I have often written about the need for developers of third-party Twitter clients to focus on different, fresh experiences aimed at providing a new take on mobile tweeting. On iOS, as I have previously argued, apps like Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and Twitter’s official client have managed to capture a large portion of a devoted userbase split in those seeking a wide array of functionalities, a streamlined interface, or the free price tag. Quip, a new Twitter app by Glasshouse Apps (makers of The Early Edition), takes a unique approach at filtering the typical Twitter timeline by conversations, images, and retweets.

I have been testing Quip since its early beta versions, and the app has been no replacement for Tweetbot on my iPad. But that’s exactly Quip’s greatest strength and, I believe, one of its most valid points alongside a care for beautiful UI design and ease of use. While capable of being an average user’s primary iPad client because of its support for basic Twitter functionalities such as direct messages, search, and favorites, I think Quip works best as an attractive companion for catching up on Twitter and browsing certain sections/tweets that could otherwise get easily lost in a “regular” timeline. Quip doesn’t support Twitter lists, its search features are limited, and you won’t find the same degree of link and tweet manipulation options of Tweetbot.

Rather than contributing to the app’s possible detriment when compared to more advanced clients, however, Quip’s extremely specific feature set catalyzes the convenience of those Twitter-based functionalities that Glasshouse implemented. Read more

Since its release in April 2010, the iPad has been widely regarded as a “consumption device” not really suited for “content creation”. Whilst we have already examined the issue with dismissing the iPad as a device that’s not capable of doing the same things a computer can – and my friend Shawn has a good take on why “content” generally is an awful marketing umbrella – the Storify iPad app, coming today for free on the App Store, is yet another example of how the iPad is changing the way we create through unique interfaces built around touch and the strengths of iOS.

Storify is an interesting service. Per se, Storify isn’t strictly focused on allowing you to create original content (images, text, or a combination of both) that you can share with your friends; rather, Storify is a curation tool that, among other services, leverages Twitter and the openness of the web to let you create “social stories” based off elements shared by people you follow, or just about anyone else on the Internet. Storify wants to tell stories by “curating social media”. I have covered the topic of curation – especially Twitter curation – several times on MacStories, and I recently mentioned Storify in my review of Tweet Library, an iOS app by Manton Reece that enables you to create collections of tweets for future reference. As I detailed in the article, Storify integration in Tweet Library means you can easily collect tweets from a variety of sources (people you follow, Twitter lists, favorite tweets – Tweet Library does a great job at breaking up Twitter sections in neatly organized “sources” panels) and publish them online as a bundle on Storify. The first official Storify iPad app, however, brings the full feature set of Storify (or at least the majority of its online functionalities) to the tablet, mirroring the web counterpart available at storify.com to allow you to create visually rich social stories that go beyond collecting data from Twitter.

I have been able to test Storify for iPad in the past weeks, using it to create and edit stories that I’ve embedded on MacStories such as this one, or this one. When I first talked to Storify CEO Xavier Damman about their upcoming iPad client, I wondered how well the team had managed to port the desktop user interface and experience of Storify, which is largely based on drag & drop, to the iPad. Furthermore, the Storify web app benefits from the desktop nature of the web browser, which makes it easy to switch between dozens of tabs, collect links, snippets of text, and images, or simply open links from other applications without having to worry about “switching back” using a multitasking tray, such as the one we have on iOS. These are all problems a native iPad app should somehow address, I thought, as it’s not just as easy and quick to switch between the browser and multiple sources on an iPad, and I wouldn’t want the Storify creation process to become slow or, worse, cumbersome. It turns out, the Storify team solved the problem with converting mouse interaction to multitouch, and quite beautifully. Read more