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.

Mirage is a brand new app that brings best-in-class desktop wireless screen sharing to your entire Apple ecosystem. You can stream from your Mac to your iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro, or even another Mac. It’s very low latency and has a plethora of great features that make it the one stop shop for remotely using your Mac.

We’re about 3 weeks out from when Apple unveiled iOS 27 to the world at WWDC26, and it’s still safe to say: this is an incredible update. It’s incredibly performant, and besides some small quirks and a little battery drain, it feels much more usable than iOS 26.5.

While iOS 27 does support every device that ran iOS 26, the same isn’t true for iPadOS. A number of older iPadOS 26 devices will not be receiving the iPadOS 27 update, which I think is quite a shame – and Apple should mitigate this one way or another.

In the era of Apple Silicon, MacBooks are more affordable than ever. Nowadays, you can buy a MacBook Air with 512GB of storage and 16GB of memory for $1099 directly from Apple, when such a configuration would’ve cost $1599 just a few years ago. And on top of that, we have MacBook Neo bringing the entry-point down substantially.

That said, Apple has warned that there will be price hikes in the future because of the AI-induced memory crisis, so now might be a good time to buy if you’re in the market for a new Mac.

Last year, Apple debuted Digital ID on iPhone, allowing users to use their US passport as identification in Apple Wallet. Apple’s been rolling out drivers licenses in Wallet slowly over the past few years, but that’s on a state-by-state basis. Digital ID is universal, allowing anyone with a passport to use it.

Of course, you can use it at TSA checkpoints in airports – but Apple had a bigger scope in mind: digital age and identity verification. While not yet confirmed, it’s possible that we could see a first major implementation of this quite soon, in Claude.

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 looking to level up your podcast experience, check out Brink. It’s a well made iOS podcast app with rich features, including a news tab, podcast summaries, trending podcasts, AI playlists, and much more. It’s also well made for iOS 26 and Liquid Glass, and feels right at home on the iPhone.

Mophie’s been a mainstay in the charging tech industry, and today, they have an all new lineup of premium 25W MagSafe charging products for Apple users – available from Mophie.com and Apple Retail.

While most 25W MagSafe chargers deploy some kind of active cooling tech, Mophie has a new approach meant to keep your devices cool without the additional noise – dubbed StealthCharge.

Apple wrapped up its WWDC 2026 keynote this week, outlining all of its major new software features for the coming year, with Siri AI and improved stability taking the spotlight. That said, there are a few new features that are reportedly still in the works, and we should still see them by September, per Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

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.

Many people want to spend less time on their iPhones, whether that be for productivity, socializing more, or something else. Screen time tools prove useful here, providing users with an idea of how much time they’re spending on their iPhones. For many people, though, they end up being too lenient to be effective.

With ‘oh my hours’ – the app flips the script, and instead makes you aware of how many hours you’ve wasted in an undesired app, rather than simply telling you you’ve hit your screen time limit.

Belkin has a beefy new 25W MagSafe battery on the market – packing a whopping 10,000mAh of capacity. It has two killer new features: a kickstand, and a second MagSafe ring. Initially unveiled back at CES 2026, it’s now available for purchase.

Vibe coding has shaken the App Store. As stated at WWDC, over 1000 apps are being submitted every hour. Apps can be built substantially faster now – creating a flood of submissions. This is a bit of an issue when there’s only one true method of distributing apps on iPhone, at least in most of the world.

Apple recently introduced a higher review bar for App Store submissions, and while that’s certainly a step in the right direction – I don’t think it’s a full solution.

At WWDC26 this week, Apple announced its series of new software updates – iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and everything else. Of course, Siri and Apple Intelligence ended up being the star of the show, and Apple finally delivered on its AI promises from 2 years ago.

Apple didn’t stop there though. The company went above and beyond, and introduced far more than just what it unveiled at WWDC24. One of those features is called Call Context, and it’ll make everyones phone calls to customer support substantially easier.

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.

Habit tracking apps are a dime a dozen, but Grit Method sets itself apart by requiring you to be more thoughtful. With your input, the app clearly outlines four clear goals for you to work towards daily, and it’s about more than just being more productive.

BenQ has been making excellent Mac-friendly monitors for years, and their new MA270S is the creme de la creme of their lineup. It’s a 27-inch 5K monitor, but with a feature that most monitors don’t ship with: a glossy finish.

All of Apple’s displays ship with glossy finishes by default, but for one reason or another, matte finishes have dominated the external monitor market – and BenQ is bucking that trend. This makes the MA270S much more at home with the Mac.

Over a decade ago, with the launch of the of the Apple TV HD and the first version of tvOS, Apple set off on a rather unsuccessful journey to turn the Apple TV into a gaming platform. The efforts have largely died off, but I think this year could potentially mark the beginning of a renaissance, if Apple wanted to. Let’s outline it.

Apple has been working on AI smart glasses for a little while, both to compete against Meta Ray-Bans and to provide a hardware platform for Siri and its Visual Intelligence features. While they were originally set to be announced at the end of this year and debut early next year, that’s now been delayed, with a launch now set to take place by the end of 2027, per Bloomberg.

On the flip side of things, a cheaper and lighter version of Apple Vision Pro, dubbed Vision Air, may arrive as soon as 2028, potentially 2029.

According to the latest edition of the Power On newsletter, Apple is gearing up to finally launch new versions of the Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini later this year – alongside the long-awaited release of next-generation Siri in iOS 27. These devices will largely be chip upgrades, though the Apple TV 4K may get an updated Siri Remote.

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.

Navigating across different cities and figuring out their public transportation can sometimes be a bit messy. Maps apps might not always have the best information, or the apps that do exist aren’t presenting data in a super readable manner.

NextThere aims to tackle that problem, and also packs loads of historical data for providing more informed information regarding delays, on-time performance, and so on. It’s great for tourists and frequent commuters alike.

Last week, reports emerged around Apple developing a new pair of Beats over-ear headphones, with the FCC leaking an outline of the headphones, model number A3577. Now, leading into the world cup, Lamine Yamal has just openly teased the new Beats headphones in an Instagram post, likely to be a successor to Beats Studio Pro.

One of the core Apple Intelligence features to date has been Visual Intelligence. It started off in a rather limited capacity through Camera Control, but with iOS 26, the company expanded it to screenshots. I’ve found those capabilities very useful thus far, and I’d love to see Apple take it even further with iOS 27.

For the better part of a year, we’ve been hearing about Project Mulberry: Apple’s AI-powered health coach. Back in February, it was reported that these efforts had been scaled back. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the features should still be on track for iOS 27, though they may not release until later in the cycle.

On the other hand, Apple is apparently going to greatly improve Apple Watch heart-rate tracking with watchOS 27, which could tie in nicely with Apple’s eventual health coach.