Federico Viticci

10769 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

ETA Brings Travel Times and Traffic Status to Apple Watch

I first covered ETA back in September, and I noted how the app simplified the process of getting travel times for favorite locations by taking advantage of a widget in Notification Center:

ETA’s best feature is actually a way to never open the app itself. Taking a clue from Apple’s Today Summary in Notification Center, Eastwood created an iOS 8 widget that lets you see driving times in the Today view and tap them to quickly load directions in your mapping app of choice (Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Waze). Your preferences for walking/driving directions and time of arrival are carried over to the widget, which is simple, elegant, and useful.

Today, ETA 2.0 has been released with a new design, the ability to show multiple routes and traffic information, and an Apple Watch app that lets you quickly view travel times and traffic directly from your wrist.

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Pinterest Introduces Buyable Pins→

Mike Isaac, writing for The New York Times:

Pinterest, the online social bookmarking site, has long claimed to be a way to help people discover new things in the real world. Soon you will be able to buy those things, too.

The San Francisco-based company announced Tuesday that it will now let users purchase things from inside of pinned items, in what is its first foray into bringing e-commerce to the platform. The new product, named “Buyable Pins,” allows sellers large and small to essentially stick a “buy” button on items that they post to the site.

Buyable Pins will launch in the United States initially, and the service will support on Apple Pay on iOS.

Considering how Pinterest reinvented the wish list on mobile, it only makes sense for them to jump into the e-commerce business in a mobile-first fashion. Pinterest says that items will be “handpicked” and that they won’t make money off transaction fees, relying on promoted pins (ads) to let advertisers promote their products on the service.

They also made a great promo video for the new feature, which you can watch below.

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Microsoft Acquires Wunderlist→

In a blog post, popular task management service Wunderlist has announced they’ve been acquired by Microsoft. Wunderlist, like Sunrise, will remain an “independent” app for now, but it’ll likely be more closely tied to Microsoft services in the future.

Here’s Wunderlist CEO Christian Reber on the company’s blog:

Over the next few months as Wunderlist becomes a part of the Microsoft family, we’ll introduce a host of new features, continue growing the ecosystem of partner integrations and progress in delivering Wunderlist to billions of people. We are excited and can’t wait to share with you what we have been working on–watch this space!

The Microsoft blog has also motivated the acquisition and shared details about pricing going forward:

The addition of Wunderlist to the Microsoft product portfolio fits squarely with our ambition to reinvent productivity for a mobile-first, cloud-first world. Building on momentum for Microsoft Office, OneNote and Skype for Business, as well as the recent Sunrise and Acompli acquisitions, it further demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to delivering market leading mobile apps across the platforms and devices our customers use – for mail, calendaring, messaging, notes and now tasks.

And:

Customers can expect the app to remain free in all of its existing markets. There will be no price changes for Wunderlist Pro or Wunderlist for Business customers and the service will continue to support a wide range of third-party apps and integrated services.

As I tweeted yesterday, I believe Microsoft has been doing some interesting acquisitions lately and Wunderlist meets the requirements for a cross-platform app that can integrate with other apps and services. Like Sunrise, Wunderlist has an API that allows other services and developers to plug into its platform to access a user’s tasks and projects – like Slack and Scanbot. Wunderlist wanted to build an ecosystem of apps for your todo list, and it’s easy to see how Microsoft could benefit from it.

More importantly, Wunderlist already integrates with Sunrise, allowing you to see tasks alongside calendar events natively.

I’m curious to see for how long Microsoft will keep these two apps as standalone services that don’t have the Microsoft brand or only work with Microsoft services. Sunrise, for instance, also supports Todoist, one of Wunderlist’s biggest competitors. Will Microsoft keep this third-party friendly approach as it keeps controlling more apps?

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Apple Starts Decorating Moscone West for WWDC 2015

Apple has started decorating Moscone West in San Francisco for WWDC, kicking off this year on Monday, June 8.

Every year, Apple decorates the convention center in San Francisco with different sets of banners: the ones matching the event’s tagline and graphics already available on the WWDC website, and others showing the official (and previously unseen) logos of new versions of iOS and OS X. Apple is expected to introduce iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 this year, bringing improvements to last year’s Yosemite redesign and, according to 9to5Mac, a variety of new features for Maps, multitasking, and HomeKit on iOS.

Apple has begun decorating Moscone West with its logo earlier today, and, like every year, we’re documenting the process with photos from San Francisco. With preparations now well underway, Apple will continue to decorate Moscone West with new banners in the next few days, possibly showing the official logos for iOS 9 and OS X 10.11.

We will update this post with more photos throughout the week; new updates will be listed in reverse chronological order below.

You can follow @MacStoriesNet on Twitter or our WWDC 2015 news hub for updates.

Our thanks to the Workflow team for providing us with photos from Moscone West in San Francisco.

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Opener for iOS 8 Opens Web Links in Apps

In spite of several companies’ efforts to match web links to native apps, opening links from apps on iOS usually takes you to a web view even if you have the website’s associated iOS app already installed. This is why following links to songs on Spotify or podcast episodes on Overcast doesn’t automatically take you to their native apps: iOS lacks a native deep linking technology. While Apple could introduce such framework in the future, currently there’s no system-wide solution that can be adopted across every website and app out of the box. Many have tried to solve deep-linking on mobile, but to achieve real support for this experience, Apple will need to step in eventually.

In the meantime, Timothy Johnsen has created a workaround called Opener that uses an action extension to let you easily open a web link in its native app. Released with an initial set of compatible links/apps such as Twitter, Overcast, SoundCloud, Spotify, Kickstarter, and more, Opener allows you to avoid tapping buttons in web views to launch associated apps; Opener can automate the process by resolving links and launching them inside apps with an extension.

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Apple Revamps App Store ‘Games’ Category with More Curated Lists→

Sarah Perez, reporting on Apple’s latest tweak to the App Store curated picks, this time for the Games category:

Apple quietly made a number of changes to the way it features and organizes mobile applications in the iTunes App Store in May that are of particular interest to mobile game developers. Previously, developers relied on algorithmically generated sections highlighting new and trending titles as a way of having their games found, but now many of these lists are gone.

Now missing are lists like “New,” “What’s Hot,” and “All iPhone (Free & Paid),” for example. In their place, including for the first time ever in the Games’ subcategory pages, are editorially curated lists instead.

Games are the App Store’s most popular category, with 18 sub-sections for different game genres. I’ve argued in favor of more human curation on the App Store in the past, and Apple seems to agree that having human editors is the best (and only?) way to highlight good content with taste and thoughtfulness.

Some developers will always find ways to work around a system where apps are highlighted through algorithms; you can’t buy your way into a curated list unless you make a good app and Apple thinks it’s worth recommending to customers. Apple still has algorithm-based sections on the App Store (Top Charts, ‘Popular Games’ on the front page), but handpicking the best software is the right thing to do in a store with about 1.5 million apps. I’m glad that we’re seeing more of this.

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

We all struggle with productivity. We are constantly pressured to accomplish more, and to do it quicker. There is no one definitive way to accomplish that, and we have all devised our own little method to make things work. At Igloo, we think your way is the best way, we just want to support you, and make your way better.

Our focus is on becoming that place where you know you can access all you need to work, whether that’s documents, communication, task management, and much more. That means you can access us from all your devices, but it also means our platform is fully customizable. You get involved in the work you do, and things get personal quickly. We think a platform should represent who you are, it should feel like home.

Everything is now mobile – work should be too. We’d rather work on being intuitive while you do your thing. Igloo is an intranet you’ll actually like.

Try Igloo for free for as long as you want with 10 of your favorite coworkers.

Our thanks to Igloo for sponsoring MacStories this week.