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Twitterrific for Apple Watch Review

+ Universal & Apple Watch App - Designed for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch
By Jennifer Allen on May 26th, 2015
Our rating: starstarstarstarblankstar :: SO MANY NOTIFICATIONS
Twitterrific is the best Apple Watch Twitter client yet.
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Twitterrific 5 Gets Even More Twitteriffic With a $0.99 Sale and an Extensive New Update

Posted by Rob Rich on January 23rd, 2014
+ Universal & Apple Watch App - Designed for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch
Our rating: starstarstarstarblankstar :: SO MANY NOTIFICATIONS :: Read Review »

Twitterrific 5 has just received a fairly significant update that includes several new enhancements.

First and foremost, a bunch of stuff has been tweaked in the backend in order to make everything run much faster and smoother. More list management options have been added; including the ability to edit details and privacy settings, create all new lists, and add or remove both lists and users from said lists. Support for viewing images in direct messages is also a thing now, as is the ability to copy content directly from the share menu. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the app now supports live-streaming of the timeline when over wifi.

You can grab the update for Twitterrific 5 right now, or if you're new to the app you can download it for the temporary sale price of $0.99.

App Store Insiders: Gedeon Maheux, Owner of The Iconfactory

Posted by Jeff Scott on July 11th, 2013

The Iconfactory has been around since before the App Store, but the launch of the App Store made a fundamental change at the company. Their iOS launch title, Twitterrific has seen more than one major overhaul in the five years it's been available. It exists now as a great example of iOS application and user interface design. Iconfactory has also dipped a toe into game development early on releasing Frenzic in 2008 and Ramp Champ in 2009. Iconfactory games have seen, all together, over 3 million downloads in the App Store.

Let's talk with Gedeon Maheux, Owner of the Iconfactory about the expanding a business into the App Store.

148Apps: How has the App Store changed The Iconfactory and your professional life?


Gedeon Maheux, Owner of The Iconfactory: The launch of the App Store fundamentally changed the Iconfactory in several important ways. It changed the focus of our internal software development, but it also expanded the services we offered to clients.

Before the App Store, our primary business was icon and interface design for the web, Mac and Windows. We had done some mobile design projects of course, but the launch of the App Store clearly had an effect on technology companies around the globe. Many of our existing clients started focusing on creating their own applications for the App Store and of course needed design services. Over the last 5 years the percentage of design work we do for 3rd party clients has shifted from the desktop and web to very heavily in the mobile category and almost 100% of that is for iOS. The App Store single-handedly launched a new revenue stream for the Iconfactory in this regard, to say nothing about the new breed of software we started to develop ourselves for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Before the App Store, we would consider a product successful if it reached something like 10,000 users on the Mac desktop. These days, typical downloads reach something like 100,000 to 500,000 users which is still incredible to me. These numbers are still low for blockbuster hits like Angry Birds and Doodle Jump which is even more astounding.

Professionally, the App Store has allowed me to stretch my design skills into new areas. It's extremely satisfying to help a client bring realize their vision for a particular app and do it in a way that helps their creation stand out amongst the competition in the App Store. The basics of designing for iOS are the same - clarity, communication, strong concepts. It's really just the size of the audience and the medium that's changed and that's give me and others here at the Iconfactory a renewed interest in our day-to-day jobs.

148Apps: In the five years since launch, the App Store has gone through considerable changes. The number of users has skyrocketed along with downloads, prices for paid apps has stabilized way lower than many expected, free to play has dominated the top grossing charts. If, knowing what you know about the App Store now, you could go back and influence your path five years ago, what would you say?


Gedeon Maheux: Hindsight as they say is 20/20 but looking back at it, I would definitely like to have created more apps quicker back in the early days. Back before there were so many apps that basically perform the same function in a given category and the fight for eyeballs in the App Store wasn't so fierce. When Twitterrific launched with the App Store back in 2008, there was I think one other Twitter client in the store with it. Oh, how to have that focus on one's creations today!

Additionally, I would have liked to try and foreseen the "race to the bottom" price-wise a little bit quicker than we did. When Twitterrific first launched it was priced at $10 which seemed perfectly reasonable back then. Today, users expect a whole lot more for less or even free which saddens me
personally both as a developer and a user. Software in general has been de-valued by the launch of the App Store which is something I'm not sure we're ever going to be able to change. The genie is out of the bottle there to be sure, but if there was a way we, and other devs, could have communicated to customers the value of software back then better, maybe things would be different today, who knows.

148Apps: What have you seen on the App Store, outside of apps published by The Iconfactory, that has surprised you most?


Gedeon Maheux: Right off the bat the thing that has surprised me the most has been the sheer popularity of the App Store and apps in general. Just a few years ago users didn't even know what an "app" was and today our iPhones are filled with them. Apple launched a whole new universe of productivity, entertainment and novelty with the App Store and every time I see folders full of apps on someone's iDevice, I have to smile.

More specifically, I think the whole phase of one-off novelty apps that became popular there for a while, that surprised me a great deal. The rash of popular fart apps or magic trick apps like iBeer, etc. The popularity of those kinds of apps was astounding for a while, I think we're past that now since its all been done, thank goodness.

It's also been fascinating to see how monetization within apps, particularly games has evolved since the launch of the App Store, and not always in a good way. Micro-payments to satisfy a user's need for instant gratification has made some developers rich instead of designing the best possible gaming experience.

148Apps: Any predictions on what the App Store will be like five years from now?


Gedeon Maheux: Hopefully bigger, better and 1000x easier to find what you're looking for. It's a real chore right now to get noticed or to even be found in the massive hallways that make up Apple's App Store. I'm really hoping they devote some serious resources to improving search algorithms and move away from the "Top of the charts" mentality we've seen since its launch. There are so many great apps in the store that users simply don't know about simply because they cannot find them. They'll never be featured and they'll never be in the Top 25 but that doesn't mean they're not wonderful apps.

I also suspect we'll have a new section of the App Store for Apple TV and iWatch apps? A dev can dream, can't he? :-)

Thanks to Gedeon Maheux for his time.

Twitterrific 5.0 Review

By Jeff Scott on December 6th, 2012
Twitterrific 5.0 is a whole new version of the familiar Twitter client. Designed by The Iconfactory from the ground up to be the perfect Twitter client. Did they do it?
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Twitterrific 3 for iPhone Announced

Posted by Jeff Scott on May 21st, 2010

Twitterrific, a beautiful Twitter client from The Iconfactory has been forced back seat lately. Even though they got a lot of good press from their freemium iPad app, their iPhone version has had to take a back seat now that Tweetie was bought by Twitter and re-released. Twitter has been getting a lot of press for it's new acquisition and re-release, but The Iconfactory aren't going to take that sitting down. Today, they have announced an update for the iPhone version, Twitterrific 3 is coming soon.

The goal of the update will be to streamline the application, giving it the core Twitter features all users need while not bogging down the application with lesser used power-user features.

"As a first step, we decided to take a step back and re-evaluate our approach. We want to make Twitterrific quick and light with a focus on content and usability rather than feature count. We will continue to add necessary features and updates to Twitterrific, but we’ve decided to only add features that will enhance the experience and avoid adding them because it’s easy or just because we can." said David Lanham, designer for Twitterrific.

The update will bring the iPhone version under the same code base as the iPad version, a move that should speed up their ability to add updates to the app in the future. This also means that the iPhone version will become a lot closer in functionality to the iPad version, losing some power-user features.

"Our days of trying to be the everything-under-the-sun Twitter client are over. Tough love has taught us saying “no” leads to beautiful things. The best is yet to come, I hope you’ll join us." remarked Gedeon Maheux

While some won't like this, I think it's a good move to set Twitterrific apart from the ever increasing crowd of iPhone apps. It's a fresh start, a new beginning. Without being bogged down by a feature laden Twitter client.

What will users think? Well Twitterrific for the iPad is one of the best received launch titles. And it is the basis for the iPhone and future desktop versions. So I think they might be on to something. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.

Twitterrific 2.0

iPhone App - Designed for iPhone, compatible with iPad
By Chris Hall on May 8th, 2009
Our rating: starstarstarstarblankstar :: SOLID APP
Twitterrific 2.0 is a well made update to the critically acclaimed, 2008 Apple Design Award winning, Twitter app. The app is definitely geared more towards the Twitter power user, but it has enough charm to delight the masses. If Iconfactory addresses jus
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