Federico Viticci

10804 posts on MacStories since April 2009

Federico is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of MacStories, where he writes about Apple with a focus on apps, developers, iPad, and iOS productivity. He founded MacStories in April 2009 and has been writing about Apple since. Federico is also the co-host of AppStories, a weekly podcast exploring the world of apps, Unwind, a fun exploration of media and more, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about portable gaming and the handheld revolution.
@viticci@macstories.net
@viticci.macstories.net
viticci@macstories.net

Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi To Appear at Code Conference→

Kara Swisher, announcing the appearance of two Apple executives at Re/code’s conference in late May:

While we already have announced a stellar lineup for the first Code Conference — including General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Hollywood mogul Ryan Seacrest — here’s another pair to add to the mix: Top Apple execs Craig Federighi and Eddy Cue.

And:

We are very excited to have both Cue and Federighi at the event to talk about a range of things about the company that remains at the center of the action, especially in the important mobile sector. From the shifting entertainment and communications landscape to the fast-moving wearables space to, well, everything digital, these two play a very important role.

As John Gruber notes, the timing won’t allow Federighi and Cue to share details on the company’s announcements for WWDC. However, interviews with Eddy Cue are rare, and it will be interesting to see the duo address questions by Mossberg, Swisher, and the audience on stage.

Permalink

Jack for iTunes Connect→

New app by Christian Beer to compose and upload descriptions for iOS and OS X apps from your Mac to iTunes Connect.

Managing screenshots with drag & drop. Updating localizations without waiting for page loads. Add sale price intervals via a convenient date picker.

Jack uses the iTunes Connect Transporter tool to communicate with Apple’s backend, storing credentials securely in the OS X Keychain. If you’re a developer, Jack makes it easy to add and edit metadata for localization purposes, select pricing tiers, and manage screenshots with drag & drop from the Finder.

There are some limitations, but overall Jack looks like a handy utility to save time when managing app metadata in iTunes Connect. There’s a free trial (limited to 10 days and 2 uploads), and the app is 40% off until the end of April.

Permalink

Rdio To Start Offering Higher Quality Streams→

In a post published on their official blog last week, music streaming service Rdio has announced that they’ve started a conversion process to offer their entire catalog in higher quality:

As the initial step in this program, Rdio has begun to convert its entire existing catalog to the AAC format and will deliver 320KbPS as our new standard — without increasing our price. In addition, and as part of our ongoing commitment to the artist community, Rdio will work closely with artists and labels from around the world to continue to raise the bar higher on streaming quality where sufficient network bandwidth exists, and to improve stream delivery in markets around the world where network quality and bandwidth are often inconsistent.

Since its launch, Rdio has always streamed at a highest quality of 192kbps, with variable bitrates for mobile devices. Rdio is the latest music service to start offering 320kbps streams, as both Spotify and Beats Music already provide higher quality to paid subscribers (Beats Music included the option since day one).

Permalink

The iPad, The Software, and The Screen

Following a lack of growth for the iPad line in Apple’s latest quarterly report, I’ve seen a number of articles suggest the idea that, in spite of Apple’s best efforts to establish a third product category between the smartphone and the laptop, the iPad is done. That people, after an initial fad of high iPad sales, are showing “no interest” in the tablet form factor because they’re now served well enough by laptops, desktop computers, and larger smartphones. I think that ascribing slower iPad sales in the past few quarters to a generalized lack of interest shows an understandable kernel of concern among tech writers, but also a misunderstanding of the iPad as a device.

Read more

Tweet Library 2.5→

Manton Reece’s Tweet Library remains my favorite app to find old tweets from my account directly on iOS (it works with any Twitter Archive). Tweet Library isn’t a full-featured Twitter client: it does come with basic tweeting and timeline functionalities, but it’s made for retrieval of tweets and organization in collections.

This week, Manton released a 2.5 update that fixes bugs and adds a URL scheme to launch Tweet Library searches from other apps. The URL scheme makes it easy to trigger searches from Drafts and Launch Center Pro, and I’m also happy about the CSV export option for collections.

Here’s Manton on the update:

When I gave up on Twitter as a user, many people asked if I would abandon Tweet Library. I wasn’t sure at first, but the answer now is a clear “no”. In fact, since my last personal tweet in 2012, I’ve released new features and even redesigned the app for iOS 7.

But I do need to start consolidating my work on Tweet Library and Watermark, because the apps share so many concepts around archiving and search. To that end, this week I’m retiring tweetlibrary.com as a way to browse and publish collections. The site will now redirect to a special landing page on Watermark. Published collections from Tweet Library also go to a public page on Watermark.

Tweet Library is $4.99 on the App Store.

Permalink

The Past, Present And Future Of Apple’s Aqua User Interface→

Stephen Hackett:

Building a new operating system is a monumental challenge, and in January 2000 when Aqua was introduced, Apple was in the thick of the transition to OS X.

Beyond the staggering amount of development work taking place to smash Mac OS and NeXTSTEP together, Apple was hard at work on the user interface of OS X. But to understand what OS X would become (and how it would look), it’s important to remember where the company had been before.

Well-researched retrospective of Apple’s work on the Aqua interface over the years. I enjoyed the collection of screenshots and links, and it’ll be interesting to see where Apple will take Aqua with the next OS X.

Permalink

Facebook Acquires “Activity Diary” App Moves

In a blog post published on their press website, Finnish company ProtoGeo Oy has announced that Facebook has acquired their fitness and activity tracking app for iOS and Android, Moves.

Today, we’re delighted to announce that Facebook has acquired our company and the Moves app. Since we launched Moves, we’ve been focused on running a simple and clean activity diary that millions of people have enjoyed using.

Now, we’re joining Facebook’s talented team to work on building and improving their products and services with a shared mission of supporting simple, efficient tools for more than a billion people.

According to the company, Moves will continue to operate independently as a standalone app, with “no plans to change that or commingle data with Facebook”.

Moves is the latest in a series of acquisitions that have seen Facebook expanding towards established markets (messaging and WhatsApp) as well as new categories (VR and Oculus Rift). Moves used sensors on a smartphone to keep track of a user’s location during the day, building a visual log of places through a “bubble UI” that indicated for how long users stayed in a specific location and when they left. Moves was capable of associating standard GPS coordinates with relevant points of interests, and it could also guess whether a user walked, ran, or used other transportation systems to arrive at a location. With that information, Moves’ diary counted steps taken and estimated calories burned, allowing users to browse a visual timeline that also contained data about their physical activity throughout the day with the possibility of expanding the UI to show entire weeks and months.

Last year, Moves launched an API to allow third-party apps to access collected data, with a dedicated website highlighting iOS, Android, and Web clients with Moves integration. Moves also added support for Apple’s M7 co-processor for the iPhone 5s, which helped the app collect motion data with higher accuracy and lower battery consumption. Moves couldn’t automatically determine a user’s activity (such as “excercising” or “watching a movie”) based on location alone, but it featured an intuitive interface to add context and verbs to tracked locations and times.

Amid rumors of Apple looking to enter the wearable and fitness tracking space with a standalone device later this year, Moves poses an interesting acquisition for Facebook, which has built a large location database over the past several years and recently rolled out a feature to let users easily discover friends nearby.

Following today’s news, Moves is currently available on the App Store for free.

Beats Music’s First 100 Days→

Yinka Adegoke, writing for Billboard:

Two of music’s most successful brand marketers, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, are in the hot seat as label sources grouse that the first 100 days of the duo’s subscription streaming service, Beats Music, has been a disappointment and soon will face competition on the mobile platform when Sprint begins bundling Spotify with its “Framily” plans.

According to Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers, the company is doing fine and the problem has been converting iOS users to paid subscriptions.

I still believe that the human curation Beats is doing for music recommendations offers great value, but the service needs to be available internationally and on more platforms. Spotify is available in several countries outside the United States, has desktop and mobile apps, and, more importantly, it has mindshare after years of existence. For some people, Spotify is synonym of “legal music streaming” (when I was using Rdio, I would always introduce it to my friends as “an app like Spotify”).

If Beats Music doesn’t want to offer a free plan, they should aim at people willing to pay for streaming services through new software, international rollouts, and exclusives. Last week, they released an update to their iPhone app with better social integrations and App Store subscriptions. iTunes will undoubtedly make it easier to subscribe to Beats Music, and I’m hoping that the company will find a way to grow its userbase quickly without compromising on the original vision.

Permalink