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.
@[email protected]
@viticci.macstories.net
viticci@macstories.net

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Some Things for Mac, Some Things for iPhone. Reviewed.

There’s an interesting paradox floating around the Mac OS X scene: there are a lot of interesting apps to manage tasks and make your to-do workflow easier, but most of these apps are difficult to manage. What a nice situation: getting things done with an application that requires 2 minutes just to set up a new task. And trust me: it’s full of apps like these out there. Now, the situation isn’t that tragic fortunately: it’s also true that there are many excellent apps, both for Mac and yes, the iPhone.

Today I’d like to talk about what’s in my opinion the best to-do management and task organizer app currently available for Mac and iPhone: Things. I’ll explain how I’ve set it up in order to manage MacStories’ activities and scheduled tasks and how I made it work as a team project management app as well.

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iPhone Software Sustainability and the Death of Mac Software

John Casasanta from Tap Tap Tap and Macheist has posted an article regarding the sales figures for Convert since its August ‘09 launch. He then analyzes the current situation of Mac development, and how in his opinion the App Store is affecting it by providing higher revenues for developers and a more focused, yet powerful way of distributing applications.

From the post:

“The App Store has proven to be a super-efficient distribution system. In a nutshell, you can earn a lot of money even with 99¢ apps because you can reach so many people. Conversely, the Mac shareware market has always comparatively been very inefficient. Developers depend on services like VersionTracker, MacUpdate, i use this, and even Apple’s own Mac OS X Downloads site, etc for small publicity/sales spikes. But all of these sites (including Apple’s) get far less attention than the App Store.

[…]

Because of the much smaller reach and resulting far lower number of Mac software sales compared to iPhone, developers have had to compensate by keeping prices at a much higher point. But this is also what’s kept the market down and now on a decline, unfortunately.”

Is the Mac market really..dead? Or is it just going through an evolution that might revitalize it with the release of 10.7? No doubt things are going to change, or everyone will start developing iPhone apps. But what will happen when the iPhone market will be saturated?

Oh yeah, there’s the Tablet one.

Obligatory Apple Tablet Thoughts

Great piece over at GoSquared’s Liquidicity blog, surely worth a read.

From the post:

“Apple’s responsible for kickstarting the touch screen revolution with the iPhone, so why would they do anything other than push themselves as far as possible along the trajectory they’ve already begun? When you consider the possibility of Apple building a device that not only sits alongside your iPhone, but replaces your MacBook, the game changes. Whatever Apple’s tablet finally shows up as, I’m pretty sure it’ll be more “this is the end of keyboard and mouse computing as we know it” than “oh it’s a big iPhone”

“I Need More Space, Apple”. Hyperspaces: Review and Giveaway

There are two features of Mac OS X I really couldn’t live without: Exposè and Spaces. Built-in into Leopard and Snow Leopard, Exposè and Spaces are indeed two applications that make managing all your open windows and workflows easier and painless. They’re not two “linked” apps, but basically everyone combines them in order to get the best results. If you don’t what Spaces and Exposè are, you should seriously take a tour into your Mac OS X Utilities folder and System Preferences. Sorry if don’t go into the details of these two apps, but I suppose you already know them.

Now, there’s a developer out there who thought Spaces could be a lot better. And by a lot I mean, a lot. Meet Hyperspaces: a very simple yet powerful addition to Spaces.app.

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How To: Install Aqua Inspiriat Theme on Snow Leopard

Mac OS X’s Aqua is a great user interface. In my opinion, Mac OS X has the best UI design ever seen until now, but you probably know this if you read MacStories. I always talk about applications that get the most out of Mac OS X interface, so there’s no doubt I deeply admire the work Apple has put into creating a beautiful and usable design - refined overtime. On the other hand, it’s very likely that you’ve grown tired of Mac OS X standard UI elements and you’d like to apply some modifications. You’ve also heard that it’s possible to install custom themes on OS X, so you would like to give it a try but you’ve scared of the whole process and you don’t want to mess up everything.

In this post I’ll guide through the necessary steps of installing Aqua Inspiriat for Snow Leopard, the theme I’m currently using and one of the finest examples of Mac customization and compromise between standard design elements and modifications.

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Apple To Launch 22-inch Touch Screen Mac?

everythingiCafe and Digitmes

“According to a report this morning from Chinese language Commercial Times, Apple will launch a new 22-inch touch-enabled all in one computer this year. This new model would be in addition to the current iMac lineup that includes a 21.5 inch and 27 inch models.”

Wait.

A touch screen Mac? Running Mac OS X 10.6? Doesn’t make sense.

We have the Slate PC for that, you know.

Dear Apple: What We Want to See in iPhone 4.0 [Part 2]

After the first part, which was about the software, TUAW has posted the second part of the “Dear Apple” series. The second part puts the focus on hardware and here are the most wanted specs for the “new iPhone”:

  • Status Indicator Light

  • New Design

  • Front Facing Camera

  • 5MP Camera

  • OLED Display

  • LED Flash

  • 64GB Storage

I don’t agree with these as much as I agreed with software. Seriously, front facing camera? I don’t want to talk about the italian providers and their coverage, but you american guys - weren’t you complaining about AT&T until 2 days ago? Oh sure: you want to make conference calls on wi-fi. As if a laptop wouldn’t be enough under a wifi connection.

Then, OLED display. Well, at least let’s hope it won’t be as OLED as the Nexus One display, right?