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Posts tagged with "twitter"

New Twitter Clients

Justin Williams writes about the current state of Twitter clients for iOS:

What iOS needs is the Twitter equivalent to Adium: a well maintained, open source Twitter client that is targeted at the most hardcore and passionate users of both Twitter and the iOS platform.

That, of course, is easier typed than done. Many open source projects fail because of lack of vision or direction. Others fail because they are just badly engineered software that aims to shove every pet feature into a unified product. Projects like Adium succeed because there is an established hierarchy of managers, developers and contributors. Each release has a focus and direction much like a commercially produced project.

My first Twitter client was Twittelator Pro by Andrew Stone, which I installed soon after I got my first iPhone in 2008. After that, I switched to Twitterrific, which I kept until Tweetie came out. For a few months I bounced back and forth between Tweetie, Twitterrific and Birdfeed but, eventually, I settled with Tweetie 2. I loved Tweetie 2. It was the perfect Twitter client for my needs, it was fast and Loren was (is) a great guy. But then Twitter bought the app, started doing all kinds of crazy things to it, and the excitement wore off. I went back to Twitterrific, but it wasn’t the same – I had become very accustomed to Tweetie (now Twitter for iPhone) and the simplicity of Twitterrific was disorienting. Like Justin, I’ve always had a problem with inline DMs in Twitterrific.

Throughout 2010 and 2011 there’s also been a period when I went back to trying every Twitter client out there, including Twittelator Pro (again), but also Echofon, Tweetings, HootSuite, Osfoora, TweetList and TweetLogix. I was addicted to trying Twitter clients until Tweetbot came out and, as I wrote in my review, proved to be a Twitter app for iPhone I could once again fall in love with. I’ve been using Tweetbot for iPhone ever since, and the app keeps getting better on each release. Personally, I don’t agree with Justin’s point that Tweetbot is “the best designed Android app available for iOS”, but this isn’t the main problem.

The real issue is that these days iOS Twitter nerds are left with Tweetbot and nothing else. Twitterrific clearly isn’t targeting power users – maybe a better expression would be “users that don’t just casually check on Twitter” – and Twitter for iPhone, well, let’s just say it’s not exactly focused on Twitter geeks anymore. How about the other clients? I see very few innovators around, and the only third-party app I’m excited about (again, except Tweetbot, which I use every day) is Twittelator Neue – Stone’s app has a good chance to reinvent a few things especially if it ever comes to the iPad. But looking at the whole Twitter software landscape today, it’s clear to me there isn’t the kind of verve and anticipation for new clients that we experienced three years ago, with developers constantly updating their clients, one-upping competitors in terms of features, and teasing new products that (sadly) never came to be.

In a scenario where the less popular Twitter clients are either a) maintained through bug fix releases or b) updated with minor features every once in a while, lacking major additions like iPad and Mac counterparts, I see a glimmer of hope in Tweetbot – Tapbots are always up to some great stuff – and services like Tweet Marker: available for free to developers to implement in their apps, Tweet Marker is the first step towards that kind of client-side unification whose lack made switching Twitter clients on a daily (or even hourly) basis so painful in 2009. Check out the apps that already support Tweet Marker, and note how they’re the same names that I’ve mentioned above.

Building an Adium-like model for the ultimate Twitter client might be a viable plan, albeit an elaborate one considering all the technical complexities and frequent changes behind the Twitter API. An ideal modern Twitter client for power users should have delightful and powerful iOS apps and an outstanding Mac client that makes it extremely easy to switch environments without user fatigue; you have to make sure the apps are always brought up to date with the latest Twitter features from Twitter itself and iOS 5 (I’m fairly sure the technologies and APIs behind AIM aren’t updated nearly as often as Apple releases new iOS betas), and when everything’s distributed for free you have to make sure you’ve got a dedicated, kick-ass team of contributors and leaders, or things start to get messy (and slow) because of updates, user support, feature request, and so forth.

So here’s another possible scenario. Let’s continue to diversify the offer of available Twitter clients, and settle with one app for power users. Justin doesn’t like Tweetbot, but perhaps one year from now Tweetbot will be available on more platforms with changes and tweaks that everyone will like and use on a daily basis, even Justin. Around that Twitter client for power users, I imagine a flourishing ecosystem of innovative Twitter apps that don’t simply focus on building an alternative to Tweetbot – a daunting task at this point – but provide a unique experience that can live alongside the main, full-featured client. I’m thinking Tweet Library, also by Tweet Marker’s Manton Reece: instead of just focusing on being the perfect regular client, Tweet Library’s built-in client is functional to the app’s real feature: curating tweets and archiving them. This is the path I believe developers should strongly consider for building Twitter-connected apps: focus on APIs, services and interactions with other software. Where’s the Twitter app that integrates with Evernote and lets you annotate tweets? Where is the app to run, manage and archive online polls exclusively via Twitter? Where’s the service that lets you use your custom vanity URL and get beautiful, real-time, reliable click analytics instead of the ugly mess that’s HootSuite?

You see where I’m getting at – I believe developers are (obviously) completely free of investing their time and resources into competing with Tweetbot, but on the other hand I don’t think focusing on other aspects of Twitter means admitting defeat. It’s easy to say “Tweetbot won” or “Twitterrific is the best” when, really, the story is much more complex than that and also goes back to a company that has shown a “peculiar” approach to guiding its own third-party developers.

Will we ever go back to the Birdfeed and Tweetie era? I don’t think so. Twitter is now integrated in iOS 5 and seeing massive growth because of it, thus justifying the prospect of creating an app “for power users” even less. Yet I can’t help but think about a time, not too distant from now, when the power users will finally settle on a single solution for their power-hungry needs, and let other developers innovate atop of the Twitter platform in disruptive new ways. The ideas, devices, APIs and users are waiting.

[Photo by Jorge Quinteros]

TweetDeck for the Mac: A Shorter Review

TweetDeck has always been looked up to as the power-user’s go-to Twitter app thanks to a huge feature set, its multi-column layout, quick filtering, and its availability across platforms thanks to Adobe Air. When Twitter acquired TweetDeck back in May, many questioned whether Twitter would continue to maintain the client, and whether Twitter would rebrand the app to better fit into their ecosystem. Yesterday, TweetDeck launched natively on Mac and Windows, bringing with it a brand new experience in-line with #NewNewTwitter’s focus. Like Twitter, it’s another big change many will have a hard time adjusting to.

Read more

Review: Twitter 4.0 for iPhone

That gorgeous app up above? That’s the next-generation Twitter app. Twitter 4.0 melds Twitter’s brand new web experience with your mobile phone, making it easier to discover and share information that matters most to you. Conversations, your activity feed, stories and trends have now been given focus in four new tabs that make Twitter more accessible than ever before.

Read more

Firefox 8 Officially Released

In late September Mozilla released version 7 of its Firefox browser, and as part of the company’s new fast release cycle we noted a few days after the release that a beta of Firefox 8 had already been seeded to developers. In the article, we noted Mozilla promised Firefox 8 would deliver better tab management, deeper Twitter integration, and new features for web developers.

Uploaded to the company’s FTP servers a few days ago, Firefox 8 has been officially released today, with a blog post from Mozilla outlining the differences from the previous version. As with the Firefox 8 beta, Firefox 8 final comes with an option in the Preferences to load existing tabs (the pages you left open the last time you quit the browser) only when they’re selected. This should improve the browser’s startup times, as it’s no longer forced to reload all tabs upon launch.

Another minor new feature is the addition of a Twitter icon in the app’s search box. Mozilla says “Twitter search is currently available in English, Portuguese, Slovenian and Japanese versions of Firefox”, and the new options basically just loads a new Twitter search page for anything you type in the search field – don’t expect Firefox to smartly recognize @usernames or #hashtags, and open Twitter profiles or hashtag pages instead of plain search.

Alongside better handling of third-party add-ons, security and stability fixes, Firefox 8 introduces a series of improvements for web developers:

Improved performance and memory handling when using <audio> and <video> elements

  • Added CORS support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
  • Added support for HTML5 context menus
  • Added support for insertAdjacentHTML
  • Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
  • Improved WebSocket support

As far as Lion support goes, whereas Google updated Chrome to take advantage of the OS’ new native scrolling and full-screen mode, Mozilla’s browser still lacks any sort of Lion integration and support for new functionalities.

To read more about Firefox 8’s new features, head over Mozilla’s blog post on the update. Expect a beta of Firefox 9 to become publicly available soon; you can download Firefox 8 from Mozilla’s website here.

iOS 5: Twitter Integration

With iOS 5, Apple is officially acknowledging the existence of external social networks besides Ping and Apple ID (one of the authentication options for iOS 5’s iMessage) and the result is direct Twitter support, unveiled after much speculation at the WWDC in June, and now available inside Apple’s Settings app. Twitter integration in iOS 5, however, goes beyond a couple of preferences and options to tweak – it’s a systemwide framework that will allow developers to build “official” Twitter support in their apps, as well as let users forget about having to log in with Twitter every time they want to try a new Twitter app.

Twitter is expecting a massive growth in the upcoming months thanks to integration with Apple’s devices, and rightfully so: with the new Twitter preference panel available in iOS 5’s Settings, users are able to sign in once with their Twitter account, and use that “single sign-on” to authorize other apps downloaded from the App Store to access their Twitter credentials. With this method, not only is Apple giving users support for Twitter at a system level, they’re also leveraging iOS technologies to make the experience of downloading and configuring Twitter apps (admittedly, quite many) as frictionless as possible. Read more

Twitter Updates iOS App with iOS 5 Twitter Integration, New iPad DM Interface

Twitter released an update to its official iOS client today, adding an improved sign up experience, integration with Twitter’s own picture service, and a redesigned Direct Message view on the iPad. As we detailed with our coverage of Tweetbot 1.7 earlier today, iOS 5 is now allowing developers of Twitter-enabled apps to fetch account credentials directly from the iOS Settings app, rather than forcing users to re-authenticate with their accounts every single time. The official Twitter client, as we expected, implemented iOS 5’s single sign-on to allow users to get already-configured accounts from the Settings. The feature is optional and new accounts can still be added manually, but as I wrote with the Tweetbot update, it’s very convenient to be able to add accounts without entering usernames and passwords anymore.

Also new in Twitter 3.5 is direct upload of photos to Twitter’s photo sharing service, available at pic.twitter.com. This can be configured in Twitter’s Preferences both on the iPhone and iPad. What’s new to the iPad is a much improved Direct Messages interface, which has been updated to order DMs chronologically and by thread with a new clean design. Gone is the DM popover from the app’s sidebar, too. iPad owners can now also tap on a location to show tweets nearby.

Twitter 3.5 is available on the App Store now.

Tweetbot Gets iOS 5 Twitter Integration with Single Sign-On

iOS 5 is officially launching tomorrow, and the App Store’s review team has been busy these past few days quickly approving app updates that take advantage of the new features available to developers. A first example was OmniFocus for iOS, updated to include the location reminders Apple will make popular with its own native Reminders app. Today another popular third-party app for the iPhone, Tweetbot, has been updated to include bug fixes and a new iOS 5-only feature – Twitter integration.

Whilst we’ll have a detailed overview of Twitter integration in iOS 5 tomorrow, Apple has already announced that developers will be able to use a feature called single sign-on to let their apps fetch Twitter credentials directly from the operating system, which has a new Twitter panel inside the Settings. Thanks to single sign-on, if a Twitter account (or multiple ones) are already configured in iOS 5’s Twitter settings, third-party apps like Tweetbot won’t need to re-authenticate users through a clumsy web view as they’ve been forced to do until today. They can simply get the account-related information from iOS’ Settings app.

So when you’ll install iOS 5 tomorrow, try to add your Twitter account to the iPhone’s settings – this will enable other functionalities that we’ll also cover tomorrow in our overview. Then install the new Tweetbot 1.7, which is already available, and you’ll notice you won’t have to re-enter your Twitter credentials again – Tweetbot will ask you if it’s okay to add the accounts already on your device. The procedure takes seconds, and is managed by an “Import iOS Accounts” option in Tweetbot’s settings. The best part is that because third-party apps are deeply integrated with Twitter in iOS 5, new accounts you’ll add through Tweetbot will also be carried over the system’s Twitter settings.

This kind of Twitter integration with the OS makes for a better first launch experience as users don’t need to go find their Twitter passwords again and re-authorize every account on each Twitter-enabled app. Tweetbot is the first popular third-party client to take advantage of this, and you get it now on the App Store for $2.99.

Tweet Speaker: Listen To Your Twitter Timeline

At the “Let’s talk iPhone” media event earlier this week, Apple officially previewed Siri, a voice assistant that will be integrated with several functionalities and apps of iOS 5 on the new iPhone 4S: Siri is a new way to get things done and obtain information just by asking. In the Siri demo, Senior VP of iOS Software Scott Forstall showed that it’ll be possible to get word definitions, look up anything on the Internet, do basic currency conversion, create reminders, and more. In fact, the list of Siri commands seems quite impressive, and the fact that the system is integrated with online services like Yelp and Wolfram Alpha should allow for always up-to-date, reliable and real-time data that lives outside the iPhone itself, but it’s immediately accessible.

What Apple didn’t preview during the Siri demo, and which I’m not sure will ship with the final version of the app next week, is Twitter integration. In iOS 5, Twitter is integrated systemwide to let you tweet photos and webpages, update your Address Book contacts and sign in with any Twitter enabled app. But will Siri be able to read your Twitter timeline? Or send a mention to a specific user? Or, again, will Siri eventually get these capabilities, if not next week perhaps in a few months?

I don’t know, but right now, there’s this sweet new app by App Cubby out in the App Store, it’s called Tweet Speaker and it lets listen to your Twitter timeline for $2.99.

Both App Cubby’s website and iPhone app share a beautiful design and attention to detail. Tweet Speaker offers an interesting mix of dark UI elements, clean and simple tweets and 3D buttons that provide a nice contrast again the wood texture in the background. Tweet Speaker looks great, and its interface is functional to the app’s main feature. Once authenticated with your Twitter account, Tweet Speaker will begin loading tweets from your timeline; alternatively, you can switch to mentions or a specific Twitter list. In the timeline view, a bar at the bottom lets you move between hours of the day and jump to, say, tweets from the afternoon or early in the morning. Tweet Speaker is fast at loading tweets and it’s even got support for Tweet Marker, if you’re already using the service in apps like Twitterrific or Tweetbot. A nice touch in Tweet Speaker’s UI are the small notification popups that will appear on screen as tweets are loaded or items sent to Instapaper (natively supported), and I also like the app’s horizontal pull-to-refresh that appears as you reach the most recent tweet in your timeline.

As you hit the play button, Twitter Speaker will start reading your tweets. There’s only one male voice available now (more will be coming soon), and it sounds pretty natural. I like how this voice treats retweets and mentions differently, saying “Mark retweeted  from Chris” or “Tim said in reply to Sofia” – it even goes as far as trying to fetch the title of an http:// link when available (like the title of an article on this site). Perhaps the touch functionality of Tweet Speaker won’t be used much when jogging or driving, but the app enables you to reply to tweets, retweet them, mark them as favorites, and load conversations between users. You can follow/unfollow users directly from Tweet Speaker, configure a tap&hold action for Safari or Instapaper – you can also send your iPhone’s audio to AirPlay to listen to tweets on the big screen or through your favorite speakers.

Tweet Speaker isn’t your regular Twitter client, it’s a Twitter companion that you might find useful if you’ve ever wanted to be able to listen to your Twitter stream while looking at a beautifully designed app. Get it here.

Firefox 8 Enters Beta with Twitter Search, New Tab Features

As Firefox 7 hit the public channel earlier this week, Mozilla has published a new blog post detailing some of the features of the new Firefox 8, now available in beta. Keeping true to their renewed schedule for Firefox updates, Mozilla aims to release a new version of their browser every six weeks, which has lead to some confusion among users as to whether it’s really necessary to call every update a major release when there are only minor differences to test.

Firefox 8 will deliver some improvements to tab management, allowing users to choose whether tabs should load at start-up, or only when they’re selected. This should allow for faster start-up times when windows with many tabs are restored; from a first test, it indeed appears Firefox 8 will restore the last opened tab, display other tabs’ titles and favicons, but load their contents only when the user clicks on them. Mac users can find this new option under Preferences -> General. Also, a new tab animation should make it easier to re-order tabs.

Another new feature of Firefox 8 is Twitter integration in the search box. By clicking on the search provider’s icon (by default it’s Google), users will have the option to choose Twitter and enter terms to look up on the social network’s Search page.

Firefox 8 also includes:

  • Enhanced control of add-ons: Users will receive a one-time notification to review and confirm third party add-ons they want to keep, disable or delete. When Firefox starts and finds that a third-party program has installed an add-on, Firefox will disable the add-on until the user has explicitly opted in, giving users better control over their Web experience.
  • CORS for WebGL textures: Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) enables Web developers to load textures from other domains for WebGL in a secure way.
  • WebSockets updates: Firefox now prevents the use of plaintext WebSockets when created from an SSL page, which improves security for users.
  • HTML5 Native Right Click Menu: Web developers can now add items directly to the Firefox right click menu using simple HTML5 markup.
  • HTML5 media elements: Developers can add a lot of video and audio elements to a website without impacting performance

Firefox 8 is expected to be available later this year. The first beta can be download from Mozilla’s website here.