Federico Viticci

10758 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

Shiori, Free Pinboard Client for Mac

Shiori is a nice new Pinboard client for Mac that lets you find and add bookmarks. The app can be configured to have two separate keyboard shortcuts for adding and finding items; alternatively, you can click on the app’s icon in the menubar and work with the dropdown menu (which also contains shortcuts for Refresh and Preferences).

The interface is clean and minimal, with tags highlighted in light blue/green; Shiori comes in the foreground with a list of the latest 7 bookmarks from your account (by default; you can show up to 10) and you can start typing to filter results. The app is extremely fast at retrieving items, and it supports abbreviations to look into bookmark titles, URLs, and tags. According to the developer, the app can get smarter over time by learning from your “habits” (I assume it means abbreviation use and choice of results in search).

There are other nice touches worth mentioning. There’s a Private URL feature to automatically make URLs that match criteria specified in the Preferences private in your Pinboard account; when adding a new bookmark, Shiori can get the active webpage URL and title from the browser (Safari, Chrome, and Firefox are supported) and provide a list of recommended tags (a feature of the Pinboard API).

Shiori is simple, elegant, and fast. Get it here for free.

Japanese Emoticons for iOS→

A few months ago I covered Kaomoji, an app that makes it easy to browse and copy Japanese emoticons (also known as, indeed, kaomoji) on iOS. This morning, thanks to Sean’s recommendation, I bought Japanese Emoticons, the official app by website japaneseemoticons.net that, like Kaomoji, lets you browse through over 1000 built-in emoticons organized by type (such as “positive emotions”, actions, evil, “hello and goodbye”, and more).

Unlike Kaomoji, the Japanese Emoticons app lets you add your most-used emoticons to a set of Favorites, which you can rearrange at any time and access anywhere in the app from a button in the upper right corner. Japanese Emoticons also has an editor to create your own emoticon based on parts like eyes, mouths, and arms (there’s also a button to create a random one). The app features one-tap copy, but the interface isn’t as polished as Kaomoji.

If you’ve been looking for a Kaomoji-like app with favorites and an editor feature, Japanese Emoticons is $0.99 and Universal.

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Feedly Launching Pro Version with Evernote Integration and Search

RSS service Feedly, one of the most popular alternatives to Google Reader that quickly hit 12 million users after the shutdown of Google’s service, has today started rolling out a Pro version that, starting at $5 per month, will enable search, Evernote integration, HTTPS navigation, and premium support for users. However, there’s a catch: Feedly Pro’s regular $5/month subscription ($45 annually) will be available publicly for everyone this Fall; today, the company has launched a $99 Feedly Pro lifetime membership that will unlock the Pro features, forever, for the first 5000 users.

As a daily Evernote user and fan of RSS apps that implement full article search, I was curious to try out the initial feature set of Feedly Pro, so I purchased the lifetime membership this morning. My first impression is that, overall, the Pro features will add value to the service for power users, but they will need several improvements and refinements. Feedly says that, in the future, Pro users will be able to directly vote for the features they want to see in the service. Read more

iPod Eclipse→

Benedict Evans:

As music has moved on from the iPod, it has actually become much less important to the tech industry. With streaming and the decline of ownership, there are fewer barriers to switching service, and every device has a choice of music services, both from the platform owner (i.e. Apple/Google/Microsoft/Nokia etc) and as third-party apps. In effect,  music has become a commodity.

Compare this to dedicated eBook readers, which still have a feature that smartphones haven’t replicated (E Ink). The iPod didn’t have exclusive features that tied music (and customers) to the device; the built-in WiFi and cellular options of iPhones facilitated the rise of streaming services and access over ownership. The only iPod-only feature I can think about is storage in the 160 GB iPod Classic; millions of people just don’t need an iPod anymore.

For further evidence, look at Apple’s upcoming launches: iTunes Radio can be used on iPod touches connected to WiFi, but iPhones (and cellular iPads) can use it all the time.

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Pushpin 2.1 Adds iPad Support and Speed Enhancements

Pushpin

Pushpin

Pushpin already was my favorite Pinboard app on the iPhone: with a great 2.0 update that added a redesigned interface and saved feeds, Pushpin gained a spot on my Home screen as the app I would open to access the full Pinboard experience. From my review:

At $9.99, Pushpin 2.0 is a powerful Pinboard client for users who want to use Pinboard to add bookmarks, manage them, and discover new ones using the service’s (lightweight) social features. Pushpin 2.0 looks great on the Retina display, and new features like Saved Feeds, new tag filtering and suggestions, and improved web browsing strike a good balance between advanced functionality and general usability. Pushpin 2.0 can be used as your only Pinboard client on the iPhone, packing both management and browsing features, and I’m looking forward to an iPad version.

With last night’s 2.1 update, Pushpin is now optimized for the iPad and it looks just as good as the iPhone version. Navigation takes places in a main screen (not a sidebar) where you can find links to your bookmarks, community links, and saved feeds. The iPad version works out of the box with the URL scheme of the iPhone app, and the developer added support for opening links in Dolphin, which is a fine browser with direct Evernote integration (the best of its kind on the App Store).

Pushpin benefits from the increased space of the iPad’s larger screen. For one, it’s much nicer to open links in the app’s built-in web view, and tapping & holding links in the list view opens a popover that doesn’t take over the entire screen; from the popover, you can easily copy a URL, copy a link to your account, or save an item to your read later service of choice.

Alongside speed improvements and bug fixes, saved feeds have been enhanced with support for from: tags: by combining these with regular usernames and tags, you’ll be able to see, for instance, what a specific user has saved from email or Twitter favorites – the app’s changelog on iTunes contains the full list of supported from: tags for your perusal.

Pushpin is a powerful all-in-one Pinboard app, and with an iPad version I can now enjoy the same experience on all my devices (I would like the ability to sync saved feeds, though). You can get Pushpin at $9.99 on the App Store.

App Updates For iOS 7→

Craig Hockenberry:

An overwhelming number of developers were updating apps for iOS 7. Of 575 valid responses, 545 developers indicated that they were working on an update for iOS 7. That’s an adoption rate of 95%!

From what I’ve seen (and heard) so far, it looks like releasing new, paid, separate versions of apps for iOS 7 will be a common trend among developers. I think that, in most cases, it makes sense considering the major rewrite and redesign required by iOS 7 to ensure an app can be technically and visually ready by this Fall.

If we’ll end up with an App Store full of old iOS 6 apps kept for “compatibility mode” or existing customers, I believe properly showcasing iOS 7 apps will be even more necessary in the (already crowded and poorly searchable) App Store.

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BioShock Infinite Coming To OS X This Month→

Juli Clover:

BioShock Infinite, the third game in the first-person shooter series, is set to be released for the Mac on August 29 through a collaboration between Aspyr Media, developer Irrational Games, and publisher 2K Games.

Infinite is one of my favorite games of 2013 (so far). The game comes with an incredible storyline and solid action-oriented gameplay – but my favorite part remains Columbia, the city in the sky where the game takes place. Just this week, Irrational Games announced a series of DLCs for the game – the first of which, Clash in the Clouds, should be available by launch day with the Mac version. Eurogamer posted an interview with BioShock creator Ken Levine, who explained the motivation behind Clash in the Clouds and the other DLCs that will follow later this year.

BioShock Infinite will be available through Steam, the Mac App Store, and GameAgent, where pre-orders have started today.

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365 Days

Today, when I remembered that exactly one year ago I was hospitalized for 22 days for a series of treatments to save my life, I tweeted about it. And then I opened Day One.

In the app’s Calendar view, I changed the year to “2012” and, sure enough, the “August 1, 2012” entry was there, showing photos of my hospital room; my girlfriend sending a selfie from home; and a note that I wrote about the doctors being “nice”. Bits of life. A combination of old thoughts and visual memories that I still have, in some form, in my brain, but that here, in this app – right now – I can hold and directly look at. It is, indeed, far more powerful than memory alone.

It sounds so trivial because we’re used to it. It’s diary app! Of course it lets you browse old entries in a calendar, and of course it’s got search, and of course it accepts photos as attachments, and, okay, the fact that you can see old weather information is neat – but yes, it’s because of the GPS. Common technology terms for yet another app. But does it have a URL scheme? We often lose track of the magic of software.

Sometimes, on days like today, I like to appreciate the simple things of my job. The fact that somebody out there has made an app that lets me cringe at my mistakes and cherish old moments. The fact that in this very moment I can take these old photos, and send them to my parents with a comment that says, “365 days ago…how things change”.

Isn’t that amazing?