Federico Viticci

10777 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.

Apple Music to Offer Unlicensed Remixes and DJ Mixes

Glenn Peoples, reporting for Billboard:

Dubset Media Holdings has announced a partnership that will allow Apple Music to stream remixes and DJ mixes that had previous been absent from licensed services due to copyright issues. Thousands upon thousands cool mash-ups and hour-long mixes have effectively been pulled out of the underground and placed onto the world’s second-largest music subscription service.

Dubset is a digital distributor that delivers content to digital music services. But unlike other digital distributors, Dubset will use a proprietary technology called MixBank to analyze a remix or long-form DJ mix file, identify recordings inside the file, and properly pay both record labels and music publishers.

Remixes and mashups are a huge part of what my girlfriend and I listen to on a daily basis (she’s a dancer, and she often needs remixes for her choreographies; she usually finds them on YouTube and SoundCloud). This is a nice differentiator for Apple Music, though the article suggests more streaming services will follow.

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Dropbox’s Exodus From the Amazon Cloud Empire

Cade Metz published a Dropbox profile for Wired, detailing how the company migrated to their own storage infrastructure:

Cowling and crew started work on the Magic Pocket software in the summer of 2013 and spent about six months building the initial code. But this was a comparatively small step. Once the system was built, they had to make sure it worked. They had to get it onto thousands of machines inside multiple data centers. They had to tailor the software to their new hardware. And, yes, they had to get all that data off of Amazon.

The whole process took two years. A project like this, needless to say, is a technical challenge. But it’s also a logistical challenge. Moving that much data across the Internet is one thing. Moving that many machines into data centers is another. And they had to do both, as Dropbox continued to serve hundreds of millions of people. “It’s like a moving car,” says Dan Williams, a former Facebook network engineer who oversaw much of the physical expansion, “and you want to be able to change a tire while still driving.” In other words, while making all these changes, Dropbox couldn’t very well shut itself down. It couldn’t tell the hundreds of millions of users who relied on Dropbox that their files were temporarily unavailable. Ironically, one of the best measures of success for this massive undertaking would be that users wouldn’t notice it had happened at all.

People who are really serious about cloud storage should make their own hardware and software, I guess.

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Overcast 2.5 Adds Dark Theme, File Uploads

Overcast's new dark theme.

Overcast’s new dark theme.

When it launched in October with support for streaming and chapters, Overcast 2’s patronage model was positioned as a way to directly support the app without the promise of anything exclusive in return. With Overcast 2.5, launching today on the App Store, Marco Arment is introducing the first features available only to Overcast patrons: a dark theme, and the ability to upload audio files to Overcast’s cloud.

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Billings Pro: Time Tracking & Invoicing for iOS, OS X, and watchOS [Sponsor]

Billings Pro is a time-tracking & invoicing app for the Mac, iPad, iPhone & Apple Watch. It’s great for freelancers and small businesses such as consultants, lawyers, designers, or photographers who need an easy way to keep track of time spent on client work and a fast way to produce professional-looking invoices.

Billings Pro syncs all your devices across all your team members, so you can track time for a project while out on your iPhone while a team member tracks time on their Mac at the office. It supports 3D Touch, making it quick and easy for you to start a new timer or jump to a recent one, and includes a handy widget that lets you manage your Billings Pro timers within Notification Center. Easily add comments to your slips so you remember all the details of the work you did during that time.

After the work is done, Billings Pro makes it really quick and simple to invoice – whether you’re creating the invoice from your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. You just select the time slips, pick an invoice template, and send. You can also add expenses or bill by flat rate. Comments jotted down on your time slips can be added to the invoice so your client has a clear understanding of the work you did – which means you get paid faster, with fewer questions.

Read about other Mac users using Billings Pro here or experience Billings Pro for yourself with a free 30 day trial.

Our thanks to Marketcircle for sponsoring MacStories this week.


Philips Introduces Hue White Ambiance Bulbs

James Vincent, writing for The Verge on Philips’ new set of Hue bulbs:

Are you a light connoisseur? Can you tell the difference between “cool daylight” and “warm white”? If so, Philips has just announced what could be your next favorite lightbulb: the Philips Hue white ambiance. The company promises that the white ambiance delivers “every shade of white light” from color temperatures of 6,500 k to 2,200k. And by hooking up the bulbs to the new Philips’ Hue app, you can use the “Routines” feature, which shifts the color temperature of the bulb as the day progresses, supposedly leading to better sleep.

Sounds like a good companion for the upcoming Night Shift in iOS 9.3. I’ve already been dimming my Hue lights manually after Night Shift turns on, so I should probably upgrade to these bulbs in my living room. They’ll be available in the US this Spring.

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Connected: Don’t Be Scared, Myke. Go On.

This week Myke and Federico share a potpourri of topics including FlexBright, malware creeping in to BitTorrent clients, Workflow, and rich text. Federico then covers the current state of text editors on iOS.

On this week’s Connected, we also discussed the differences between iOS and OS X for people who like to tinker. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

  • Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘CONNECTED’
  • Squarespace: Enter offer code WORLD at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
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Microsoft Builds Evernote Importer for OneNote

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

Today Microsoft announced a new Evernote importer app that lets you bring your Evernote data into its excellent OneNote application. If you’ve been thinking of leaving Evernote—especially if you’re already paying for Office 365, so you’re paying for OneNote—it’s worth considering.

Unfortunately, the tool currently only runs on Windows. Typical Microsoft. Fortunately, a Mac version is on the way “in the coming months.”

First Apple, now Microsoft. I wonder if Evernote is starting to regret adding the export option.

(I also wonder how much these import solutions are going to impact Evernote, and if they’ll decide to turn exporting off eventually.)

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Alien Blue Update Gifts Pro Users with Four Years of Reddit Gold

Nice move from Reddit (via MacRumors): if you bought a Pro upgrade for Alien Blue (which was acquired by Reddit in 2014), the latest update will get you a four-year Reddit Gold subscription for free.

I realize that I’m spending quite a bit of time on Reddit each day (some subreddits can be surprisingly civil and informative), but I never really considered the Gold membership. It’s got some intriguing perks.

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