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Posts tagged with "apple"

Building for iPhone Duo, in App Developers’ Own Words

I spent yesterday in New York City interviewing developers about their iPhone Duo apps and the experience of building for such a new and different device. The depth and breadth of developers Apple assembled was excellent. I spoke to indie developers like Vidit Bhargava about Deck-Man and the team behind Notewise. I also interviewed developers from big companies about their impressive Duo updates, including The New York Times for its NYT Cooking app, Netflix, and Meta’s Edits video editing app. Plus, I met Mark Otero from Azra Games, whose team poured their hearts into UnGodly, one of the best-looking games I’ve seen on iOS in a while.

A few things struck me about my conversations with developers. First, every one of them was excited about the design challenges posed by the iPhone Duo and the many orientations and ways it can be used. Second, every one of them came away impressed by how smooth Apple has made the development process. That’s not to say the design challenges weren’t real, but getting from a design idea to an app that worked on the Duo went better than anyone expected. Third, after months of building and testing, everyone was looking forward to seeing which design choices land with users.

But that’s enough of my impressions. I’ll let the developers speak for themselves in this special bonus AppStories video. I came away from New York with some great interviews, which I’ve shared on the MacStories YouTube channel. Apologies for the sometimes rough audio. There’s only so much I can do with recordings made in a room packed with press and developers, but if you’re into apps, design, and how things are built, these interviews are for you.

Also, I left New York with a Night Sky 512GB iPhone Duo that I’ve only just set up and begun testing. I’ll be writing about the Duo soon, and we’ll start covering the best of the more than 300 Duo-optimized apps that developers have sent Federico and me. Stay tuned, because the busy fall season at MacStories is just going to keep rolling.

Apple’s Surprise and Shine Event: Replay the Keynote and Product Videos

If you didn’t follow the livestream of today’s Apple Surprise and Shine event, you can replay it on Apple’s Events site or YouTube.

The keynote video can be streamed here and on the Apple TV using the TV app. A high-quality version will also be available through Apple Podcasts as a video and audio podcast. An American Sign Language version of the event keynote is available on the Apple Events page too.

Apple Surprise and Shine Keynote

Product Videos:

You can follow all of our September 2026 Apple event coverage through our September 2026 Apple Event hub or subscribe to the dedicated September 2026 Apple event RSS feed.

Designed in California Makes Its Official Debut→

Designed in California, the Apple history podcast from Myke Hurley and Jason Snell, is now live on Relay with two new free episodes, plus more for Kickstarter backers and Relay subscribers.

Over the summer, Myke and Jason ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for the new show, which will be released as topical series. The first series about the Apple II was released over the summer as part of a preview for the Kickstarter campaign.

Now, the first two episodes of Apple’s Mac OS Crisis are out and available to listen to for free. Those episodes will be followed by five more weekly installments. However, if you backed the Kickstarter or if sign up to support the show via Relay’s website, you get all seven episodes of the series immediately.

The latest series is about:

Apple’s Mac OS crisis in the ’90s, leading to the company acquiring NeXT and bringing Steve Jobs back.

Apple’s Mac OS Crisis also features special guest John Siracusa, who knows a thing or two about ’90s Apple. In addition to the audio-only version of Designed in California, the show is available on YouTube.

It’s been great to see this show come together over the summer. I know it’s been a lot of work, which is clear from the depth and quality of the episodes. I fully expect Designed in California to become the definitive podcast for Apple history nerds.

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A Trio of Ternus Tales→

Myke Hurley writing on The Enthusiast covers three themes from John Ternus’ new CEO bio that was updated today on the Apple Leadership page:

Number 2:

John has led much of the company’s focus in areas like reliability and durability, introducing new techniques that have made Apple products remarkably resilient

I would not have predicted this angle being so prominent, so I can only assume it’s something that’s important to Ternus. Ultimately, it’s good for customers too — you want your computers to last. Apple has also made inroads into the repairability of its products, which I feel goes hand in hand with this.

Of the three, this is the most interesting to me. I wouldn’t have expected durability to be so prominent either, but in addition to Apple’s repairability push in recent years that Myke highlights, I think this is Apple telegraphing something about the future of its products.

In a world where memory and storage prices have skyrocketed and show no signs of coming down to Earth anytime soon, durability becomes a differentiator that’s more important than ever. When you combine that with the system-level stability and performance efforts Apple has made across its OSes this year, I expect we’ll be hearing a lot more about the long-term value of Apple’s devices this fall.

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Apple Announces September 9 Surprise and Shine Event

Today, Apple announced that it will host an event it calls “Surprise and Shine” on September 9, 2026, at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. The company is expected to announce the iPhone 18 Pro line, the highly-anticipated iPhone “Ultra”, as well as new Apple Watches and potentially new AirPods and HomeKit devices.

The event will be streamed live globally on Apple’s Events page as well as on YouTube and in the Apple TV app. Some members of the media were invited to watch the event in person at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park.

MacStories will be covering all the details of the event, so stay tuned and get ready for September 9.

Apple Updates Creator Studio Apps

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Today, Apple released an update to its Creator Studio subscription with new features across many of the suite’s apps.

Pixelmator Pro now integrates more deeply with Creator Studio’s other apps. While working in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, you can open an image directly in Pixelmator Pro, edit it, and save the changes back to the source app’s document. On the Mac, Final Cut Pro can now send individual frames to Pixelmator Pro, making thumbnail creation simpler.

Final Cut Pro is also adding a set of Creator Themes with multiple aspect ratios, dynamic titles, and customizable backgrounds. Plus, users now have more control over the design of captions generated on-device using AI. On the Mac, Auto Mask lets you isolate certain parts of footage for editing, and Match Color reproduces colors more accurately.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

For Logic Pro users, today’s update includes improvements to Chord ID, a new Producer Project from Khris Riddick-Tynes, a new sound pack, and an expansion of Beat Breaker.

Final Cut Camera for the iPhone and iPad has been updated with support for Clean HDMI Out, more flexible ProRes support, and disabling of digital zoom. Motion now supports vector graphics, and Compressor gains Vision Pro features, while Freeform gains shape creation, opening images in Pixelmator Pro, a Dark Mode, folders, and drawing on the Mac. Plus, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers each added a handful of new features.

Creator Studio debuted just six months ago, so it’s good to see it already being updated with meaningful features. Creator Studio costs $12.99/month or $129/year. More information is available in Apple’s press release here.

WWDC 2026: Between Seasons

It’s my last day at Apple Park for my seventh in-person WWDC, and as I’m waiting for my final briefing just outside the Steve Jobs Theater – ever so magnificent in its polish, and yet always so strangely calm a place – I keep returning to a thought that’s been circling my head, begging for attention. I’ve never felt so “in between” phases of my career. Physically in this very moment, of course, as I’m literally sitting on an also-polished wooden bench overlooking one side of the ring, watching groups of people climb the hill to the theater and others leave. But more so mentally, insofar as I don’t recall another WWDC that’s made me feel so aware of how much things are changing around me.

At my first WWDC in San Francisco in 2016, I didn’t feel like I belonged. I was a 28-year-old blogger from Italy and somehow found my way to the most important event about the software I loved writing about. It was uncomfortable: what was I even doing there, taking notes on an iPad while folks from The New York Times or Wall Street Journal prepared articles that millions of people would read? But I didn’t mind it. I was in the middle of change; the discomfort fueled me.

10 years later, as an almost 38-year-old blogger from Italy who’s wondering just how, exactly, Apple managed to hide speakers playing music in the bushes outside the Steve Jobs Theater, I look at the content creators who are possibly experiencing their first WWDC, and realize: how am I still here, and still taking notes on an iPad, while these younger folks are shooting videos that millions of people will watch? I’m in between changes again, but I don’t mind it. The challenge still feeds me. I’m more comfortable now, but – miraculously – I don’t feel cynical or jaded. Some people are into that sort of attitude; I’ve always preferred to put in the work to be critical and enthusiastic about the things I like. In a world of complaints, optimism is a skill.

The music is still mysteriously coming from somewhere around the bushes. My friend Myke walks out the theater and tells me I’m going to love the session downstairs about AI on the Mac. “Who would have thought I’d be into that someday”, I think to myself.

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Apple Recognizes Developer Community Leaders→

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Yesterday, Apple published a new page on its Developer site highlighting the contributions of 50 prominent members in the Apple developer community. The page recognizes individuals from around the world and across a variety of disciplines, from technical writing, content creation, and education to event organizing and accessibility advocacy. Each profile includes a photo, a short biography, and a link to the person’s LinkedIn profile.

It’s great to see Apple give this well-earned special recognition to those who do so much to improve the lives of users everywhere through their apps and other work. The community of developers that has grown around Apple’s platforms is a priceless asset to the company and its customers, and they deserve to be honored. I hope we’ll see even more of this public positive engagement with developers out of Apple going into and following WWDC.

I highly recommend browsing through the page on the Developer site. You’ll likely see some faces you recognize from our coverage and apps you love, including Hacking with Swift’s Paul Hudson, visionOS educator Joseph Simpson, previous First, Last, Everything guest Robin Kanatzar, Mercury Weather’s Malin Sundberg, and many more. If there’s another developer you think should be recognized in the future, the page includes a link to submit their name to Apple for consideration as well.

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For Apple’s 50th Anniversary, Tim Cook Looks Back to Move Forward→

Today is Apple’s 50th anniversary, and for the occasion, Tim Cook sat down with Ryan D’Agostino of Esquire for a lengthy interview about Steve Jobs, Apple’s values as a company, and where the company’s next big idea will come from.

It’s an interesting read that doesn’t cover much new ground, but does reveal some of Cook’s personality, which is sometimes hard to gauge because he’s such a reserved person. During the interview, Cook addressed critics who would prefer that he not meet with politicians who don’t share Apple’s values, noting that:

These things [Apple’s values] can’t move around as the world is moving. They have to stay. They’re our rails—but that doesn’t mean that you don’t communicate and engage with people that have different views. That’s where I always come from, anyway. So you’ll see me everywhere, and you’ll wonder, Oh, he’s meeting with somebody that has a different view than him. I think that’s good. I think it’s good. I think a problem in the world right now is that it’s so polarized and different views aren’t shared or discussed. They just become hardened. And I don’t think that’s good.

Apple may not be a company that looks at its past often, but there’s a wisdom in Cook’s approach that’s ripped straight from a past when respectful debate of issues and compromise helped move society forward in a way we haven’t seen for quite some time. Maybe Cook is naive to believe that approach can still work or is looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but it’s a perspective that’s aligned with Apple’s values, is deeply rooted in its culture, and gives me hope for its future.

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