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

Murdoch: Tablet-only Publication Is Exciting, Coming Soon

The iPad was meant to save the publishing industry. When Steve Jobs unveiled the device last January, no one was surprised to see the New York Times demoing an iPad-only app – we all knew that if the rumors were true, if Apple was really working on a tablet, then it must be aimed at the publishing industry. Among things.

After that, all major newspapers and publications rushed to have iPad applications out in the App Store, and now they’re carrying those same apps over to Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. Most of those apps aren’t exactly “great”, some of them are well-realized and will even follow the website counterpart to adopt a subscription-based model (see the New York Times). Read more

Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition Coming To The Mac On December 3rd

Popular PC and console game Borderlands is coming to the Mac, The Loop reports. Feral Interactive announced its plans to bring the “Game of the Year” edition of its game to Macs in December, though it’s not clear whether the new version will be also be sold on Steam or not.

A first-person shooter spliced with the DNA of a role-playing game, Borderlands takes you to the scarred desert surface of planet Pandora. Ravaged and abandoned by mega-mining corporations, and populated by prison convicts, miscreants and bloodthirsty alien monsters, it’s a hostile land. You’re a fortune hunter determined to find and open the mythical ‘Vault’, an alien artefact of unimaginable power. Luckily for you,Borderlands’ random content generation system means you’ve got guns. Lots of guns.

The game can be pre-ordered here at £35 (around $55), but if you don’t want to wait and prefer to run the game via Boot Camp, you can buy the Game of the Year edition for PC on Amazon at $49.

Woz: Apple Had A Phone Ready In 2004, Android Will Win The Race [Updated]

Steve Wozniak is that kind of guy who has no problems in saying exactly what he thinks. He co-founded Apple, but criticizing Apple and talking about the great features of Android OS isn’t a problem for him.

That’s exactly what happened in an interview with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf: as Engadget reports, the Woz apparently revealed that Apple was collaborating with a “well-known Japanese consumer electronics company in 2004 to develop a phone that was ahead of its time”. That would be the iPhone that was released in 2007, and it’s interesting that Steve Jobs and his team had the thing ready in 2004 and decided to put it on the shelf for 3 years. Perhaps multi-touch wasn’t ready? Perhaps because of high manufacturing costs? Who knows. Read more

Apple Is Bringing iAds To Europe In December

Today Apple announced they’re bringing their “revolutionary iAd network” to Europe. iAds will launch in December in the UK and France, Germany will follow in January. As for the partners, the rumors were correct: Apple managed to close deals with L’Orèal, Renault, Luis Vuitton, Nespresso and Perrier & Unilever.

iAds started to roll out internationally two weeks ago, and while the ads were visible to non-US users they weren’t target to specific audiences. For instance, I was able to see an AT&T iAd in Italy.

Press release follows below. Read more

Verizon CEO on Apple, LTE And The iPhone→

Verizon CEO on Apple, LTE And The iPhone

The Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Seidenberg said his embrace of LTE has drawn the interest of Apple Inc., and helped Verizon get the iPad. But he didn’t comment on when Verizon might get the iPhone. “If the iPhone comes to us, it’s because Apple thinks it’s time,” he said. “Our interests are beginning to come together more but they have to take steps to align their technology with ours.

Meaning: it’s not up to us, we want the iPhone. I know the folks at Cupertino are testing a Verizon-compatible device, but we’ve been told to wait.

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Zen Bound 2 Now On The Mac via Steam

This summer, there was this friend of mine at the camping – Marco – who regularly came asking for my iPhone 4 to play one game: Zen Bound 2. He had become addicted to it since I first showed the app to him, and he turned out to be so good at covering creepy wood shapes with paint that I had to make him stop. Seriously, I uninstalled the app.

For those who of you unaware of the total awesomeness of Zen Bound 2, here’s the gist: in this game you have to wrap a rope around wood objects, the rope covers them with paint, you have to cover objects with a certain percentage of paint to complete a level. Absurd, simple. A must-have available at $2.99 for iPhone and iPad with Game Center support and Retina graphics. Read more

Real Racing HD Updated with iOS 4.2 Support and Online Multiplayer via Game Center

Award-winning game Real Racing (well, at least the iPhone version) received a major update today: owners of the iPad version are now able to start online multiplayer sessions thanks to Game Center built into the update. Multiplayer supports up to 4 players, and you can invite friends to play also via Game Center.

As many other apps these days, Real Racing HD has also been updated to support iOS 4.2: it basically supports persistent state now, so you’ll be able to quickly pause and resume when switching between apps.

Real Racing HD is available at $9.99 here. Check out the full changelog below. Read more

HootSuite Official iPad App Now Available

HootSuite, the online service to manage multiple social networks in one single place, released its first official iPad app a few minutes ago in the App Store. The app is free and available here.

HootSuite for iPad features all the options and functionalities iPhone users have been able to enjoy for almost a year now, but it sports a native interface for the tablet that takes advantage of the larger screen to display multiple “columns” at once, so you can keep track of your Twitter messages and mentions without having to switch between different views, for example.

The app currently supports Twitter accounts (lists and searches are included), Facebook profiles and pages, Foursquare checkins and, of course, HootSuite’s own URL shortening and analytics system ow.ly. Read more

TikTok+LunaTik: Multi-Touch Watch→

TikTok+LunaTik: Multi-Touch Watch

Speaking of cool iPod Nano watch mods:

TikTok and LunaTik simply transform the iPod Nano into the world’s coolest multi-touch watches. The idea to use the Nano as a watch was an obvious one ever since the product was announced. But we wanted to create a collection that was well designed, engineered and manufactured from premium materials and that complemented the impeccable quality of Apple products. Not just clipped on a cheap strap as an afterthought.

Designed by MINIMAL, I suggest you watch the video with the explanation of the concept. This is serious design work.

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