Federico Viticci

10929 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

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Disney Movies Anywhere Includes iTunes Integration→

New service and app launched today by Disney. Kelly Hodgkins for MacRumors writes:

Powered by Disney’s Keychest video-on-demand service, the Disney Movies Anywhere app lets customers browse or search through Disney’s vast mobile library and then purchase titles for playback from within the app. The app streams the movie to an iOS device, with an option to download content for offline viewing.

Interestingly, Disney Movies Anywhere can be connected to your iTunes account to make eligible Disney movies also available on iCloud on all your devices, including the Apple TV (by connecting accounts, you get The Incredibles for free). The service appears to be quite convenient (it has Pixar and Marvel movies too, and it should allow cellular streaming ), and the iTunes integration is peculiar, though not surprising considering Apple’s history with Disney. Unfortunately, there are geographical restrictions for people outside the US.

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Tact Adds Contacts To Your iPhone’s Home Screen→


There are plenty of apps to create Home screen shortcuts for contacts, but Tact by Marco Tabini is polished and easy to use.

If you want a more direct access to your contacts than what Launch Center Pro can provide, Tact presents a contact picker that you can scroll to pick one of your contacts that you want to turn into an icon shortcut. Each contact can be assigned one of four actions (Call, Message, Email, and Open) and icons can be tweaked: you can choose a color, title, and image – if having an iPhone Home screen with faces of your friends inside icons is your thing, Tact lets you do that. Technically speaking, Tact creates Home screen icons by generating webclips from Safari – unlike other apps, the process is well explained and, when launching Tact’s icons, you’ll get a nice preview image before being taken to the corresponding action in the Phone, Messages, or Mail app.

Tact is $1.99 on the App Store and iPhone-only.

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Creating and Sharing Text Files In Launch Center Pro

When Launch Center Pro 2.2 was released last month, I mentioned the addition of Dropbox actions for creating and modyfing text files, but I didn’t share any action example because I couldn’t find a possible use of the feature in my workflow. This morning, I realized that my old workflow to generate and share text files with Dropbox could be simplified with Launch Center Pro, so I rewrote it using the app’s new Dropbox functionalities.

I often need to create text files and share them quickly with Dropbox. These are usually notes that don’t fit in a Twitter DM or long crash reports for developers of apps I’m testing. In my old workflow, I used to type file name and file contents in Launch Center Pro, then, with two steps of inter-app communication, upload the file with Drafts, get the shareable link back with Launch Center Pro, and start a new tweet with the link in Tweetbot.

The workflow still gets the job done but the new version is simpler, faster, and more flexible. It’s just three steps:

  • Type file name;
  • Type file contents;
  • Get public link to text file in Dropbox.

With a single action that doesn’t involve switching between apps, I can type a file name in a Launch Center Pro prompt, insert contents manually or by pasting, and hit Done to create a text file in Dropbox. Launch Center Pro gets the link of the just-created file and presents an iOS share sheet with a series of options for the file’s public link so that I’m not limited to Tweetbot anymore; I discovered that I often needed to DM or email a link, and with the old workflow I was forced to start a new tweet then select and copy the link manually from it. With the new action, everything happens inside Launch Center Pro in seconds and I can pick the best option for me (it’s usually “Copy”).

I was skeptical as to whether I would need Dropbox actions in Launch Center Pro, but this workflow shows some clear benefits of Contrast’s app – keyboard prompts and a native share sheet combined with Dropbox text features make for a quick and elegant note-taking and sharing experience.

You can download the action here.

Memories Of Steve Jobs→

I’ve been following the work Jim has been doing with The Loop Magazine, and today they published an issue dedicated to Steve Jobs and his accomplishments. There’s a great list of writers in this issue:

I gathered together people that worked with Steve and those that were influenced by his extraordinary life. Former Apple executive, Richard Kerris, tells of introducing Jobs to The Rolling Stones to show off iTunes before it was released to the public; Don Melton, former head of the Safari team at Apple, tells of a number of interactions with Jobs; Industry analyst, Tim Bajarin, recounts how he watched Steve grow into the showman we all saw on stage; Actor Matthew Modine played John Scully in the recently released “Jobs” movie and talks about that experience; Matt Gemmell believes we’ve all met Steve through his work; and Jonathan Zufi talks about why he set out to photograph as many Apple products as he could to publish “Iconic,” a design book about Apple.

The Loop Magazine is available on iTunes.

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Releasing Games Through Apple, Valve, Nintendo And Sony’s Digital Storefronts→

Swedish indie development studio Image & Form has released games for iOS, Nintendo devices, and Steam; next month, they will release Steamworld Dig for PS Vita and PlayStation 4. CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson spoke to Edge about the differences between digital storefronts, suggesting that Apple could do a better job at selecting and working with indies:

The developer’s experience with Apple – or rather, the lack of it – suggests that the App Store’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. “So many games are coming out every day and the largely DIY submission procedures are so effective that it’s impossible for Apple to keep up personal relations,” says Sigurgeirsson. “A year and a half after having released a Game of the Week I met my first Apple representative in person, and many developers probably couldn’t tell you who ‘their’ person is. The ‘right’ Apple e-mail addresses used to be hard currency, real bargaining chips.”

In throwing its doors open and welcoming all comers, Apple has made it easy for developers to release a game, certainly, but perhaps it’s too easy right now. Sigurgeirsson would like to see Apple raise the entry level to the App Store – “make it a tiny bit harder to become a licensed developer, so that the average quality of the games goes up,” he says.

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The Prompt: An Isolated Experiment→

After recovering from the news about Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp, Stephen and Federico discuss the problems users face while using Apple’s App Stores.

In this week’s episode of The Prompt, we started a mini-series about the App Store’s problems for developers and users, discussing possible solutions for search, discovery, and curation. Get the episode here.

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