Federico Viticci

10788 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.

Historic Apple Prototypes

People love when a big company such as Apple lose something as important as a next generation iPhone prototype. It’s the feeling of taking a look at something that shouldn’t be seen yet that make people love this stuff, and that’s the same reason why Gizmodo had millions of hits back in those Redwood days. People love to take a look at leaked products.

It’s not like Apple hadn’t lost anything before they lost the 4G prototype. Call them “controlled leaks” or just “leaks”, Apple’s labs are always working on new “gadgets” - 80% of which we’ll never see as actual consumer products. Macrumors has put together a brief gallery of “historic prototypes”, stuff that never officially left Cupertino’s secret caveau’s and that some brave people dared to post on Flickr. You can find the original post here.

Take a look at the pictures after the break. And the Mac tablet was so awesome.

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Skype for iPad Coming This Summer

According to Skype’s Asia-Pacific VP, Dan Neary, Skype will have a native iPad version of its client out by this summer. The app currently works in compatibility mode, but users are forced to run it in double-pixel or mini mode.

Neary also hints at the upcoming iPhone “HD” with front facing camera and a new iPad with enhanced communication capabilities:

“We believe that video is part of the Skype experience,” says the VP, “and we believe that video is moving aggressively into the mobile environment, so stay tuned on an announcement on that.

I think the iPad is an incredibly exciting product but it is clearly not the same communications device in its current form that the iPhone is,” he says. “So we’re looking forward to further advancements in the iPad and where that can go in the future.”

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Achieving A Great iPad - Mac Setup

When I bought my iPad I didn’t think there could be an easy way to make it fit into my everyday-blogging workflow. There’s no good blogging app out yet, WordPress’ backend doesn’t work fine with Safari and writing quick posts with the iPad is a pain. Writing articles aside, what’s the best way to work with an iPad and a Macbook at the same time, in the same context? The answer was in apps of course, with a little bit of creativity.

In this post I’ve rounded up 8 apps that are helping me achieving a perfect integration between the iPad and Mac OS X. Have you got further tips and app suggestions? Drop us a line in the comments below.

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An iPad, An Apple II And a Music Video

Panic rocks, even when it’s not about new applications coming out of their offices. They got an email two weeks ago, and they were asked to run the source of a text animation written for a music video on their (now popular) Apple IIe, just to see it if worked and take a few pictures. To do so, they had to load the source code into a “cassette deck”, which wasn’t available.

So what, give up? Nah, they just decided to use an iPad for that. Check out the Panic’s video here the original one after the break, it’s an impressive result.

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Steve Replies to Email About Mac Design Awards: “Just The Normal Cycle Of Things”

Mac users and developers shouldn’t worry about Apple focusing only on iPhone OS, after all. Since Apple dropped the Mac category from this year’s Apple Design Awards (ADA) at the upcoming WWDC, people worried that Steve might only care about iPhones and iPads - leaving the Mac behind forever. Ars Technica even launched its own Design Awards for Mac applications.

Matthias Gansrigler, developer of Flickery for Mac, sent us a copy of an email conversation he’s had with Steve Jobs about the ADAs at the WWDC.

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