Federico Viticci

10880 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.
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@viticci.macstories.net
viticci@macstories.net

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Six Weeks With an iPhone 4

I got my iPhone 4 on June 30th, six weeks ago. I bought it from an Italian eBay seller who purchased two units in Montpellier (France) and decided to re-sell them at a considerably higher price on eBay. Looking back, I know I did the right thing: Apple sent a very few units for the Italian launch on July 30th, and even if I could manage to grab one on that day I would have missed 30 days of intensive usage and enjoyment. In those 30 days I had the chance to test the Retina Display, the antenna, FaceTime, the updated apps. It was worth it.

Now, it’s been six weeks with iPhone 4. Does it change everything?

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SoundPrism for iPad Will Blow Your Mind

There are many music apps available for the iPad, especially DJ ones. Great apps, which sport a stunning attention to UI design and rather “professional” features. I bet you haven’t seen anything like SoundPrism by Audanika, though.

SoundPrism will let you “create music” in a different way: you can’t do nothing wrong with it. It always sounds great. So what’s the point? The point is how you create that music: with multi-touch and a beautiful interface specifically designed for the iPad and with iPad users in mind.

Really, just take a look at the video below. The app has been submitted to the App Store, but you can follow @audanika to stay updated. We can’t wait.

[via Jason Fried]

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Time Warner Cable Prototype iPad App [Video]

Time Warner Cable is working on an official application for the iPad, not publicly available yet, and they’re showing it off in a series of videos where TWC CEO Glenn Britt, CTO Mike LaJoie, VP of Web Services Jason Gaedtke and Director of Digital Communications Jeff Simmermon discuss the future of their online services and the possibilities that new devices like the iPad create for content publishers.

Even in its early development stages, the app looks good. It embeds a TV guide, and allows you to schedule recording with a few taps. Another section of the application lets you stream content to the iPad, but it’s still unknown whether the first version of the application will allow you to sync the status of your watched shows across multiple devices.

Check out the video below, and find other vides of the discussions here, here, and here. [via Engadget]

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Square Enix Releases Chaos Rings for iPad

I’ve been waiting for Chaos Rings to come to the iPad ever since I saw the first iPhone version and read some enthusiastic reviews here and there on the internet. Finally, last night Apple approved the “HD” version of Chaos Rings which comes to the tablet with a bigger resolution, a higher price and…that’s it. No new features, no additional stuff - it’s just a bigger version. But still, it’s Chaos Rings.

As for the game itself:

“The story revolves around a tournament where combatants fight for their lives: the Ark Arena. Upon choosing a pair of characters, one male and one female, you will then have to fight against the other pairs. Each pair has their own story, and the truth behind the Ark Arena will not be revealed until each story is completed.”

Chaos Rings is available at $15.99 in the App Store. Check out a gameplay video below.

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An iPad, A Keg And A Custom Beer App [Video]

If you’re not into Yelp, this video will make you change your mind. The engineers over at Yelp have built a custom iPad-controlled “kegbot” which displays information about the beer, its temperature, how much beer is flowing (in real time) - it even has a history and leaderboard of people who took beer from that keg. Oh yes, because you have to swipe your ID card first and the iPad app will recognize you.

Check out the video below. I want one. [Gizmodo via Yelp]

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OmniFocus for iPad Reinvented My GTD Workflow

To me, GTD apps used to be worse than Twitter clients on the iPhone before Tweetie: ephemeral.

Yes, even worse than financial apps: I didn’t know how to choose one and keep rolling with it. You know - that new kid on the block could be better and has a beautiful UI. You know the drill. I was a GTD user who couldn’t manage to find an actual GTD to get going with. To better understand the situation, it’s important to specify the workflow I used to have, and the one I have now. Before the iPad came out, I organized all my tasks and projects on my Mac (whether in a desktop app or online service) and didn’t really care about achieving a cloud-based workflow. I had an iPhone (a 3GS, to be exact) but I just didn’t see it as a device to carry my GTD database around. I tried Things, iCal to-dos, Basecamp, Backpack - all sorts of productivity apps / project management tools out there. None of them survived.

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