Federico Viticci

10862 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

Apple, Siri, and VocalIQ→

Brian Roemmele makes some interesting points on VocalIQ, a speech/deep learning startup that Apple acquired last year (via Nick Heer):

It is not a secret that Siri has not kept up the pace that just about all of us expected, including some of the Siri team. The passion that Steve had seemed to have been waning deep inside of Apple and the results were Dag and Adam Cheyer moved on and formed Five Six Labs ( A play on V IV in Roman numerals) and Viv.

Tom Gruber, one of the original team members and the chief scientist that created Siri technology, stayed on and continued his work. During most of 2016 and 2017 we will begin to see the results of this work. I call it Siri2 and am very certain Apple will call it something else.

Roemmele has been following all this for a long time, and he adds:

If Apple utilizes just a small subset of the technology developed by VocalIQ, we will see a far more advanced Siri. However I am quite certain the amazing work of Tom Gruber will also be utilized. Additionally the amazing technology from Emollient, Perception and a number of unannounced and future Apple acquistions will also become a big part of Apple’s AI future.

Between these acquisitions and reports that Apple is indeed preparing a Siri API for developers, it sounds like we should expect some notable announcements at WWDC.

See also: this fascinating talk by VocalIQ CEO and founder Blaise Thomson from last June on machine learning applied to voice interactions.

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Creating Robots on an iPad→

Great story by Christina Warren at Mashable on how the iPad is being used to teach interactive problem solving in a fun, new way:

I’m sitting on the floor at The Academy of Talented Scholars (PS 682) in Bensonhurst, watching kindergarteners create robots on an iPad.

It’s one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen, and I don’t even like children.

The exercise is part of the curriculum led by co-teachers Stacy Butsikares and Allison Bookbinder, focused on helping the 5- and 6-year-old students come up with ways to solve problems.

I often wish I had an iPad when I was in elementary school 20 years ago.

In the same story, Christina focuses on the Hopscotch programming app and kids who grow up using it:

So what happens after kids master Hopscotch? Do they continue coding? Conrad says that the team receives fan mail all the time (something she calls “really gratifying”) from kids who have parlayed their experience with Hopscotch into learning other languages too.

I wonder what Apple thinks of teaching Swift to a new generation of programmers on an iPad.

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Connected, Episode 92: My Relationship with the Status Bar→

This week Federico takes Myke on a tour of his experience with Android.

After ending last week’s episode of Connected on a cliffhanger, I took some time this week to share my first impressions of Android and some thoughts on trying different things and challenging my preconceptions more often. I think it’s a good one. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

  • Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘CONNECTED’
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Canvas, Episode 10: Third-Party Email Clients→

Fraser and Federico (particularly Federico) drop serious knowledge on 3rd party iOS mail clients.

I forgot to link Canvas’ episode 10 on this website last week, but it’s a great one: we went deep on third-party email clients for iOS, why you should use them, and what categories of clients are out there today. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

  • Airtable: Organise anything you can imagine.

What are they good for? Where do they have hard limitations? Which ones are the best? Federico makes his picks and explains how these clients can hook into other parts of your workflow to really enhance your mail processing on iOS.

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Igloo: An Intranet You’ll Actually Like [Sponsor]

In this day and age, there’s no shortage of ways to collaborate. You can use shared FTP drives, company-wide chat apps, or maybe you can use the one that thing that’s been neglected for a while: your corporate communications portal. While each app might serve a purpose, the sheer volume (and fragmentation) can be overwhelming for people at work these days.

That’s why you should try Igloo. It combines department spaces, team calendars, corporate file sharing, internal communications capabilities, social features, and plenty more—easily.

At Igloo, they think your way is the best way, they just want to support you, and make your way better.

Work has evolved and your tools should too. Never email yourself a file again. Bring your company into the 21st century - send your IT guy to try Igloo Software for free.

Igloo is an intranet you’ll actually like.

Our thanks to Igloo for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Archiving a Website for Ten Thousand Years→

Glenn Fleishman, writing for The Atlantic:

Hi.co, a website that allows its users to post “moments” with a photo and annotation, plans a similar trip to the distant future. The operators, Craig Mod (who has also previously written for _The Atlantic) _and Chris Palmieri, announced today that the site will freeze service in September 2016. However, all posts present in the site’s database at that time will be microprinted onto a two-by-two-inch nickel plate. The entire site—2,000,000 words and 14,000 photos—should fit on a single disk. Several copies will be made and distributed across the globe; the Library of Congress has already been secured as a repository. The plates have a lifespan as long as 10,000 years, and they may be viewed with a 1,000-power optical microscope.

That’s certainly one way to go about digital preservation. This was a truly entertaining read – make sure to check out the links about time capsules and the Rosetta Disk.

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Monument Valley’s Second Year→

Fascinating look at the second year of Monument Valley – particularly after a cameo on House of Cards and a promotion on the App Store:

Underwood turned out to be a great pitch man, one of several reasons why Monument Valley was actually more successful in its second year of existence, compared to the first. According to developer Ustwo, the game has been downloaded more than 26 million times to date, and more than 23 million of those downloads came in the second year after it released. “We’ve actually had to spend a lot of time maintaining the game,” says Dan Gray, head of studio at Ustwo Games, “and finding new opportunities for people to find out about it.”

For the second year in a row, Ustwo has released a detailed infographic that showcases how well the game performed on various platforms. While year one showed that it was still possible for a premium game to make money on mobile, year two shows just how huge of an audience you can reach by offering your game for free — the biggest reason behind _Monument Valley_’s enduring success wasn’t a fictional US president, it was the lack of a price tag.

The difference in downloads between the first and second year on iOS is remarkable, but even more impressive is the performance in China.

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Q&A

Question: Over the past year I have had to reset my iPad multiple times due to “Other” taking up an absurd amount of storage (30+ GB). I always set it up as a new device (not restoring from iTunes or iCloud), yet this bug keeps popping back up. Genius Bar appointments always end with them...

App Debuts

Federico

Associate Associate is a new app by our friends at Squibner (hey John!) which I’ve been personally testing for a couple of months. Associate simplifies the creation of affiliate links for Amazon products. Like its counterpart for iTunes links, Blink, Associate allows you to look up products and quickly generate affiliate links for them,...