Federico Viticci

10779 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

Connected, Episode 135: This Might Be Our Fault→

Workflow has been purchased by Apple and everyone has feelings about it.

On the latest episode of Connected, we share some initial thoughts on Apple’s acquisition of Workflow. I’m working on a feature story about this – in the meantime, this is a good starting point. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

  • Incapsula: Secure and accelerate your website. Connected listeners get one month free.
  • Blue Apron: A better way to cook. Get three meals free with your first purchase, and free shipping.
  • Eero: Blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi.
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Curtis Herbert on App Store Review Replies→

Curtis Herbert, creator of the excellent Slopes for iOS (I wish I was a skier or snowboarder to use his app), has some great tips for developers on dealing with replies to App Store reviews:

I’d recommend every app owner do the following, today. Head into the review section in iTunes Connect and sort by “Most Helpful.” These are reviews that customers have voted should be floated to the top, and that’s what Apple does. Take a quick look through there and see which ones you can address.

Future customers are most likely to see your replies to these reviews, so that’s the best bang-for-the-buck you can do right now. I went further than that, personally, and re-read a ton of my negative reviews and replied to the ones that met the above goals, but you don’t have to rush it.

If you’re a developer, you’ll want to start engaging with customers right away and work through your existing backlog of reviews. I have a feeling the new ability for developers to reply to customers will fundamentally change the tone and utility of App Store reviews.

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Shapego – Beautiful Word Clouds for iPad and iPhone [Sponsor]

Shapego is a full-featured word cloud generator that gives you everything you need to create amazing word clouds for your presentations, marketing, and communication materials.

Whether you are a marketing professional, a teacher, a community manager, or somebody that wants to communicate a message in a visual manner, Shapego is the app you need.

Shapego features a streamlined user interface that was built to fine-tune the appearance, shape, and position of the words that compose your word cloud. Once you are satisfied with your creations, Shapego lets you export to PDF vector documents or layered Photoshop files.

Still have doubts? Here are some real-world use cases:

  • Need to brainstorm on a document and need a quick way to highlight the words that matter most? Shapego can help you by making a word cloud with only the most recurrent words thanks to iOS state-of-the-art Natural Language Processing technologies.
  • Need to express your ideas in a different way? Tired of the old PowerPoint thing? Just create a word cloud with Shapego and accurately position the key words of your message.
  • Need to engage your students? Let them write a description of an object or an animal and use Shapego to have their words laid out in a word cloud that has the shape of what they are describing.

Check out the video teaser and find more information at shapegoapp.com. Shapego is available exclusively on the App Store as a free download with In-App-Purchases.

Our thanks to Shapego for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Remaster, Episode 31: ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ Review→

Federico and Myke give their review of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

On the latest Remaster, we go deep into Breath of the Wild with our thoughts on the game after 60-70 hours, tips on gameplay, and more. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

  • Blue Apron: A better way to cook. Get three meals free with your first purchase, and free shipping.
  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code INSERTCOIN at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
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How Drake and Apple Music Broke Streaming Records with More Life→

Fascinating look by Micah Singleton at how Drake’s latest mixtape More Life broke streaming records on Apple Music despite not being exclusive to it:

After setting a record with 89.9 million streams in its first 24 hours on Apple’s streaming service — over 33 million streams ahead of Sheeran’s Divide in its first 24 hours on Spotify, which has around 80 million more users — it’s clear Drake and his favorite music service have cracked the streaming formula.

So how did Apple manage to break a record with an album that’s also available on Spotify, with only 20 million users compared to Spotify’s 100 million? The answer, according to the Apple Music team, is the power of Beats 1 and OVO Sound Radio.

For Drake, Beats 1 has essentially replaced SoundCloud, the platform he once dominated and released singles through — a move that Jackson and Apple VP of apps and content Robert Kondrk said was a risk for Drake at the time. “We weren’t a proven hit, we weren’t a proven entity at all, whatsoever,” says Jackson. SoundCloud just got a shoutout from Chance The Rapper at the Grammys, but the service has been having a rough time since Drake left, with Recode reporting it recently had to raise a $70 million debt round just to stay afloat.

I still wish Beats 1 shows were easier to access and discover, but clearly the system has been working out well for Drake.

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iPad Diaries: Working with Zip Archives

iPad Diaries is a regular series about using the iPad as a primary computer. You can find more installments here and subscribe to the dedicated RSS feed.

Compressing files into archives and extracting them into a specific location is one of the most common desktop tasks that is still surprisingly tricky to adapt to the iPad.

Unlike macOS, the iPad doesn’t come with a built-in Archive Utility app that takes care of decompressing archives, nor does iOS include a native ‘Compress Files’ system action to create and share archives. I’d wager that anyone who works from an iPad deals with file archives on a regular basis, whether they come from email clients, Dropbox links shared by colleagues, or uploads in a Slack channel.

Archives – and the popular .zip format – are a staple of document-based workflows and file management, but the iPad isn’t well-equipped to handle them. Working with .zip files on iOS is among the most frequent questions I receive from iPad-first users every week; effectively, Apple only offers basic integration with iOS’ Quick Look when it comes to file archives. Fortunately, just like advanced file management, we have some solid third-party options and automation to help us.

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