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

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Hackers Find New Exploit for iPhone 3GS with new Bootrom: Gull1hack

We knew this was gonna happen, maybe not this soon. Seems like a group of hackers have found an exploit to achieve the untethered jailbreak on the iPhone 3GS with the new bootrom that should have been very hard to hack.

“This Exploit works on ALL iPhone and iPod Touches.

While booting, we overun the buffer memory, letting the iPhone think there is something wrong; But in the moment it tries to enter safe mode, we send a boot signal like Blackra1n or Redsn0w.”

Now you guys just have to wait. Still no words from the Dev Team though, we’ll see.

Source

Quickly Switch to the Previous Application with Last App

Last App is a new and cool application available in Cydia (yes, I’m back into the jailbreaking world) which allows you to switch back and forth between the app that’s running on your iPhone and the one that was previously running.

Just assign an activation method in the Activator settings (mine is “double tap on status bar”) and Last app will immediately switch to the “last application” that was running before you opened another one. You can also choose to background the running app before switching.

I find myself using it a lot. It’s fast, useful and free.

Gazaro Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Gazaro giveaway. Also, I’d like to thank the Gazaro developers for the licenses they gave to MacStories.

Here are the winners:

Martin

Dale

Cheers!

Necessity vs. Want & Apple’s Mobile Pitch for The iPad

Link

“The first truth is that by selling the iPad as an accompanying device, and not a stand-alone computer, you immediately instill this idea that it’s not necessary to own. You’ve already lost a lot of interest because people are thinking, “Why would I buy this device in addition to what I already own that already does these things and more?” Apple, if you believe that the iPad’s form of computing is the direction we need to go, you gotta make people ditch what they already have – even if it is a Macbook.”

iPad UX Interactions

Huge collection over at Designing Web Interfaces’ Flickr photostream, showcasing interactions snapshots for the iPad. From popovers to split views and 3d transitions, this is a must-have resource for developers who are about to create apps for the new device.

/via David Kaneda

Extract: Grabs Flash Videos and Plays Them In a Dedicated Window

This is neat. Extract from Zach Waugh is a new Mac app that can load html code in a dedicated, almost chromeless, window and it’s ideally meant for loading flash videos into a standalone window on your Mac. You just have to launch the app, copy the embed code from either Youtube or Vimeo and paste it into Extract; the app will then load the lash instance and display it into a minimal, translucent black chrome.

Extract Mac

Extract Mac

I find this app very useful as it lets you watch a video without having to open another Safari window or switching between tabs in the browser. Also, you can activate the “Keep on Top” function that will make the app stand in the foreground even when another application is selected: this means you can drag Safari around and the transparent border of Extract will just overlay it.

Extract Mac

Extract Mac

Now the developer just need to add an “automatically resize” feature and this will be my favorite utility since ClickToFlash.

Extract Mac

Extract Mac

Sure, you can open a new Safari window, resize it and play the video in that window. Problem is, Flash would still be able to kill the browser (Leopard only. Snow Leopard has a separate process for Flash) and, overall, you can’t compare it to the easy to use of Extract.

Good job, Zach.

iPad App Pricing

Link

“Apple has also said that existing iPhone applications will run on the iPad and that they will be able to be “blown up” in size to be full screen. From reports I’ve heard and my own experience in the simulator, this doesn’t look very good. Developers will want to have an iPad specific interface built into their app. The amount of work to get an iPad app’s UI to have the great polish it should have is going to exceed that of the iPhone. This will mean higher development costs. Presumably with higher development costs, higher prices will come with it. The rub is that these universal applications are going to be subjected to the same price pressures from the iPhone side of the market because users will buying a single binary.”