Federico Viticci

10878 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

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HP Believes In AirPrint: 6 More Printers Now iOS-Ready

As noted by MacRumors, HP issued a firmware update last night to extend AirPrint support (which as you may remember, used to work only on certain HP printers still listed on Apple’s website) to 6 more of its Officejet printers.

Thus, AirPrint is now compatible out of the box with the following models:

  • Officejet 6500A e-AiO5
  • Officejet 6500A Plus e-AiO5
  • Officejet 7500A Wide Format e-AiO5
  • Officejet Pro 8500A e-AiO5
  • Officejet Pro 8500A Plus e-AiO5
  • Officejet Pro 8500A Premium e-AiO5

AirPrint used to work on any printer shared through a Mac or PC in a local network in the first OS X 10.6.6 developer betas. As 10.6.6 went public, Apple pulled the feature and made AirPrint compatible only with selected HP printers.

A few hacks have surfaced to bring the functionality back, but Steve Jobs promised Apple’s working on making AirPrint better, although they need more time to achieve stable and fast driverless printing.

First Apple Store Now A Cult For “Appleheads”

Apple’s got more than 200 retail stores worldwide now, and those stores are usually crowded with people checking out iPads, iPhones and MacBooks. Most of all, people who go to the Apple Store sometimes just want the customer care and experience granted by the super-trained Apple employees – this is true in the US, Europe, China, everywhere.

Yet, even a tech giant like Apple started small and iterated from there. The first Apple Store, opened in May 19, 2001 in the 30-year old Glendale Galleria in California has become a cult destination for Apple fans (or, “Appleheads”) in the United States, Reuters reports. Read more

MacStories’ 2010 Roundup: Top 5 iOS Music Apps

Welcome to MacStories’ 2010 Roundup! In this new series, we collect the best apps released in 2010 for the Mac, iPhone and iPad – apps we have probably already featured here on MacStories. Only the best apps, both free and paid. Apps you shouldn’t miss.

Apple’s iPod app for the iPhone and iPad is simple, effective and pretty to look at, but sometimes I want more from my music. I want up-to-date information about the artists I’m listening to, I want to discover new songs without having to search Google – I want something different than a list of music synced from my hard drive. If music’s an experience, than I want a digital music experience on iOS.

In this post, first of the MacStories 2010 Roundup series, we have collected the top 5 apps to listen to music released this year. We think they are great apps you should go install right now. We could have included more, but we wanted to bring the best of the best to your attention, not just the “pretty good” ones.

So jump after the break, and check our Top 5 list of music apps for iOS. We heard it’s also possible to listen to The Beatles with them. Read more

Gorillaz Will Release Their iPad Album For Free On Christmas

Remember when Damon Albarn announced the upcoming Gorillaz album had been entirely recorded and produced on his iPad? Well, he wasn’t joking. Not at all. The Blur & “The Good, the Bad & the Queen” frontman, cartoon band Gorillaz all-star and, you guessed it, producer and songwriter told the Courier Mail that the album is real, it’s coming out for free on Christmas, and a music video will be released on Christmas Eve.

Seems like Gorillaz fans are going to have a great time come Christmas this year: Albarn wanted to make sure that people knew the album was entirely recorded on the tablet, with no studio equipment being used to realize it. We do wonder, though, how mixing and mastering was done on the iPad.

I wanted to make sure that it came out at the end of the tour because I don’t want anyone to think I’d tampered with it.

We believe you, Damon. We’ll be waiting for the album to show up on our MacBooks under the Christmas tree. And if the results will be poor and not as great as Plastic Beach, hey – you still have a Country House to spend your retirement days hiding from the angry fans. [via]

Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift Now Available - Free and Universal

Even if we don’t talk games much, we have our favorite gems from the App Store. Cut the Rope, addictive puzzle game by ZeptoLab, is surely one of them: available both on the iPhone and iPad featuring beautiful and colorful graphics, in CtR you’ll have to literally “cut ropes” to let a tiny frog reach candies. Something like that. Still, it’s addictive, and that should be enough.

ZeptoLab today released a Christmas-themed version of the app, which features new levels and a “new stocking feature”. Most of all, the app is available for free in the App Store and it’s universal. It’s a great deal offered by publisher Chillingo you sure can’t miss, so head over the App Store and download it now.

With all the games released this week (Infinity Blade, anyone?), Cut the Rope is another little masterpiece to add to your weekend game list.

Dropkick: Simple To-Do List App With Cloud Sync

You know we love OmniFocus here at MacStories, and we just can’t get enough of the possibilities offered by OmniGroup’s powerful GTD software. I understand, however, that GTD is not for everyone. Some people are looking forward to having a simple system on their mobile devices and computers, an app to enter tasks in a list and that’s it. Sounds like a solid and affordable plan, right? With only one major problem,though: sync.

People looking for such a simple system would also like to be able to effortlessly sync their tasks in the cloud. As far as I know, there’s no good and simple app that lets you enter tasks on the iPhone, have them backed up online, and find them again in another simple and minimal app on the desktop. If there’s one, please let me know in the comments.

Still, Dropkick is here to solve this problem: it’s a minimal and elegant application that lets you a) enter tasks and b) sync them to all your devices. That’s really it. Read more

Real Racing 2: Coming On December 16th At $9.99, We Can’t Wait

A few minutes ago Firemint announced the full details behind Real Racing 2, the sequel to the popular racing game that came out on the iPhone and iPad earlier this year. The game is coming next Thursday, on December 16th, and it will be available for $9.99 in the App Store.

Real Racing 2 will feature 30 officially licensed cars with a new career mode that will grant you over 10 hours of gameplay, a 16 player online gaming (no other iOS game did this before, I think), 5 game modes and 15 different locations. There will be Game Center integration and you will be able to see vehicle damage in real time (finally), 5 different camera angles and several control modes.

Real Racing 2 basically looks like a huge sequel, and a must-have for iOS users. The online multiplayer sounds fantastic, and the screenshots posted by Firemint are simply delicious.

Check out a trailer below. Read more

Apple Engineer Re-Builds 2,000 Year Old Computer With Lego

If you’re looking for the perfect way to begin your geek weekend, look no further than the video below. If the screenshot we posted above doesn’t tell you much about what you’re going to see, here’s the gist: an Apple engineer, Andrew Carol, has recreated a 2,000 year old Greek mechanism – widely regarded as the world’s first “computer” – using his 1,500 Lego Technic blocks.

The computer goes by the name of Antikythera Mechanism, and it’s an ancient computer made of mechanical parts Greeks used to calculate “with unprecedented accuracy” astronomical positions and celestial events. Now the Antikythera Mechanism is working again, only in Lego pieces.

If you want the full details on how the mechanism works arithmetically, or you simply want to geek out over the Lego heaven Carol has built, the video is embedded right after the break.

Amazing. [via Engadget] Read more