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

AirPlay Disappears From iOS 4.2 GM on iPhone 3G

As noted by 9to5mac last night, AirPlay went missing on the iOS 4.2 GM for iPhone 3G. The feature was there in the previous betas and was working fine, allowing users to stream audio (no video to Apple TV yet, it needs an update) to AirPlay-compatible devices.

Apple apparently removed the feature when releasing the GM build on November 1st:

After speaking to multiple developers and users testing out the iOS 4.2 betas, we have determined that AirPlay did in fact work on the iPhone 3G at one point, meaning the AirPlay functionality was definitely removed from Apple’s two-year-old iPhone at its GM stage. The reason this is an issue is because Apple states, even on their own website, that AirPlay is supported on ALL iOS 4 devices.

Read more

Activate AirPrint On OS X 10.6.5 With One Click

Even though it is believed that people nowadays don’t print much (I surely don’t), Apple’s removal of support for AirPrint shared printing on the latest version of OS X, 10.6.5, raised a few eyebrows. They had announced the feature, but they didn’t deliver with 10.6.5 – even if previous developer version of the OS update had AirPrint enabled.

It seems like it was too unstable to make it to the final version, but some are suggesting the folks at Cupertino are dealing with patent trolling issues for shared printers in AirPrint. We don’t know. Read more

Hacker Runs Microsoft’s Kinect on OS X

A few days after Microsoft released Kinect (and years later Apple’s interest in the device), a motion-based game controller for the Xbox 360 console, a group of hackers managed to modify the device’s settings, hack it and let it run on Windows 7.

Microsoft of course isn’t interested in this kind of hacks and will never support such efforts – also because there’s not really much you can do with Kinect on computers. It “runs” and  displays the images it captures from the camera, but you can’t do much after all. Read more

New Gorillaz Album Recorded On An iPad

Damon Albarn, Blur’s singer and frontman of Gorillaz, announced the follow-up to Plastic Beach (3rd studio album of Gorillaz) has been recorded entirely on an iPad. He’s aiming at a holiday season release. In an interview with UK music magazine NME, he said:

I’ve made it on an iPad – I hope I’ll be making the first record on an iPad. I fell in love with my iPad as soon as I got it, so I’ve made a completely different kind of record.

I wonder how many music apps were necessary to get the album recording done on the tablet. Perhaps they needed to deploy their own app? We look forward to whatever Mr. Albarn has in store.

Apple and Oracle Announce OpenJDK for OS X, Java Developers Rejoice

When developers noticed Apple was deprecating Java on OS X, there was quite a mess on the internet. Today, Apple announced that is joining Oracle to bring the OpenJDK project on the Mac in order to maintain Java.

Apple will contribute most of the key components, “including a 32-bit and 64-bit HotSpot-based Java virtual machine, class libraries and a networking stack”.

With OpenJDK, Apple’s Java technology will be available open source for developers to contribute to. Press release embedded below. Read more

IA Writer Now iOS 4.2-ready

I’ve been waiting for this update: when IA Writer first came out, I couldn’t use it. I was already running iOS 4.2 beta on my iPad, and the app had a few bugs with the new operating system. The focus mode wasn’t working (and that feature is possibly the most important one in the app), custom keys didn’t match.

With the latest 1.0.2 that showed up a few minutes ago in iTunes, the app is finally ready for the elusive OS. Subfolders and auto-sync aren’t included yet, but they’re coming soon.

Finally, I can use IA Writer. Go get it, as it seems totally worth it.

iOS 4.2 “Delayed” Due to iPad WiFi Issues, New GM Build Coming [Updated]

Two days ago we reported Mac OS X 10.6.5 and iTunes 10.1 were set to come out on Wednesday, with iOS 4.2 for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch to follow on Friday Nov. 12th – tomorrow. Mac OS X 10.6.5 indeed came out, without AirPrint functionality for shared printers as previously reported as well. iTunes 10.1 didn’t come out.

Basing on the information we got from a reliable source, it appears that iOS 4.2 won’t come out on Nov. 12th due to last-minute WiFi connection issues experienced by many users running the GM build on the iPad. The issues have been widely documented on MacRumors forums (here and here), Twitter and Apple’s own discussion boards, both by users and developers. You can check out a video of the bug in action below. Read more

Noteshelf 2.1: Dropbox Integration, Finer Ink, New Notebooks

From my Noteshelf review, about a month ago:

What totally convinced me to pick Noteshelf as my go-to app for handwritten notes, though, is wrist protection. When people write, they usually rest their wrist on paper – that’s natural and necessary to have a correct writing position. Well gentlemen, unlike all the other apps available for iPad, Noteshelf has an option to not detect your wrist as an active touch on the screen. Welcome to natural and human writing on a tablet.

As for features I’d like to see besides the upcoming Evernote and Dropbox integration and a template creator, it’d be nice to be able to pinch and zoom on pages, especially in landscape mode. I also don’t like the fact that you can’t select multiple pages when exporting them (email and iTunes are supported).

Noteshelf was already a great iPad app, now it’s even better. With the latest 2.1 update available in iTunes now, the developers added the possibility to export notes as images pr .PDF documents to Evernote and Dropbox, a feature many users have been asking since the first version of the app. Uploading to these services is simple and accessible through a popover menu in the top toolbar. You can also select and export multiple pages via email, or just email a whole notebook. Speaking of which, there are new notebook themes such as music notes and baseball scores. Read more

You Can Buy An Original Apple-1 For $200K

The Apple-1 is the computer that started it all. Sold by Steve Jobs and the Woz in Jobs’ garage, it was the first pre-assembled computer to come with 8k or RAM, but without a keyboard or monitor. Back then, the two folks that started Apple Computer used to sell it at $666.66, and a very few ones have survived today.

Now, you can buy one if you want. Only at $200K. Read more