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

Is Rubyra1n Geohot’s Next Jailbreak Tool?

Soon, we may be able to jailbreak our devices with a new tool from hacker / developer all-star George Hotz (a.k.a. Geohot) called Rubyra1n. As noted by Redmond Pie, the domain rubyra1n.com seems to be registered by George Hotz with the same credentials of blackra1n.com, another jailbreak tool Hotz released last year. The new rubyra1n, however, doesn’t share the same data with limera1n.com – an app released in October to jailbreak iOS 4.1.

Of course there is no confirmation Geohot is planning to use this domain for an upcoming jailbreak tool, but we wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him coming out with his own iOS 4.2.1 untethered jailbreak for all devices. In the meantime, check out the domain records below and let the speculation begin. Read more

Angry Birds Maker: “Apple Will Be Number One For A Long Time”

Peter Vesterbacka, the “mighty eagle” at Rovio, thinks Apple is going to sit at the number one spot of mobile platforms for a long time. Angry Birds is, quite possibly, the most successful game that has ever landed in the App Store: more than 50 millions of copies sold, an equally popular iPad version that has been recently updated, a rumored sequel already in the works which will feature a “pig point of view”, Angry Birds cases at Apple Store. If that’s not enough, Rovio is launching its own pig-based mobile payment system.

Yes, true story. Read more

Apple Launches “New Year, New You” App Store Section

iTunes Connect went back online a few hours ago, and app updates started propagating again in iTunes. Together with the end of the “holiday shutdown” for iOS developers, Apple launched a new App Store section called “New Year, New You” to showcase apps “for health and wealth”.

The new section, though, isn’t limited at apps for fitness and health. Apple apparently has a broader view of new year’s resolutions, and decided to included productivity and entertainment apps in the list. For example, you can find apps such as OmniFocus and Things in there, Instapaper and Mortgage Pad, TED and Fitness for iPad. It’s a whole selection of great apps to start 2011 with a perfect app library on your iOS devices.

We think it’s a good idea. Check out the new section here.

QuickCursor Brings Text Editors To Other Apps - Coming To The Mac App Store

Coming soon to the Mac App Store (which opens for business on January 6), QuickCursor is a new utility by HogBay Software (WriteRoom, PlainText) which will help you write text in any Mac app using your favorite text editor.

Say you’re composing a new message in Gmail through Safari, or writing down a long note attached to a task in OmniFocus; wouldn’t it be great to use your favorite text editor instead of an app’s standard text field? QuickCursor will do just that: as you can see in the demo video on HogBay’s website, with a keyboard shortcut you’ll be able to fire up your text editor of choice, write, close it and have the changes saved in the app you were using in the first place, like Gmail.

QuickCursor will work with a variety of text editors including the popular Espresso, WriteRoom and TextMate. We don’t know if the app will be available on January 6th for the Mac App Store grand opening, but we’re surely looking forward to it.

CNN: Antennagate Biggest Tech Fail of 2010 (Ping’s In There, Too)

It was June, summer was about to start, we just bought our shiny new iPhone 4s…and the Internet went crazy about what eventually got the name of “Antennagate”. You remember this story. The “weak spot” of the iPhone 4 which, due to a new antenna design, can make the device lose signal when you’re holding it in a specific way. Again, this is not something we’re going to forget easily. Perhaps one day we’ll tell our grandkids “I was there”. Whatever.

Still, CNN thought it was time to bring the whole Antennagate thing to the surface again and name it the biggest tech fail of 2010. We tried to bury Cupertino’s most favorite scandal deep down in our minds; CNN makes it clear that 2010 in tech was all about Antennagate:

First Apple said the problem didn’t exist. Then they said it was a software issue. Then they kind-of admitted it existed and gave away free cases to help. Then, they said it doesn’t really exist anymore and stopped giving away the bumpers. Months later, the problem is all but forgotten and the phones show no sign of dipping in popularity. So “fail,” in this case, is a pretty relative term.

Antennagate is not alone in the chart, though. 3D TVs made the list as well (seriously, I haven’t seen one or heard of a single friend of mine who bought / considered buying one) together with the Nexus One, the Microsoft Kin, Facebook’s privacy issues and the Gawker media security breach. Looking back, it looks like we had a great 2010 full of interesting tech stories and theories.

There’s only one sad point: Ping is, again, listed as one of the fails of 2o10. I feel bad for Ping: no one likes it. It just needs…a little bit of everything.

App Store Updates Are Back, Camera+ Sells Over 78,000 Copies On Christmas Day

In case you missed it, iTunes Connect is back online. The web interface that allows developers to submit apps, updates and price changes went down on December 23 for the so-called “holiday shutdown” which didn’t freeze the App Store charts as many believed, but still made it impossible for developers to submit apps and users to find updates in iTunes. iTunes Connect went back online a few hours ago, and app updates are now showing up in iTunes and propagating through the App Store. Read more

Apple Selling Beatles Gift Cards So You’ll Never Forget

They may be gone from Apple’s homepage, but they hold a strong presence in every international Apple Store. The Beatles are such a big deal for Apple they decided to produce dedicated iTunes gift cards for them, as noted by iLounge. After the iPad gift cards and the iBooks ones, the Beatles-themed iTunes cards come in two different flavors: a $149 one that features the band on a white background and should give you access to “The Beatles Box Set” and a standard $50 one which appears to be a regular iTunes card to buy anything you want.

By the way, I almost forgot “the day I would never forget” was more than a month ago. You know, it’s hard to keep track of everything.

8mm For iPhone Applies Vintage Effects to Videos In Real-Time

Hipstamatic is one of the most popular iPhone apps in the App Store: not only it’s a great app with a cool camera-like interface and tons of filters, films and flashes to choose from, it has also been named “iPhone App of the Year” by Apple and journalists at the New York Times use it. Hipstamatic is the closest thing to having an old analog camera on your iPhone. Some say it’s overly designed and too complicated for the average users, I think the results and popularity of the software speak by themselves.

Then again, Hipstamatic (and other apps that apply cool effects to photos like Instagram or Camera+) is for photos.  8mm Vintage Camera by Nexvio is a new app that can apply vintage film effects to videos, all in real-time through the iPhone’s rear and front-facing cameras. Read more

Dock Spaces Brings Multiple Docks to OS X - Review & Giveaway

By default, OS X allows you to set up one and only one dock on your machine. Many users keep their dock at the bottom, with all the apps installed on their computer, some prefer to keep it hidden with only the most used apps – others keep it on the left. The dock is one of the most recognizable features of the Mac, the tool that lets you access your application with just a click. But the default dock doesn’t come with all the customization features offered by Patrick Chamelo’s Dock Spaces.

Dock Spaces, recently updated to version 4.0, enables you to set up multiple and customized docks depending on what kind of dock you need at any given time. Just like other apps like Hyperspaces let you create multiple spaces with different preferences, Dock Spaces is a tweak that comes as a preference panel which you can use to switch between different, contextual docks. Say you’re working on Photoshop and together with that you need easy access to other apps for graphic design: you can create a dock with all those apps, other than your “default” OS X dock. Basing on this same concept, you can set up as many docks as you want for all the different contexts and situations you’re going to use your computer. Read more