Federico Viticci

10766 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

The Apple QuickTake 100 Turns 20→

Stewart Wolpin, writing at Mashable:

Back in Apple’s dark ages — during Steve Jobs’ interregnum in the mid-1990s — the company experimented with some strange products. Everyone remembers the ill-fated Newton PDA, for instance, which was considered ahead of its time. Less memorable was the QuickTake 100, the first mass market color consumer digital camera.

First unveiled at the Tokyo MacWorld Expo on February 17, 1994, the QuickTake 100 went on sale 20 years ago from yesterday — June 20, 1994. It was priced at $749 and initiated the age of consumer digital photography.

The Apple QuickTake 100 was one of the first digital cameras, a market that, in a curious turn of events, has shrunk because of smartphones.

See also: Shrine of Apple’s QuickTake 100 page (and video embedded below).

Permalink

Starting Anew→

Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s SVP of Retail, in a post published on LinkedIn:

Also, trust your instincts and emotions. Let them guide you in every situation; they will not fail you. Never will your objectivity be as clear or your instincts sharper than in the first 30-90 days. Cherish this time and fight the urge to overthink. Real human dialogue and interaction where you can feel and be felt will be invaluable as your vision, enabled by your instincts, becomes clearer. In honor of the great American poet Maya Angelou, always remember, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I would argue this is even more important in the early days.

It’s strange (and great) to see an Apple executive sharing this kind of thoughts publicly. The post is beautifully written, especially the last few paragraphs.

Permalink

Essential

The iPhone is good at many trivial tasks such as playing games and watching videos, but this week I experienced firsthand how much its portability and apps matter when dealing with an emergency situation.

Read more

iOS 8 and The Weather Channel→

Kara Swisher, writing at Re/Code about a data provider change in the Weather app for iOS 8:

To convince Apple to make the shift and cut Yahoo out of the middle, the Weather Channel added a lot more technology and information to the offering that it does not provide to Yahoo. That includes more weather specificity related to the location of a user, a nine-day forecast (up from five), a weather-conditions summary and more.

Over the past year, I’ve been using two weather apps on my iPhone: Weather Line and Apple’s Weather app. While I like Weather Line for its visualization of temperature changes, I find the default Weather app a good enough all-in-one solution (unlike others, I can’t enjoy the benefits of Dark Sky alerts here, otherwise I’d install it).

The changes provided by The Weather Channel appear to be ultimately best for the majority of iOS users, and, in my tests with the iOS 8 beta, the summary integrated in Notification Center has been accurate and useful. It seems that Apple is making a good move, and I’m also excited about the idea of third-party apps offering their own weather summary widgets for Notification Center (in my case, national and local services).

Permalink

Directional: E4→

This week Federico and Myke clear house with some of the remaining stories and interesting tidbits from E3. They also have an extended look at what games they’ve been playing recently.

A lot of links and interesting reads in the show notes. Also, Myke reviews Tomodachi Life, Nintendo’s quirky new life simulator for the 3DS. Get the episode here.

Permalink

Friending the App Store→

Andy Baio shares thoughts (with mockups) on what he’d like to see on the App Store for social recommendations:

My hope is that Apple, and every other app store, can take a page from the last decade of the social web. Give its users a public identity, an incentive to share what they love, and the ability to find and follow others like them.

These are some interesting ideas – especially for indie game developers – and I agree. Social recommendations and “developer notifications” could drive significant traffic to apps recommended by people you trust (your friends) or developers you trust (the ones that make apps you already use), albeit with a different set of questions (how many notifications do you want to receive? How often? From which developers?).

I also think, though, that before social recommendations Apple needs to educate users on the idea of sharing quality apps/games and recommending them to their friends. In this regard, I believe that Explore is going to be an important addition: curated collections and sub-categories will help in communicating the richness and quality of selected App Store content that can be lost in the Top Charts that most people see as an indication of “what’s cool”.

Permalink

iOS 8 Manual Camera Controls→

Writing at AnandTech, Joshua Ho details the manual camera controls that iOS 8 will add for third-party developers:

For the longest time, iOS had almost no camera controls at all. There would be a toggle for HDR, a toggle to switch to the front-facing camera, and a toggle to switch to video recording mode. The only other tool that was accessible would be the AE/AF lock. This meant that you had to hope that the exposure and focus would be correct, because there was no direct method of adjusting these things. Anyone that paid attention to the WWDC 2014 keynote would’ve heard maybe a few sentences about manual camera controls. Despite the short mention in the keynote, this is a massive departure from the previously all-auto experience.

From Apple’s description:

The AVFoundation framework makes it easier than ever for users to take great photos. Your app can take direct control over the camera focus, white balance, and exposure settings. Your app can also use bracketed exposure captures to automatically capture images with different exposure settings.

This means that, for developers, it’ll be easier than ever to build alternative, (possibly) pro-oriented camera apps without writing those controls manually as they will be exposed in the official APIs. It’s a big change.

Combined with the ability to delete photos from the Camera Roll and save edits back to the original files, Apple is making third-party camera apps first-class citizens of iPhone photography, which should result in better photos, more available storage, and a more fluid experience.

Permalink

iOS 7’s Activation Lock Helps Reduce iPhone Thefts→

Brian X. Chen, writing for The New York Times about the effect of iOS 7’s Activation Lock on iPhone thefts:

For several years, cellphone theft has been a growing epidemic worldwide. But the police in New York, San Francisco and London say they are finally starting to see a dip in thefts of one of the most popular smartphones.

The reason? The attorney general of New York, Eric T. Schneiderman, and the district attorney of San Francisco, George Gascón, share the theory that phone thefts are dropping because of Apple’s addition of a so-called kill switch, a type of antitheft technology, in its iPhone in September.

This is great news, and I would like to see Apple push Find My iPhone even more in the future. I’m surprised every time someone tells me they don’t know what iCloud or Find My iPhone can do, or that a stolen iPhone can be visualized through the Find My iPhone web interface. It’s good to know that Apple’s tech is working and that more companies are adopting kill switches for mobile devices.

Permalink