Twitterrific 2.0: It’s real, and it’s SPECTACULAR.
Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, App Review
I’ll be honest, I adore Twitter. I don’t mean “Oh it’s so cute and Oprah’s on it,” I mean in a way that is likely unhealthy. It was just another technology I had an account for but only sort of used until I found out that the Iconfactory created an application for my desktop called Twitterrific that allowed me to have a little corner of my desktop devoted to microblogging. So then I used it a little more.
Then I got my iPhone 3G and the Iconfactory made a version of Twitterrific for that, too. Today, here I sit more than sixteen thousand updates later. Twitterrific was among the first desktop and mobile Twitter apps and terribly exciting. Then some other folks came on the scene, having re-imagined what an iPhone Twitter app could look like. We got Twitterfon and Tweetie, and I found myself very disappointed to have bumped Twitterrific from my home screen.
All of that has changed. Twitterrific 2.0 is out and once again I have an Iconfactory app on my home screen. There are loads of changes, but the standout feature is the option to turn some of these off and on as you desire.
Multiple account support was the revolutionary feature of other clients, and it has now been added to Twitterrific. Adding more is a piece of cake, and the nice thing about it is that your account(s) live on a “Sources” page with the public timeline, saved searches and a list of the current trending topics. I really like this view and it makes things very convenient, especially if you want to check the trending topics on the go.
You’ll notice you get three views of your timeline: A “mini” view with just a name and a tweet, the “standard” Twitterrific view of an avatar and bold name with a tweet, and an additional “mega” view, with a larger picture and the text a bit bigger as well (including the client). So far I am loving the mini view, since I can scan easily.
In case a black background with lighter text isn’t your thing, you also have the option of three different color schemes, Raven (the classic black), Snowy (lighter, with some 3D elements for selected tweets), and Basic (a black and white option). Right now Snowy is the one that’s working for me. I really like the way selected tweets stand out.
Now you can also pick your reply method which is one of the most impressive features. If you have a tweet selected when the entry window comes up, you get your pick of whether or not to tweet, tweet a public @ reply, or DM the author of that tweet based on which tab you choose at the bottom of the window. You can also hide the keyboard to peek back at the timeline in case you want another look at the tweet. This is a really elegant method for entry since a lot of times I want to reply via DM to someone who sent me something publicly, or inadvertently have a tweet selected but I don’t want to reply to it. Every time I use this interface I am happier with it in a new way.
To keep from using a lot of screen for the buttons for different views (one each for your timeline, replies, and DMs) there’s a little funnel you tap that pops up a bar with those view options in it. As a fan of the mini view this helps me pack even more information on the screen and I like how it’s implemented. Next to this icon is a little snowflake/asterisk icon you can tap to get buttons for a link to a selected tweet, retweet, reply to the author, the author’s info page, see the conversation thread, email it, or favorite it. You also get a button to mark a tweet. Marking a tweet is like a favorite, but currently those marks are only saved on your phone (it has been mentioned that this will sync with the desktop version eventually).
Other features I really like: the left-handed option made it forward from the previous version, configurable options for tapping an avatar (1, 2, or 3 taps can be set to different actions like show the author or the conversation, add it as a favorite), and there is a notes field on authors so if you are out and about and add someone you can take note of where you met them or how you know them or whatever else you can sometimes want to keep track of.
I love the new version, and I like to think it came about because others came along and innovated which made the Iconfactory step up THEIR game, so now there are a variety of easy to use and nice looking Twitter clients for the iPhone. Now, on to the desktop!
TUAWTwitterrific 2.0: It’s real, and it’s SPECTACULAR. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 08 May 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Twitterrific 2 for iPhone and iPod touch available
Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, iPhone, iPod touch
The Iconfactory’s Twitterrific was one of the first Twitter applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Since its introduction, The Twitter App Wars have begun in earnest. If Twitter is the Belle of the Ball, there’s a long line of suitors who want to be her beau.
The new Twitterrific makes a serious play for her affection. Long-absent features like multiple account support, search and “tweet actions” like re-tweeting are all included, plus new goodies like a gorgeous, color-coded tabbed UI and the Filter Bar. Quickly find your mentions via “@ replies,” direct messages, starred favorites or tweets you’ve “marked,” which are like private favorites.
There’s so much more to this app and we’ll have a full review for you soon. Until then, you can get familiar with Twitterrific 2 on the new “Tweetorials” page. Twitterrific 2 Premium is available now from the App Store [link] for $3.99US. An ad-supported free version is also available [link].
TUAWTwitterrific 2 for iPhone and iPod touch available originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 08 May 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Five Developers React to iPhone 3.0
With all the big announcements from Apple’s iPhone briefing yesterday, the web has been abuzz with talk about the impact this will have on the iPhone. I managed to corner a few iPhone developers that have paid releases out in the app store now to get their first reaction to the news.
Smule
The team at Smule, the people who brought us Ocarina, Sonic Lighter, and Zephyr, were featured in the briefing with Apple yesterday. They demoed a new app that will take advantage of the peer-to-peer API’s in the iPhone 3.0 SDK.
Yeah, we offered a sneak peak of our new product, Leaf Trombone: World Stage, the first massive multi-player social music game (that’s a mouthful sir). We demonstrated a duet over their new Peer-to-peer API. In effect, this allows to devices to discover and pair, regardless of wifi/cell, etc. The discovery capability is quite neat. And the bandwidth is pretty darn good.
Ge and David performed “Phantom of the Opera” as a duet over bluetooth on two iPhones, which everyone can now enjoy by streaming the presentation. Of course, we haven’t seen all the magic that has become possible with the iPhone 3.0 SDK.
We have held back some of the more significant components of the leaf trombone for when we launch the product…
Iconfactory
Craig Hockenberry is a principal at Iconfactory, the collective of creative minds that brought us App Store favorites Twitterific and Frenzic. When asked about his reaction to today’s announcements, Craig was most impressed by the forward momentum of the iPhone platform.
“The thing that’s most positive in my mind is that today showed us how serious Apple is about this platform. They are not resting on their laurels: this release includes major enhancements for users and developers alike. “
Gedeon Maheux, another princiapl at Iconfactory, expressed his excitement and concerns about the new SDK.
We’re very excited about the potential opportunities that 3.0 represents, but there are also the possibility of pitfalls such as creating “content-free” apps that need paid upgrades to really deliver.
When asked about other changes, Craig felt that it was going to take some time to see how the App Store in-app payment mechanism would affect their current and future products. When pushed for further reaction, no single feature seemed to elicit enough excitement to bring out the CHOCKLOCK today, but expect some ALL CAPS tweets once developer.apple.com is back up and Craig can get his fleshy palms on the 3.0 SDK.
GroceryIQ
Jason Boehle is the co-founder of Free State Labs and one of the developers behind GroceryIQ. The company has since been acquired by Coupons, Inc. and development continues on the next version of the GroceryIQ app which will include syncing shopping lists between phones.
The most significant new feature announced today for Grocery iQ is push notifications. For example, you can know when your significant other adds an item to your shopping list. We are working on phone-to-phone sync right now, and push notifications will make that feature more useful.
While Jason is relieved that cut, copy and paste and MMS have finally found their way to the iPhone, like many others, he was most impressed with the bright future for the platform.
The 3.0 software is hugely important for the iPhone platform, as it shows Apple is continuing to innovate and blur the boundaries between phone and computer. iPhone developers should be very excited, as Apple is allowing more access to the hardware and software inside the device, and is providing us with much better ways to monetize our apps over time.
Marketcircle
Alykhan Jetha (better known as AJ) is the CEO of Marketcircle, the Mac business software company. They are working to bring their Daylite productivity management solution to the iPhone with the imminent release of Daylite Touch. Marketcircle is keen on the push notification service for Daylite Touch.
I also think that cut & paste and Spotlight will make the iPhone or iPod even more productive for a lot of people. We are looking forward to see how apps like ours can participate in Spotlight as well as how the whole thing works.
Still, there were some disappointments too.
I was hoping for background processes, or even periodic background processes, but no luck with that. I think that for a lot of apps, being able to run in the background every 30 minutes (or X hours) when the user is not using the device as opposed to always running would significantly reduce the battery problem. These things wouldn’t have to run for long. For example our typical sync takes less than 20 seconds.
Double Encore
Dan Burcaw, CEO of iPhone development consultancy Double Encore, was one of the early movers in the iPhone market and led the team behind the Brightkite iPhone app. Dan was also on hand for Apple’s announcements and was still riding the Apple high after he left 1 Infinite Loop and spoke with me on the way to the airport.
This definitely keeps the ball rolling. It was going to be hard for competitors to catch the iPhone and the App Store anyways, but I think Apple said, “We need to be flexible so we can keep this snowball rolling.” Everyone I talked to, my peers, other companies, are saying, “this thing just got better in a lot of ways.” Sure, Apple addressed the specific things that people wanted to change, but this is a really solid, broad release.
Since Dan was in the briefing, I was curious about the announcement that got the most attention from those present.
<laughing> You know, the Apple people kept asking that question too. I’m not sure, but as soon as the video goes up, look for this… When the ESPN app gets a push notification, the alert sound is the ESPN jingle. Da-da-da. That was cool. iPhone 3.0 gives people new ways to extend their brand. The new business models are going to allow companies to extend their brand to the iPhone in a big way too. All these changes to the SDK will bring the big boys into the game that had been sitting on the sidelines, now that they can use their branding in a bigger, richer way.
If you haven’t thought about building an iPhone app, you might want to look into it. This thing is going to be a runaway train by the time 3.0 hits.
A Runaway Train
The strong consensus among all the developers that I spoke with is that the 3.0 announcements have renewed their confidence in the iPhone platform. With 30 million devices out there (iPhone and iPod touch) and the momentum of the app store, existing developers are probably more excited about the iPhone than ever. If I could share one insight, it would be to keep an eye on what happens with the new accessory communication options. I heard several rumblings that this opens up a whole new round of innovation for the iPhone.
While no one picked any one single software feature, API, or Core service as the Next Big Thing, everyone was thrilled with the breadth and depth of the changes to the SDK. A theme developed that these developers felt like the wide range of features announced today made a strong statement about Apple’s commitment to the future of the iPhone platform. A future that, frankly, I’m pretty excited to watch unfold as well.
Twitterrific 3.2 squashes bugs, adds small features
Filed under: Software
Twitterrific, from our friends at the Iconfactory, has been updated to version 3.2: the first update for the desktop version of the small-footprint Twitter client in nearly a year.
This new version accurately marks old tweets as read when the software starts, and adds “in reply to” IDs to @ messages so conversations can be more easily tracked.
Also, Twitterrific now uses the more secure HTTPS protocol to communicate with the Twitter servers. Using a proxy server is now more reliable, along with other changes to the network and communication foundation. A complete list of the changes is available on the Iconfactory website.
Twitterrific comes in two flavors: one is free, but supported by ads from The Deck, and the second removes the ads, but is $15. Twitterrific requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later, and a Twitter account (obviously).
The Iconfactory also recently started tweeting themselves, and you can find them at @iconfactory. In related news, remember that you can also follow @TUAW for updates above and beyond what you read on our site, along with tweets from all our contributors, too.
TUAWTwitterrific 3.2 squashes bugs, adds small features originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Twitterrific 3.2 for Mac adds minor features, bugfixes
Most of us here at Ars use the micro-bloging service Twitter, and many of us use the IconFactory’s Twitterrific as our desktop client of choice. Unfortunately, over the last year it has been largely stagnant as the folks at the ‘Factory have been working on the mobile version of the application as well as the mobile version of Frenzic. Poor Twitterrific for the Mac last saw an update in February of 2008. Well the update dry spell has ended, as the company has released the final version of 3.2. Twitterrific 3.2 offers a few new features as well as some bug fixes that have either been part of the application for the last eleven months or have popped up as the Twitter API has been refined.
This release doesn’t necessarily add any bigtime features, but under the “nice to have” umbrella falls encrypted tweets, the ability to make the app’s window disappear when you switch to another application, and the ability to change the number of tweets loaded during a restart or refresh among others. Also, if you reply to a tweet with your name in it, the application will find the first screen name that isn’t yours and make the reply to that person.
The bug fixes honestly aren’t all that exciting. Among them are fixes for accessibility issues, a problem with old notifications appearing, a Tiger crash, and a bug occurring when typing a link in caps lock. These lead the list of 14 bugfixes in relevancy and general interest.
Click here to read the rest of this article
Twitterrific 3.2 for Mac adds minor features, bugfixes
Most of us here at Ars use the micro-bloging service Twitter, and many of us use the IconFactory’s Twitterrific as our desktop client of choice. Unfortunately, over the last year it has been largely stagnant as the folks at the ‘Factory have been working on the mobile version of the application as well as the mobile version of Frenzic. Poor Twitterrific for the Mac last saw an update in February of 2008. Well the update dry spell has ended, as the company has released the final version of 3.2. Twitterrific 3.2 offers a few new features as well as some bug fixes that have either been part of the application for the last eleven months or have popped up as the Twitter API has been refined.
This release doesn’t necessarily add any bigtime features, but under the “nice to have” umbrella falls encrypted tweets, the ability to make the app’s window disappear when you switch to another application, and the ability to change the number of tweets loaded during a restart or refresh among others. Also, if you reply to a tweet with your name in it, the application will find the first screen name that isn’t yours and make the reply to that person.
The bug fixes honestly aren’t all that exciting. Among them are fixes for accessibility issues, a problem with old notifications appearing, a Tiger crash, and a bug occurring when typing a link in caps lock. These lead the list of 14 bugfixes in relevancy and general interest.
Click here to read the rest of this article
Slide to Play plays games at Macworld, because I didn’t
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Humor, Software, Odds and ends, Apple, iPhone, App Store
Felt a little bit of acid in my posts lately? Getting an icy vibe off of my writing for the past week? There’s no hard feelings to Rose, Christina, or any of the other TUAWers at Macworld (they did an awesome job covering everything), but yes, I was a little bummed that I didn’t get to go. This was probably the best show for iPhone games ever, and (like many of you, I suppose) as I watched all of the meetup and demo tweets go by, yes, I steamed a little bit.
But it’s OK, because Slide to Play ended up doing exactly what I would have done at Macworld: meet game developers and challenge random people to iPhone games, and they’ve put it all in video format so I and you other gamers can live vicariously through them. On the way, their host gets beaten by a little kid (which never would have happened if it was me), and they do get in good chats with the guys from Freeverse and Iconfactory about their current (and future) gaming plans.
It’s fine. I didn’t need to go to Macworld anyway. I had a perfectly fun time sitting here in Chicago, getting buried in snow and playing Samurai Puzzle Battle Arcade all by my lonely self. Who needs Macworld, right? Sigh.
Video in the continuation of the post. Thanks Steve!
Continue reading Slide to Play plays games at Macworld, because I didn’t
TUAWSlide to Play plays games at Macworld, because I didn’t originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Macworld 2009 Day One: In Pictures
Filed under: Macworld, TUAW Business
The Keynote might not have had everything we were expecting, but Macworld 2009 is still off to a super start.
We’re still busy hitting booths and rendering video, you can take a look at some of the fun we’ve been having.
Highlights:
- The Delicious Monster booth looks just like Delicious Library 2
- The Iconfactory team
- Obviously, the new MacBook Pro unibody.
Gallery: 2009 Macworld Day One
TUAWMacworld 2009 Day One: In Pictures originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Hockenberry, Maheux respond in exclusive TUAW talkcast interview
Filed under: Podcasts, TUAW Interview, Developer, App Store
On last night’s talkcast, the Iconfactory’s Gedeon Maheux and Craig Hockenberry joined us to discuss their concerns with the App Store, and they noted that Friday’s layout changes are a step in the right direction.
“It’s another of many steps that Apple’s making to make the iTunes infrastructure work better with applications for the iPhone,” Hockenberry said. Even so, they explained there’s still room for improvement.
Hockenberry would like to see a popularity algorithm that takes into account the price of an app along with the number of times its been downloaded. “If you sell … ten apps at $100 or a hundred apps at $10 or a thousand apps at $1, you’re all equal.” He also wanted to see a kind of demo system implemented, but knew that would involve more work for Apple.
Maheux said he would prefer to see more data about where apps are being sold: on a category page versus a tile on the App Store home page, for example. He also pointed out that having an app displayed on the home page results in an astronomical increase in sales. “All those people who say that … you can market your way to the top: I completely disagree with them. They don’t know what they’re talking about. … Being on the [App Store] front page is all that matters.”
He said the Iconfactory applauds Apple for responding to developer feedback and improving the App Store. “Anything that starts a dialogue about this stuff is a good thing.”
The Iconfactory has released two iPhone apps: the popular twitter client Twitterrific, and strategy game Frenzic.
You can listen to the interview at our Talkshoe page, or via iTunes. The interview starts at about the 25 minute mark. Don’t skip the the first part of the talkcast, though, where Dave, Mel and I discuss Apple’s netbook possibilities and the ideal kitchen computer.
TUAWHockenberry, Maheux respond in exclusive TUAW talkcast interview originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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App Store changes layout, threat of the fleshy palm still looms
Filed under: iTunes, Developer, App Store
TouchMeme notes that the App Store has changed layout to separate free and paid applications, perhaps in response to developer grumbling about competition in a crowded market.
Free apps and paid apps now occupy sidebars to the right and left, respectively, of a major category index page. The center still allows you to sort the results by release date, name, or popularity (which doesn’t appear to work yet: it only displays an alphabetical list). The separation of free and paid apps brings iTunes more closely in line with the mobile App Store experience. The changes affect every category except Games.
The concerns, though, of the Iconfactory’s Craig Hockenberry (who earlier this week published an open letter to Steve Jobs detailing his frustration with marketing iPhone apps) may not be entirely assuaged. He argues that the price appeal of 99-cent apps (which may not be supported by the data) stifles the development of larger, more expensive apps that earn less prominent placement in the App Store.
The issues of price popularity and developer ROI aren’t exactly solved by this furniture rearrangement, but perhaps it will let more high-quality apps bubble to the top of the Paid App charts. Otherwise, Apple might yet see the fleshy part of Hockenberry’s palm.
[Via AppleInsider.]
TUAWApp Store changes layout, threat of the fleshy palm still looms originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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