Federico Viticci

10935 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

This Week's Sponsor:

SaneBox

Clear the Clutter, Keep What Matters.

Review: The New Day One

Day One

Day One

Twenty years from now, what will you remember?

Last week, a friend of mine found an old MP3 player in her drawer. Upon recovering the contents of the device[1], she synced its music back to her iPod nano, and then she gave it to me. It was full of songs we used to listen to years ago. If songs can be associated with certain moments or periods of your life, than that MP3 player was like a photo album in sound form. Memories. Old emotions and melodies coming back to life, not a distant echo anymore. It felt like grabbing the headphones of 16 year-old me, today, with the knowledge that those moments won’t be coming back, but the experience of someone who cherished them will.

But what do I remember?

In twenty years, I’m not sure I’ll be able to remember the songs I like today, or the faces of people that I care about now. I don’t even know if I’ll be around in twenty years. But I do know that I want to do everything I can to make sure I can get there with my own memories. We are what we know. And I want to remember.

Where the human mind can’t get, I think software can help. In the connected and post-PC era we’re living in, I believe the devices and apps we use play an important role in enabling us to create memories. But just as relevant as “content creation” has become to this discussion, we have to ensure the memories we create today will be preserved digitally for the future.

For the past few months, I have been using a new version of Day One to build an archive of my life. Released today, the new Day One goes beyond the previous version’s support for text entries and adds photos, location, and weather information in an app that, for me, has become more than a simple journaling utility.

Developed by Bloom, Day One went through a remarkable evolution to get to the major updates published today. Last year, I took a look at the app and noted how it was helping me build an “archive of my thoughts” thanks to its simple and elegant interface:

There’s one thing I never really considered storing in a digital archiving app — memories. I’m talking about things like “what did I enjoy doing today” or “I decided to take a walk with my girlfriend” — specific moments that matter in life, that are important, but which our brains often blur and forget after some time to make room for new data to process and maintain.

And then again:

I try to enjoy every moment, but there’s so much the human brain can remember and it’s perfectly normal if something will get lost in the process of assimilating thoughts and processing them to turn them into memories and experiences.

If 2011 Day One was the TextEdit of memories, the new Day One is their Evernote. With support for photo attachments, location data, and improvements to sync and Mountain Lion, today’s Day One wants to overcome the limitations of text to become the window into your past life.

Day One is visual memories. Read more

Apple: About Power Nap→

Apple: About Power Nap

Last week, Apple published a support document that provides more details on Power Nap, the technology Apple introduced with OS X Mountain Lion to manage certain updates even when a Mac is asleep.

Firstly, Apple notes that, aside from the features explained on the OS X webpage and the System Preferences app, Power Nap also supports Spotlight Indexing and Help Center updates when a Mac is plugged into an AC outlet. The “other iCloud updates” mentioned in Power Nap’s settings include Find My Mac, so you’ll be able to track a Mac’s location even with its lid closed; VPN connections (with certificates) for corporate email and configuration profile updates are supported as well.

Power Nap can be rather confusing for new users, as all of its capabilities aren’t fully explained in System Preferences and the Help Center. Apple’s document also details the frequency of Power Nap updates, so make sure to check it out here. [via @applespotlight]

Permalink

Safari 6.0 and Google Search URLs→

Safari 6.0 and Google Search URLs

Brent Simmons writes about the lack of URLs for Google searches in Safari 6.0:

I asked on Twitter. One way is to drag the magnifying glass into whatever text I’m editing. Another way would be a bookmarklet that gets the current page location. A third way would be an AppleScript script.

I ended up writing a Python script.

From my Mountain Lion review:

That said, there is one aspect to the new smart search field I don’t care for: it no longer displays Google Search URLs after you’ve used it to search for something. So if you want to share a direct link to a Google Search, you’ll need to copy it from the share sheet in either Messages or Mail.

In fiddling with Keyboard Maestro, I built a super-quick macro that grabs the URL of the frontmost Safari window through AppleScript. You can download the macro here, or check out the AppleScript itself if you want to create a system Service with Automator.

As pointed out by user @jaydisc on Twitter, some Apple apps on Mountain Lion can receive the copied search terms as clickable URLs in rich text format. In my tests, only Mail was able to receive search terms in RTF and, apparently, this is a known bug.

Permalink

Mac App Store: “Not Too Soon To Be Concerned”→

Mac App Store: “Not Too Soon To Be Concerned”

Following Marco Arment’s recent thoughts on the Mac App Store and the consequent debates on the future of Apple’s storefront, Macworld’s Lex Friedman talked to some third-party developers to have a better understanding of the issue.

On one hand, Arment says:

The iOS App Store’s restrictions work (“for the most part”), Arment says, “because the platform has grown around them. They mostly don’t get in the way. But on the Mac, the App Store policies are being retrofitted into a well-established environment that they’re fairly incompatible with.

I agree. As I’ve written before, the problem is that Apple let certain apps into the Mac App Store, and is now forcing developers to rethink their strategies. This has effects on those developers’ business, and the customers.

On the other hand, though, it’s important to keep in mind the advantages of the Mac App Store. James Thomson from TLA Systems says:

We’ve had PCalc in the Mac App Store since it opened, and we’ve seen noticeably higher sales from the App Store than through other channels. So, from a visibility and ease of purchase point of view, it would seem that [the Mac App Store is] a success.

Visibility and higher sales are often mentioned by developers as the reasons behind the need to stay on the App Store. But customers, too, like some aspects of the Mac App Store and, it turns out, Sandboxing. As written by Joe Macirowski:

When you think about it, the apps that don’t get along with sandboxing are doing things I now realize I don’t want my apps doing.

Ultimately, it comes down to trusting the developers you install apps from. Maybe Joe doesn’t like the fact that, theoretically, TextExpander could log every keystroke; personally, I trust the guys at Smile to be providers of a great tool for productivity, and not criminals.

As Neven Mrgan wrote, “it’s good for us Mac users that we don’t have to limit ourselves to apps from the Mac App Store”. However, it’s not good for developers that the Mac App Store can’t be trusted for the long term, and that’s not good for Apple either.

Clark is proposing an interesting solution for the future: subscriptions.

It’s becoming clear that the Mac App Store (MAS) is targeting casual software the way the iOS store (IAS) does. This means that, much like traditional pop music through the end of the 20th century, you’ll have a few hits that make most of the money. The problem is how to make money outside of that pop software market.

For my thoughts on Apple, the Mac App Store, and third-party software, read the “Mountain Lion and the Power User” section in my Mountain Lion Review.

It’s too early to tell how the issues mentioned above (sandboxing restrictions, Gatekeeper’s existence, Mac App Store vs. third-party sources) will play out in the long term. We shouldn’t ignore them either: some developers are currently struggling to keep their apps on the Mac App Store, and others are figuring out their own solutions to implement features that Apple demands remain exclusive to it. While the power user will always know how to work around Apple’s default settings, ignoring the complaints and doubts from the developer community would still be shortsighted. Instead, we should consider these issues, reflect on the questions developers pose, and hope that Apple is listening.

As usual, I prefer to wait and see what happens.

Permalink

iCloud and Schools→

iCloud and Schools

Bradley Chambers thinks iCloud should have better support for the education market:

Now you may be saying that personal iCloud accounts is just the way it is and get over it. In the iOS 3 and 4 days, we said the same thing about managing iPads. Apple has DRAMATICALLY improved this process. In iOS 5, they released a lot of MDM (Mobile Device Management) APIs and they also released Apple Configurator. Apple Configurator made it a lot easier to work with the Volume Purchase Program. It also dramatically improved the work flow for loading apps and settings onto iPads in bulk. This was a breath of fresh air for schools with even a few iPads.

Apple has made serious improvements to volume purchase programs and device management in the past few years, so I guess that with iCloud, they simply need more time. Still, this has been a real concern for educators and IT since last June.

Apple is thinking about iCloud in education, but they haven’t made significant improvements recently. For The iPad Project, Fraser Speirs noted how iTunes U supported iCloud sync for notes, albeit with standard individual Apple ID management.

Primarily, this is another nail in the coffin of the “shared Apple ID” deployment model that we’ve been using up until now. If you have multiple pupils and devices all using the same Apple ID, you’re going to get sync issues all over the place. Pupils’ notes will intermingle, their read/unread statuses will get mixed up. It will be a hot mess.

Permalink

EverClip and EverWebClipper 2.0

EverWebClipper

EverWebClipper

Earlier this month I reviewed EverWebClipper, an iOS app to quickly beam webpages and URLs to your Evernote account using a bookmarklet in Safari. I wrote:

Where EverWebClipper really wins over Evernote’s standard clipper (not optimized for mobile and terrible to use in Safari) is the actual clipping process. It’s entirely automated: you can install a bookmarklet in Safari and save webpages with one tap. This happens thanks to the app’s Automation settings, which enable you to tap on the bookmarklet, and have Safari automatically return in the foreground while EverWebClipper completes the saving process. You can return to Safari “immediately” or “after clipping” — if you choose immediately, the app will send a local notification when it’s done clipping.

Yesterday, EverWebClipper received a major update to version 2.0, which adds some powerful new functionalities to the app, including the possibility to clip multiple pages one after the other without waiting for completion. With a new Tasks area in the bottom tab bar, EverWebClipper now lists tasks (clippings) that have been completed (and thus sent to Evernote) and those that are still running. Once clipped, the app will display an ambient notification, or fire off a local notification if you’re not inside the app.

More importantly, the new support for multiple clippings is also reflected in the app’s own engine: EverWebClipper now comes with a background monitoring option that allows you to clip links or HTML content (text) without switching to the app. Using iOS’ own background monitoring API (which lets third-party apps run a background process for roughly 10 minutes), the app will detect any “copy” command and ask you if you want to clip that content by tapping on a notification. You can ignore the notification and the copied content won’t be clipped, or you can tap on it and EverWebClipper will perform as usual. This option is pretty neat – the obvious limitation, though, is that it can’t run in the background all time, so, eventually, you’ll have to go back to the app, either by launching it or using the bookmarklet.

EverWebClipper

EverWebClipper

I think EverWebClipper 2.0 is a great update – I only wish that it handled copied URLs and HTML better in the title field: right now, it uses “Untitled” and “Copied HTML”, which isn’t really convenient in Evernote.

Last week, I was also recommended to check out EverClip, a similar application that can send text, photos, and clippings to Evernote. Unlike EverWebClipper, EverClip doesn’t come with a bookmarklet, which is a fairly big downside for my workflow. The app only works with a background monitoring system: it runs in the background for up to 10 minutes, theoretically looking for things you copy to store it in its own clipboard, ready for uploading to Evernote. In actual usage, the app failed to grab text or images I copied on multiple occasions, but at least it played a sound effect when I hit “Copy” inside other apps.

EverClip

EverClip

EverClip

EverClip

EverClip isn’t as automated and immediate as EverWebClipper – in fact, you’ll have to manually upload items to Evernote with a Send button. You can add tags and titles to keep notes organized, but on iOS, I’m looking for a fast clipper, rather than another Evernote organizer (for that purpose, I think the Evernote app is pretty good).

There are two things I like about EverClip: it can merge multiple clippings in a single note, and it’s got a URL scheme for Launch Center. The first option is very welcome and I think more apps should adopt it, the second one is nice to have, but it doesn’t support Launch Center’s clipboard and input prompts yet (therefore making it kind of useless right now).

EverClip is $1.99 on the App Store, and I’m looking forward to future updates.

Browsing Instagram and Facebook Photos with Cooliris

Cooliris iPad

Cooliris iPad

Formerly known as PicLens, I used to rely on Cooliris years ago to browse images and slideshows on the Internet in a more visual interface. Resembling a virtual wall with great focus on large, neatly arranged thumbnails for web content, Cooliris has always been one of the most interesting experiments in terms of browser integration and overall presentation. For the past few days I have been using Cooliris’ latest iteration, a universal app for iOS, and I am quite impressed with the results.

Cooliris also developed Discover, a Wikipedia app for iPad that turned articles into magazine-like layouts. The standalone (and free) Cooliris application is a new take on the old browser plugin, but it shares the same attention to detail and care for interface design of Discover.

Cooliris has always been about browsing photos, and this new iOS version is no exception, only it’s a more modern app that takes into account the changes that have happened to social photo sharing on the Internet in the past years. Read more

Chuck Skoda’s September 2012 Rumor Roundup→

Chuck Skoda’s September 2012 Rumor Roundup

Speaking of Apple’s rumored event for September 12, Chuck Skoda has posted a good roundup of products and updates Apple could be working on.

We’re still months out, but I see Apple’s fall announcements shaping up to be substantial. Tim Cook finished off the new iPad announcement with the words “across the year, you’re going to see a lot more of this kind of innovation, we are just getting started.” Since then, we’ve seen a new Retina MacBook Pro as well as some moderate updates across the MacBook line. But Cook seemed to really be driving home that this year has a lot in store.

The last event that was so heavily rumored to set the stage for several product releases was WWDC. While many predictions before June 2012 didn’t quite turn out to be true, Apple didn’t disappoint either.

Permalink