Federico Viticci

10781 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

Fruit Ninja HD: Now With Online Multiplayer and Game Center Support

One of my favorite iPad games to date, and the reason why I basically can’t use the iPad over the weekend (my friends regularly come to my place to grab it and play), was updated yesterday to include full Game Center support and online multiplayer.

Fruit Ninja HD, the massive hit by Halfbrick Studios which consists in slicing fruits with your fingers, now allows you to play online with a friend – all you have to do is avoid your opponent’s fruit. Sounds like fun, can’t wait to try it. The new update also brings Game Center support with Leaderboards and Achievements.

Fruit Ninja HD is available at $4.99 in the App Store and it’s totally worth your money. Version 1.1.1 changelog embedded below. Read more

This Is How An iPad Goes Crazy

Spotted by 9to5mac and still in development by conradev over at Hackthatifone, Graviboard will basically kill “gravity” on your iPad Springboard. Install it, assign an activation gesture to it and boom – icons will start floating around. You can tilt the device to move the icons, and even drag them around.

We’re not sure if there’s a way back, though. Ok, there is a way back to a normal Springboard, but you don’t have to tell your friend who think his iPad is dead – right? So just watch the video below, and think about the look on your friend’s face when he will see something like this.

Magical.

Apple Confirms: No Demos In The Mac App Store

Following last night’s seeding of a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.6, Apple updated its Developer News portal with a few tips for developers to consider before trying to submit their Mac apps for approval. Among these tips (which include file system usage and custom graphical controls), Apple confirmed what many developers feared since the Mac App Store was announced: Apple won’t accept any kind of demo, trial or beta version in the new Store.

Apple is, in fact, suggesting developers to host demos on their own websites, as the Mac App Store only accepts retail versions of apps:

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.

We don’t know yet if Apple will provide a way to better showcase links to developers’ website in the App Store description pages (right now, the iOS App Store features two links buried under an app’s description, right above screenshots) but sure this is bad news for many developers who were hoping Apple would announce the possibility to release demo versions in the Mac App Store.

The Mac App Store opening isn’t too far away now, so we’ll know more about the whole process in the upcoming weeks.

New OS X 10.6.6 Build Seeded To Developers, Public Release Soon?

(image via 9to5mac)

As noted by MacRumors, a few hours ago Apple seeded a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.6 to developers. Build number is 10J537, and it comes 21 days after the public release of OS X 10.6.5. A first build of 10.6.6 was seeded before the actual release of 10.6.5.

The new build is apparently listed as GM (“golden master”) for the developers having access to it through the Mac App Store development program. Other registered Mac developers, as also reported by MacRumors, don’t see the build being listed as GM. Listing an OS update as golden master makes us think that Apple might be willing to release it soon, although it is quite curious that some developers haven’t been notified of the change.

Apple is set to open the Mac App Store in late January 2011, and we’re hearing there’s a deadline going on now for Mac developers to submit their apps for approval before the grand opening. This build of 10.6.6 provides “developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts” and Apple has explicitly asked developers to test fixes in Dock, Bonjour, Spotlight, OpenGL and Printing. Does that “printing” sound a lot like “support for shared printers in AirPrint” to you as much as it does to us?

Could Apple release OS X 10.6.6 and catch the popular two birds with one stone by delivering AirPrint fixes and Mac App Store in the same OS update? We sure hope so. After all, Jobs promised more on AirPrint is coming. Plus, the clock’s ticking on the Mac App Store.

What’s for sure is, exciting times are ahead for Mac users.

Apple Now Featuring “Holiday Apps & Games” In The App Store Homepage

With Christmas just around the corner, Apple decided it was about time to start featuring holiday-related apps and games in the App Store. After all, they’ve been doing this for music and movies in the iTunes Store for a few weeks now, promoting apps sounded like the next most obvious step. So here they are, grouped together in a nice section Apple is featuring with a simple and elegant in the iPhone and iPad App Store homepages.

This is a direct link to the new section. As of right now, apps such as Angry Birds Seasons, Christmas Sudoku HD and Talking Santa for iPad are included.

We’re pretty sure more will come in the next weeks, and we think it’s a very nice way to put apps parents and kids will find interesting in this time of the year under Apple’s spotlight.

There’s A New Minecraft Clone In The App Store

Fans of popular indie sandbox game for Mac and PC Minecraft have been asking for a native iOS porting for months now. While it looks like they won’t be getting an official iPhone or iPad version anytime soon, clones approved by Apple are here to help.

After a brief appearance of “Minecrafted for iPhone” two weeks ago, there’s a new app in the App Store called “Eden - World Builder” which looks and behaves a lot like the original Minecraft. The app is available now here, and it’s priced at $4.99. Although the app’s name doesn’t carry the Minecraft brand, the description on iTunes says:

Explore a vast pristine world of infinite possibility. Build your own personal Eden. Eden brings the creative block building genre, pioneered by games like Minecraft, Infiniminer, and Blockland, to the touch screen.

Whatever. From what I can see in the app, though, looks like you can break any block with 1 hit, and I haven’t seen monsters around. Perhaps I just need to play more.

Anyway, grab the app before Apple pulls it, it’s available here.

Apple Silently Discontinues Compact Wired Keyboard

Introduced in 2009 together with a new iMac line, the “compact” Apple wired keyboard was basically identical to the standard wireless keyboard but it also featured two USB ports on its sides. As noted by AppleInsider, that keyboard has been quietly discontinued by Apple, as it is not offered as an option on the online store anymore.

Part number is MB869LLA, and it’s still available on some retailer websites – until they run out of stock, I guess. Apple’s wireless keyboard that ships by default with every new desktop Mac is available here at $69.

Apple Looking For iAd HTML5 Engineer

Just ahead of the launch of European iAds (although we still haven’t managed to find the Renault iAd running on any app) and the Japanese rollout in 2011, a new job posting on Apple’s website reveals that the iAd team is looking for a skilled HTML5 engineer “to help build iAd’s HTML5-based platform for rich content”.

The job posting, which among requirements lists extensive CSS3 knowledge and preferred WebKit development, also confirms that members of the iAd team will have to collaborate “with many groups outside iOS engineering”, namely content publishers who need assistance with the iAd JS framework and user interface design teams at Cupertino.

With the release of iOS 4.2 many expected iAd campaigns to become available on iPad apps as well, but, in spite of the changes in iAd’s framework to support the tablet’s screen, advertisements on the iPad are still nowhere to be seen.

Weet for Mac Beta Now Available, Looks Beautiful

Weet, a popular Twitter client for iPhone released a few months ago (my review here), is now available for Mac users as “beta”. You can download the first version here.

From what we have seen so far, Weet for Mac looks like an extremely polished and elegant app to access your Twitter timeline. It seems like the developers did a great job in implementing lots of features, too. The app presents a tabbed interface at the top to let you switch between your timeline, mentions, direct messages, lists and search. The search tab contains your saved searches and trending topics. In the Lists tab, you can subscribe to a new list or check on your existing ones.

Weet’s interface is very clean and resembles the iPhone counterpart, great pixels by designer Marcelo Marfil are all over the place. After 5 minutes of usage, I can say I like the subtle tones of the “message bubbles” in the timeline, but I’m not sure about the huge scrollbar you can see in the screenshots. The app comes with multi-account support and lots of other stuff to tweak in the preferences. It’s also pretty fast at fetching tweets, although there’s no visual notification of refresh. Weet for Mac also features a Mute feature and keyword block functionalities.

Look for a detailed review here on MacStories tomorrow.

More screenshots below. Read more