I wrote a comparison of these suites over two years ago, and it quickly rose in Google search results. Since I don’t want to give the 100 people per day who land on the page wrong information, I updated it.
Today, Twitter released a new version of their app with a simplified design. You can read more about that at fly.twitter.com. Basically, Twitter tried to unify the appearance across platforms, and whittled the experience down to four hubs: Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. This in itself is not a bad idea, but the rushed execution is pretty clear when you start using the new Twitter for iPhone app.
To start, Twitter has gotten rid of the swipe gesture present in previous versions of the app, for no apparent reason. In keeping with the idea of simplification, Twitter may have believed that removing the swipe gesture to reveal a set of action buttons would make the app more approachable to new users. Unless they have data to back up accidental swipes and confusion from these users, there is no reason to remove a niche but powerful feature. In an interview from 2009, Loren Brichter says:
Now, I think you can split gestures into two categories. One is of the pull-down-to-refresh kind. These are gestures that are discoverable and explanatory. The other kind of gestures are like tapping-the-status-bar-to-scroll-to-the-top, or swipe-to-delete (or swipe-to-reply in Tweetie). These gestures you won’t discover on your own except by accident. These are not discoverable, and they are not explanatory.
This second class of gestures can exist (in my opinion) because they are not the only way to accomplish a goal. In the case of tapping the status bar, users already know how to scroll to the top manually. It’s slower, but it’s possible. In the case of swipe to delete, users already know they can tap on a message and then tap the trash button. So knowing the gesture isn’t necessary.
So when you’re inventing new gestures, it’s important to think about whether the gesture is required to use the app. If it’s the only way to accomplish a goal, you better be sure it’s discoverable and explanatory without needing to read a manual. If it’s the other kind of gesture, go nuts!
Knowing that swiping across a tweet reveals quick actions isn’t necessary to use Twitter, as you can always tap on the tweet to go into detail view and use the buttons there. But while the previous version of the app appealed to both pros and new users alike, the new version only works for casual Twitter users, leaving the pros angry and looking for a better app.
The same argument can be made for the swipe gesture on the back button, which would take you to back to the timeline regardless of how “deep” you were. The new version does away with this handy gesture, on the argument that you can just tap on a tab in the tab bar at the bottom of the screen. The problem is that this tab bar is not visible when you’re on a webpage. So, for any link in your timeline, you will need 2 taps to get to the webpage, and 2 taps again to get back to your timeline.
In addition, you cannot send a link to your Instapaper or Read It Later queue from the timeline or tweet detail view. You must tap the link, choose the action button, and then select “Read Later.” Thus, for each link in your timeline, you need 4 taps to send the page to your queue and 2 additional taps to get back to the timeline. With the swipe gesture in Twitter 3.x, this common action would take half as many taps.
Some people are complaining that switching accounts is too arduous a process, or that Direct Messages are hidden behind the Me tab. Luckily, there are gestures for quicker access.
Once you start using the new app, you get the feeling that it was rushed, thanks to a ton of visual inconsistencies. Here are just five of these blunders.
During a transition, the Done button is shifted to the right. After the transition finishes, it snaps into place.
The Edit and Done buttons aren’t aligned with each other, and the + button is too close to the right. The entire bottom toolbar should be shifted to the left.
In addition to shrinking the text to minuscule sizes, the profile picture is not aligned. Source: @flyosity
Egregious alignment error when viewing a conversation with a favorite tweet.
The swipe to delete ugliness that existed ever since Tweetie 2.0 is still not fixed. Source: @gruber
For some more well-articulated criticism, read Twitter For iPhone Takes A Step Back.
My dad has a philosophy of never updating to a “dot zero” release until the bugs have been ironed out. In the Windows days, that meant not upgrading to the latest OS until the first Service Pack was released, or just plain not upgrading ever. Today, when Apple released iOS 5.0.1, I told him that the bugs had been ironed out, and that he should update from iOS 4.3.2. Of course, somehow things always go awry when I’m trying to make a point.
First, since he was running iTunes 10.4, we had to download iTunes 10.5. After that was done, we connected his iPhone 4 and clicked the Update button. Scary Message #1 went something like this: “Some purchased items aren’t transferred, and if you continue you will lose them!” He never synced his iPhone with his Mac, so I figured that the 7 free apps that he downloaded were the problem. I went to the Apps tab and turned on App Syncing, and then hit sync. After the sync finished, Scary Message #2 appeared: “Several items failed to transfer because this computer is not authorized.” So of course I went to the Store menu and clicked Authorize This Computer, and clicked the Sync button again. The sync finished without problems, and I thought we were done. I clicked update, and up came Scary Message #3: “Updating to iOS 5 will delete all the media from your phone!” Yikes. Although I knew that the photos in the Camera Roll would probably be fine if we restored from backup after the update finished, the dialog didn’t make that clear. We opened iPhoto and clicked Import All. After closing iPhoto, I tried the Update button for the billionth time. Wow, it finally started!
iTunes displays a message that it’s going to reboot the device. We go through the on-device setup, and enable iCloud. Scary Message #4 is a modal dialog that asks if we want to merge or not merge contacts with iCloud. I choose “Don’t Merge.” After we get to the home screen, we discover that all the apps are intact, but all his contacts that weren’t synced with Exchange, existing only on the iPhone, were gone. We go back to iTunes and restore the iPhone from a backup at 9:55 PM, the time right before we attempted the upgrade. This time around, we don’t turn on iCloud, so we don’t get the message about contact merging. The contacts are back, but the apps are all gone. Using the Apps pane in iTunes, we restore the apps to the phone, but of course, all the data in those apps are gone.
After getting the phone in a working state, I decided to play around with some features. I tried to use the iPhone 4 to send a text to my iPod touch 4th generation, because both devices were finally running iOS 5.0.1. I opened the Messages app on the iPhone and selected the New Message button in the top right. I tapped in the “to” field and started typing my name. The suggestions below the field suggested my phone number (for my cheap flip phone that I never use), even though my email address that I use for iMessage was stored in the same contact. I ended up having to send the iMessage from my iPod to his iPhone.
Really, all of these minor bumps boil down to issues with iTunes and issues with data loss. Supposedly/thankfully, iOS 5 will be the last release where we’ll have to deal with this stuff. When I get around to turning on iCloud (recall that the second time around we didn’t turn it on), the camera roll, contacts, and apps should all be safe from the evil thing known as OS upgrades.
On September 17, I bought the Scattante R330 road bike for $700. This was an expensive bike, considering I previously rode a multitude of shoddy Costco bikes, all of which retailed for appropriately cheap prices. Naturally, I had high expectations for this shiny new toy.
Problem #1 happened on day zero. Apparently, what you see is not what you get. The bike technician took the bike on the shelf, performed various “adjustments,” and swapped out the perfectly fine pedals for weird shaped ergonomic ones that had straps. Granted, real bikers probably want these strange pedals, but you’d think that switching them out would be an easy matter. Nope! I paid an extra $15 for a pedal swap.
Because this road bike was 300% times more expensive than a Costco bike, I expected the gear shifters to be 300% more awesome. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Within days, the front derailleur wouldn’t switch from gear 3 to gear 2. The workaround was to switch from gear 3, to 1, and then to 2. I had to lug the bike to the shop for them to fix it.
As you may be aware, bike pedals and the associated crank shafts are quite important if you want to actually use the bike. So of course, the technician should make sure to put in all the screws and such. One day, I had just finished my daily ride when the crank arm decided to fall off. The technician had conveniently omitted one of the screws. Luckily the bike shop fixed this problem for free.
Those issues all happened last month. I thought I was done with them. But today, in the middle of my ride, I almost lost control when the front tire went flat for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I examined the tire and did not find any punctures or worn areas. Yet somehow the tire was flat. Since I had already raced down a fairly large hill and did not want to push the bike back up, I enlisted in some roadside assistance. I ran all the way back home since the bike barely fit in the car. That was fun for a while, as I was actually ahead of the car for half the distance. Even so, I’ve got a bike with a flat tire. Tomorrow I’ll have to lug it to the bike shop, rinse, and repeat.
Contrast this with cheap Costco bikes, which are of poor build quality but never fail as spectacularly as pretentious road bikes, and especially not in the first month. Road bikes are still great, but they break way too often, as if their thin frame conveys a supreme fragility. Perhaps next time I should consider that extortion extended service plan.
Update 10/21: Another flat tire.
Update 11/13: The back brake pad is now emitting strange squeaky noises.
Update 11/17: The crank shaft fell off. Again.
The Stockfish chess engine project just switched its GitHub repo from private to public. Guess what this means? Now YOU can pretend to be skilled at using Terminal! For the full effect, switch your Terminal color scheme to “Pro” and hit the full screen button. Behold…
git clone https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish.git
cd Stockfish/src
make profile-build ARCH=osx-x86-64
open stockfish
go infinite
Switch back to Activity Monitor and you’ll see all your CPU cores chewing away at the superbly difficult initial chess position.
I was talking with my little brother about Twitter. He doesn’t use it, but he did come up with some pretty hilarious monetization ideas.
Of course, he started with the basics. You could purchase a “follower pack” and get 1,000 followers. Or you could buy a “premium account” and get your tweet on the Twitter home page. Here’s a strange one though: you could purchase an “@reply pack” and get 10,000 @replies! I’m not exactly sure why anybody would want that…
In an attempt to capitalize on the spam problem on Twitter, he came up with the idea of spam accounts. Prospective spammers could easily purchase spam accounts for a few cents apiece. Imagine how much revenue that would generate!
Obsessed over your Twitter background? Well, you’ll hate the background purchase feature. For just 99¢, you can upload your own background—but only once. If you upload the wrong one, you have 60 seconds to undo your purchase.
Hacking is always fun, right? For just a few hundred dollars, you can hack someone’s account and send tweets for them. Of course, that means you’ll need to buy insurance to protect from hacks by others. Or you can just buy someone’s account outright for a price based on your number of followers. Which you would have inflated with the follower pack, right?
To build a truly revolutionary platform, you must have in-game currency. Introducing Twitter Worms. If you’re feeling adventurous, feed your Worms to the Twitter Bird and you just might win the Twitter Lottery.
Do you want to mute someone on a massive scale? Purchase the taser, which will silence them for a day. Use the nuke ($1,000) if you want that ban to last for a week. For ultimate destruction, the mega nuke ($10,000) silences your target for a month. For a bit of protection, you can buy some body armor that will take care of tasers.
If you want to wreak even more havoc, buy a missile! This will literally destroy previous tweets sent by a user. For defense, you can use a laser to shoot down the missile.
No gamification implementation would be complete without an Angry Birds reference. The Mighty Eagle reflects everything—nukes, missiles, hacks, etc. against the person who sent it. A truly powerful weapon.
“If I were the CEO of Twitter I would definitely add these features. Twitter would be so much more fun!” —My little brother
[video]
I’ve been using Lion since the very first developer preview. What can I say. Just go buy it now.
Breakout -
I’m learning Java this summer by watching videos on iTunes U, and I built a game. Yay!
A few months ago back in January, Apple launched the Mac App Store. To keep track of all the cool new apps that were launching, I started the Mac Apps That Rock blog. Since then, Mac Apps That Rock has been a wonderful success. It’s now home to 150 apps, has over 450 followers on Tumblr, and has over 1000 subscribers via RSS. Today, I’m taking it to a whole new level, with the launch of Mac Apps That Rock 2.0.
The first thing you’ll notice about the new Mac Apps That Rock is the all new design. While the previous site used a stock Tumblr theme, the new site features a custom theme that I built from scratch. Notice the CSS3 download buttons, which take you right to the Mac App Store. Try clicking on the Categories button in the sidebar—it works just like an iOS folder. Navigation has been streamlined, too: at the bottom of each page is an easy to click “more” button. Looking for great Mac apps is now more enjoyable than ever.
You may have noticed the search box in the top right corner of the new redesign. That’s right, you can finally search Mac Apps That Rock. Thanks to Google Custom Search, you’ll get your familiar list of ten blue links. And best of all, the page doesn’t even need to refresh with each query.
Mac Apps That Rock finally has a Twitter account (@macappsthatrock). So now you have three great ways to subscribe: Tumblr, RSS, and now, Twitter. It’s easier than ever to keep up with the amazing new apps coming to the Mac platform.
Mac Apps That Rock 2.0. I think you’ll really like it.