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.

Return AirPrint Sharing To Mac OS X 10.6.5

Return AirPrint Sharing To Mac OS X 10.6.5

Steven Troughton-Smith found a way to make printer sharing work on 10.6.5, but you’ll need an old developer version of the OS to enable it:

The files you need are:

/usr/libexec/cups/filter/urftopdf
/usr/share/cups/mime/apple.convs
/usr/share/cups/mime/apple.types

The final key thing is you have to remove and re-add your printer in the Print & Fax preferences pane.

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Instapaper 2.3 Available: Faster, OmniFocus Integration - Simply Better

What I consider the best app currently installed on my iPhone and iPad just got a lot better. With the 2.3 update (which is still propagating in iTunes as I’m writing this) developer Marco Arment introduced so many fixes, refinements, optimizations and new features it’s really hard to keep track of them. Instapaper basically got a lot better, both on the iPhone and on the iPad’s larger screen (perfect for reading, if you ask me).

You can now send articles to OmniFocus, QuickReader and all the previous sharing options have been fixed to work properly again. The app now also supports a “ihttp://” URL scheme: every time you find something interesting in Safari you want to send to Instapaper (assuming you can’t get the other options to work, such as the bookmarklet) just add an “i” before the regular URL and tap Go. Instapaper will open. Genius.

On the iPhone, the article list now includes a few lines of text like on the iPad. iPad updates are faster, I can confirm. The iPhone can now toggle the Dark mode from the font panel, and you can set the app to automatically switch to dark mode at night.

Seriously, you gotta take a look at the changelog yourself (embedded below) and go download Instapaper right now if you still haven’t. Highly recommended. Read more


Mac OS X 10.6.5 and AirPrint: Not Found

Just like we previously reported, it looks like Apple removed AirPrint support from 10.6.5. Available to developers in previous beta versions, the feature allowed iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users on iOS 4.2 to print documents to printers shared via Mac OS X or Windows.

It turns out AirPrint now only works with supported HP printers, as noted by Macworld and Ars Technica. We’re also getting reports from readers who have already installed 10.6.5 (which came out a few minutes ago) confirming that, indeed, AirPrint to shared printers from iOS 4.2 GM isn’t working. Read more



Readict for iPad Aggregates Twitter and Reader Favorites, But…

I’ve been looking for a very specific type of  app since the iPad came out: something that would allow me to pull content from Twitter and Google Reader favorite items and read it on the iPad. That’s simple. I don’t need tags, categories, offline access or sharing features: if I’ve saved the articles from social networks in the first place, it’s very likely that I won’t send them to Twitter again.

See, I save lots of links both from Reader and Twitter every day: most of them is silly stuff I don’t usually go back to, but a good part of them is made of articles, posts I want to check out later and I’m not sure they need to go into Instapaper. You know what it’s like on Twitter: you put a gold star there, another one here – and you’ve faved 60 tweets on a single day. Same happens on Google Reader.

So like I said, I’m looking for a simple solution to display this content all together so that late in the evening I could sit down with my iPad and enjoy the stuff I saved during the day. This morning I found out about this new iPad app called Readict (free) which promises to aggregate all your favorite items from Twitter and Google Reader. Read more


Steve Jobs: “AirPrint Has Not Been Pulled”

Last night we reported some developers on Apple’s forums noticed information about AirPrint through shared printers on Macs and PCs has been mysteriously removed from Apple’s online printing documentation. According to those developers, Apple Tech Support chimed in as well claiming that AirPrint through shared printers had been cancelled from the upcoming 10.6.5.

So it’s not that AirPrint has been pulled. Rumor has it Apple may have cancelled or delayed the functionality through a printer shared on Mac or Windows. Read more


The Power Of In-App Purchases

The Power Of In-App Purchases

The common-sense approach to make money on the App Store used to be to do anything to get on the top charts. In-app purchases changed all of that. Good in-app purchases can make your app profitable without being anywhere on the charts, and are the best hope for the independent developer. Come to this session to learn why IAPs can be so effective and how to leverage them effectively: what makes a good IAP, how to increase your user involvement, how to present IAPs in an attractive way, what things attract users, and what things turn them away. We’ll go through lots of detailed real-world data from Flower Garden and other games with strong IAPs.

Recommended read for developers.

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Preview: Daisy Disk 2 for Mac

Daisy Disk is a very popular app for Mac that allows you to find files that are eating up space on your Mac’s drive. Many apps do that, and with a little bit of patience and with the help of Smart Folders you can achieve a similar functionality in the Finder itself, too. So what’s special about Daisy Disk? Read more


Ten Great Applescripts For iTunes 10

Ten Great Applescripts For iTunes 10

But iTunes is one of Apple’s most flexible applications, offering a huge library of AppleScript commands and properties. AppleScript virtuoso Doug Adams has been running the Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes Website for years, collecting scripts that he and others have written, and providing them for free. Here are some of the best AppleScripts that I’ve found on Doug’s site.

Great tips and great list. The Embed Artwork one is exactly what I was looking for. Make sure to visit Doug’s website for more AppleScripts.

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