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

Tap To Chat Is A Simple, Useful App for Facebook Chat

I don’t use Facebook much, but when I do it’s for one thing: chat. I don’t like Facebook Messages, I don’t want to get in touch with my friends on walls, I don’t get the new Groups functionality – thus, I use chat. It’s not exactly reliable and full-featured (hello? easily file and photo sharing?) but as all my friends are on Facebook (and addicted to it) it’s the best way to get ahold of them.

What about the iPhone? The official Facebook app does chat, among other things. Those “other things” is what I don’t need: I don’t need to jump to people’s profile while I’m chatting, I don’t need the grid interface, I just want to find my friends online and chat. A simple request.

Guess what, we have an app for that. It’s called Tap To Chat, it’s universal for iPhone and iPad and it’s available at $0.99 in the App Store. Tap To Chat is the simple Facebook chat app meant for those who just want chat to work without all the bells and whistles of Facebook. Simple factor aside, Tap To Chat (developed by the same creator of Buddies) has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it the best implementation of Facebook chat I’ve seen on iOS devices. Read more

iPhone To Play Nice With Ford Cars in 2011

If you have an iPhone and have a 2011 Ford Fiesta – or you’re considering a Ford car for your 2011 car fix – you’ll soon be able to control a couple of apps using your voice. As noted by Engadget, Ford has announced that it will extend of its Sync AppLink Platform to Apple’s smartphone sometime in 2011, allowing iPhone users to control music playing from Pandora vocally. Pandora Radio for iOS and Android is indeed one of the first apps to support Ford’s voice recognition technology in cars.

BlackBerry and Android phones are compatible with Ford’s Sync now, iPhone users will have to wait a little longer. I’ve always been interested in this kind of technologies that let users do stuff in the car without having to look at an additional display, but I do wonder how Ford’s solution will handle high music volume and voice control. I mean, I don’t want to scream to change songs.

Press release embedded below. Read more

“Designed by Apple in California”→

“Designed by Apple in California”

Designed by Apple in California is usually presented dramatically and in isolation. Often you see it after opening a flap or unfolding a panel. It stands alone as a single line of type on a solid field. There is never anything that distracts from it. The early cube-shaped iPod packages were the best at this. You’d remove the sleeve, unfold two panels, and there it was. The next fold revealed the device. That I still remember this sequence says a lot about how powerful the experience was.

I remember unboxing my first iPod to find that line. I’m pretty sure Apple thinks it’s magical.

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MacStories 2010 Roundup: Top 10 Cydia Apps

Welcome to MacStories’ 2010 Roundup! In this new series, we collect the best apps released in 2010 for the Mac, iPhone and iPad — apps we have probably already featured here on MacStories. Only the best apps, both free and paid. Apps you shouldn’t miss.

2010 has been a great year for the jailbreak and Cydia community. The Dev Team managed to successfully deploy jailbreak tools for all the new OS updates Apple released this year (iOS 4, iOS 4.1, iOS 4.2) and they even released jailbreak for the iPad in May, a month after the tablet’s public release. The interest in jailbreak and Cydia, the alternative App Store, has grown exponentially in 2010, and Saurik (Cydia’s creator and main developer) decided that it’s time to bring Cydia to the Mac.

In this 2010 roundup we have collected the 10 best Cydia apps & tweaks that were released this year. These apps and tweaks are all aimed at enhancing the functionalities of the iPhone and iPad and overcoming the limitations imposed by Apple, which is the true spirit of jailbreak: tinkering with an iOS device to get the most out of it.

So jump after the break, and check out the top 10 Cydia apps of 2010. If you haven’t considered jailbreaking your device yet, maybe it’s time to do it. Read more

FaceTime Santa Spotted At Apple Store

Ok, Apple has a thing for Santa Clause and FaceTime. They launched a new iPhone 4 commercial to promote FaceTime with a dad dressed up like Santa, and now they have put FaceTime Santas in the Apple Stores. They previously installed iPad Snow Globes to get people and customers ready for the Apple Christmas season; now it’s time for Santa to take the spot and FaceTime with his elves at the Apple Store.

Check out the video below. I usually don’t like mannequins, and that smiling Santa with an iPhone 4 kind of creeps me out.[via TiPB]

Watercolor Painting On The Apple Canvas

When Apple sent out the invitations for its iPad announcement even in January, the email included a picture of a white canvas with lots of paint splattered on it. The invitation said “come see our latest creation”, and it eventually turned out to be about the iPad – the device we know and love today.

Several users and bloggers speculated “Apple Canvas” might be a good name for the rumored tablet back then. Of course it didn’t happen, but we liked the concept. And now it all comes back to life again, thanks to an app called Auryn Ink that will turn the iPad’s screen into a watercolor painting canvas.

The app doesn’t come with the best UI elements and menus ever (they’re actually pretty ugly and need a lot of refinements), but the functionality is there. Auryn Ink lets you choose between different canvas types, tip shapes and bristles, adjust the brush size and even set the fade of ink as you’re brushing. You can set different watercolors, adjust the thickness of brushes and apply pressure effects as well as speed of gestures.

Auryn Ink hasn’t got the most beautiful UI of the year but I’m sure real artists will make this work for them to come up with stunning creations. Plus, the app is free in the App Store.

BBC Can’t Get Apples and Blackberries To Work

We know you’re all playing with Camera+ 2.0 now, but let’s put that iPhone away for a minute and enjoy a good BBC comedy skit, shall we? In the following video, two BBC comedians have fun trying to make apples and blackberries to work because you know, they can freeze or crash sometimes.

I won’t tell you what happens in the video, you’ve got to check it out by yourself. And yes, you can go back to shooting pictures with Camera+ after this. [via TUAW]

Camera+ 2.0 Is Live In The App Store

As announced by tap tap tap yesterday, here comes a new version of Camera +. Camera + 2.0 is a major update that contains a huge list of new features and interface improvements, such as a redesigned lightbox, faster start-up times, a timer shooting mode, lots of new modes and effects. From a first look at the app, it looks like one massive update – which is free for existing users.

I’m testing the app right now and I can already say the tap tap tap developers really did a great job in optimizing everything to make the app faster. The SLR screen has been removed to let Camera+ start up directly to the camera UI, just like Apple’s own Camera app. The various shooting modes are accessible from a popover menu next to the camera button, timer shooting mode will let you choose between different intervals before shooting a picture. It’s really nice. The lightbox animations are faster, each photo has its own details such as ISO and location, there are several new effects available under the in-app purchase “I love Analog” pack. You can adjust these effects with a slider, and preview them as demo.

Everything feels new and improved in Camera+ 2.0. From a first quick run, I’m seriously impressed by what tap tap tap has achieved with “just an iPhone app”. The interface design elements on screen sport some beautiful pixels, too. Most of all, Camera+ doesn’t “force you” to share anything, I see it more as a full-featured replacement of the default Camera app that allows me to edit and apply neat effects to my photos, or not. Camera+ 2.0 – but this was a strong selling point of the first version, too – lets you decide whether you want to shoot, edit and share, or just shoot better (thanks to its multiple modes) and forget about it. I like choices.

The app is available here. Expect a detailed review soon on MacStories. Full changelog and screenshots below. Read more

Apple Releases iPhoto 9.1.1

A few minutes ago Apple released an update to iPhoto ‘11, which adds new email features and improves the overall stability of the app. The new version is available now on Software Update or on Apple’s website.

Full changelog below.

- Adds a preference allowing photos to be emailed using an external email application

- Adds “Classic” and “Journal” themes to email.

- Photos attached to an email can now be sized to Small, Medium or Large

- Improves reliability when upgrading a library from an earlier version of iPhoto

- iPhoto now correctly preserves the sort order of Events after upgrading a library

- Event titles displayed in headers can now be edited in Photos view

- Addresses a problem that could cause duplicate photos to be added to a MobileMe album

- Scrolling overlay now correctly displays ratings when photos are sorted by rating

- Photos are now sorted correctly when a rating is changed and photos are sorted by rating

- Fixes a problem that could cause text formatting controls to become inaccessible when editing a calendar