MacStories Weekly: Issue 498
Podcast Rewind: An AYANEO Avalanche, Minecraft Houses, and Brendon Crashes Unwind
Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:
NPC: Next Portable Console
This week, Federico and John go it alone without Brendon to cover Game Pass on ARM, an avalanche of AYANEO announcements, and why the TrimUI Brick Pro has shot up their most-anticipated handheld list for 2026.
On NPC XL, Federico shows off the Ayn Odin 3 and reports the results of his efforts to brute force his way to what he’s using like a Steam Deck mini.
Comfort Zone
Chris has a Creator Studio, Matt has a less official Creator Studio, and the whole gang shows off their Minecraft houses.
On Cozy Zone, we tier list iPads. Chris has never been more in his element than in this one!
MacStories Unwind
This week, John escapes the big freeze and the Club comes home to MacStories – plus, TV picks and Brendon Bigley drops in to say “hi” and share a pick.
Immersive Dog Show Series ‘Top Dogs’ Premieres on Apple Vision Pro
Pet lovers, rejoice! After debuting immersive series and specials on subjects ranging from nature and travel to music and sports on the Vision Pro over the past couple of years, Apple is now inviting viewers into the world of competitive dog showing with Top Dogs. Available now, the two-part docuseries offers a one-of-a-kind perspective on Crufts, the world’s biggest dog show, following competitors and their owners as they give their all in hopes of winning the coveted Best in Show trophy.
Let me tell you: having had a chance to see the docuseries, these are some very good dogs. Throughout the roughly 30 minutes of video, I got the chance to see tons of adorable and prim canines, some from breeds I’d never heard of before. Crufts attracts nearly 20,000 competitors each year, so there were plenty of great dogs to meet. It’s worth watching the show just for the shots of the cute pups alone.
But Top Dogs is about more than just making new canine friends. The series offers a great overview of the dog show itself, including some behind-the-scenes footage of the lower-level competitions I wasn’t familiar with from my casual viewings of dog shows in the past. The series also employs the best use of graphics I’ve seen so far in Apple Immersive Video, explaining the dog show’s various rounds with expansive 3D charts. It includes an excellent opening title sequence, too, something I didn’t realize I was missing in these immersive series up until now.
Apple Reports Q1 2026 Revenue of $143.8 Billion
Today, Apple reported its 2026 Q1 earnings, posting quarterly revenue of $143.8 billion a 16% increase from a year ago.
Apple CEO Tim Cook had this to say of the results:
Today, Apple is proud to report a remarkable, record-breaking quarter, with revenue of $143.8 billion, up 16 percent from a year ago and well above our expectations. iPhone had its best-ever quarter driven by unprecedented demand, with all-time records across every geographic segment, and Services also achieved an all-time revenue record, up 14 percent from a year ago. We are also excited to announce that our installed base now has more than 2.5 billion active devices, which is a testament to incredible customer satisfaction for the very best products and services in the world.
As CFO Kevan Parekh noted in Apple’s press release, today’s results set an all-time earnings-per-share record, with an 19% increase and $54 billion of operating cash flow.
So yes, Apple continues to make a lot of money. Global trade politics, currency exchange rates, component prices like RAM, and other factors are all risks that could put a damper on the company’s earnings in the future, but so far, the company is doing fine. For all the details and an earnings call that is just getting started, visit Apple’s investor page.
Creator Studio Review: Redefining Pro for the Modern Era
Starting today, Apple is offering a subscription bundle of its creative apps called Creator Studio. Some of what’s included is exclusive to the subscription package, while other parts of it remain available à la carte. It’s a lot to absorb, and I’ll get to all the details in due course.
However, what’s most exciting to me is the fact that Apple is clearly repositioning these apps to appeal to a broader cross-section of creatives. Apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are no longer just for Hollywood and music studios. By filling out the iPad lineup and adding Pixelmator Pro along with enhanced versions of their productivity apps, Apple has taken the first steps toward realigning its apps with what it means to be a creative professional in 2026.
This transition isn’t the sort of thing that happens overnight, which is why it’s easy to spot the gaps in Creator Studio’s offerings. I ran into a couple of bugs along the way, too. However, by and large, I think the bundle of apps hits the right notes and is heading in the right direction. Let’s take a closer look.
The New Club MacStories: Re-Subscribing to Your RSS Feeds and What’s Coming Next
The new unified MacStories website is here, bringing Club MacStories content under the same roof as the rest of the site for the first time. While this transition delivers a more cohesive experience for members, a few things are different and others are still being implemented.
How to Re-Subscribe to Your RSS Feeds
Club MacStories+ and Premier members have access to custom feeds as part of their subscriptions. With today’s update, you’ll need to resubscribe to those feeds. The old ones will no longer work. Here’s what to do.
- Visit My Feeds from the Account dropdown on macstories.net.
- Copy the feed URL.
- Paste it into your RSS reader to subscribe.
- Note: Club Premier members will also need to do this for AppStories+.
These new feeds are personal to you and will continue to work going forward as long as you maintain your Club membership. Since these feeds are uniquely tied to your paid Club account, please don’t share them publicly.
A Note on Discord Access
If you’re a Club MacStories+ or Premier member who joined before today’s transition, your Discord access remains intact. There’s nothing you need to do.
New or returning members who want to join the Discord community will need to wait just a bit longer. We are working with Memberful engineers to migrate users from our previous system. Once that process is complete, we’ll provide you with instructions to connect your Discord account from MacStories.
Coming Soon: Features in Development
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Find a bug on the new site? You can submit it here.
The launch of the new site required some tough decisions about which features to prioritize. Three capabilities from the previous Club website aren’t available yet but are actively being worked on for future updates.
- The Explore interface, which allowed members to search Club MacStories content using visual filters, hasn’t made the transition yet.
- The ability to generate unique RSS feeds for specific sections of the Club isn’t currently supported, though you can still subscribe to RSS feeds for entire newsletter issues as detailed above.
- The real-time search autocomplete suggestions that appeared as you typed in the search box are temporarily unavailable.
These features are coming back. However, the priority was on delivering a functional, unified experience now rather than continuing to maintain a fragmented system, while we waited for every legacy feature to be rebuilt.
We hope you enjoy the new Club experience on MacStories. The transition to a unified website is a significant step forward for the Club and greater MacStories community that will allow us to do more for everyone in the future. Thanks for bearing with us during this transition, and please feel free to get in touch with any questions or bug reports.
Welcome to the New, Unified MacStories and Club MacStories
Today, I’m pleased to announce something we’ve been working on for the past two years: MacStories and Club MacStories are now one website. If you’re a Club MacStories member, you no longer need to go to a separate website to read our exclusive columns and weekly newsletters: everything has been unified into the main MacStories.net website you know and love. The subscription plans are the same. We’ve imported 11 years of Club MacStories content into MacStories, with everything running on a new foundation powered by WordPress; going forward, all member content – including AppStories – will be published directly on MacStories.
To get started, simply log into your existing Club MacStories account on the new MacStories Plans page or by clicking the Account icon in the top toolbar. Members can still access a special homepage of Club-only content at macstories.net/club or club.macstories.net – whatever you prefer. A few things will be different as part of this transition, and some parts of the previous Club MacStories experience haven’t been migrated yet, which I will explain in this story.
The short version of this announcement is that this has been a massive undertaking for me, John, and our new developer Jack. We’ve been working on this project in secret for months, and our goal was always to ensure a smooth, relatively pain-free migration for our members and MacStories readers. Now more than ever, the Club MacStories membership program is a core component of the entire MacStories ecosystem of articles, exclusive perks, and podcasts; it’s only thanks to the Club that, in this day and age, MacStories can continue to thrive with its editorial independence, vibrant community of members, and focus on producing high-quality, well-researched content written and spoken by humans, not AI.
The longer version is that the last few years have been complicated. We faced some challenges along the way, made some wrong technical calls, and have been working to rectify them – with the ultimate goal of propelling MacStories into its third decade of existence on the Open Web. We’re turning MacStories – the website that millions of people visit every year – into a destination that (hopefully!) will put a stronger spotlight on all the things we do. But to get to this point, we had to break a few things, iterate slowly, start over, and refine until we were happy with the results.
If you’re a Club member: thank you, and we hope you’ll enjoy the more intuitive and integrated experience we’ve prepared. If you’re not, I hope you’ll consider checking out the (many) exclusive perks of a Club MacStories subscription.
And if you’re curious to learn more about what we’re launching today and how we got to this point…well, do I have a story for you.
New Year, New Audio Setup: SoundSource from Rogue Amoeba [Sponsor]
If better Mac audio is on your list of resolutions for 2026, the folks at Rogue Amoeba have you covered with SoundSource, their essential audio control app.
SoundSource provides audio control so useful, it ought to be built in to MacOS. Get instant access to your Mac’s audio settings right from the menu bar, with powerful per-app volume and routing control, and the ability to apply effects to any app’s audio.
The newly released SoundSource 6 is a major upgrade, with dozens of enhancements. Updates include supercharged AirPlay support, output groups to send audio to multiple devices at once, Quick Configs that save your entire audio configuration, and a powerful new Audio Devices window that gives deep control over device settings.
But why just read about it, when you can try it out? Download SoundSource’s fully functional free trial with just one click. You’ll be up and running in under a minute.
When you’re ready, you can purchase a license with a special discount just for MacStories readers. Save 20% with code MACSTORIESNEWYEAR26 in their store. Act fast, since this deal expires on Valentine’s Day. If you love audio on your Mac, you’ll love making it better with SoundSource.
Our thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring MacStories this week.
Tim Cook Attended an Exclusive Weekend Screening of the Upcoming ‘Melania’ Documentary→
The Hollywood Reporter broke the story over the weekend that an early screening of an Amazon-backed documentary about Melania Trump was held at the White House. According to reporter McKinley Franklin’s sources, the event was attended by Apple CEO Tim Cook as well as other CEOs and VIPs:
The event, which has not been promoted or advertised, is taking place in the White House on Saturday. Guests include director Brett Ratner; Queen Rania of Jordan; Zoom CEO Eric Yuan; Apple CEO Tim Cook; New York Stock Exchange CEO Lynn Martin; AMD CEO Lisa Su; Mike Tyson; socialite and Fiat heiress Azzi Agnelli; self-help guru Tony Robbins; and photographer Ellen von Unwerth, who shot the movie poster for the film.
Earlier that day, a Minneapolis man was shot and killed by federal agents. I’d like to think that in the face of such a tragedy the screening would have been called off or that attendees, including Cook, would have been no-shows, but according to Rolling Stone editor Marlow Stern, Cook and others did attend.