Federico Viticci

10791 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

iPad Release Date Announced, But Still No Words About iPad-only Apps

Reading Apple’s press release about the iPad’s official release date, I haven’t been able to found references to the “iPad-only” App Store, or the place where we’ll find the applications that will run only on the new device.

From the press release:

“The App Store on iPad lets you wirelessly browse, buy and download new apps from the world’s largest app store. iPad includes 12 new innovative apps designed especially for iPad and will run almost all of the more than 150,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®. Developers are already creating exciting new apps designed for iPad that take advantage of its Multi-Touch interface, large screen and high-quality graphics.”

The iBooks app for iPad including Apple’s iBookstore will be available as a free download from the App Store in the US on April 3, with additional countries added later this year.”

My best guess is that, just like Marco Arment wrote some weeks ago, we won’t see iPad native apps on day one and the iPad App Store will open with pre-approved apps by the WWDC in June. We’ll see.

iPad Available in US on April 3

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“Apple® today announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Beginning a week from today, on March 12, US customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple’s online store (www.apple.com) or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.”

[RUMOR] Steam for Mac to Be Released on March 11, Launch Title Will Be Portal 2

Rumor has it this is the official date. More as this develops.

UPDATE:

Will Shipley, original author of this tweet, claims that “there are tons of clues in the newest version of Portal.” These are: GlaDOS version 3.11, March 11th being during GDC and Gabe Newell getting the Pioneer award that day. (tweet)

UPDATE #2

After spending some time on the official Steam forums it turns out Valve released a lot of hints pointing towards the 3/11 date and the “Pioneer” awards, including references to the Apollo space program (and hence the Pioneer Plaque ). See some of the forums posts here and here.

Waiting for further proofs.

Cydia Gets an Essential Update - Speed Increases and Error Handling

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It appears last night that Saurik has updated APT, which now has an optimized cache generator and has become more error tolerant in repository parsing. This means less error screens when connecting to repositories that might have an error at that particular moment, which used to end up causing Cydia users a ton of grief, sometimes even crashing them out of Cydia. This update should help correct some of that.

MyPhoneDesktop Puts Your iPhone On Your Desktop. Review and Giveaway.

Sharing information between your desktop computer and the iPhone can be a hell of a task sometimes. Whether you want to share pictures, documents, text, links or just anything, Apple’s products don’t come with an easy built-in solution to achieve a complete, easy and painless sharing. Sure there’s MobileMe, but that’s not so immediate. Dropbox, still requires a sync and I don’t exactly see it a sharing platform - it’s a backup and sync solution. On the other hand, native applications like Pastebot allow you to let your iPhone communicate with your Mac and vice versa by sharing the clipboard over a wireless connection. With Pastebot you can transfer text, links and pictures with just a few clicks and taps and it’s no doubt a great app. Be sure to write our review if you missed it.

MyPhoneDesktop is a rather different application that takes a unique approach in providing its own way to share stuff between your computer, the web and the iPhone. It combines push notifications with bookmarklets and a Mac app to let the devices “talk” with each other. I had the chance to test it for a few days, here are my impressions so far. Also, we have 10 promo codes to give away.

Read more

Fortune: Apple Is “Most Admired” Company of 2010

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“With 250 million iPods, 43 million iPhones, and 32 million iPod touches sold to date, plus the promise of a game-changing iPad, Apple won this year’s vote by the highest margin ever for a No. 1. Two more years as champ and Apple will match GE for most appearances in the top spot.

What makes Apple so admired? Product, product, product. This is the company that changed the way we do everything from buy music to design products to engage with the world around us. Its track record for innovation and fierce consumer loyalty translates into tremendous respect across business’ highest ranks.”

I’d also say: apps, apps, apps.