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

Star Walk Updated: AirPrint, Christmas Edition

Star Walk, the award-winning app by Vito Technology, was updated yesterday to include lots of new features…and a Christmas edition. That’s right folks, you have to find the hidden Santa in the night sky. I’m not kidding:

As you would assume, he is somewhere in the sky. Find out exactly where Santa is right now.

I’m sure he is somewhere, but I thought he was somewhere on Earth. Still, the 5.1 version (both for iPhone and iPad) also comes with AirPrint support to let you print stars and constellations wirelessly. That’s pretty cool, better than Santa support on my opinion. Or maybe I’m wrong and I’ll spend 3 hours tonight trying to find the man in red. New stars have been added to the app’s catalog – we’re talking about exoplanets and big stars with more info about spectral class and distance from Earth. Last, additional satellites info and tons of big fixes.

Star Walk for iPad is available at $4.99 in the App Store. The iPhone version is available at $1.99 here.

Co-op Multiplayer Coming To Minigore [Video]

Minigore is one of my favorite action games for the iPhone. It’s got nice graphics and an addictive gameplay that involves going around levels with this little dude shooting monsters. You can power-up your character, get additional weapons and unlock new characters.

A new episode of the game is waiting for Apple’s approval, but in the meantime the developers have released a video showcasing the co-op multiplayer feature coming soon. It looks fun, and simple as Minigore can be.

Check out the video below. [via iSpazio]

Friends, Social Contact Manager for iPhone - Review & iPod Nano Giveaway

How do you keep contacts from your local iPhone address book, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks in one single, unified place? That’s the question Taptivate aims at answering with its latest app for the iPhone – the much anticipated Friends.

In the era of social networking, social graphs and Twitter trends, it’s not easy to keep up with the stream of information. We all know that. But at a wider level, it’s not simple to keep up with the people behind those information, either. Sometimes, we struggle to find a person’s contact details because we don’t know where to look. The iPhone’s address book is a thing of its own, even if Apple managed to deploy sync for contacts in MobileMe. Sync alone, however, doesn’t come to the rescue when it’s about integration with all the social services we’re subscribed to. Nor do giants like Facebook and Google help, continuously fighting with each other over contact exports and proper email access.

If most of our social connections happen online nowadays, what’s the best way to make the pieces come together in a single package? According to Taptivate, that would be an iPhone app. Friends is a beautiful contact manager and aggregator for iPhone, an app that picks contacts from your local address book and integrates them with the online services you use on a daily basis. Read more

Webout Enables AirPlay Video Streaming From The Browser

We don’t know what’s the secret behind webout, a universal app for iPhone and iPad, and we don’t know if Apple is going to remove this soon from the App Store – but it works. As you may know, you can’t stream video using AirPlay to the Apple TV with Mobile Safari. Only native Apple apps have the video functionality enabled, and if you try to open Youtube.com in the browser you’ll notice that the AirPlay icon doesn’t show up. Read more

Apple Releases iBooks 1.2

iBooks 1.2 just showed up in iTunes. The new version features a new Collection functionality to organize books and PDFs, AirPrint support, possibility to experience fully illustrated books available in the iBookstore.

iBooks can now also fit more words per page using automatic hyphenation, although this feature is only available for iOS 4.2 users. Read more

Lots Of Great iOS Games Coming Out Tonight

Today’s a great day for iOS games, just like last week when Infinity Blade and a bunch of other big names came out in the App Store. And it’s no surprise that right ahead of Christmas iOS users get to download the best gems of the year – who doesn’t want to spend the holiday season relaxing and playing games on a possibly new, shiny iPad?

Most of all, tomorrow will be the last Thursday before the iTunes Connect holiday shut down, when developers (from Dec. 23 to Dec. 28) won’t be able to submit apps and updates or change the price of their existing apps in the Store. Basically, everyone is rushing to get games approved and available before the 23rd.

Already available in the New Zealand store (time zone differences, you know) and coming out in about 14 hours in the U.S. App Store, the following games will be ready to be installed on your devices tomorrow morning. The links you’ll find in this post point to the New Zealand, but you’ll be able to find these games in the U.S. store later today. Read more

The ICONICSTAND Will Make You Reconsider Wooden Stands

Ever thought about placing your iPhone 4 in a wooden stand? You should. It’s classy, retro and adds a natural feeling to that cold glass and aluminum made in Cupertino. Or maybe you simply haven’t managed to find a decent stand made of wood until today. Well, this one’s good.

The ICONICSTAND, realized by Korean designer Kenny Cho and made with “eco-friendly birch wood”, features an ingenious shape that allows it to hold the iPhone both in portrait and landscape mode. You can adjust the position to fit your viewing angle and there’s even room for the charging cable. There are various models and shapes available on the official website.

Added to my Christmas list. [via FSM]

Lynx Joining European iAds Next Week

Even though I still haven’t managed to see the popular Renault iAd in any app (yet I grabbed some screenshots of the Tron one yesterday), it looks like Apple keeps on signing advertisers for its European iAd service.

According to MarketingWeek, Unilever’s Lynx Excite (a body spray) will go live with a “fresh” new campaign on Apple’s iAd next week. We assume it’ll be an iPhone campaign, as the one Disney launched for Tron on the iPad was a “demo” of interactive advertisements to come on the tablet in 2011. You may remember Unilever was one of the partners Apple mentioned when they announced iAds were coming to Europe. Read more

Latest Apple TV Update Addresses Download, Resolution Issues

Apple released iOS 4.2.1 for Apple TV 2nd gen last night, which is labelled as “4.1.1” in the device’s built-in software update checker tool. The OS was a 267MB download on Apple’s servers, and that lead us to think that it was mainly aimed at fixing a few bugs found in the previous build.

According to a support document on Apple’s website, the 4.1.1 update fixes issues related to resolution and download of movies and TV shows.

TV resolution fix: Addresses an issue that causes some high-definition TVs to incorrectly display at 480p.

Download fix: Addresses an issue that may cause a movie or TV show to be re-downloaded.

As we reported last night, the 4.1.1 update doesn’t seem to provide a fix for the “color issues” with certain Sony and Philips televisions.