Snowtape: Internet Radio Couldn’t Be Sexier. Review and Giveaway.

I’ve never had that great of a relationship with internet radios, mostly because the Italian ones suck. Plain and simple. As many other things in this country, internet isn’t really seen as an opportunity to bring innovation and better quality to old media and traditions, and so internet radios are slow, unreliable and stuck to mid 90’s standards. But like I said, I’ve never had that great of a relationship with internet radios. Not that big of a deal.

I remember last year I stumbled upon a promising new service called Spotify which, though it wasn’t officially available in Italy, looked too much interesting to not give it a proper spin. So I signed up for an account, downloaded the Mac client, enjoyed the freedom of having an immense music catalogue legally available for high quality streaming. Man that was the future of music, a mix between internet radio and iTunes. I upgraded to a Premium account to avoid ads and use the iPhone app, which has been one of the best things of summer ‘09 (yeah, together with that goat we stole and put in my car, but that’s another story). I mean, the Spotify iPhone app is the thing you want to bring with you on the Lost island. It lets you listen to music under a simple 3G connection, all the music you want. Jesus, wish I had it when I was 10 (damn new boys).

Back to our business, we’re talking about internet radios. Well, there was this application for Mac OS X I never really consider until my friend Zak Soup reviewed it here on MacStories, which looked so sexy and useful - Snowtape. From the review: “Snowtape is an internet radio player for the Mac, a one-of-a-kind app that looks good as it blasts your tunes. Sporting a slick, dark, interface, Snowtape is like an iTunes for your iRadio, helping you browse through thousands of stations and even import your own.”

Fast forward 2 months. I remember there’s this music app I have to test. I install Snowtape. I love it. I read the iPhone app announcement post. I get accepted into the beta testing group. I love Snowtape even more.

Then Apple rejects Snowtape for iPhone. I’m sad, upset, I wanna talk about the app. Damn Steve Rea, you can’t reject this.

I woke up this morning with the feeling something good was about to happen. Checking out store.apple.com didn’t help, nothing was apparently new. But wait, I’ve got an email from Vemedio telling me Snowtape for iPhone is out.

Here we are folks, talking about one of the most beautiful and useful music applications for iPhone to date. Meet Snowtape for iPhone.

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MacStories’ Fuel Collective Week. An Interview with Stephen Korecky.

So Federico and I have been casually tweeting about this big thing that’s happening this week, and here it is. We’re going to be hanging out with the guys at Fuel Collective, who make some truly great Mac software. And because this is MacStories, you can expect reviews and giveaways throughout the week. I’m really excited about this, because it’s the first time we’ve ever done an event like this, and it’s just super that we have Fuel Collective on board.

To kick things off, we wanted to get personal with the folks who’ve brought you all sorts of great software, from Snippet to Contents. Stephen Korecky, Fuel Collective’s master paintbrush and artisan, was kind enough to take the time out to answer some of our questions.(And because of a technical error, not once, but twice!)

As you read the interview, Fuel Collective is a prime example of what makes the Mac community so great. Meeting new people. Putting passion into your work. It’s what makes the Mac breed genetically different from everybody else. And overall, they’re really just a couple of fine fellows.

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Exclusive Screenshots of the iTunes Music Store for iPad

We posted a lot of pictures yesterday, regarding the iPad App Store, but we’ve got more to share. We’ve managed to get a few screenshots of the iTunes Music and Movies Store as seen from the iPad: as you can see, the layout is basically the same of the iPad App Store.

We can’t wait for April 3rd. See the screenshots after the break.

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Headspin: Easter Bunny Doodle Edition

Though I doubt that these things are actually wascally wabbits (perhaps more like stanky hares), there is undoubtedly something awesome going on here. Because while it might be the oddest game you’ll ever play (dude, you’re rotating bunny heads), think of it this way: it’s addicting. It gets hard. And it will make your head spin. And on top of that, you have a chance to win $100.

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One Extension. Multiple Applications. Magic Launch Does. Review and Giveaway!

Imagine if you’re working with MAMP, and you’re navigating through the sea of folders residing in htdocs. Deep within these folders you have a myriad of .html, .php, and .css files that need editing, but because you’re a programmer savant, you happen to have Textmate, BBEdit, Coda, SubEthaEdit, and Espresso on your Mac at the same time. And when you go to open one of those lovely HTML ridden files, it opens with the wrong application. How frustrating!

What if I told you that Magic Launch can not only help you ease those app opening pains, it can actually decide which application is better for you depending on contexts? That’s right - in one folder you might want to work in Espresso, while in another you might want to work in Coda. If the file includes lots of CSS, perhaps Magic Launch is smart enough to open that file in CSSEdit instead.

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Taska, A Beautiful GTD App for your iPhone. Review and Giveaway

It seems there’s never a shortage of good GTD apps for the iPhone, and I think that says something about Apple users in general - we’re always looking for ways to become more productive and get a grip on daily life. Taska, fresh off the App Store palette (it still smells like the packaging!), is a very powerful and feature rich GTD app that’s similar to Omnifocus. Plus, it oozes with beautiful pixels.

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Reeder 2: Call It a Comeback

When something works, don’t touch anything. When a software just works, it’s still possible to make it work better. I think this is the rule that Silvio Rizzi followed when thinking about the new version of Reeder, the feeds reader application I reviewed some months ago, calling it the best RSS reader for iPhone. Reeder 1.x was a great application, but as time went by it started to fall under the pressure of the features new applications such as MobileRSS, Newsprint or Newsrack introduced, and as consequence to this people started complaining about Reeder and Silvio not caring much about it anymore.

They were so wrong. Silvio has been working hard on the just-released 2.0 version, a free update for previous Reeder users that introduces some new functionalitites, and a lot of tweaks under the hood that make Reeder feel completely new, and fresh again.

You can call this a comeback.

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