Podcast Rewind: Holiday Break Projects, CES Gaming Announcements, MagSafe Accessories, and Clawdbot

AppStories

This week, Federico and John are back from their holiday break, which included so many hardware and automation projects that this is part one of a two-part episode regarding Federico’s networked music automation setup and John’s new research tool.

On AppStories+, Federico shares his foldable phone experiments.

NPC: Next Portable Console

This week, a whirlwind tour of the handheld news from CES 2026, Switch 2 grips, AR glasses, new chips from AMD, the OneXSugar Wallet, and more.

On NPC XL, John got his MCON controller, Federico’s still waiting for his, and Brendon checks in after more than a month with his.

Comfort Zone

Niléane battles the modern era of smart mice, Chris has a new way of keeping up with everything everywhere all at once, and the whole gang battles it out with the best dang MagSafe accessories you’ve ever seen.

On this week’s Cozy Zone, we roast listeners’ home screens again! This one has, bar none, the weirdest home screen we’ve ever seen, and we might be cursed now.

MacStories Unwind

This week, Federico unpacks Clawdbot, a Claude-based personal assistant, and recommends an Apple TV movie, while John revisits an old favorite on the Nintendo Switch.

AppStories, Episode 467, ‘A Very Nerdy Holiday Break’ Show Notes

This episode is sponsored by:

Copilot Money – Your money, beautifully organized.

Presenting Our Nerdy Holiday Projects

John’s Research PWA

Parallel.ai

Firecrawl

Example Club MacStories article by John where he used his research tool

How iTunes Shaped the Apple of Today

Tools John used:

FastAPI

Tailscale

LLM by Simon Willison

Feedbin

Federico’s Networked Music Library

Roon

ROCK (Roon server)

Qobuz

M4 Mac mini (Refurbished)

Terramaster F8SSD+ NAS

FiiO R9

FiiO M17 DAP

FiiO FT1 headphones

John got a FiiO Snowsky Echo Mini DAP

AppStories+ Post-Show

Federico got a Pixel Fold

Will the iPhone Fold be a phone you open, or an iPad you close?

Apple’s Rumored Foldable May Be Smaller Than We Think

Is this the folding iPhone’s creaseless display?

Subscribe to AppStories+

Visit AppStories.net to learn more about the extended, high bitrate audio version of AppStories that is delivered early each week and subscribe.

NPC, Episode 63, ‘CES 2026: Foldables, Rollables, and Robot Punches’ Show Notes

The Portable Gaming News from CES

NOW LIVE: Nintendo just officially revealed the new purple/light green Switch 2 Joy

Genki Grips: Made to be Held by Human Things

Pocket8 Makes PICO-8 Playable On Your iPhone

touchHLE homepage

The Xreal 1S glasses get a spec bump and 3D conversion

The OneXSugar Wallet is the first gaming handheld with a folding screen

You can charge Belkin’s new Switch 2 power case without opening it

Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon X2 laptops are here — and they brought a new friend

AMD heard you like powerful gaming portables — so here are new Strix Halo chips

Lenovo Legion Go 2 with SteamOS launches in June, priced at $1199

Lenovo’s new concept gaming laptop goes wide. Really wide.

GameSir X Hyperkin Reveal A Controller With GC, N64 & SEGA Attachments

NPC XL

MCON News

MCON

OhSnap is already building two new MCON sliding gamepads that aren’t so dang thick.

The iPad Finally Becomes a Gaming Console with CloudGear

Other Vertical Controllers

8BitDo Announces Controller Built for Vertical Mobile Gaming

GameSir Pocket Taco

Subscribe to NPC XL

NPC XL is a weekly members-only version of NPC with extra content, available exclusively through our new Patreon for $5/month. Each week on NPC XL, Federico, Brendon, and John record a special segment or deep dive about a particular topic that is released alongside the “regular” NPC episodes. You can subscribe here.

Comfort Zone, Episode 83, ‘Are You Predicting Doom?’ Show Notes

Main Topics

BetterMouse

Reeder

Other Things We Talked About

Atkinson Hyperlegible

Geist

Ben Vallack

Swapmod

Intricuit

Aerospace

ROG Xbox Ally X

Logitech made an oopsie

Mode Anthracite keycaps

DOCKCASE Magnetic Visual

Clicks Power Keyboard

MagicMount Flask

Nomatic Wallet

VÄSTMÄRKE

Cozy Zone

For even more from the Comfort Zone crew, you can subscribe to Cozy Zone. Cozy Zone is a weekly bonus episode of Comfort Zone where Matt, Niléane, and Chris invite listeners to join them in the Cozy Zone where they’ll cover extra topics, invent wilder challenges and games, and share all their great (and not so great) takes on tech. You can subscribe to Cozy Zone for $5 per month here or $50 per year here.

MacStories Unwind, ‘Clawdbot, Animal Crossing, and Mark Wahlberg’ Show Notes

Clawdbot

Clawdbot

ClawdHub

Peter Steinberger on Bluesky

Picks

Federico’s Pick: Family Plan 2 on Apple TV

John’s Pick: Animal Crossing New Horizons

Unwind Deal

Licorice Pizza: Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically acclaimed coming-of-age tale follows Alana Kane and Gary Valentine as they navigate love and life in 1973 San Fernando Valley. This Academy Award-nominated film features breakout performances and Anderson’s signature nostalgic storytelling style.