I wasn’t fully sure what to call this blog post, but I caught myself doing a few things on my iPad Pro today that I hadn’t previously mentioned on MacStories, and they seemed worthy of a mention here. Hence, the short blog post.
Let’s start with this screenshot:
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I meant to link this at the beginning of the year, then I forgot, but I guess the story is still as timely as ever given the state of the latest rumors. A few months back, Jason Snell 3D-printed a mockup of the upcoming iPhone Fold (which I still think should be called iPhone Duo), which revealed a surprising design decision:
If these mock-ups are real, this folding iPhone is not going to be what you may have pictured in your head: a modern iPhone, roughly the shape of an iPhone Pro, that folds open to reveal a larger screen inside.
Instead, Apple may be making a device that’s much wider and squatter than existing iPhones when it’s folded up. The mock-ups people are printing show a phone that’s squatter than an iPhone mini and wider than an iPhone Pro Max! If that shape is right, the iPhone Fold will look a bit more like a mini notebook when it’s folded, unlike any iPhone that has ever existed.
And:
The shape makes sense, however, when you imagine what that phone looks like when it’s unfolded: a screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, the shape of an old-school television and—more importantly—an old-school iPad. In fact, this rumored design would make the unfolded iPhone the shape of an iPad, just slightly smaller than the iPad mini. (The iPad mini’s screen is 8.3 inches when measured diagonally, while this screen is rumored to be 7.76 inches.)
Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.
What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.
Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
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Earlier today, MacRumors reported that MotionVFX was acquired by Apple. Based in Poland, MotionVFX has been a go-to resource for YouTubers and other creators for years with its highly-regarded plugins, templates, and tools for Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and other apps.
According to MotionVFX’s note:
For over 15 years, we’ve been on a mission to create world-class, visually inspiring content and effects for video editors. From the very beginning, we’ve been all about quality, ease of use, and great design. These are also the values that we admire most in Apple’s products, and we’re thrilled to be able to embrace them together.
This is exciting news for anyone who uses Final Cut Pro. My hope is that the acquisition will result in MotionVFX’s plugins making their way into Creator Studio and being extended to the iPad. For the Mac, that would add a lot of value to Creator Studio. For the iPad, it would add plugin support for the first time, a feature I expected Apple to have shipped by now.
I loved this essay by Sam Henri Gold on the MacBook Neo but, really, about where the “wrong” computer in your life can take you:
There is a certain kind of computer review that is really a permission slip. It tells you what you’re allowed to want. It locates you in a taxonomy — student, creative, professional, power user — and assigns you a product. It is helpful. It is responsible. It has very little interest in what you might become.
The MacBook Neo has attracted a lot of these reviews.
The consensus is reasonable: $599, A18 Pro, 8GB RAM, stripped-down I/O. A Chromebook killer, a first laptop, a sensible machine for sensible tasks. “If you are thinking about Xcode or Final Cut, this is not the computer for you.” The people saying this are not wrong. It is also not the point.
Nobody starts in the right place. You don’t begin with the correct tool and work sensibly within its constraints until you organically graduate to a more capable one. That is not how obsession works. Obsession works by taking whatever is available and pressing on it until it either breaks or reveals something. The machine’s limits become a map of the territory. You learn what computing actually costs by paying too much of it on hardware that can barely afford it.
(The MacBook Neo is a lovely computer that feels futuristic despite its specs. I was about to return mine, then decided to keep it because there’s something special about it. You can listen to the latest episode of Connected to hear my take on it.)
Sam’s story resonated with me because I’ve been there, not as a kid, but as a 24-year-old who needed to get work done from a hospital bed and chose to do so with an iPad. I stuck with it after that, despite a lot of people telling me it was the wrong computer for me.
Sometimes the “wrong” computer is the right obsession for you. You never know where that can take you. Go read Sam’s full story if you need a reminder of why specs don’t ultimately dictate someone’s creativity.
Apple has announced a new iPad Air featuring the M4 chip and 12GB of unified memory. According to the company, the new Air is 30% faster than the M3 iPad Air and 2.3× faster than the M1 Air. Apple says the 50% boost in unified memory enables better AI performance. The new models come in blue, purple, starlight, and space gray, with storage configurations of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.
Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said of the new Air:
iPad Air gives users more ways than ever to be creative and productive, offering powerful performance and incredible versatility to help them turn their ideas into reality. With its blazing performance thanks to M4, incredible AI capabilities, and game-changing iPadOS 26 features, there’s never been a better time to choose or upgrade to iPad Air.
The M4 iPad Air is available in 11” and 13” sizes and features the Apple-designed N1 and C1X chips for networking and wireless connectivity. The N1 brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support to the Air, while Apple says the C1X reduces cell network energy consumption by 30% compared to the M3 iPad Air. Of course, the M4 chipset itself also unlocks new functionality for the Air, including hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing for gaming.
The 11” iPad Air starts at $599, and the 13” model begins at $799. Education market pricing starts $50 lower for each model. Both Air models support the Apple Pencil Pro, the USB-C Apple Pencil, and Apple’s Magic Keyboard case. Preorders begin this Wednesday, March 4, with deliveries and in-store availability starting March 11.
Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.
What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.
Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
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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.
Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.
What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.
Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;
Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.
My iPad has been gathering dust. I bought it last May – an 11” M4 iPad Pro with 512GB of storage and a Magic Keyboard – mostly for writing, photo and video editing, and experimenting with Apple’s seemingly renewed focus on gaming.
On paper, it excels at all of these things.
While the M4 chip is overkill for the iPad’s possibility space, the ever-present specter of the shortcomings inherent in iPadOS tends to loom over more intensive tasks. There’s a clear disconnect between what Apple states the iPad is for in a post-iPadOS 26 world and what the hardware itself is allowed to do when constrained by software limitations. Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs explored this from multiple angles in a recent video that ended with a poignant sentiment:
There are still days that I reach for my $750 MacBook Air because my $2,000 iPad Pro can’t do what I need it to. Seldom is the reverse true.
As a person who also owns a MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip stashed away inside, I’ve found the moments I choose my iPad to be few and far between. Despite the ease with which I could fit it into most of my small sling bags when I leave the house and the fact that it’s “good enough” at accomplishing most tasks I could throw at it, I still tend to pack the MacBook instead.
Just in case.
Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.
What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.
Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
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I love my iPad Pro, but, as you know, lately I’ve been wondering about what comes after iPadOS 26. We have much better multitasking now, and key workflow limitations such as file management, audio recording, and long-running background tasks have been addressed by Apple this year. But now that the user-facing system’s foundation has been “fixed”, what about the app ecosystem?
Over at Snazzy Labs, Quinn Nelson has been wondering the same, and I highly recommend watching his video:
Quinn makes a series of strong, cogent arguments with factual evidence that show how, despite multitasking and other iPadOS 26 improvements, using apps on an iPad Pro often falls short of what can be achieved with the same apps on a Mac. There is so much I could quote from this video, but I think his final thought sums it up best:
There are still days that I reach for my $750 MacBook Air because my $2,000 iPad Pro can’t do what I need it to. Seldom is the reverse true.
I’m so happy that Apple seems to be taking iPadOS more seriously than ever this year. But now I can’t help but wonder if the iPad’s problems run deeper than windowing when it comes to getting serious work done on it.
If you haven’t noticed, it’s not Friday, and Thanksgiving is still a week away. Yet here we are, talking about Black Friday deals. That’s because every year, Amazon pushes the start of its deals a little earlier.
This is far from the first article you’ll come across about Black Friday deals, and it won’t be the last. But what’s different about our approach to Black Friday is that we’re pickier than most sites.
When I sat down to consider Amazon’s Black Friday deals, I looked at a long list of factors, including:
What we’ve come up with is a list of a couple dozen excellent deals that will save you loads of money on everything from great holiday gifts to nerd staples like storage, networking gear, and upgrades to your computing setup.
Every time I write one of these roundups, I inevitably run across even more great deals after the story has been published. So in addition to this story, we’ll be posting deals on the MacStories Deals Mastodon and Bluesky accounts.
Club MacStories Plus and Premier members will be sharing their Black Friday deal finds on Discord too. If you’re not a member, you can sign up here. The Discord server is just one of the many perks of joining the Club.
Finally, please note that the Amazon links in this article are affiliate links. If you follow one of our links and buy something, we make a small commission.
Storage is a staple of Black Friday, with excellent deals on hard drives and SSDs of all shapes and sizes. This year is no different. Whether your Mac’s drive is filling up and you need to offload some large files or you’re looking for a backup solution, now is the time to pull the trigger and get more storage.
I mention Samsung portable SSDs a lot on MacStories and the MacStories Deals accounts because I’ve used them for years and they’re reliable. Samsung’s fastest model – the T9 – is my favorite because it uses USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x2, making it equally good for quick backups and working on large files externally.
Currently, both the 4TB Samsung T9 SSD and the 2TB model are on sale on Amazon, with the biggest discount on the 4TB model. You can save a little more with SanDisk’s 2TB external drive, but it runs at half the speed of the Samsung T9, so I recommend the T9. However, if you want to go really big with an SSD, SanDisk has Samsung beat with an 8TB model that, while expensive and half the speed of a Samsung T9, will be far faster than a mechanical hard drive for backing up a Mac with lots of internal storage. Samsung sadly does not offer an 8TB T9 drive.
SSDs are great, but even on sale, they’re more expensive than mechanical hard drives. If you don’t need the fastest speeds and can tuck your hard drive away somewhere the heat and noise won’t bother you, Amazon has a great deal on a 14TB Western Digital Elements hard drive. I’ve used Elements drives a lot over the past several years for archiving big projects and Time Machine backups, and I’ve been very happy with their performance. If you need a big drive, now is the time to pick one of these up; they’ve never been cheaper.
For starters, the Aqara 4MP Camera Hub G5 Pro is deeply discounted for Black Friday. I reviewed this outdoor HomeKit-compatible camera earlier this year and love it. From the feedback I’ve heard, MacStories readers seem to love the camera, too.
I also reviewed the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box 8K this summer. Paired with Philips Hue lights, it’s remarkably capable, syncing the colors of your lights to whatever is on your TV. While it’s not a smart home essential, it is a lot of fun, and if you need a little push to pull the trigger on this sort of gadget, this discount is a great excuse.
On the more practical end of the spectrum, Philips Hue is also offering a great deal on its Go Smart Portable Table Lamp, which works plugged in or via its built-in battery. I’ve had my eye on this lamp for a while because it’s very portable and would add nice accent lighting when I’m working on my balcony in the evening or anywhere else with less-than-ideal lighting.
Finally, as I mentioned on the Setups video that Federico and I recently released, I love my new SwitchBot Smart Desk Fan. It oscillates left and right as well as up and down, and it has nine speed settings. Best of all, I can control it from the buttons on the front of the device, using the included remote control, or with Shortcuts because it works with HomeKit.
Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.
What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.
Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;
Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.
