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Twitterrific Revisited for iOS 7

Twitterrific, for a long time, was my mainstay Twitter app. It’s beautiful, functional, and extremely fast, but I’ve found myself gravitating away towards Tweetbot and Twitter’s own app. It’s not that I don’t like Twitterrific, but I needed a change of scenery, and Twitter’s own Connect tab has spoiled me with a wealth of information such as follows, RTs, and yellow stars intermingled with mentions — things I swore I never cared about. I think the biggest killer for me has been the prolonged wait for an updated Twitterrific on the Mac, which feels outdated in comparison to its iOS counterpart.

The neat thing about Twitterrific was that it was practically already ready for iOS 7. At least visually, Twitterrific had already adopted thin fonts, bright neon colors that go great with the iPhone 5c, and a sleek barebones interface. This doesn’t even account for Twitterrific’s unique layout; much of the app doesn’t really conform to traditional iOS conventions anyway (consider the tab bar at the top of the screen rather than the bottom). With iOS 7 the visual updates are relatively minor, with wire-thin icons and small visual updates prevalent throughout. Not even Ollie changed too much in Twitterific’s new stark white icon.

Twitterrific’s biggest notable update is background refreshing (The Iconfactory calls it “fetching”). Streaming isn’t something Twitterrific has been known for, but as long as the app is kept in the background, it will load new tweets in so they’ll be ready to read when you open the app. That to me makes Twitterrific much more viable as a daily Twitter app.[1]

There’s lots of minor updates. You can tweet links directly from the in-app browser (great feature) and you can additionally opt to open links in Chrome. Various links are now tappable in bios. They’re all things that continue to make Twitterrific super friendly.

In fact, of all the current Twitter apps, I’d say Twitterrific is still the most friendly. Gestures are broad, sensible, and fast to execute. Twitterrific’s blazing performance continues to be stellar: tweets load unbelievably quickly as you swipe to view conversations. The core experience is about messages, whereas Twitter’s official app feels like it teeters on personal branding and brand engagement, while Tweetbot is dense with features but a little slower and not yet updated for iOS 7.

Twitterrific for iOS 7 is largely the same as its predecessors, but it continues to get faster in every iteration. I don’t know how much more performance The Iconfactory can wring out of their app before Twitterrific flies off the face of the phone. With refreshed graphics, speedy improvements, and gesture updates that better let Twitterrific mingle with iOS 7’s native gestures, you might want to consider taking another look at the blue bird if you haven’t already.

Twitterrific can be downloaded from the App Store for $2.99 for a limited time, 50% off the regular price.

  1. In fact, I almost don’t like Apple’s new multitasking interface for this reason. It encourages people to close apps, but if you do, those apps can’t perform background tasks. The new multitasking interface is perhaps misleading and counterintuitive for this reason. ↩︎

Skitch 3: Reimagined for iOS 7

Skitch 3

Skitch 3

Released today during the third annual Evernote Conference, Skitch 3 is a complete redesign of the app that Evernote acquired in 2011 and started integrating into the main desktop and iOS apps. Skitch 3 has been redesigned and rebuilt for iOS 7, stripped away of the direct integration with an Evernote notebook, rebranded, and relaunched as a visual note-taking app focused on quick and fast markup. I have been testing Skitch 3 for the past few weeks, and, after an initial shock, I think it’s an excellent change. Read more

Apple Releases iOS 7.0.2

With an OTA update, Apple has just released iOS 7.0.2. The update, which comes 8 days after the public release of iOS 7, fixes bugs that could have allowed users to bypass the Lock screen passcode and reintroduces a Greek keyboard option in the passcode entry screen. On September 19th, Apple confirmed to AllThingsD that they were working on a fix for a Lock screen security flaw first reported by Forbes.

No other improvements or fixes are mentioned in Apple’s changelog. The update can be downloaded now by checking for software updates on an iOS device.

Evernote and 3M Team Up For Co-Branded Post-It Notes→

Alice Truong:

What makes the new stickies so special? Much like Evernote’s partnership with Moleskine last year, Evernote’s app has received slight enhancements to help users record hand-written notes. In Moleskine’s case, the notebook’s special dotted lines helped improve image capture by a phone or tablet. With Post-it Notes, color plays a major role. The lineup for the new Post-it Super Sticky Notes includes electric blue, electric yellow, neon pink, and limeade. The Evernote app has been designed to recognize these colors, automatically digitizing and organizing the notes into different categories.

I have multiple Evernote-branded Moleskine notebooks, and I love where Evernote is going with this. Not only is it an intriguing idea (digitalizing the analog world without giving up on physical notebooks or notes), but it also is cool from a technological standpoint. The Moleskine notebooks have special dotted lines and you can put stickers on the pages to have the Evernote camera automatically tag photos; doing the same for different post-it colors is ingenious.

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iOS 7 and Podcast Apps→

Chris Gonzales on the state of podcast apps on iOS 7:

The point is, I don’t think I would necessarily call any of the current podcast apps the “best one” right now. They’re all going through a phase of change and experimentation, like a kind of adolescence — all the kids are going through it, and there’s no telling what the mature results will be like until the awkward phase is over. A painful analogy? Maybe, but I’m sticking with it.

I agree. Podcasts are more popular than ever, and iOS 7’s new technologies lower the barrier to entry considerably for developers. It’ll be interesting to see what Apple is planning for the Podcasts app.

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The Prompt: XOXO Gossip Myke→

Reunited after a week without Myke, the boys are back to discuss XOXO, iPhone sales, App Store update woes and revisit digital photo management, with the the help of Bradley Chambers.

App Store pricing and ecosystem for “normal people” is a topic I want to revisit. I also want to start using Everpix soon after Bradley’s book and recommendation. And, by the way, I was wrong: Miley Cyrus doesn’t seem to be loving iOS 7. But she certainly likes iTunes Radio. Maybe she needs to spend more time with the new OS?

Get the episode here.

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Marked 2 Review

One of the most indispensable pieces of software currently on my Mac is Marked. Paired with TextEdit, I write in plain text and format words in Markdown, letting Marked transform working documents into live previews complete with clickable links and footnotes. At the end of my session, I can convert everything into HTML that I can copy and paste into WordPress. It’s a brilliant little tool that I don’t utilize the full capabilities of, but it makes my life significantly easier when it comes to just writing stuff. For most writers, these few features alone are enough.

For writers willing to put in the work, Marked can display previews that match your website’s style and theme by creating a custom CSS template. There’s handy keyboard shortcuts, like Command-U for viewing source code and Shift-Command-C for saving HTML to the clipboard. You’ll additionally find things like a viewable table of contents built in that let you jump to specific sections for documents with multiple headings. Plus, Marked happily works with the text editor you’re already using.

Yet there’s so much more underneath the hood. For screenwriters, Marked works with apps like Scrivener and markup languages like Fountain. Those who have to write and publish formulas can do so with MathJax. And old Markdown hands can specify their own custom processors… something that’s possibly over my head. Marked is a labor of love, catering to geeks while remaining accessible for writers like me who want easy previews and invaluable features like the ability to process Markdown within source code.

Considering all that Marked already does, Marked 2 is a huge release that adds a ton of new features for editor, bloggers, and people who would rather write in Markdown than open Microsoft Word. Instead of running through every new feature, I’d rather focus on the two that have the greatest impact on me. Keyword highlighting makes self editing much easier, while new searching features let me skip past the results I don’t need to see.

Read more

Apple Announces iOS 7 Tech Talks→

Following the release of iOS 7, Apple has announced new iOS Tech Talks. Taking place in 6 cities around the world, third-party developers will be able to get guidance from Apple engineers about creating software for iOS 7 in what are, essentially, “mini WWDCs” that last one day.

Get in-depth guidance about developing for iOS 7, learn practical coding tips and tricks, and obtain valuable one-on-one programming and design assistance in our lab. Choose which day is best for you — app developer day or game developer day. Apply now.

When WWDC 2013 sold out earlier this year in less than two minutes, Apple said that Tech Talks would be coming back. Notably, this year Apple is holding separate events for app and game developers (which is nicely in line with the company’s recent increased separation of apps and games on the App Store):

There will be two events per city, one devoted to app developers and the other focusing on game developers. You’ll choose to attend either the app developer day or the game developer day. You may only apply for one day at the iOS 7 Tech Talks.

The last time Apple “hit the road” was in late 2011 with the Tech Talk World Tour after the release of iOS 5. This time, Apple will hold Tech Talks in 6 cities instead of 9, and details are available here.

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Instagram For iOS 7→

Instagram’s first major update after iOS 7 doesn’t reimagine the app but brings edge-to-edge photos:

In this update you will find that we’ve increased the size of photos and videos in your feed so that they expand to the edges of your screen. We’re also happy to say that increased size means increased resolution, so photos and videos will be clearer and more vibrant than ever.

Not surprising considering what Facebook did, and what other big players opted for. I would love to know if Instagram saw usage of filters in the app decrease after the release of iOS 7 because of Apple’s new Camera app.

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