Federico Viticci

10779 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

Mac App Store Preview: QuickMark QR Code Reader

Currently waiting in Apple’s review queue and hopefully launching on the Mac App Store on January 6, QuickMark is a new app that will let your Mac “read” the increasingly popular QR codes. Thanks to the built-in iSight every Mac (which Apple is apparently rebranding as “FaceTime camera”) will be able to recognize 2D barcode images or, if a Mac doesn’t come with an iSight, load an image file and scan it. You can also create your own 2D codes, if you wish.

QuickMark’s reader is capable of doing a bunch of stuff with a correctly scanned code, too. For example, the app can follow a web link with a Mac’s default browser, send an email or add a contact to the Address Book. The app also sports a neat Skype integration as it can send SMS and make a phone call; if you don’t like making phone calls and you’re more for meeting your friends in person, the app can also navigate to a Google Maps’ specific point of interest.

QuickMark for Mac should be available in the App Store soon.

Mac App Store Preview: Tembo, A New Take On Spotlight

Coming to the Mac App Store this Thursday, Tembo is a new app from the guys behind popular OS X software like HoudahGeo and HoudahSpot that aims at providing a fast, fun and easy interface for Spotlight. Tembo will allow you to easily find music, mail messages, documents and bookmarks through a window that resembles the Spotlight UI you were used to on OS X Tiger.

Search results are grouped by categories, and you can enable, disable or reorder these categories in the app’s Preferences. A top bar for each category in the search results window will let you filter through these results already neatly organized in categories. It’s really powerful, but user-friendly at the same time. Tembo can list up to 2500 items in a single group, and can work as an extension to Mail and iChat to find messages and conversations, or Safari to search through bookmarks and history.

Tembo will be available on January 6 at $20 with a free trial available on the developers’ website.

iPhone 4 Becomes A Skateboard

On iOS, a device becomes the app it’s currently running. Are you using a calculator app? The iPhone looks like a digital calculator then. A GPS map? A TV remote? Full-screen apps can turn an iOS device into, well, anything. What about hardware accessories, though? Can a rather simple accessory like a case turn an iPhone into something else?

The Skateboard Series for iPhone 4 is a new case available on Etsy made out of laser-cut grip tape and actual wood. It looks like a mini-skateboard, only it’s an iPhone and it doesn’t have wheels. Build quality looks impressive, too.

When combined with a wood grain vinyl edge wrap this design actually gives your iPhone 4 the illusion of being a skateboard, all you need now are the wheels. The only advice we can give you is not to slide this phone against your grandma’s table because this material is very rough.

Whether or not you think the grip tape on the back of the device could make it a little harder to get it out of your pockets, this mod can be yours for only $20. Available now on Etsy. [via Reddit]

Eye Scope Adds 8x Optical Zoom To Your iPhone

If you’ve ever wished you could spy on your neighbor’s house or simply take better photos of distant objects with your iPhone (yes, we’re going to pretend your never thought of spying on people using an Apple device), you might want to consider the Eye Scope, a $45 (£29) accessory that can add 8x optical zoom to the iPhone’s lens.

Available for iPhone 3G / 3GS / 4 owners,the Eye Scope is basically a case with an attached optical lens that promises to cover 246 meters ahead of you and your iPhone. Not bad, huh? In the package, you’ll also get a tripod mount and a lens cloth to keep everything clean and well focused.

If you want to go ahead and buy it, the Eye Scope for iPhone is available on online retailer Firebox. [via Ubergizmo]

Firemint Acquires Puzzle Quest’s Infinite Interactive

Looks like iOS game company acquisitions are the new “Google has acquired”: in an unexpected turn of events, popular game studio Firemint (creators of award-winning iOS titles such as Flight Control or Real Racing) has acquired the company behind Puzzle Quest, the Infinite Interactive team. Both companies are based in Australia, and a press release went live last night to announce the deal and the fact that “Firemint is welcoming Steve Fawkner”, founder of Infinite Interactive in 1989. As you can see in the graphics above, the companies are already joking about the games that will come as a result of this acquisition, whether or not we’ll be able to put our hands on “Puzzle Control” or “Flight Quest”.

A curious detail is hidden in the press release (which we’ve embedded below): apparently, Firemint’s Rob Murray and Steve Fawkner are long-time friends, and Fawkner showed Murray an early prototype of Puzzle Quest in 2003, receiving feedback from him. Now, he will be able to get feedback on a daily basis and who knows – maybe we are really going to see a more RPG-oriented Real Racing or puzzles in Flight Control. The idea sounds awful, I know, but game designers can usually make awful ideas happen. Read more

Clickfree Unveils $249 Time Capsule Alternative

Looking for an unofficial, cheaper, black-er Time Capsule alternative? Perhaps you just don’t want your Time Capsule to die prematurely while you were just getting to love it? You’re in luck. Amongst CES fever, new gadgets and weird round-shaped televisions, Clickfree has announced a wanna-be Time Capsule competitor that’s basically a hard drive with a built-in 802.11n radio that automates backups from your Macs and PCs.

If you’re familiar with Apple’s Time Capsule, or like me you own an AirPort Extreme with an attached USB external drive, you know how it works: in your Mac’s System Preferences you set the external network drive as a Time Machine destination, and backups will happen wirelessly in the background all the time. It’s unobtrusive, smart and pretty damn awesome. Clickfree is showcasing the product at CES as we speak, and they say no software is needed to run the backup system after an initial setup. One of the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme advantages is the AirPort Utility app Apple gives you to configure almost anything in the device, so I don’t know about Clickfree’s approach. Maybe it’s one of those things that really just works without manual setup.

The Clickfree Wireless comes in two flavors: a 500 GB one that retails at $179, and a 1 TB one that can be yours at $249. [via Engadget]

Why Is Saudi Arabia Blocking MobileMe?

As noted by 9to5mac and Arabic website Apple-wd, it’s currently impossible to access MobileMe’s web interface available at www.me.com from the web browser in Saudi Arabia. Since a few hours, the webpage returns an error and a message asking if “you think the requested page should not be blocked”. No word yet from Apple on this, but apparently thousands of users in Saudi Arabia are experiencing the issue.

MobileMe’s web interface allows users to check on email accounts and calendars, contacts, iDisk and even the Find my iPhone feature, which is Apple’s tracking service for stolen or lost iOS devices. Some users are reporting that only the http:// version of Me.com is blocked, while the https:// is working just fine. Others claim both http:// and https:// are being blocked. Direct links to MobileMe’s services (me.com/mail, for example) are reportedly unavailable as well.

In October, Saudi Arabia was one of the countries that didn’t get the FaceTime functionality on the iPhone 4. As of today, it’s still unknown what the real cause of the block was.

Real Life Angry Birds: LEGO, Cake, Arcade Booth

In the past weeks, terrific App Store sales aside, we saw the Angry Birds franchise making its way to Apple Retail Stores with official cases for iPhones and iPod touches and custom MacBook Air skins realized by loyal fans of the birds and pigs. Today, we’ve got more real-life Angry Birds creations and mods to share.

First off, an Angry Birds arcade booth spotted by MIC Gadget in China which lets you defeat actual pig plush toys using a slingshot. Looks like fun, too bad I think we won’t see this become available in Europe or the US anytime soon.

Other fan-made creations found on the Internet today include a full-featured Angry Birds set made of LEGO bricks and a birthday cake for the real iOS aficionado. Great stuff, and I bet the cake was delicious.

The only downside? There’s no achievement to unlock for when you eat it. Read more

Geohot To Release Untethered iOS 4.2.1 Jailbreak?

Last week we reported Internet celebrity hacker Geohot might call his next jailbreak tool / utility rubyra1n, basing on some speculation from the domain he registered and the fact that (PS3 hacking aside) he’s been quiet in regards to the iOS jailbreak scene since the release of iOS 4.1 and limera1n.

As noted by Covering Web, it looks like the Dev Team itself knows something about Geohot’s effort to bring a proper untethered jailbreak to iOS 4.2.1. Currently, owners of jailbroken devices running the latest OS from Apple are forced to boot through redsn0w, an app for Mac and Windows that loads the iOS firmware file and allows a device to boot in “tethered” mode. This is not really convenient, and an untethered tool might simplify things a lot by letting users install Cydia and boot their iPhones and iPads normally.

A recent tweet from Musclenerd says:

I hear geohot does have an untether actually! Though not for all devices.

Take this with the proverbial grain of salt, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see Geohot coming out from his silence and release a brand new jailbreak tool for the latest version of iOS. The guy plays his own game, as seen with limera1n before.