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Tweetbot 4 Review: Bigger Bot

There have only been two great Twitter apps for iPad since 2010: Loren Brichter’s Twitter, and the original Tweetbot for iPad.

As I reminisced last year in my look at the state of Twitter clients, iOS apps for Twitter are no longer the welcoming, crowded design playground they once were. Developing a Twitter client used to be an exercise in taste and restraint – a test for designers and developers who sought to combine the complex networking of Twitter with a minimalist, nimble approach best suited for a smartphone. Twitter reclaimed their keys to the playground when they began offering “guidance” on the “best opportunities” available to third-party developers. Four years into that shift, no major change appears to be in sight.

For this reason, I’d argue that while the iPhone witnessed the rise of dozens of great Twitter clients in their heyday, the iPad’s 2010 debut played against its chances to receive an equal number of Twitter apps specifically and tastefully designed for the device. Less than a year after the original iPad’s launch (and the Tweetie acquisition), Twitter advised developers to stop building clients that replicated the core Twitter experience; a year later, they started enforcing the 100,000-token limit that drove some developers out of business. Not exactly the best conditions to create a Twitter client for a brand new platform.

Largely because of the economic realities of Twitter clients, few developers ever invested in a Twitter app for iPad that wasn’t a cost-effective adaptation of its iPhone counterpart. Many took the easy route, scaling up their iPhone interfaces to fit a larger screen with no meaningful alteration to take advantage of new possibilities. Functionally, that was mostly okay, and to this day some very good Twitter apps for iPad still resemble their iPhone versions. And yet, I’ve always felt like most companies had ever nailed Twitter clients for a 10-inch multitouch display.

With two exceptions. The original Twitter for iPad, developed by Tweetie creator and pull-to-refresh inventor Loren Brichter, showed a company at the top of their iOS game, with a unique reinterpretation of Twitter for the iPad’s canvas. The app employed swipes and taps for material interactions that treated the timeline as a stack of cards, with panels you could open and move around to peek at different sets of information. I was in love with the app, and I still think it goes down in software history as one of the finest examples of iPad app design. Until Twitter ruined it and sucked all the genius out of it, the original Twitter for iPad was a true iPad app.

And then came Tweetbot. While Twitter stalled innovation in their iPad app, Tapbots doubled down and brought everything that power users appreciated in Tweetbot for iPhone and reimagined it for the iPad. The result was a powerful Twitter client that wasn’t afraid to experiment with the big screen: Tweetbot for iPad featured a flexible sidebar for different orientations, tabs in profile views, popovers, and other thoughtful touches that showed how an iPhone client could be reshaped in the transition to the tablet. Tapbots could have done more, but Tweetbot for iPad raised the bar for Twitter clients for iPad in early 2012.

Three years later, that bar’s still there, a bit dusty and lonely, pondering a sad state of affairs. Tweetbot is no longer the champion of Twitter clients for iPad, having skipped an entire generation of iOS design and new Twitter features. Tweetbot for iPad is, effectively, two years behind other apps on iOS, which, due to how things turned out at Twitter, haven’t been able to do much anyway. On the other hand, Twitter for iPad – long ignored by the company – has emerged again with a stretched-up iPhone layout presented in the name of “consistency”. It’s a grim landscape, devoid of the excitement and curiosity that surrounded Twitter clients five years ago.

Tweetbot 4 wants to bring that excitement back. Long overdue and launching today on the App Store at $4.99 (regular price will be $9.99), Tweetbot 4 is a Universal app that builds upon the foundation of Tweetbot 3 for iPhone with several refinements and welcome additions.

In the process, Tweetbot 4 offers a dramatic overhaul of the iPad app, bringing a new vision for a Twitter client that’s unlike anything I’ve tried on the iPad before.

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Nintendo’s LINE Stickers→

Andrew Webster on Nintendo’s latest mobile product:

Most recently, the North American Line store was updated with stickers from Nintendo’s beloved life sim Animal Crossing, no doubt to help promote the new 3DS game Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. I spent the necessary $2 to acquire them immediately; I didn’t realize how much I needed an animated sticker of rock star dog KK Slider playing a guitar until I had it. In Japan, Nintendo recently released a second sticker pack, this one based on the wonderful new Wii U shooter Splatoon, and I absolutely cannot wait until Nintendo releases them in the English-speaking world. (Because they definitely will, right?)

I had no idea Nintendo offered LINE stickers.

I like how Nintendo is trying different mobile approaches before launching their full game initiative with DeNA. You have to wonder if amiibo (a lucrative segment for Nintendo) will ever get its own iPhone app.

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Google Maps Gets Apple Watch App→

Google has released an update to its Google Maps app for iOS today, including a new version for Apple Watch. I was curious to check out Google Maps’ debut on the Watch: while I knew that they couldn’t replicate the experience of Apple’s excellent Maps app, I was hoping that watchOS 2 would give them some room for experimentation.

Instead, Google has shipped a basic Watch app that shows a list of directions for Home and Work addresses configured in the iPhone app. I guess this could be useful if you’ve been looking for a way to print out directions on your Watch’s screen, but I don’t know why you wouldn’t use your iPhone for that, with proper navigation tools and spoken feedback. Missed opportunity for Google considering they could have at least included a complication for quick access to the app.

Thankfully, you can check out ETA 2.0 for iOS, which has been updated for watchOS 2 and that includes a great complication for traffic information, public transit support, and more.

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Pixar Development Team Tests iPad Pro and Apple Pencil→

Ben Lovejoy, writing at 9to5Mac:

Michael B. Johnson, who heads the Pixar team that develops the tools used to create its animated movies, tweeted that his team had been given the chance to test the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil – and described palm-rejection as perfect.

Palm rejection has been one of my primary concerns following the iPad Pro announcement. If it’s good enough for Pixar, it sounds like it should perform fairly well for the rest of us, too.

Update: Don Shank, artist at Pixar, has shared a picture of a drawing on an iPad Pro on Instagram (via Harry McCracken).

Got some play time on an iPad Pro today. So fun! Can’t wait until November.

A photo posted by Don Shank (@donshank) on

Here’s some of his most interesting comments:

pressure sensitivity is great. Each individual app determines how pressure data is used. So its effect can vary from preset to preset. But I got some very light delicate lines all the way to thick bold lines very nicely. And shading with the side of the pencil was pretty awesome.

yes! You can rest your hand anywhere and it totally ignores it and it just reads the pencil. It’s pretty amazing. I did a number of scribbles but I didn’t take pictures of any of them.

I was using Procreate in this photo. Apple Notes and 53’s Paper were also working with Apple Pencil as well. Pixelmator is another favorite but the version they had on the iPad wasn’t yet taking advantage of the pencil.

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Automatic: A Smart Driving Assistant on Your iPhone [Sponsor]

There’s a mountain of data inside your car waiting to be unleashed, and all you have to do is plug in a quick little connector and download a mobile application.

Automatic is a smart driving assistant that plugs into your car’s data port and lets you connect your smartphone (either iPhone or Android) with your car. By  talking to your car’s onboard computer and using your smartphone’s GPS and data plan to upgrade your car’s capabilities, Automatic will allow you to easily diagnose your engine light, never forget where you parked your car, and save hundreds of dollars on gas.

Automatic learns your driving habits and gives you suggestions through subtle audio cues to drive smarter and stop wasting gas. Thanks to a map view available on your phone, Automatic can display a trip timeline after every driving session, showing you how you’re doing with a Drive Score; the app can even track local gas prices and tell you how much you’re spending.

In case of engine problems, Automatic can decipher what the “check engine” light means and show you a description of the issue with a possible solution. And thanks to a feature called Crash Alert, Automatic can detect many types of serious crashes and automatically alert local authorities as well as your loved ones when you can’t.

Automatic is currently available in the US for iPhone and Android devices, with a 45-day return policy and free shipping in 2 business days.

MacStories readers can go to automatic.com/macstories to get $20 off and buy Automatic at just $79.99. For more information, check out Automatic’s website.

Our thanks to Automatic for sponsoring MacStories this week.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan: The MacStories Review

In 2013 Apple left behind the decade old big cat naming scheme for major releases of its flagship desktop operating system. It set its sights instead on inspirational places in California. Beginning with Mavericks, a California surfing spot, OS X then moved on to Yosemite, the beloved national park. In this year’s new release, Apple eschewed another big move in exchange for seeking greater heights within the bounds of last year’s stomping ground.

Since the introduction of Yosemite last fall, Apple has faced some rough times in the press. While the company is well adjusted to the doomsday chicanery constantly tossed about by the mainstream tech media, this year the calls were coming from inside the house. Well known developers and tech bloggers who have historically been accused 1 of ingratiation with the Cupertino company, were stepping out to bring attention to a growing feeling of dissatisfaction in its software.

Software is a field which has classically been one of Apple’s strong suits. Shave off ten seconds on startup and save a dozen lives. Yet recent years have brought debacles such as Apple Maps in iOS 6 and discoveryd, as well as many smaller issues such as random crashing in iOS, lost music files, and stingy iCloud storage.

The consensus that seemed to be reached when these issue came to a head this January was a plea to Apple to just slow down. While Apple’s hardware division has proven themselves capable of firing on all cylinders year after year, their software division has not quite been keeping up. They could use a year to regroup, focus on existing features, and hold off on any major leaps forward. In essence, a Snow Leopard kind of year.

Thankfully, in what seems to be establishing itself as a pleasant trend of late, Apple has been listening.

discoveryd was reverted in the final update to Yosemite, Apple Music has some homework to do, and Apple Maps has picked up the last of its major missing features. Siri is getting faster, iCloud storage prices have gone down, and Notification Center widgets which launch other apps are being allowed into the App Store.

With the difficult, but necessary changes seen in iOS 7 and 8 and OS X 10.9 and 10.10 out of the way, Apple may finally have a chance to take advantage of some breathing room and address the features they’ve been neglecting.

With all this in mind, it’s no surprise that OS X 10.11 is named after a mountain which can be found inside Yosemite National Park.

El Capitan marks an end to Apple’s relentless march forward, opting instead for a calm retrospective on the applications and underlying frameworks which have been the keystones of the operating system for years. Portentous in its own restraint, 10.11 canonizes those small but significant features that enrich the OS X experience in daily use. Shaving off seconds and bandaging cuts, El Capitan is the operating system we’ve been looking for.

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  1. Without merit, but accused nonetheless. ↩︎

Apple Announces Q4 2015 Earnings Call For October 27

Apple’s Investor Relations website was yesterday updated to note that Apple’s fourth quarter earnings call for fiscal year 2015 (July, August, September) will be held on Tuesday, October 27. As is usual, Apple will provide a live webcast of the conference call.

FY 15 Fourth Quarter Results
Apple’s conference call to discuss fourth fiscal quarter results is scheduled for Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.

Apple announced yesterday that it had sold a record 13 million units of the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. The rollout of the new iPhones is on track to be the fastest ever from Apple, and we’ll no doubt hear more about that on this upcoming earnings call.

In the third quarter of FY15, Apple posted revenue of $49.6 billion. The company sold 10.9 million iPads, 47.5 million iPhones, and 4.8 million Macs, earning a quarterly net profit of $10.7 billion.

As we have for previous earnings calls, MacStories will cover the conference call on our site’s homepage on October 27 starting at 2 PM PT, posting charts of the results, collecting key quotes from Apple executives and highlighting interesting Tweets from others.

“Just Press the Button and Start Talking”→

Daniel Jalkut on Siri’s new behavior:

Apple “broke” the haptic feedback associated with invoking Siri, by “fixing” the problem that there had ever been any latency before. Have an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus? Go ahead, I dare you: hold down the home button and start talking to Siri. You will not escape its attention. It’s ready to go when you are, so it would be obnoxious of it to impose any contrived delay or to give taptic feedback that is uncalled for. Siri has become a more perfect assistant, and we have to change our habits to accommodate this.

Great little detail of Siri that I didn’t notice until today. Siri seems to agree, too.

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