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.

This Week's Sponsor:

Finalist

A paper-inspired daily planner with notes for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and now Apple Watch. A day you design your way.


JailbreakMe: The Good, The Bad and The Pointless

A few hours ago @comex finally released his universal jailbreak tool for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad called “JailbreakMe”. Unlike many previous jailbreak tools released in the past three years, this time you don’t need a computer to install Cydia on your device: jailbreakers are using the cloud now, and all you have to do is visit a website in Mobile Safari and wait for the exploit to “land” on your home screen.

Of course Apple isn’t happy about jailbreak. They never were. But this time - this time they have a pretty big issue on their hands. JailbreakMe seems to be based on a PDF vulnerability that is activable in Safari and, potentially, could lead to malicious software sent to users via emails and the browser.

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Today’s List Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Today’s List giveaway. We also want to thank the Random Accident developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.

Here are the winners:

AsceticMonk

Alexander Melton

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few minutes. Congratulations!



Apple Removes Antenna Videos from Website, Still Available on Youtube

Last night Apple removed all the antenna performance videos from apple.com/antenna. You know, the videos that showcased signal attenuation issues on other handsets such as Blackberry, Droid and Samsung devices. The videos are still available on Apple’s official Youtube channel, just folllow this link to find the videos.

People are speculating that Apple received complaints from cellphone makers and was forced to pull the videos. I don’t think so. I think that, 2 weeks after the July 16th Antenna press event, they’re just reducing attention around this “issue” and start focusing on what they do best: making great products.

Such as new iPods in 5 weeks or so.



Why Would You Ever Want to Turn Your iPad In A Fridge-Magnet?

Gadgets gone wrong, or must-have thing of this holiday season? I’m pretty confident a zillion of crazy iPad users will buy it, and love it.

Wired talks about a new product, the FridgePad:

“Made of aluminum with a big old magnet on the back to keep it firmly stuck to the fridge, the FridgePad holds the iPad with four plastic corner clips. Once secured to the door of the smallest and coldest room in the house, you can use the iPad to play music, podcasts or audiobooks, show you recipes or, well, anything the iPad can do. The more I think about it, the more it is clear how perfect the iPad is as a kitchen computer. And if you’re really messy when you cook, you could even slip the whole rig, magnet and all, into the ziploc bag and just slap that onto the refrigerator.”

You know what? Give me a great calendar app and I’m gonna stick my baby to the fridge. Maybe. But only if it comes with additional Ballmer stickers.

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Notekeeper: Location-aware Notepad for iPhone

Many times in the past I’ve written about the apps and tools I use in my MacStories workflow. If you’ve been following MacStories for a while now, then you must know that I’m an avid Simplenote user. It’s simple, it syncs over the air, it’s available on the iPad and the next version will rock. I’m telling you.

But anyway, that’s the not the point. I’ve tried many note-taking applications over the years, and I’ve decided to stick with Simplenote because it just works. But not everyone needs to do what I have to do with notes (portability, plain text, multiple devices, reliable backend) so it’s very likely that you don’t really care about cloud, dashboard widget for desktop publishing and such.

I know you’re running other note apps on your iPhones and iPads - so why don’t give a try to Notekeeper?

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Today’s List: Beautiful Todo List for iPad [2 Codes Up for Grabs]

OmniFocus for iPad is out, but I’m sure many of you iPad owners out there don’t need all the features of OmniGroup’s huge software to get things done. Maybe you just need to remember what to do every single day, you don’t need contexts, tags, OTA sync and insert another must-have GTD feature here.

Your only concern is that you always forget what to do. If so, take a look at Random Accident’s first iPad app, Today’s List.

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