AppStories

This week on AppStories, Federico and John start realizing the benefits of their attempt to automate all administrative tasks and explain why Apple's vague developer blog post about Full Disk Access and AI agents should concern all Mac users whether or not they use AI.

On AppStories+, as John nears the finish line on his podcast production suite for the Mac, he explains how the project started and what it's done to improve his podcasting workflow.

Also available on YouTube here.

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• Crickets: The First Alarm Clock for Families. For a limited time, get 50% off for 6 months with code MACSTORIES2026 by selecting Redeem on the app’s paywall.

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Links and Show Notes

Apple's Full Disk Access Announcement

• Apple Announces Plan to Impose New Full Disk Access Controls on Mac Developers
• Apple Developer Blog post
• Meta’s New Muse AI Agent Read My Private Messages. I Never Asked It To
• Meta denies its Muse AI agent read a journalist's private messages

Some Mac Utilities That Rely on Full Disk Access

• Raycast
• Alfred
• Bloom
• Setapp
• CleanMyMac
• DaisyDisk
• Pixelmator Pro

AppStories+ Post-Show

• Tools and services mentioned:
• Riverside
• Transistor
• Libsyn
• Logic Pro
• Final Cut Pro
• Hush
• iZotope RX
• Whisper

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Meet Dot: OpenAI's Always On Agent

This week on AppStories, John is back from OpenAI DevDay, so he and Federico cover the history of AI agents, the current landscape, and what OpenAI is doing with Dots. 

On AppStories+, Federico provides a sneak peek at what's in store for his Reminders, Notes, and upcoming CLIs.

Also available on YouTube here.

Links and Show Notes

AI Agents

• OpenAI Dots and DevDay 2026
  • OpenAI launches Dots, its bubbly agentic avatar (TechCrunch)

  • OpenAI’s Dots: A First Look

• Self Hosted Agents
  • OpenClaw
  • OpenClaw on GitHub
  • Hermes Agent
  • OpenAI hires OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger
• Hosted Agent Competitors
  • Meta's Muse becomes App Store's hottest download
  • Grok Bot
  • Grok Bot Brings Always-On AI Agents to macOS and iOS

AppStories+ Post-Show:

• RemCTL: 
  • GitHub
  • MacStories: Introducing RemCTL, the Power-User Reminders CLI for macOS and AI Agents
• NotesCTL: 
  • Club MacStories download
  • MacStories: NotesCTL, a Club MacStories Preview of Federico’s Advanced Apple Notes CLI Tool

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• AppStories Feedback Form

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• Federico is @viticci everywhere
• John is @johnvoorhees`everywhere

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This week on AppStories, John shares his favorite parts of macOS and watchOS 27 from his reviews of both.

On AppStories+, Federico and John begin revisiting new their long lists of automation projects.

Also available on YouTube here.

Sponsored By:

• Scribe – AI-powered workflow documentation. Get your first month free.

Links and Show Notes

John's macOS and watchOS 27 Reviews

• macOS 27: The MacStories Review
• watchOS 27: The MacStories Review

AppStories+ Show Notes

AI Agents and Cloud Development

• Claude Code Projects
• Cursor Cloud Agents
• Muse (Meta AI agent)
• Grok Bot

Local AI on Mac Studio

• Qwen3.8 Flash Next
• Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6
• MLX
• LM Studio
• Draw Things
• oMLX
• mlx-serve
• DwarfStar
• Open Minis
• Tailscale

Leave Feedback for John and Federico

• AppStories Feedback Form

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• Federico is @viticci everywhere
• John is @johnvoorhees`everywhere

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This week on AppStories, John interviews Federico about his review of the M5 Ultra Mac Studio and it local AI capabilities.

On AppStories+, Federico takes listeners behind the scenes on how he tested the M5 Ultra Mac Studio.

Also available on YouTube here.

Sponsored By:

• Workbench: Remote desktop for AI agents and headless Mac minis. Free to use for 20 minutes/day.
• Claude – For problems worth solving — get started with Claude today.

Links and Show Notes

Running Local AI Models on Apple's Latest Macs

• M5 Ultra Mac Studio Review: The Dream Mac for Local AI Agents

Apple Hardware

• Mac Studio
• Mac mini
• Studio Display XDR

Local Models

• Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
• Qwen3.8-27B
• DeepSeek-V4-Flash
• GLM-5.3-Flash
• Cohere Transcribe
• Qwen3-TTS
• Qwen-Image-2.1

Local Inference and Clustering

• oMLX
• exo

Agent Apps and Tools

• Hermes Agent
• Hermes Agent on GitHub
• Open Minis
• Cadu
• OpenAI Brings Computer Use to Codex App on Windows

Frontier Models and Workflow

• GPT-6 Astra
• Claude Fable 5.1
• Claude Projects
• Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index
• Elyx

NVIDIA PC Comparison

• GeForce RTX 5090
• Lian Li A3-mATX
• NVIDIA DGX Spark

AppStories+ Post-Show:

• A preview of how Federico used local AI models to support his iOS and iPadOS 27 review.

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• AppStories Feedback Form

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• Federico is @viticci everywhere
• John is @johnvoorhees everywhere

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This week Federico shares thoughts from his review of iOS and iPadOS 27. Then in the AppStories+ post-show, he explains how he used agents to support the production of the review and Club MacStories extras.

Also available on YouTube here.

Sponsored By:

Granola – The AI notepad for back-to-back days. Try for 3 months, for free, with code MACSTORIES.

Links and Show Notes

iOS and iPadOS 27: The MacStories Review

• Federico's iOS and iPadOS 27 Review
• Our OS 27 Review Extras: eBooks, Shortcuts, and the Making of the iOS and iPadOS 27 Review

On AppStories Next Week:

• macOS 27: The MacStories Review
• watchOS 27: The MacStories Review

AppStories+ Post-Show:

• The Role Agents Played in Review Production

Leave Feedback for John and Federico

• AppStories Feedback Form

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• Federico is @viticci everywhere
• John is @johnvoorhees`everywhere

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This week on AppStories, we celebrate the 500th episode of the show with a look at the App Store's past, present, and future.

On AppStories+, Federico and John pick some of their all-time favorite apps.

Also available on YouTube here.

Sponsored By:

• Claude: For problems worth solving — get started with Claude today.
• Gentler Streak – Move consistently, not constantly. AppStories listeners get an extended two-week free trial with the link above.
• Shipaton, from RevenueCat: The world's biggest mobile hackathon for people who actually ship.

Links and Show Notes

App Store History

• The App Store at 10, MacStories' 2018 coverage of the App Store's 10th anniversary

Apps Discussed From The Early App Store Era

• Instapaper
• Twitterrific
• Spotify
• WhatsApp

AI and the Modern App Store

• Inside OpenAI's Codex with Andrew Ambrosino (MacStories)

AppStories+ Post-Show:

All-Time Favorite Apps

• Overcast
• Editorial
• Pythonista 3
• Drafts
• Unread: An RSS Reader
• Working Copy
• Open Minis
• Launch Center Pro
• Screens 5: VNC Remote Desktop
• Mercury Weather
• CARROT Weather
• Alyx Caffeine Tracker
• Sequel Media Tracker
• LookUp
• Chronicling
• Jayson

Leave Feedback for John and Federico

• AppStories Feedback Form

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• Federico is @viticci everywhere
• John is @johnvoorhees`everywhere

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This week on AppStories, Federico and John are joined by Andrew Ambrosino, the Codex team lead at OpenAI, to talk about the evolution of Codex, the unification of ChatGPT and Codex, Computer Use and Computer History, designing for user trust, and more.

On AppStories+, Andrew shares some of his favorite Mac apps and his Mac origin story.

Also available on YouTube here.

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• Finalist – A paper-inspired daily planner with notes for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and now Apple Watch. A day you design your way. For 50% off your first year use this link.

• Introducing the Codex App (OpenAI)

• Website

• Apps Mentioned:

• Things

• AppStories Feedback Form

• Federico is @viticci everywhere

This week on AppStories, John and Federico check in on Apple’s betas with a close look at the new Siri app and how it compares to past-Siri and other chatbot products.

On AppStories+, John and Federico explain how they manage multiple Macs for automation and coding tasks.

Also available on YouTube here.

Subscribe here.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

To learn more about an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

• Finalist – A paper-inspired daily planner with notes for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and now Apple Watch. A day you design your way. For 50% off your first year use this link.

• macOS 27 Golden Gate

• Siri

• ChatGPT

• Claude Code

• MLX

• Tailscale

• AppStories Feedback Form

• AppStories

• AppStories

This week, on AppStories, John is joined by Christoper Lawley to discuss uses for a folding iPhone and Parchment, Lawley’s daily agenda app.

On AppStories+, John and Chris dig into audio and video workflows for podcasting and YouTube.

Also available on YouTube here.

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• Inoreader – Build Your Own Newsfeed and Cut Through the Noise

• iPhone Fold: Everything We Know

• Apple Creator Studio

• Parchment: Agenda and Daily Note

• Spark

• YouTube

• Logic Pro

• AppStories Feedback Form

• AppStories

• AppStories

This week on AppStories, Federico and John cover the app and agent experiments they’re both running.

On AppStories+, John explores the sort of rapid workflow iteration enabled by agents.

Also available on YouTube here.

Subscribe here.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

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• Inoreader – Build Your Own Newsfeed and Cut Through the Noise

• Logic Pro

• Superhuman

• Wispr Flow

• T3 Code

• Parallel

• Advancing Voice Intelligence With New Models in the API (OpenAI)

• AppStories Feedback Form

• AppStories

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