Federico Viticci

10775 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

Cloud Connect for iOS Gets 3.0 Update, Brings Finder Integration

When it comes to remotely accessing your computer, AirPort Extreme station, FTP, Dropbox or WebDAV servers, Cloud Connect Pro is a staff favorite here at MacStories. Not only the app provides a full-featured solution to connect to all kinds of machines, servers and online services, it also offers a neat way to browse files and media in a Finder-like view for iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. We have covered the app a few times in the past, and I was impressed when Antacea managed to port the whole tablet experience to the iPhone.

The latest 3.0 update, however, makes things look much better with some UI refinements, a new audio player, a proper PDF viewer and some stability enhancements. The app retains all the functionalities of the previous versions, but introduces some welcome features and little touches throughout the whole package that add a new layer of accessibility, communication with iOS built-in tools, and more. For example, Cloud Connect 3.0 can directly play music stored in the iPod.app library, or visualize photos and videos from the camera roll. Songs can be sent to the new audio player’s playlist, which sits at the bottom of the app and displays album artwork, a list of songs waiting in the queue, as well as an AirPlay button to beam music to external speakers. Speaking of which, gone is the hideous Mac-like dock, leaving room for a more minimal bar of icons. Browsing files and folders in Cloud Connect has been improved, too: alongside the (great) column view, the developers have implemented icon-based navigation to tap your way around the filesystem. What’s cool is that you can switch between views with a tap in the toolbar, and a new button in the column view allows you to bookmark, copy, download & compress or delete any file or folder. On top of that, this new version allows you to browse songs and media from the camera roll using your Mac’s Finder by connecting to the “iPad” device under the Shared tab once Cloud Connect is running. This is by far the easiest way to import photos and music off an iOS device and onto an OS X machine I’ve tried, with Cloud Connect acting as a bridge between the two. It works great.

The app could still use some UI polish (I personally can’t stand those blue and grey tones), but I can see why Antacea decided to focus on adding and refining features for now. The lack of a serious PDF viewer, for example, was a major disappointment in Cloud Connect 1.0: the new PDF viewer introduced in version 3.0 is quite fast and responsive, lets you create bookmarks and search for text within a document.

Other features in Cloud Connect 3.0 include Google Picasa support, possibility to use a Mac or PC as a gateway to connect to other Easy Connect computers, and RDP for HP printers only. At $24.99 in the App Store, Cloud Connect doesn’t come cheap but it’s powerful, easy to use and works both on the iPhone and iPad. The app keeps getting better on each release, and I’m looking forward to some serious design improvements in the next version. For now though, Cloud Connect surely is one of the best ways to manage your remote and local connections. Read more

Shine Is A Beautiful Weather App for iPhone

If you’ve found yourself struggling to find the perfect weather app that looks great and it’s packed with functionalities at the same time, you might want to take a look at Shine, the latest entry in the weather software panorama that, at $0.99 in the App Store, provides a neat way to check on your current location’s weather, forecasts, temperature and wind speed. Shine wants to keep things simple, and for someone like me who’s no weather expert at all, the promise of offering readable weather data in a beautiful and intuitive design sounds like a major selling point, especially considering the price of one buck.

The app’s main screen lets you see your location’s weather conditions at a glance. Current weather is displayed above in a large calendar-like view with temperature, icon and wind speed, whilst a today / tonight / tomorrow forecast is embedded below with the same stats. You can assign multiple locations in the settings, and re-fetch your location by tapping on the crosshair icon in the top right. Switching between locations is as easy as sliding your finger on the location bar on top. Another feature of Shine is the extended forecast view you get by pulling up the screen with a verticals swipe; the only problem is, the app seems to be US-centric in the way it gets weather information – it relies on SimpleGeo and the National Weather service, and I wasn’t able to get forecasts or correct wind speeds in Italy. Perhaps the developers should implement Yahoo Weather data or something else to make sure Shine works across countries outside the United States.

As it stands now, Shine is a simple, beautiful weather experiment that I’m sure works perfectly in the US, but lacks the necessary data to be a hit internationally. Perhaps the developers will fix this in a future update (I sure hope so), so if you live in the US and have $0.99 to spend, give it a try. Otherwise, wait for an update.

Seagate Announces Portable Wireless Hard Drive for iOS Devices

With all the recent talks about MobileMe and the cloud, it’s easy to forget most users still don’t have access to fast and reliable Internet connections that would allow them to stream their entire music library, movies and photos off the web. Whilst streaming is undoubtedly the future of media consumption (just look at the Apple TV, Google Music Beta, Netflix, or Spotify), managing media locally still plays an important role, especially for iPhone and iPad owners who are forced to keep everything organized into iTunes, and sync. Seagate wants to become the new middle man in this scenario, and with the official announcement of the GoFlex Satellite this morning, it looks like they have a chance to provide a better solution for many users.

The GoFlex Satellite is an external portable 500 GB drive that’s got a wireless connection and can stream content up to 3 connected devices at once. It’s got a built-in battery with 25 hours of promised life, and can stream 5 hours of continuous movie content. It works with iPhones and iPads through the GoFlex Media app, but Seagate says it’ll also be compatible with other WiFi-enabled devices and it will be accessible on a local network from a web browser. The portable drive, offering way more storage than an high-end iPhone or iPad, is clearly meant to carry all your music and HD movies around, bridging the gap between local storage and streaming. So while you’ll have to carry yet another gadget in your bag, at least no cable will be required to beam content to iOS. Most of all, music and movies won’t need to br synced locally to an iPhone or iPad; on the other hand, media can be transferred from your Mac or PC to the GoFlex Satellite with a USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 compatible) cable and the Media Sync desktop software.

With the growth of the tablet and iPad markets and the larger volumes of high-quality media now being consumed, there is a clear need for access to content that is not plagued with the challenges of streamed video over the Internet,” said Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of Seagate’s retail group. “The unfortunate fact is that these popular new mobile devices are hampered by their limited storage capacity while one of their primary functions is that of media consumption.

“With the GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage, we wished to create an elegant solution that provides real value to the multitude of iPad users out there by delivering a seamless connection to local storage. No longer will a consumer feel as though it is a compromise to purchase a lower capacity tablet or iPad. With GoFlex Satellite, people will be able to carry their entire media library with them without the need for wires or the web at a fraction of the cost of adding 3G or purchasing or a higher capacity tablet.

In spite of non-exceptional battery life (5 hours of video doesn’t sound exactly great, considering I like to watch my Lost episodes one after the other), I think this is a great idea, and I’m definitely looking forward to the product. The GoFlex Satellite ships this summer, and it’s available for pre-order now at $199.99 from Seagate.com, Amazon and BestBuy.com.

Castlerama Takes On Epic Citadel with Unreal Engine for iOS

If you were one of those who followed or watched Apple’s September 1, 2010 media event – where, among other things, iOS 4.1 and Game Center were officially unveiled – then you most definitely remember Epic Games’ Mike Capps and Steve Jobs talking about a revolutionary game that would set new technical standards on iOS devices. The game was based on the popular Unreal Engine ported to iOS, and on stage it was presented as a work-in-progress demo called Epic Citadel, also released for free on the App Store. The demo was impressive: there was nothing to do besides wandering around a medieval village, but the graphics, the lightning and the details were impressive. Tech-wise, everything about Epic Citadel was amazing. And as you may know, the game evolved and eventually became a real adventure with a plot and sword fights: Infinity Blade, based off the Unreal Engine and Epic Citadel’s first-person setting, was a huge success on iPhones and iPads.

As the story goes, however, other developers have tried to implement the Unreal Engine powerful set of tools in their games. The latest entry in the Unreal Engine-based game market is Castlerama by the Codenrama development studio, a first-person game with a striking resemblance to Epic Citadel and its environment. Castlerama seems to offer different landscapes though, as well as its own control scheme based on two virtual analog sticks displayed on screen.

The developers also explain their decision to accept “compromises” in order to make the game run on new devices like the iPad 2 and older units like the iPhone 3GS:

While developing Castlerama, we had to face the fact that newer devices such as iPhone4s and iPad2s are very different from their predecessors, iPhone3GSs and iPads, in that the former have twice as much memory. In order to have the app run on all devices, we had to compromise quite a bit, pushing the old devices to their limits (risking crash if other applications are left running) while keeping the new devices well behind their capabilities. In the future we believe we will have to develop two versions for each application.

Castlerama is available for free in the App Store as a universal download. With more games supporting the Unreal Engine coming out in the near future, it’ll be interesting to see how Castlerama will manage to provide a unique experience for iPhone and iPad owners. In the meantime, check out the app’s demo video and a walk down the Epic Citadel memory lane below. [9to5mac via TouchArcade]
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iPhone 5 Parts Confirm New Camera Flash Position?

Following this morning’s purported case design for the “iPhone 5G” that seemed to suggest the next-generation device would relocate the rear-facing camera flash to opposite side of the lens, 9to5mac points to leaked iPhone 5 parts posted by well-sourced website Apple.Pro [Google Translation] which indeed show a rear camera lens with no Flash attached.

The alleged parts, posted alongside old iPhone 4 camera components, show a redesigned internal front-facing lens, as well as a different rear-facing module lacking the flash part found on the iPhone 4. While it’s impossible to tell any improvements on the cameras from these photos alone, Apple.pro does seem to confirm today’s “crystal case” for the iPhone 5 with a relocated camera flash on the back panel.

Apple.pro also posted a mockup of what the iPhone 5 with a different camera flash would look like:

“iPhone 5G” Case Suggests Thinner Bezel, New Camera Flash Placement

As noted by GadgetsDNA (via MacRumors), a new case design surfaced on e-commerce website Alibaba seems to suggest a new camera flash placement for the next generation iPhone, as well as a thinner bezel with an horizontal edge-to-edge display design. The case points to the new iPhone model as “iPhone 5G”, contradicting a recent report that claimed Apple was working on an iPhone 4S, sharing the same industrial design of the curent-gen iPhone 4.

1.100% brand new high quality crystal case for iphone 5g .

2. Provides a comfortable grip, added protection against accidental drops .

3. Perfectly fits the iPhone 5g, easy to insert and remove .

4. Unique design allows easy access to all buttons, controls & ports without having to remove the case.

5. Durable and Beautiful design

The case has a slot for the camera flash on the opposite side of the lens, which is rumored to receive an upgrade for the iPhone Apple will likely unveil in September. As far as theories about the larger display go, a report from This Is My Next in April claimed Apple was working on a completely redesigned iPhone with a “teardrop design”, a larger display, a new Home button, and worldphone capabilities. It’s worth noting, however, that former Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky (now writing for This Is My Next) also said the iPad 2 would get an SD slot and an higher resolution screen – features that weren’t implemented by Apple in the final product. Several rumors in the past months suggested Apple could release a redesigned iPhone 5 with a larger screen, NFC compatibility and a tweaked Home button design, but recently multiple sources and analysts close to “people familiar with Apple’s plans” seem to believe the next-generation iPhone will launch in September with a design similar to the iPhone 4, and upgrades to the CPU, RAM, and rear-facing camera lens.

Apple Offers Free iOS and Mac Repairs Following Japan Disaster

[image via]

As noted by TUAW, Apple has started offering free repairing services for iOS devices, Macs and Cinema Displays damaged during the Japan earthquake and tsunami in March. The list of supported devices is available here [Google Translation] and includes any Mac model, Apple Cinema Displays, iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. Customers who live in the municipalities listed in the Disaster Relief Act of 2011 can apply to the free repairing service.

Following the earthquake and tsunami, Apple offered its support to victims and staff multiple times. Most notably, a story from an Apple employee in Japan described how the company allowed  customers, employees and regular people to find shelter inside the Apple Stores, using the power lines to recharge their computers and in-store Macs to connect iPhones and iPads. The company then set up a special page in the iTunes Store to donate to the American Red Cross for the Japan relief fund. Apple CEO Steve Jobs also sent a letter to all Apple Employees a few days after the disaster.

Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 5 Released

Alongside an update to Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview, Apple also released a new build of Xcode 4.1 to developers. Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 5 is available now for download in the Mac Dev Center, and requires the installation of Lion Developer Preview 3, released through Software Update.

This is a pre-release version of Xcode 4.1 for both Mac and iOS development. This release requires Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3 and includes iOS SDK 4.3.

The first build of Xcode 4.1 was released in February after the first Lion Developer Preview, with new builds following the release of Lion Developer Preview updates.

Apple Releases Lion Developer Preview 3

Apple just released a new OS X Lion Developer Preview. The update weighs at around 1.07 GB and it’s available now in the Software Update control panel. It is recommended for all users running Lion DP 2, and Apple’s Mac Dev Center seems to confirm the new build is indeed Lion Developer Preview 3, although the direct link on the Dev Center still goes back to Lion Developer Preview 2. It appears Apple is now seeding Lion DP update only via Software Update.

Mac OS  X Lion Developer Preview 3 is now available via Software Update for systems running developer preview 2 update 2.

 

In the past weeks, Apple released via Software Update two updates for Lion Developer Preview 2; these latest updates to Lion DP 2 are needed in order to install Developer Preview 3 through Software Update. Read more