again, to participate in the survey and share my thoughts on Apple’s 2025. As you’ll see from my comments – and as you know if you’ve been listening to AppStories or Connected lately – I’ve been focusing on AI agents, hybrid automation, and splitting my work between iPadOS and macOS for the past few months. The LLM takeoff in the productivity space is accelerating on a weekly basis, and modern AI tools are fundamentally changing the way I get work done. Case in point: this article was written before OpenClaw went viral, and the past month alone has seen so many of my habits and automations get upended by this incredible open-source tool. As I noted in my comments, however, one thing is not changing: iPadOS essentially gets no access to any of these modern AI tools, which are increasingly launching as Mac-only apps or features.

I’ve prepared the full text of my responses for the Six Colors report card, which you can find below.

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Apple to Make Mac minis in the U.S.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple announced today that it is expanding its manufacturing operations in Houston, Texas where it will make Mac minis. The company also said it will expand its AI server production and training in Houston later this year. The announcement is unsurprising given the Trump administration’s plan to impose a new 10% global tariff on non-exempt imports to the U.S. in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling that prior tariffs were unconstitutional.

In Apple’s press release, CEO Tim Cook was quoted as saying:

Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing, and we’re proud to significantly expand our footprint in Houston with the production of Mac mini starting later this year. We began shipping advanced AI servers from Houston ahead of schedule, and we’re excited to accelerate that work even further.

If you’re curious about what Apple and its suppliers are building in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal has a behind-the-scenes look at the supply chain taking shape in Texas and Arizona. It’s a massive undertaking that will cost billions of dollars and years to build, but it’s a tangible sign of progress that’s part of the $600 billion previously pledged to be spent on U.S. manufacturing.

Podcast Rewind: A Handheld Heavyweight, a Creative Studio Challenge, and Foveated F1

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

NPC: Next Portable Console

This week, Brendon, Federico, and John cover a raft of new budget handhelds, a new OLED tablet from Lenovo, TrimUI leaks, and more.

On NPC XL, John and Brendon share their experiments with the MagicX Zero 40 and Anbernic RG DS.

Comfort Zone

Chris wants to know what the heck is going on with Discord. Niléane has a massive backlog of things to talk about now that she’s back. And everybody does their best with Apple’s Creator Studio.

On Cozy Zone, the gang discusses what they’d do if they couldn’t use Apple products anymore. We are releasing this just days after ATP did the exact same thing, but we swear we recorded this a couple weeks ago!

MacStories Unwind

This week, John has an F1 racing theory about the Vision Pro and shares a vampire movie, while Federico has been binging a popular Netflix series.

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The Sentence Returns with iOS 26.4, Sort of

Yesterday, Apple released developer beta 1 of iOS 26.4, which among other things adds a feature to the Music app that uses Apple Intelligence to generate a playlist from a short description of what the user wants to hear. That immediately reminded Federico and me of The Sentence, a Beats Music feature that sadly didn’t survive the app’s acquisition by Apple.

The Sentence allowed subscribers to describe the music they wanted to hear based on a Mad Libs-style sentence construction. Every sentence was structured as “I’m [location] & feel like [mood] with [person/group] to [music genre].” The feature was a fantastic innovation that made playlist creation fun and easy. As Federico described it in 2014:

It’s The Sentence, though, that steals the spotlight in how it combines regular, Pandora-like song shuffling with a context/mood-based menu to tell Beats what you want to listen to. The Sentence, as the name implies, lets you construct a sentence using variable tokens for location, mood, user, and music genre. You can request things like “I’m at my computer and feel like dancing with myself to pop”, “I’m in the car and feel like driving with my friends to indie”, or more absurd contexts such as “I’m underpaid and I feel like shoveling snow with my lover to metal”. As reported by Re/code [Ed. note: This is a dead link], Beats explained that “the content, and the filters, are selected and tuned by humans, and an algorithm generates the playlist from your choices”.

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Apple Podcasts Will Combine Video with Audio in Shows

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple announced today that beginning with the betas of iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS 26.4, which were released earlier today, the Apple Podcasts app will add video streaming. The feature is based on HTTP Live Streaming, known as HLS, that will allow listeners to switch between an audio-only version of a show and the video version. At launch, the feature will be available via Acast, ART19, Triton’s Omny Studio, and SiriusXM, which includes SiriusXM Media, AdsWizz, and Simplecast, with more to come in the future.

Apple’s HLS implementation will also support dynamic ad insertion. Advertisers will be charged an impression fee by Apple to include their ads. Podcast hosting companies and producers will not be charged to distribute HLS versions of shows through Apple Podcasts. It will be interesting to see if hosting companies charge podcasters a premium to deliver video versions of shows.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services, said of the new feature:

By bringing a category-leading video experience to Apple Podcasts, we’re putting creators in full control of their content and how they build their businesses, while making it easier than ever for audiences to listen to or watch podcasts.

I’ve been wondering for a while whether Apple would do more with video podcasts. This is an interesting move, but the launch is limited, applying to a handful of podcast hosting companies. That means the lineup of shows that support the feature will be limited at first, but with time, it could become standard across most podcasts. The move is clearly designed to counter YouTube, which has rapidly grabbed audience share from Apple and others, with its video-centric approach to podcasts.

Apple Announces a March 4th Press Event→

Source: MacRumors.

Source: MacRumors.

Apple has invited members of the press to what it’s calling a “special Apple Experience” that will take place on March 4th at 9:00 am Eastern U.S. time in New York, London, and Shanghai, according to MacRumors. There’s no word yet on whether the event will be livestreamed.

With several products rumored to be getting updates in 2026, it’s hard to guess what’s planned, although in the past, Apple has launched or refreshed products like the iPhone 16e, iPads, and the MacBook Air around this time of year. It’s also notable that Apple is planning the event for multiple locations around the world. That certainly makes it more accessible than a single event in Cupertino, which is good to see.

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OpenClaw Creator Peter Steinberger Joins OpenAI→

Peter Steinberger, the developer behind OpenClaw that was launched and took off barely a month ago and has already had three names, is joining OpenAI. In addition, OpenClaw is moving to a foundation where it will remain an open-source project.

As Steinberger explains on his website:

It’s always been important to me that OpenClaw stays open source and given the freedom to flourish. Ultimately, I felt OpenAI was the best place to continue pushing on my vision and expand its reach. The more I talked with the people there, the clearer it became that we both share the same vision.

The community around OpenClaw is something magical and OpenAI has made strong commitments to enable me to dedicate my time to it and already sponsors the project. To get this into a proper structure I’m working on making it a foundation. It will stay a place for thinkers, hackers and people that want a way to own their data, with the goal of supporting even more models and companies.

The AI world has been talking about agents for more than a year, but it wasn’t until Steinberger’s project came along that we got software that put the idea of agents to practical use. OpenClaw may have only been just a few months old, but it captured the imaginations of users, including Federico, who has an uncanny knack for spotting the next big thing very early.

It will be interesting to see where OpenAI’s apps go next. I’ve been impressed with Codex, and with the Sky team and Steinberger on the company’s roster, I have high hopes for what they’ll do next.

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Podcast Rewind: Handheld Gaming Truths, Just a Little Formula 1, and a Hulu Hack

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

NPC: Next Portable Console

This week, a quick tour of Nintendo’s latest Direct, more details emerge about the Virtual Boy Switch 2 accessory, the Steam Machine and other hardware is delayed, Anbernic goes out on a limb, AYANEO steps on a rake, and the Odin 2 rides off into the sunset.

On NPC XL, Federico is choosing between Switch 2 controllers, and Brendon receives an unexpected gift.

Comfort Zone

Matt wants to do an AI check-in, Chris serves a master class on getting started with 3D printing, and Niléane is away, so the dads talk a little Formula 1… just a little.

On Cozy Zone, Chris gets a brand glow up!

MacStories Unwind

This week, Super Bowl traditions, Federico’s very hungry plumber, some High Potential follow-up, and the latest season of Shrinking.

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