The iTunes Rewind picks are now live, and it’s no surprise that Instagram was named app of the year. The Mac App Store picks are also live, with Pixelmator taking the top prize. Final Cut Pro X hilariously got a nod, since it’s an Apple application, and it was generally poorly-received. Great picks all around.
I’ve spent some time with the new mobile site, the updated iOS app and reviewing the publicity material, and I’ve come to the conclusion that these updates make me a happy Twitterrific customer.
The integration of statistics, specifically stats for people who added a tweet to their favourites and users who retweeted a status, is a welcome addition. The integration of media is superb. But with the updates, the website begins to look cluttered and disjointed. It’s the antithesis of what Twitter is really about: short, simple phrases.
The update has made it surprisingly difficult to link to an individual tweet. One must click to open the tweet, then select the vaguely-named “Details” link. The panels that nobody I know cares about (“Who to follow” and trends) have been made much more prominent, landing on the left-hand side. Direct messages have been made less-prominent across all platforms.
The iOS app is really, really clean. It’s so excellent in a number of areas, but in a few it is perplexingly terrible. The timeline, for instance, is set in a table cell group, leaving slight (~20 px) borders on either side. There’s also a distinct lack of whitespace within each cell. The resulting effect is one of claustrophobia (as succinctly put by Oliver Charavel). The screen for composing a new tweet doesn’t use iOS’ native Twitter keyboard. The swiping shortcuts to reveal reply and retweet controls have been removed. On the plus side, the app looks and works decidedly better than its predecessor in most other ways.
The mobile site is more of the same. It still uses a fakey javascript interpretation of inertial scrolling. Tapping the title bar still doesn’t make the tweet list jump to the top, as it should.
Twitter has also changed what they’re calling different segments, and it’s applicable to all official clients. Mentions, new followers, favourites and retweets have been grouped under the very vague “Connect” tab. The “Discover” tab groups together currently-trending topics, hot news stories and a stalker-friendly “Activity” view. I’m not sure if this view was present before (I rarely use the site itself), but it shows what interactions the people you’re following are having, and it updates live.
Notably, Twitter didn’t announce any updates to their OS X application today. And like I said at the beginning, I’m a happy Twitterrific customer. These updates aren’t likely to change that.
Another interation of Twitter’s site and apps is launching. Curiously, it looks more complicated on the web, and not as simple as Twitter ostensibly is. The new set of applications looks okay. Leaving aside the slogan, which I presume they borrowed from Ontario Travel, I’m curious to give the full suite a spin.