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

Mac Users Love Macs. Surprised?

If you bought a Mac, I guess you love it. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to know that you’re deeply in love with your newly bought piece of Ive aluminum. Still, it’s interesting to put these love stories to numbers and see how stats change over time.

The latest American Customer Satisfaction Index survey (via 9to5mac) indicates that, over the past 12 months, Apple computers totaled 78 out of 100, 3 points more than the same survey in 2009. PC stats have increased as well, with PC makers like Dell and HP achieving higher stats, too: 77 points.

People love Macs. Remember that 10.7 is coming next year. Let’s have this survey again in 12 months. Read more

Luxylight Is The Most Beautiful Flashlight App Ever

There are many flashlight apps out there, yet finding a “beautiful” (or at least good-looking) one is a hard task. I mean, a flashlight app is just a flaslight app after all, right?

Well, Sylion doesn’t think so. Luxylight is the most beautiful and functional flashlight application that has ever landed on your iPhone 4. It’s got a leather-ish UI, and giant buttons to guide you through its features. Lickable design and interesting features. You can switch to strobe mode, and even send S.O.S. signals with perfectly timed lights. If you wish, you can lock the screen to prevent accidental key pressing. Luxylight is simply great.

Available for free (ad supported, pro version coming soon) in the App Store. Check out the screenshots below. Read more

I Bought An iPhone 4 in 1985 And I’ll Get 52 iPhones Tomorrow

This is interesting. Pretty similar to Kyle Conroy’s “What if I bought Apple stock instead?” table, Finlay Craig is now telling us that if we had spent £499.00 (the price of an iPhone 4 in the UK) worth of Apple, Inc. stock in 1985 we would have got 52 iPhone 4s today.

52 units. All piled on top of each other. Sounds like a plan. Does this work with iPod Nanos today? ‘Cause I wouldn’t mind getting 279 Nanos in 2024.

You know, that’s how stock works. Kind of. Read more

myPhoneDesktop Extension Puts The iPhone in Chrome

I talked about myPhoneDesktop 1.5 for iPhone and iPad a few hours ago, and here comes a dedicated Chrome extension to force me to cover the app once again. This extension is simple and powerful: all you have to do is sign in through the web interface and start sending links, pictures or text to your device.

The extension supports multiple copied items at once: if you try to send a link, text and image at the same time you’ll be asked if you want to keep the extension window active to select the items you want to forward to the iPhone. It’s really great, and it lets you speed up your workflow by not needing to use a standalone desktop application.

It’s the perfect companion to myPhoneDesktop for iPhone and iPad. Go download it here. Read more

Get the Most Out of VLC for iPad→

Get the Most Out of VLC for iPad

We’ve played around with VLC for iPad a bit and have found that most standard definition files work alright. For the most part, your best bet is standard definition AVI files using DiVX. Even at higher bit rates (about 2500kbps), DiVX AVIs seemed to play back smoothly and scrubbing wasn’t an issue. This is great news for BitTorrenters, as most TV shows are already encoded as DiVX AVI and are already optimal for iPad playback in VLC.

Nice tips from Lifehacker.

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Portfolio To Go Is A Simple Flickr Client for iPad & iPhone

Just when I thought I was done with mobile Flickr clients (ok, they’re not as popular as Twitter client, but they’re popular) here comes a new app I’ve just discovered forcing me to re-enter my Yahoo! credentials all over again. Portfolio To Go is a rather minimal and simple which, once given permissions to access your account, lets you quickly check on your profile and photosets. All you get is a “wall” main screen, where you can see all your photos organized in sets, and you also get nice thumbnail previews. Read more