apps

XChat, X’s standalone messaging app for iPhone and iPad, is currently unavailable on the App Store.

Things is back with a nice new update after just a few weeks. The excellent project management app from Cultured Code is releasing support for iOS 27, macOS 27, and Apple’s other OS 27 updates coming out today. This includes Siri AI integration, a new widget size, and more.

Apple CarPlay now works with six major third-party AI chatbot apps. Microsoft Copilot is the latest iPhone app to add CarPlay support.

When iPhone Duo arrives next month, many third-party apps might not work as well as Apple’s built-in apps. There’s a reason for that, at least initially, though the situation should improve over time.

Update: Nine days later, Muse now includes a Mac app. You can download it here.

Meta AI just launched a brand-new iPhone app called Muse from Meta. Similar to Grok Bot in presentation, Muse is a personal AI agent that handles tasks for you.

In April, OpenAI released upgraded image generation technology with ChatGPT Images 2. Five months later, the company is releasing an enhanced version, ChatGPT Images 2.5.

CarPlay has picked up its fifth major AI chatbot app with the addition of Claude. Anthropic’s iPhone app adding CarPlay is the second AI chatbot app to be updated with support this week.

Last month, SpaceXAI launched Grok Bot, an iMessage-style AI system that displays agents as teammates. The product originally arrived as an iPhone and Mac app with a very expensive price tag. In the weeks since launch, Grok Bot has expanded to the iPad and dramatically lowered the cost.

Back in July, Apple updated its TestFlight app with a basic search feature. While you might think this simple update would be universally welcomed, the same TestFlight app introduced a pretty frustrating bug for a lot of users.

Update: A day later, GPT-6 Astra is rolling out to Business and Pro customers on the $100/month or $200/month plan. This follows other new model releases before Plus customers on the $20/month plan gain access.

Update #2: A few hours later, Plus users with the $20/month subscription now have Astra access as well.

It’s been just over a year since OpenAI released the first GPT-5 models for ChatGPT. Now it’s time for GPT-6 Astra to upgrade ChatGPT and Codex capabilities. Details below.

While computer use isn’t new for Claude on the desktop, running it in the background is a nice upgrade.

In June, Anthropic first released Fable 5, its Mythos-class AI model for Claude. Three months later, Anthropic is enhancing Claude with its new Fable 5.1 model upgrade.

Meta is launching Muse Voice Transcribe, its first real-time audio perception model. It brings multilingual, streaming transcription to Meta AI for Mac, Muse Code, and developers through the Meta Model API.

Aside from being featured by Apple in the M6 Mac mini launch, Perplexity has been relatively quiet on the Mac front this summer. That changes today with hybrid compute for Mac.

Multiple Dropbox users have been emailed by the cloud storage company to advise them that a security breach saw unauthorised access to their account. Update: the company has said that about 5,000 accounts were compromised, with files downloaded from around 1,500 of them.

The root cause appears to be a lack of authentication by Dropbox when attackers created a single sign-on option through a third-party company …

Since iOS 26.4, Apple has supported conversational apps on CarPlay.

This category includes AI chatbot apps. Siri AI joins the CarPlay party starting with iOS 27. The iPhone software update is currently in beta ahead of the official launch in September.

Meanwhile, the fourth third-party AI chatbot has arrived with Apple CarPlay support: Meta AI.

Another week, another price increase for a streaming service. This week, ESPN announced that ESPN Select and ESPN Unlimited are both getting more expensive, as are some associated Disney+ and Hulu bundles.