Categories
#twitter Indie iOS Social

Tweetbot: Change is a comin’

Tweetbot RobobirdPaul Haddad, the development half of the Tapbots super duo, tweeted a preview of a change coming to Tweetbot. This is not a surprise to anyone who followed Twitter’s summer weblog post that announced they were going to start enforcing their Display Guidelines Requirements.

Back in August when the updated Twitter Display Requirements were announced I took a look at three popular Twitter clients; Twitterrific, Tweetbot, and Twitter, to see what would have to change to make them compliant with the guidelines. Eliminating the right aligned avatar was one of the changes necessary for Tweetbot to be compliant.

Of all the display requirements I’m very curious to see how all client developers deal with Timelines – Branding(7b). It states

The Twitter logo must always be displayed directly adjacent to the timeline (e.g., top of the timeline).

Emphasis mine. The way I read that “You have to put our logo, in a very prominent place, in your app.”

Twitter for iOS includes the logo in the top bar of the app, which makes sense given the wording of the Branding requirement.

One of the requirements gave developers until March 2013 to comply. We’re just shy of that, guess we’ll see changes soon enough.

Categories
#twitter Indie Mac

On Tweetbot for Mac

I'm a Robot Bird, not a chicken.The Next Web: He says that Tapbots will continue to support the app, even after it cannot sell any more copies to new users, but that has forced them to charge more for the app, which runs $19.99 on the Mac App Store. “We know some will not be happy about Tweetbot for Mac’s pricing,” says Haddad, “but the bottom line is Twitter needs to provide us with more tokens for us to be able to sell at a lower the price.”

Given that statement I wonder what the pricing will be for Appbot for Mac, if they decide to create it? It’s obvious they’re limited to 100,000 tokens for Tweetbot, but App.Net has no such restriction and is being built as a communication service. Since Twitter changed direction to become an ad/sales/marketing tool App.Net has emerged as our next best bet and has been gaining traction ever since.

With Twitter recently breaking Twitter for Mac, and no apparent fix in the works, Tweetbot for Mac adds a fresh face to client app choices available to Mac owners.

Categories
#twitter Business Design Development Social

Twitter Display Guidelines

A wonderful boquet of flowers.In the wake of the new Twitter 1.1 API changes announcement I thought I’d focus my attention on the Twitter Developer Display Guidelines so I can understand the changes I’ll see to my favorite Twitter client; Twitterrific.

The guidelines will make our Twitter experience more consistent, boy howdy. Basically every Twitter client will look pretty much the same or it won’t be allowed to use the Twitter API, and a client that can’t use the API is useless.

Please note, if you’re using a Twitter provided client, these rules don’t apply, so you have nothing to worry about.

How do the various clients display Tweets in the Timeline? See the Timelines section in Display Guidelines.

Twitterrific

Twitterrific is my favorite client because it’s darned simple, great UX and UI design. Twitterrific is unique amongst the three clients we’ll examine because it shows a reply icon in every tweet. Note the arrow in the lower right corner of the image. Tapping on that icon will display a menu of choices that includes Reply, Direct Message, Retweet, and Retweet with Comment. Not even Twitter’s native iOS client provides this functionality.

Twitterrific: What needs fixing?

I use the term fixing loosely. Here is a list of the rules Twitterrific breaks, according to the Display Guidelines.

  1. Tweet Author
    • The user’s name and @username should be displayed on one line, with the name first.
  2. Retweets
    • If the Tweet being displayed is a Retweet, the name of the user who Retweeted it and the Retweet icon must be displayed under the Tweet text. e.g. “Retweeted by Josh Brewer”. The name should link to the the Retweeting user’s profile [1].

The @username doesn’t appear in the tweet and the retweeted by text doesn’t show below the tweet. It’s not seen here, but the retweet text displays to the right of the users name. One of the great things about Twitterrific is how it displays tweets in different colors depending on the context of the tweet. I’m not sure how Twitter will feel about that, but the guideline doesn’t call it out.

That’s not so bad, but it does mean Iconfactory will need to fix some things.

Tweetbot

Tweetbot: What needs fixing?

  1. Tweet Author
    • The user’s name and @username should be displayed on one line, with the name first.
    • The avatar must be positioned to the left of the name, @username, and Tweet text.
  2. Timestamps
    • Tweet timestamp should be displayed in the top right corner.
  3. Retweets
    • If the Tweet being displayed is a Retweet, the name of the user who Retweeted it and the Retweet icon must be displayed under the Tweet text. e.g. “Retweeted by Josh Brewer”. The name should link to the the Retweeting user’s profile [1].

Tapbots has a bit of work. In most cases the users avatar is displayed in the proper position, unless its your tweet, then it’s on the right. That’s an easy fix for them. Once that is fixed the timestamp will move to the proper position in the upper right corner. The Retweets item is interesting. The rule states it should display the name of the user who retweeted it. Tweetbot does that, sort of. If the retweet was by you it displays “Retweeted by You”, which doesn’t fit the rule to the letter.

Twitter

Twitter: What needs fixing?

  1. Retweets
    • If the Tweet being displayed is a Retweet, the name of the user who Retweeted it and the Retweet icon must be displayed under the Tweet text. e.g. “Retweeted by Josh Brewer”. The name should link to the the Retweeting user’s profile [1].

Not surprisingly Twitter does the best job of following the rules, but they do break this one. In the Twitter iOS client a retweet icon is display in the upper right hand corner of the tweet and the user’s name isn’t displayed.

Random Note

In the Individual Tweet section under the Branding bullet point this is listed.

The Twitter logo or Follow button for the Tweet author must always be displayed in the top right corner.

Emphasis on the word Tweet is mine. Twitter didn’t coin the term “Tweet”, the fine folks at Iconfactory did.

EOL

Categories
Indie iPhone

The Tapbots on Twitter for iPhone

Tapbots Blog: “What are their intentions? If it’s just to provide an official free client for users, that’s great. But we need to know if they’ll continue to welcome and encourage 3rd party clients to keep going. They also need to give us a fair chance to succeed by not giving their official client an unfair advantage when it comes to accessing the API. There are so many unanswered questions right now. We are aware of their dev conference this week, Chirp. We aren’t attending, but hopefully good news will come from this event.” – First off, these guys make great software. Second, they have the right attitude regarding the Twitter acquisition of Tweetie. They’re hoping it doesn’t kill off their product, but they’re not yelling and screaming about it. It’s the right way to approach it. Regardless of the outcome I’m sure they’ll continue to bring us great software, and that’s what it’s all about.