Federico Viticci

10787 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.
@[email protected]
@viticci.macstories.net
viticci@macstories.net

Dear Apple, This Is What I Want On The iPad

I’ve been playing around with my iPad for three months now, and it has definitely changed many things in the way I approach my job, Twitter, news and the web in general. Is it magical? Yes, it is. Is it magical enough to completely reinvent the way people think of mobile devices? Maybe, but it’s personal.

The iPad is a highly personal device. Even more than the iPhone, which is and always will ultimately be a phone, the iPad has no defined purpose. Sure, Apple says that it’s the best way to read emails, surf the web and watch movies, but it’s up to you to turn the tablet into your machine. A productivity machine, an entertainment one or a gaming device? Your call.

For as much as I enjoy using my iPad, there are some things I’m missing. Features, let’s just say. Whether it’s about hardware adjustments I’d like to see, or software updates coming in the next months, I’ve put together a list of “stuff I want on the iPad”.

Maybe you’ll find something that you want in there, too.

Read more

Wait: Is Geohot Back?

A few days ago Geohot “announced” his official retirement from the jailbreak scene and there was so much drama around it. First he said the jailbreak tool he was working on didn’t exist. Then he deleted his Twitter account. Then he made the blog private. And, he said that we shouldn’t think about him anymore and follow his good friend @Mikecohen instead.

Now, iSpazio noticed that Mike Cohen just tweeted something very, very interesting: make it ra1n.

Read more

Flipboard - Revolutionary News App for iPad Available

Sometimes a new app comes around and reinvents a genre. A few times (a very few times, actually) a new app arrives and reinvents everything you thought about a device. I’ve mentioned the “second wave of iPad apps” before: I think that a new generation of applications for Apple’s tablet is ready to invade the App Store to show everyone, not just its 3 million users, what the iPad was meant to be since the beginning.

I think that the second wave starts today with Flipboard.

Read more

Apple Fires Back At Nokia with N97 Antenna Performance Video

Well, this is shaping up to be an interesting war between cellphone makers about who’s got the tightest grip on…whatever. Customers or devices? As you maybe have read, Nokia responded to Apple’s Antennagate with this statement:

“In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

And they sounded pretty serious about it. Too bad the folks at Cupertino have just posted a new video showing the Death Grip killing a Nokia N97 reception.

Read more

Tabs-on-top Now Available On Firefox For Mac Nightly Build

Unless you’ve been living under a giant rock for the past - well - few years, you should know that Firefox 4.0 is coming. A major new version of Mozilla’s browser with redesigned interface, new addon manager, new engine, lots of improvements and tweaks. Mozilla die-hard fans look at it as the ultimate program coming to a computer near them. We Mac users just think about how Mozilla badly screwed up with the UI on OS X in the past and wait with curious eyes for some stable version to actually ship.

Now, we have a nightly version (as usual, it’s dubbed Minefield) with the much-discussed tabs-on-top available for testing. You can also download a 64-bit enabled build for Snow Leopard.

So, how about these tabs?

Read more

iTunes in the Cloud Launching in 2011?

We’re following Apple’s earnings call live, and during the Q&A section a question about the data center Apple is building in North Carolina just came up. The response:

“Apple NC data center build is on schedule, should be complete end of the calendar year, start using it in 2011.” And, they said that today they couldn’t share more details. Now this is just speculation, but many times we reported that NC data center could be meant for the possible migration of iTunes in the cloud. The must requested cloud music service from Apple everyone is waiting for.

If the rumors of the data center hosting the huge iTunes catalogue are true, then we might not see iTunes.com in the cloud until next year. Maybe even the second quarter of next year. Which is WWDC period.

Sounds interesting? Could iTunes in the cloud be more than a simple music streaming service? Hosted databases, movie streaming, TV shows? Perhaps to integrate with the new Apple TV?

Time will tell.

Notes from Apple’s Earnings Call

Here are some notes we’re taking from the call:

Mac growth 33% vs. 22% PC;

iTunes Store revenue over $1 billion and growing 25% year over year;

Over 5 billions apps downloaded;

Over 100 million iOS devices sold;

9 million average revenue per Apple Store, 5.9MM a year ago;

60.5MM visitors compared to 38.6 a year ago;

Estimate cost of the iPhone 4 cases is about $175m ;

“We thought capacity of 1M iPad units per month was very bold. Analysts thought we might sell 1M units in the whole year.”

Tim Cook on the iPad: “It’s not following a typical early adopter curve taking a long time to cross into the mainstream”

[updating…]

Steve Jobs: “We have amazing new products coming this year”

Apple has just posted the official financial results for its fiscal 2010 third quarter, and once again they broke records established just a few months earlier in the first quarter.

Skimming through the press release this caught my attention:

“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”

Of course they have new products coming this year. He’s stating the obvious, but let me make a few considerations about it. The iPod Touch is set to go under a major overhaul in September, perhaps with the addition of a camera and FaceTime capabilities. We can pretty much bet on it.

What intrigues me is thinking about new Apple TVs and new Macbooks for the holiday season. Apple TV has been marked as a hobby many times in the past, but judging from Apple’s press releases and conferences, they keep on mentioning the device as if they’re teasing us. And what about Macs, which had the most successful quarter ever? What about rumors of Mac OS X 10.7 approaching advanced development stages?

My best guess is, Apple will roll out new Apple TVs (perhaps with Magic Trackpads) later this year, together with new Macbooks by the holiday season and new iPod Touches in September.

The Mac isn’t dead. The iPad 2 won’t be released until next year. Steve, surprise us.