Michael Burkhardt

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

If you’re a beloved cat owner, you might often have your cat running across your Mac’s keyboard, causing loads of unnecessary keyboard input, and sometimes even unwanted communications. Cats Lock has a solution for it, and soon your cat will be able to roam your MacBook keyboard freely.

As is the case every year, this September – Apple will be unveiling its next-generation Apple Watch model. Apple Watch Series 12 will likely carry on the same design language as the Apple Watch Series 11, but with a few changes. Let’s dive in.

Later this year, Apple is set to debut its first MacBook Pro redesign since 2021. With that redesign, we’re expecting OLED, touch displays, M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, a Dynamic Island cutout, and much more.

There’s another big detail about these new MacBook Pro models, and I’m much more excited for that change.

Apple debuted iPhone 16e last year at its $599 price point – and it’s been an okay phone since. It got refreshed this year with an A19 chipset, more storage, and MagSafe, but for the most part, its positioning in the market hasn’t really changed. It’s an okay phone at an okay price.

It’s been selling decently, but it hasn’t really been a killer appeal to Android users in the same way that MacBook Neo has been for PC users. I think that could change.

Introduced in iOS 15, Hide My Email is an iCloud+ feature that does exactly what it says on the tin – you can create an alternative email address for each individual service you sign up for, and easily cut off said email whenever you’d like. It prevents advertisers from having your primary email address, and gives you better inbox control – a total win-win.

That said, despite being introduced 5 years ago, the feature hasn’t progressed as much as it realistically could have. Here are my suggestions for how Apple could improve Hide My Email.

For the most part, iPad has dominated the tablet market – and that probably won’t be changing anytime soon. In recent years, though, I think many people have been struggling to come up with reasons to buy a new iPad – especially when the previous generations have been so good. While this likely isn’t a huge problem quite yet, I do think it raises some questions going forward.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Most people believe they’re spending too much time on their phones – but don’t necessarily know how to do better. Developer Florian Schimanke has created four great apps to help you with your screen time in different ways. You can get them individually, or you can also buy them all as a bundle at a discounted rate.

This year, Apple is rumored to be doing a code cleanup for iOS 27, as well as overall having a renewed focus for stability and performance – on top of a plethora of Apple Intelligence features. While this on its own sounds good, I think there’s a higher reason for why we should expect an impressively stable release.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Everyone probably has a massive photo library going back for years, maybe even over a decade. Over time, that consumes more and more storage – and this becomes a problem, especially if you’re paying for iCloud storage. On the other hand, decluttering isn’t easy.

This Day turns photo decluttering into a habit, by designing an interface that allows you to address it one day at a time.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Mood tracking apps can be really important and useful, whether you want to be more mindful – or if you need to track it for your therapist. That said, lots of apps either charge a subscription, are lacking in depth, or don’t have everything you might need. InnerPulse aims to solve that, while keeping privacy at the center.

Apple Vision Pro has been one of the most perplexing Apple product launches in recent history. It’s meant to serve as the beginning of an all new product category for Apple – and more importantly – the next generation of computing. And yet, it feels like a complete afterthought to the company.

Under John Ternus, I’m slightly hopeful that we can start to see the product live up to its full potential – though there’s also reason to be skeptical.

It’s been well over a year since Apple debuted its last entry-level iPad, powered by the A16 chipset. The company will likely release a new version with an A18 chip in the coming months, but there’s a bigger question to be answered – what will they call it?

On Monday, Apple unexpectedly announced that Tim Cook would be stepping down from his role as CEO after a nearly 15 year tenure. Starting September 1, hardware SVP John Ternus will take over as the new Apple CEO – with Tim Cook becoming executive chairman.

According to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, John Ternus is going to take more of a decisive approach as CEO, rather than leaving decisions up to a larger group of executives.

To put it simply: Apple Silicon is impressively optimized for running local AI models. And the data is clear: people care about this. Mac Studios are widely sold out, and Mac minis are impossible to find. There’s a variety of reasons for this – like OpenClaw and other computer-use agents. But there’s also a group of people buying up high-end Macs with swaths of unified memory, which are incredible for running local LLMs.

While I’m sure Apple appreciates the additional hardware sales, I think they could push this even further – by entering a segment they’ve thus far ignored.

WWDC26 is just under 2 months away, where Apple will unveil its next generation of iOS, macOS, watchOS, and so on. Rumors for iOS 27 have so far indicated that this year’s release will mostly be focused on stability, with limited new features beyond Apple finally delivering on its AI promises.

Even though iOS 27 won’t have anything major, there still will be a few light customization features – and one of them will let you quickly undo and redo changes on your home screen.

Apple has a chip problem. MacBook Neo is selling far better than the company had expected, and now it seems like there aren’t enough binned A18 Pro chips to keep the production run going for another 6-12 months before a new version is released.

Some have floated the idea of Apple axing the 256GB trim, and just using an unbinned A18 Pro chip in the 512GB trim. That’s certainly plausible. I do wonder though, how can Apple prevent this from happening with every forthcoming MacBook Neo?

Apple has already unveiled numerous products to date, including new versions of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, the iPad Air, the all-new MacBook Neo, and more. Despite having a busy season thus far, there’s still much more in the pipeline worth waiting for.