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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Imgur MemeGen

MemeGen

MemeGen

Occasionally1, I like to entertain my coworkers and online friends with memes based on inside jokes or Internet news.2 I’ve been trying a couple of meme generators for iOS over the past years, and eventually even thought about rolling my own solution with Python and PIL, but eventually gave up because that looked like too much work little potential for meaningful return.

Last month, Imgur released a free meme generator app for iPhone, which is pretty good and certainly better than many similar apps on the App Store. Imgur already hosts the majority of memes shared on Reddit, so it makes sense for the company to have a dedicated app with upload capabilities.

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Redd, A Reddit Client for iOS 7

Redd

Redd

I’m not an active Reddit user, but I enjoy checking the front page and a few subreddits to stay on top of tech/gaming news and the latest meme. For years, I’ve been using Alien Blue on my iPhone and iPad to read threads, view links and photos, and navigate to my favorite subreddits, and I think that the app remains the premier Reddit client for iOS with tons of options and settings. I was curious, however, to try out Redd, a $0.99 Reddit client for iPhone specifically designed for iOS 7. Read more

The Evolution Of Simogo→

From Lee Bradley’s profile of Simogo at Eurogamer:

Go back a decade, however, and the art, design and audio half of Simogo wasn’t even interested in making games. In the early 2000s, while working as an animator on movies and commercials, Simon Flesser felt that games were in a pretty uninteresting place. Then, in 2004, the Nintendo DS arrived with its touch-sensitive screen and a new set of inputs. His imagination was lit.

I loved Year Walk last year, but I still haven’t played DEVICE 6. I remember how different Another Code felt to me when it came out in 2005, and Simogo’s games have the same effect – they are uniquely designed for a platform and a multitouch screen, rather than just tweaked for them.

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BugshotKit→

Marco Arment:

I’m starting the Overcast beta soon, and I wanted an easy way for my testers to report (non-crash) bugs and provide UI feedback. I also wanted a way to remind myself of UI or feature ideas easily, and I’ve occasionally needed to view the error console on the device when tracking down difficult bugs.

BugshotKit addresses all of these: it’s an embeddable Bugshot annotation interface and console logger, invoked anywhere in your app by an otherwise unused gesture (e.g. a two-finger swipe up, a three-finger double-tap, pulling out from the right screen edge, etc.), that lets you or your testers quickly email you with helpful details, screenshots, and diagnostic information.

I’ve tried BugshotKit in an app I’m testing, and it’s a fantastic idea: screenshot annotations and logging are available in a single screen that doesn’t require you to switch between apps, save screenshots, copy logs, and put everything together in Mail. If you’re a developer and you’re building an app, consider implementing BugshotKit to have happier, more efficient beta testers.

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MyPhotostream: A Lightweight Photo Stream Viewer for OS X

Myphotostream

Myphotostream

When it works[1], Photo Stream is convenient. The underlying principle is simple enough: you take a picture on one device, it automatically transfers to all other devices with iCloud.

In practice, it’s a convoluted feature. Apple is using quantity and time-based limitations for Photo Stream, which comprises both your Photo Stream (called “My Photo Stream”) and Shared Photo Streams, which are all part of iCloud, but only your Photo Stream counts against storage. I wouldn’t be surprised to know it took Apple more time to come up with Photo Stream rules than to build the actual technology. It’s difficult to explain, and I suggest listening to this Mac Power Users episode to grasp how Photo Stream works and what it can do.

In my workflow, I have new solutions to quickly transfer photos from iOS to OS X or avoid my Mac entirely, but there are still times when I need/want to leave iPhoto running and drag photos out of it and into the Finder or another app[2]. MyPhotostream is a lightweight Photo Stream client that runs on your Mac and provides read-only access to your personal Photo Stream (not the shared ones). Read more

Panels, Popovers And iPad Pro→

Good post by Benjamin Mayo. I don’t think that the idea of snapping sidebars is the best way to handle multitasking on a tablet, but he makes a great point I forgot to cover in my article last week:

Apps should also have the capability to be ‘faceless’, so that other apps can query for data without needing any intermediary UI. This would enable apps like to draw on information available in other apps without pushing additional UI. For example, GarageBand could import sound-clips from apps like djay or Animoog in addition to the Music app. Similarly, a word processor could retrieve definitions from the users’ preferred dictionary app rather than stick to whatever the developer bundled with the app.

In my case, that would be a list of synonyms from Terminology. But imagine if Editorial could provide its workflows as services to other apps, or if you could retrieve files from Dropbox without opening the Dropbox app. Android is far ahead of iOS in this field, and it’s time for iOS to grow up.

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Tracking TV Shows with TV Files

TV Files

TV Files

My experiment to add calendar events for TV shows I watch failed miserably. Because of programming schedules that change often and holiday breaks I can’t always predict, I ended up with a calendar full of repeating weekly events for episodes that had been delayed. Therefore, I started looking for a good TV show tracker app for my iPhone and iPad, and lately I’ve been using TV Files, developed by Italian team Whale True. Read more

The Prompt: Viticci Seal Of Quality→

This week Myke and Federico explore the possibility of an iPad pro and the different routes Apple could take to build this mythical product. There’s also an ‘after show’ discussing Polygon’s Game of the Year awards and what games they have been playing recently.

We used my article about the rumors of an iPad Pro as a starting point to discuss multitasking in the age of touch and thinking of apps as features instead of windows. Get the episode here.

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MacStories Sponsorship Openings For 2014→

I have updated the Sponsorships page to show openings for the new year. MacStories sponsorships are exclusive and they will help support the work we do for app reviews, editorials, tutorials, and more throughout the year. We have big plans for 2014, including a (long overdue) new design.

If you have an app, service, or product that you’d like to advertise to MacStories’ smart and loyal readership, check out the Sponsorships page for more information or get in touch directly.

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