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

A Single Folder For iPad File Sharing

The iPad file sharing system Apple implemented is rushed, and flawed. If you still haven’t tried it, you’re basically forced to plug the iPad via USB, open iTunes, select an app that supports this feature, choose a file from your computer and copy it into the app database. This is not a sync, it’s a Mac > iPad file sharing, and it’s broken and slow. MacObserver has a great and insightful article about it.

Fortunately some developers are thinking about a solution for this, and I’ve come across this application called “Folder” in the App Store which has turned out to be pretty useful.

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Masque: Photo Editing at Your Fingertips

Better than the iPhone, the iPad is the perfect device to store photos and look at them every once in a while. Whether you just want to carry your good memories with you, or show off your latest trip to Thailand to your friends, the iPad’s display is just great for that. Mobile photos finally make sense on this device, and we can’t wait to see the first good Flcikr apps to pop into the App Store.

What about photo editing? Cody reviewed Photogene some days ago, and I think that’s a very good app with some cool “pro” touches that surely are making many people happy and satisfied. But if you want to try something simpler, yet powerful enough to allow you to make some nice modifications to your photos, you should take a look at Masque.

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Weather Station Pro for iPad. Review and Giveaway

One of the most prolific categories in the iPhone App Store is that of weather apps. We reviewed a bunch before, but I still think that one of the best is Outside by Robocat Apps. It’s simple, well designed and - most of all - useful when it comes to quickly check the weather and see what it’s like “outside”.

I expected the same to happen on the iPad as well, and from what we can see in the App Store we’re slowly getting there. People love weather apps, and I can safely say people love good weather apps. We had the chance to take a look at Weather Station Pro from Toopia and we even got 10 copies to give away to our lucky readers.

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Make an iPad Stand From its Own Packaging

I was looking for the perfect iPad stand, but this one is something I didn’t think of and I might now consider. User 3n at Flickr managed to created an iPad stand, that works in both orientations, using the iPad packaging itself: with a small hand-saw and a few minutes of spare time, you can make a simple stand that even gives you access to the home button.

You use recycled material, you don’t spend money, it works: maybe it’s not elegant, but I guess to many people will be just fine. Check out the photo after the break. Thanks @takeo for the tip.

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Steve: “Folks Who Want Porn Can Buy An Android”

What a great way to wake up: check the news and find out that El Jobso has replied to another customer mail, this time about…control and porn on the iPhone. As you can guess, the reply is quite important and noteworthy.

TechCrunch reports that Matthew, iPhone user, emailed Steve and asked him to put the “porn apps” back into the store, then allow parents to filter them for their kids. His response? If you want porn, buy an Android.

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1Password for iPad Review

There’s one app on my Mac I could never, ever live without: 1Password. I basically store my life in it: my digital life in the shape of logins and accounts, and my real life as credit cards, bank accounts and secure notes - it’s all there. Can a single application handle the most important aspects of your work, your life? Sure it can, and 1Password is designed to do this exact thing, handle things for you and make you feel safe about it.

We all know that the Mac and iPhone versions of 1Password are great apps, but what about the iPad one? Agileweb Solutions was one of the first development houses to announce plans for the new device and publicly release early mockups of their new app, so maybe someone feared the first iteration of 1Password for iPad would be buggy, slow and not so well developed after all. Couldn’t have been more wrong. 1Password for iPad looks and works great, just as you saw in the screenshots weeks ago -  but most of all feels good on the iPad.

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Sproutcore Announces Sproutcore Touch, HTML5 iPad Apps with Hardware Acceleration

It seems like webapps for iPhone and iPad are about to get a lot better. There’s always been some  skepticism about web applications having the same  quality of native apps, and despite amazing tools like JQTouch and such, people were right to doubt that webapps can get even near to native applications. But things are about to change, and even if webapps won’t get as good as App Store’s apps, I’m pretty sure we’ll see something interesting coming our way.

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Touchpad Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Touchpad giveaway.We also want to thank the Edovia developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.

Here are the winners:

Mason Phillips

Bruno

Pipokkio

Timmeh_

Markus

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few hours. Stay tuned for other giveaways coming this week. You can follow the official MacStories Twitter account as @macstoriesnet or Federico as @viticci