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

32% Of iPad Owners Have Never Downloaded An App

The App Store is famous because of its simplicity and one-click downloads, right? I mean, that’s the reason Steve Jobs is even bringing it to the Mac. Well it turns out that according to a survey by nielsenwire, 32% of iPad owners have never downloaded an iPad app, and 5% have downloaded only free apps.

You can see the numbers in the pie chart below. 63% of iPad owners have bought apps in the store, with Games obviously taking a huge 62% of the charts.

I believe nielsenwire is a reliable source, but I really can’t see why would anyone want to keep a device apps-free. Maybe it’s the iTunes account creation process? Read more

So This Would Be Steve Jobs’ Business Card in 1979

Business cards used to be simpler, and even Steve Jobs used to have one. This comes straight from the 1979 archives, discovered by a couple of techies somewhere in California.

Mozilla Labs director and tech-enthusiast Pascal Finette photographed Jobs’ groovy card after a colleague brought it into the office. According to Finette, Apple still uses the phone number seen on the card, but don’t give it a ring thinking you’ll get a direct line to Steve.

I can confirm that number is still active, but it’s definitely not Steve’s number anymore. As Finette also reports (but you can’t notice by the photo), Steve wanted an embossed Apple logo in the business cards.

OS X Lion: The Details We Missed

In yesterday’s preview of Lion, we were shown 4 new features: fullscreen apps, Launchpad, Mission Control and the Mac App Store. In the demo Vice President of Engineering Craig Federighi offered on stage, though, we spotted some neat little touches Steve Jobs didn’t mention, but they were there.

Here’s what we’ve collected so far. Read more

Is Apple’s Lion a Lion?

Yesterday Apple gave us a sneak peek at some features coming in the next major iteration of OS X, Lion. For those who missed it, Lion will be available starting next summer, and more previews will likely be shown in January (when the Mac App Store will open), at the WWDC ‘11 or, perhaps, at another Lion-focused event. We don’t know yet.

Yesterday’s preview, however, was built around a simple concept: Apple brought OS X to the iPhone and iPad and created a new mobile operating system called iOS from it; now the best features experimented on those devices are coming back to where it all started, the Mac. Read more

Super Twario Turns Twitter Into A Platform Game for iPhone

Of all the great things you can do with Twitter (such as following Forstall or Conan O’ Brien), can you imagine turning it into a platform game for iPhone where you literally jump on tweets and earn Game Center achievements by replying to mentions or faving tweets?

Super Twario, a $2 game available here, does just that. You simply move around after the app has fetched tweets form your timeline and start walking and jumping and running. With Game Center integration, you can unlock achievements by doing things you would regularly do in any other Twitter client, without getting rewarded.

This opens the road to non-games achievements I think, like “read 150 articles in Instapaper” or “write 15 articles in Simplenote”. We’ll see. Check out the demo video of Super Twario below. [via Engadget] Read more

Tip: How To Sort Contacts by First / Last Name in FaceTime for Mac Beta

A surprising high numbers of readers asked me last night if it’s possible to change the way FaceTime for Mac (the current beta version) sorts contacts by first or last name. Basing on readers’ emails, it seemed like sorting was random: some of them were reporting contacts sorted by last name, some by first name, Apple’s website shows contacts sorted, indeed, by last name.

It’s really very simple. Like I wrote last night, FaceTime for Mac depends on your existing Address Book and doesn’t let you create additional buddy lists, or FaceTime-specific ones. Hopefully Apple will bring this feature in a future version. So to change how contacts are sorted in FaceTime.app, you actually have to change how your contacts are sorted in the Address Book. Is that simple.

Fire up the Address Book app, open the preferences, see the screenshot below.

An Open App Store On The Mac→

An Open App Store On The Mac

A number of prominent app developers would have to commit to supporting an open Mac app store, by making their apps available on that store. These announcements would pretty much have to happen this week in order to have enough impact to sway the course of discussion. There’s no reason these would have to be exclusive, or say anything negative about Apple’s app store, but could just be expressions of these developers pursuing every distribution option available.

Interesting ideas based on Sparkle and Growl, but not going to happen. The Mac App Store will likely become most people’s way to discover and install Mac apps; developers’ websites will be there for demos and trials. And for apps that can’t go through Apple’s approval process.

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