Twitterrific 4 Initial Reactions
Having used the new version of Twitterrific for a few hours, I have a few immediate reactions that I’d like to point out. Overall, I’m very impressed with the new version. There are some weird choices IMO, the sidebar being one of them. The fact that Trends and Lists aren’t collapsable is odd.
However, the weirdest things are things that Iconfactory “intentionally” do, at least according to their twitter.
1. Sub Pixel Anti-Aliasing: This might sound nitpicky, but looking at this screenshot can show you just how bad text can look in the app: http://cl.ly/0W2m3w1x3D1T2N3P2d2t (Note: According to IF, this “will improve over time”).
2. Jagged scrolling: When scrolling up and down in the tweets window, it’s extremely jaggy when you’re scrolling slowly. This is totally disorienting to my eyes and looks nothing like any other app I’ve scrolled in: http://cl.ly/3H0u0A3O202K2b3K3v1W (Note: IF “…snap to pixels when we scroll. By design”. Another odd intentional decision. Why would you intentionally design a scroll that looks bad?)
3. No Retweet option in any contextual menus: Self explanatory…how was this not included?
4. No trackpad gestures. More and more apps are supporting gestures due to Apple’s migration to touch based control. Not having these sucks!
5. Inability to drag an image into the compose window: A minor oversight, but one I’ve seen included in every Twitter app I’ve used other than Twitterrific. It’s just convenience.
6. No conversation view for DMs! I know this is just IF’s preference, but it’s just inane that there’s no conversation view for DMs. I mean…seriously?
I understand the app just launched, and that obviously means things will change. However, this app has been in development for quite a long time, and has been in testers’ hands for an equally long amount of time. How did these simple usability and interaction elements not get flagged? And if they were, why weren’t they addressed?
I just find it crazy that simple simple stuff is what’s turning me off from this app so much. I’ve bought it, like I’ve bought every other Iconfactory app, but these things are just disappointing and odd choices. Let’s hope they change a bit.
Phoney for Twitter for Mac
With the launch of the Mac App Store today, Twitter for Mac launched as well. It’s a fantastic update/replacement for Tweetie Mac. Loren & Co. have hit it out of the park, and as usual, I want to compliment their work with a piece of my own.
I present to you a Twitter for Mac Phoney icon. Created with Twitter’s strict guidelines in mind ;-)
Enjoy!
My thoughts on Bluebird
The first beta of the long awaited OSX Twitter App “Bluebird” has finally been released. It’s been in development for quite a while, and kept very hush-hush by it’s team, Matt Patenaude and Laurent Baumann. While I am very happy with the first Beta, there are a few things I would love to see implemented. None of this is me complaining, or begging for changes, I just think that some of these things could enhance the usability of the app.There is just one show-stopping bug that I’ve been the victim of, but I’ll cover that last.
1. A Hotkey to show and hide the window:
@LBaumann has already mentioned that something similar to this would be included in a future update. “Quicktweet” is the term that’s been thrown around.2. Menubar-only option:
@LBaumann has seemed quite adamant about his feelings about this topic. He doesn’t agree that Bluebird should have this. I would still like to see it, as having the option would be nice, but a “quicktweet” hotkey would solve this for the most part.3. The ability to copy a tweet’s permalink via shortcut or menu:
On themes that include a dropdown menu for each tweet (including the iChat Boxes theme), clicking “Permalink” opens the tweet in a browser window. It would be nice to be able copy a link to the clipboard for pasting someplace else.
4. Built-in twitter search (search.twitter.com):
Incorporate search.twitter.com into Bluebird’s built-in search box. Maybe something similar to Firefox’s dropdown search menu:
5. Built-in search can return irrelevant results:
Why is this a result for the word ‘bird’?
6. Stop the tweet list scrolling automatically when new tweets arrive.
7. Ability to navigate DM threads by hotkey (cmd-arrow or just arrows).
8. Built-in Emoji:
@MattPat told me this is already a possibility for the next release.
9. Display name instead of Twitter id?
This is pretty small, but it’d be nice to display the user’s “Name” instead of their Twitter id. I’m not sure if this is tied to the theme or the application itself.
10. Link Shortening:
I pasted a decently long URL into Bluebird earlier today and once I hit ‘enter’, it cut off and the link didn’t work. It’d be nice for included support for the different link shortening services (TinyURL, Bit.ly, etc.).
11. Twitpic support?
This is something small and unneeded that would be “nifty”. Not necessary by any means, but neat nonetheless.
12. Random missing tweets?
This is my biggest concern so far. Seemingly very often, chunks of tweets will go missing from the feed displayed in Bluebird. If I pull up Twitter on a web browser, a complete list of tweets will be displayed, however several of them could be missing from the Bluebird feed. @MattPat mentioned to me that he could know what the problem is. I really do hope it gets fixed, because my eagerness to use this app could be dampened by it not showing every tweet.
An example of this problem can be seen here:
Overall I think Bluebird has a very strong first showing. I am enjoying it a whole lot, and I’m very excited to see what the guys at {13bold} come up with next.
