As far as texting apps go, we have no shortage of options. There’s textPlus, TextNow, textfree, and plenty of others. However, the developers Borange and atebits (developer of Tweetie) are teaming up to enter the arena with a new app named Textie.

So, what does Textie bring to the table? It can send messages to other Textie users, email addresses, and most mobile phones; it’s free; push notifications are included; and it can handle photos, too. But the real draw here is its user interface. As you’d expect given the developers (atebits’ Tweetie client is set to become Twitter’s official app), the user interface is stellar, and careful attention has been paid to detail. While the app’s feature list isn’t bursting with bullet points, the app handles texts quickly and cleanly. Your “inbox” looks more like the standard Mail app than a third-party application, and in my book, that’s a great thing!

Of course, there are at least a dozen solid texting apps in the App Store. But Textie is free, simple, and elegant. If you don’t have a free-texting app yet, be sure to grab Textie and take it for a spin. (Just make sure you have a data plan!) The app claims to support a number of carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and more, but excluding T-Mobile in the US.

FREE!

Textie Messaging - Beautiful free text chat unlimited (SMS)

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-04-27 :: Category: Social Networking

Whilst we have almost the entire staff looking at Tweetie 2 right now (you think we’re kidding), here’s a quick pictorial summary of what you can expect from the much-awaited application:

US iTunes Store: $2.99
UK iTunes Store: £1.79

New features include a refined interface, flick down to refresh feature, tweet drafting and much more. See the Tweetie 2 iTunes App Store page for a full list of updates. We’ll certainly have a review up on Monday after some extensive testing, but in the meantime, be sure to check after the jump for tons of screenshots.

On the second night of it’s 2009 World Wide Developer Conference, Apple announced the winners of the this years Apple Design Awards. The winners are split amongst the Mac and iPhone applications submitted by their developers for the competition. Winning applications are considered to be the pinnacle of design and user experience and recognize technical excellence, innovation, and outstanding achievement. This year’s iPhone application winners along with their award descriptions are:

iPhone Developer Showcase

MLB.com At Bat 2009 version 1.0.1 from MLB.com (app info)

MLB At Bat 2009 is an innovative, highly connected app that sets a great standard for all other iPhone sports apps to follow.

At Bat 2009 is the fastest, most detailed way to follow baseball on an iPhone or iPod touch. Users can listen live to every regular and postseason game with no blackout restrictions, see real-time scores, play highlights, and stream audio of all games At Bat 2009 uses MediaPlayer for in-game video highlights, AudioToolbox for streaming audio, QuartzCore, CoreGraphics, UIKit, and Core Animation to optimize the user experience, SQLite for data caching and tracking video view history, and SystemConfiguration for reach-ability.

Postage version 1.0.1 from Rogue Sheep (app info)

Postage sets a new standard for attractiveness and ease of use in an iPhone app.

With Postage you create and send beautiful, personalized digital postcards using the built-in camera and Photo Library. Core Animation provides smooth transitions and eye-catching effects while Quartz provides high quality graphics, effects, and text display. With 3G/Edge/Wi-Fi networking, you have connectivity virtually everywhere. And you can easily select recipients of your Postage postcards with Address Book integration.

Topple 2 version 1.1 from ngmoco:) (app info)

Topple 2 is an ideal model for excellent iPhone game and game sequel design, technology adoption, performance, connectedness, and localization.

Topple 2 combines the features of multitouch and the accelerometer to create a game about stacking blocks and keeping them from toppling over. Local WiFi multiplayer mode enables game play between two players, and a challenge mode where recorded sessions can be sent to others players via email, twitter or facebook. Localized for English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish, Topple 2 uses multiple iPhone SDK technologies including UIKit, OpenGL ES, Bonjour, CFNetwork, Multi-Touch, Accelerometer, Email, and Twitter and Facebook integration.
Continue reading Apple Announces iPhone Winners of the Apple Design Awards »

Tweetie, in our opinion the king of iPhone Twitter clients, has been updated with some really great features — and some Popularity EnhancemEnts (or PEE) that users have been clamoring for.

In what is a first on any platform and an absolute dream come true to the iPhone community, Tweetie, updated tonight to version 1.2, has added two features that users have been asking to be combined into a single app since the iPhone was first released. Loren Brichter, the developer of Tweetie, has answered user demands and released a single app that has the ability to function as two of the most popular apps in the app store. Oh, and it does some Twitter stuff too.

Tweetie is a multiple account capable Twitter client that just nails the user interface. It’s a rock solid and feature packed application. The new version adds some great features like Instapaper integration, a landscape keyboard, swipe controls, block/unblock of users, and draft saving.

Tweetie is a $2.99 Twitter client that, in our opinion, is the best available on the iPhone. The best new feature has to be the new quick swipe control in the UI. You can swipe over a tweet (a twitter message), and quickly reply to, view the details of the user, or mark as a tweet as a favorite. Much quicker than the previous requirement of going to another screen to do those things.

These new features add to the already fantastic full featured interface of Tweetie. I has everything you could need, Twitter search integration, search favorites, multiple accounts, picture integration, location integration, inline web and image viewer, nearby (location services based) searches, and much more.

Oh yeah, and if you go to settings and click advanced and turn the popularity enhancement on, all of your dreams will come true and Tweetie will become the most perfect app, ever.

FREE!

Tweetie

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2008-11-19 :: Category: Social Networking