Tag: Tweetie »

Word came down on Friday first from Twitter, then from Loren Brichter himself that the Tweetie iPhone app (and soon the iPad app) had been acquired by Twitter. Loren Brichter will be joining the mobile team at Twitter.

In the coming weeks, Tweetie will be rebranded and re-released as Twitter for iPhone. The app will be free from that point on as well. Though once Twitter figures out their advertising strategy, we should expect to see that in the app as well. In addition, it was announced that we should see the iPad version of this renamed Tweetie soon as well.

Some are worried that Twitter releasing their own mobile client device could negatively impact the other mobile clients. While this will certainly be true to some extent, Tweetie is the best iPhone client and it is now going to be free after all. Others will need to differentiate themselves in some way to get attention and sales. Twitter applying their official stamp to an application still causes great concern by many. This will still allow other developers to compete as long as Twitter doesn't create private APIs that only their client can access.

There was also great concern about what will become of the Macintosh OSX desktop version of Tweetie. That app is currently in development and waiting for a major revision based on the new core in Tweetie 2. Well Loren posted some good news on that this weekend. It is being worked on right now and a first beta should be delivered soon.

[via Twitter]

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.

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I just received these on Twitter a few minutes ago, from Jonah Grant. He assures me he has had confirmation from Loren himself that screenshots of the new upcoming app are okay to be leaked, due to the cat already being out of the bag. So, here goes nothing! ..

All in all there are 11 shots in this batch, a few of which depict more of what we can expect from the update. Most noticeably I think, is the fact that Tweetie's 'Nearby' feature is now in fact an interactive map of nearby users. From the shot we can tell that the UI is not too dissimilar to Loopt, and you can switch from 'Map' to 'List' view.

Images Courtesy of Jonah Grant

You'll also see they depict a new way to refresh your timeline. From the shots it suggests that you pull a 'panel' down from the top of Tweetie 2, and release to refresh - Pretty neat implementation I have to say. Now whether or not Tweetie will have a 'Automatic' refresh option is yet to be seen, but I know you guys sure want it, looking at my replies tab on Twitter.

Update: Tweet update... "Automatic" refresh will be included.

Update 2: This morning I asked Loren of behalf of all of you, that burning question; Would Tweetie 2 bring with it Push Notifications? Below is his response via a few DMs:

"Not in 2.0. It's impossible to pull off reliably on the scale of users Tweetie has. I recommend Boxcar for now. (but there is some exciting stuff coming down the pipe ;)"

I've attached the rest of the shots after the break for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

I'll admit it, I'm a HUGE Tweetie fan. The brains behind it? Loren Brichter.

What was arguably the most hyped twitter client, and what now is deemed to be the twitter client choice for iPhone, of many, Tweetie has been sitting pretty for a while now. After winning an Apple Design Award in 2009 for 'Outstanding Innovation and Design', Tweetie has gone from strength to strength. But it hasn't all been buttercups and roses. Lately, the word surrounding Tweetie was that it had fallen behind. It had become invisible, due to competition. It lacked the awesome'ness of this, and the necessity of that.

Today, this all changes. After teasing us for almost all of the day on Twitter, Loren finally came clean; announcing via his stream that Tweetie 2 for iPhone had been in development for some time, and that it would bring Tweetie back into the foreground again - for all of the reasons you fell in love with Tweetie 1.0.

Britcher explained that Tweetie 2 had been in beta for a few months now, and after 8 beta versions, the product originally codenamed 'Bigbird' throughout the beta phases was finally ready to be submitted to Apple. In fact, it has been submitted... late last night. Britcher says the final version is ready, and he'll all being well submit the app later this week. We just have to hope Apple and it's seemingly temperamental approval process makes Tweetie 2's debut a quick a painless one.

So, what can you expect from this major update? Well, quite a lot actually. For starters you'll now find threaded conversations. Just like Tweetie for Mac, you'll be able to see just who thought your tweet was cool, what they said, and what other people said afterwards. Next? Tab bar notifications. Since the introduction of Tweetie for Mac, users of Tweetie really wanted to see this functionality comes to the iPhone. Now, it has. Saved searches. Not content with how they function now, in Tweetie 2 Britcher says saved searches will 'sync' back up to the upcoming Tweetie for Mac 2 desktop version.

Now come'on. Be honest. Were you a fan of the compose screen? Well, you might like it a little more now. In Tweetie 2 the compose screen has been completely overhauled. Adding options for an @people picker, recent hashtags, multiple attachments manager and a "peek" gesture for when replying to a tweet.

Images courtesy of Chicago Now

You'll also probably be glad to hear this version will support full landscape mode, and a load more features including: the ability to edit your own Twitter profile, vastly improved gesture shortcuts, in-app rich-text email, new-style retweet support (supposedly to support the upcoming Twitter update), the option to refresh-all on launch, TextExpander support, "read it later" integration, auto-complete recent searches, auto-complete go-to-user, improved avatar caching, inline Twitlonger, reply chain list view, preview short urls, tweet translation and the ability to block and follow from multiple accounts, at once.

There is one tiny niggle, and that is Tweetie 2 will be an entirely new app to what will now be referred to as Tweetie 1. Although, you won't have to pay through your nose to get it. In fact, quite the opposite!

In his own words:

"Making a “2.0” could have been easy. I could have changed the version number, added video tweeting and called it a day. Other apps call that “2.0” - I think it’s lame. Tweetie 1 set a new standard for Twitter clients and iPhone apps in general. It proved that you didn’t have to sacrifice intuitiveness for functionality. Today we have iPhone OS 3.0, 3GS, and new Twitter APIs. Tweetie 2 is built from the ground up to take advantage of these fantastic new technologies.

Tweetie 2 for Mac will be a completely free upgrade. (So if you haven’t already grabbed a license, feel free to do so). On the other hand, Tweetie 2 for iPhone will be a whole new app. And while it’s arguably worth a lot more, I’m keeping the price exactly the same: $2.99."

Hopefully if Britcher is lucky, we could see Tweetie 2 hit the App Store inside 2 weeks, but I wouldn't hold your breath on that. All we can rest on is that it will soon be in submission, and it's fate will rest solely in the hands of Apple. I for one, can't wait to get my hands on this.

With the much anticipated arrival of push notifications, Twitter clients from across the App Store (and beyond) have been updated and re-polished to support this latest feature. However, times travel fast! Jeff was right when he said to me last week: "[this article] will likely be out of date within a week or so." No fewer than three extra clients have landed onto the App Store and into our hands this week alone. We've dived in at the deep end to check out them all.

Why Push Notifications?
In the olden days, for instance, whenever 148 was the maximum amount of applications that you could install, if you wanted information you had to go to it. Be it the latest news or the latest tweets, the only way that you'd find out about it is if you went to the information source - a Twitter application for tweets; or a news website for breaking news. Push notifications reverses this role and the information is brought to you. You're updated in real time about what is happening, who is tweeting you, and why the Zune is not as good as the iPod (okay, maybe not the last one). Push is practically limitless, and developers are keen to get ahead of the game.

The Clients
There are two types of clients for Twitter push notifications. Firstly, there is the fully-fledged application that has both a Twitter interface of its own and push notifications. Secondly, there are applications that leave the tweeting to the pros (eg. Tweetie / Twitterific) and a separate application is made solely for push. We'll look at both.

[caption id="attachment_16029" align="aligncenter" width="468" caption="Click to see full comparison chart (300kb)"]

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Full rundown of the Twitter apps after the break.

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

[img id="icon100x100.png"]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.

[img id="icon100x100.png"]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.

[img id="icon100x100.png"]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.

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.