Cloudy Days and Netbook Nights

Okay. I tried to use the first version of WordPress for iPhone a few times, and though it was superior to the other blogging apps I tried, it was not all that usable.

Version 2 (a new app, not an automatic upgrade from the first version) is much improved. I still might not choose to create a complete blog entry on it: it still lacks essential features like links, easily styled text, the ability to embed images by URL, the ability to easily place images within the body of the text (or anywhere but at the end of the post), etc. etc. But for someone like me who does a lot of iPhone app reviews, or anyone caught without a computer and with the need to build a WordPress blog post, it works well enough.

For instance, when blogging a new iPhone app review I have always, in the past, had to email screen shots from my iPhone to my laptop, or send them via USB cable, and then upload then to WordPress to illustrate the review. With WordPress 2 I can simply start a draft on the iPhone, add the screen shots directly from the iPhone’s image library and save the whole thing to my blog as a draft.

I can then open the draft from WordPress.com and put the finishing touches on it: put the images where I want them, add links and format text. I save a significant amount of time!

I could even, in a pinch, compose a Pic of the Day post by saving an image from my smugmug site to my iPhone image library and composing the text on the phone. In a pinch.

You can also manage comments and pages from your iPhone with WordPress 2.

And, of course, just to make the point this post is being done completely on the iPhone using WordPress 2.

I even figured out how to move an image to the top of the post, or anywhere you want it: you just have to cut and paste the code after saving the draft to WordPress the first time! You can even edit the class statement in the HTML to align the image within the text. It is set to alignnone. Change that to aligncenter or alignleft or whatever you want and…just like magic!

And of course, if you know just a little HTML you can style text too as I did above.

Now if only the next version of WordPress for the iPhone makes it easier. That would be really useful!

To see what one composed on the iPhone and adjusted on WordPress.com looks like, take a look at the previous post on MobileRSS.

When Apple announced Push Notifications as part of the OS 3.0 upgrade for the iPhone and iPod Touch, I was really uncertain of the value. I don’t do SMS so I am not used to my phone alerting me to incoming anything.

On the other hand I use Twitter fairly heavily (as maybe you guessed from all the Twitter client reviews on CDNNs), and when the first Twitter clients with Push for Mentions and Direct Messages began to appear, of course I had to try a few.

And I can say that I like it. I have three Twitter accounts and a total of maybe 500 friends and followers. I get a fair volume of @s and the occasional DM. For me push works. I like getting that audible alert on the phone when I am working on the computer to let me know of new mentions or messages. It is nice to be able to quickly look at the phone screen to see what’s up. It is nice not to have to load the @s and DMs every time I open my client (makes for faster opens on any client).

You should realize that none of these Push options is real time. The client server has to check Twitter for your @s and DMs, then send a push notification to the servers at Apple, who then sent it out to you. There appear to be time limits too. This can happen every 10 minutes, every 5, or every 3. Each developer who uses push has to determine the balance between practical and prompt, between timely and annoying.

That said, though, twitter push, for me, is good.

If you want it on your phone your current options are:

Single service Twitter Push apps which you buy separately and use in conjunction with your favorite Twitter client.

or

Twitter Clients with built in Push.

To my knowledge there are three Twitter Push apps currently in the store.

Tweet Push: $.99, supports Twitterific, Tweetie, Twittelator, TwitterFon, and SimplyTweet Pro (that last is a puzzler since SimplyTweet Pro (see below) does its own pushing). Note: this is paid service. You pay so much per day, per Twitter account.

Boxcar: $2.99, supports Tweetie, Twitterific, TwitterFon, Twittelator, and Twinkle. Opens @s and DMs in the client of your choice. I bought this before I realized that it does not do multiple Twitter accounts. For me that is a killer. Of no use to me.

iTweetReply $1.99, current version opens Pushed @s and DMs in its own conversation view with limited Twitter features. Coming version will open both in Tweetie, Twitterific, TwitterFon, Twittelator Pro, or Twinkle. The app store description does not say it supports multiple accounts so I am assuming that is a NO.

There are currently three Twitter clients with built in Push.

iTwitter $2.99  was the first, but it only does Push between iTwitter users. Not very practical. Save your $2.99 until they get that worked out.

Twitbit $4.99, came next (by a hair), and is at least a competent Twitter client for the casual user. It lacks power features, and any unread counts or indications, but for most folks it will be fine. Version 1.0.1 is pending in the app store and will add the missing (???) Retweet and DM functions. It does multiple accounts.

SimplyTweet 2.0 $4.99, as previously reviewed, is a power Twitter client with a full feature set, and some features found no where else (easily reply to multiple tweets for one, and attach multiple pics to a single tweet for another). It does multiple accounts, has an elegant unread count, is fairly fast, and has a better than average UI. Push works well, and the author is tweeking the Push rate to make it even more responsive. (SimplyTweet is a one man show, and Hwee-Boon Yar has perhaps the most open and responsive development process I have seen. He responds to suggestions, often with new features,  and attempts to fix every issue brought to his attention.) The only features it lacks are 1) video upload, 2) audio upload, and 3) ping.fm or Facebook integration.

Now, if you are patient, TwitterFon has already promised Push by late summer, and I suspect both Tweetie and Twitterific will be forced to follow or they will begin to lose market share.

In the meantime, the only real option as far as I am concerned is SimplyTweet 2.0: great client with push…what more could you ask.

In my review of the 2.0 beta of SimplyTweet I said it would be the first Twitter client with real Push Notification…unless the App Store approval process fouled it up. Well, of course, given the vageries of the process, SimplyTweet 2.0 is still pending and here we have Twitbit claiming the title.

Sort of.

[Note. Sign of the times. SimplyTweet 2.0 was approved less than 12 hours after I posted this!]

iTweetReply was technically the first Twitter client with full Push Notification out the door, but it is a very limited Twitter Client…so limited that most Tweeps who have ever used another client on the iPhone would find it very limiting.

And actually, while Twitbits is closer to being a client you might use for most of your Twitter needs, it is still, despite offering multiple twitter accounts, very limited in comparison the the rich feature sets we have come to expect in iPhone Twitter clients. If your Twittering is of the most basic kind, and you don’t require much more than the ability to view your timeline, reply, retweet, DM, follow, and unfollow then it might work for you…especially if you really feel the need for Push. Push works well in Twitbit, with all the standard notification options: badges, alerts, and sounds.

Twitbit also has trends and basic search functionality (but no saved searches), easy access to your profile and those of your friends, and the ability to drill down to follower’s followers. You can upload pics to Twitpics, and it has an in-line browser for links. It uses the same one-tweet-back-at-a-time view of @ in a conversation chain as Tweetie (and Twitter.com for that matter). It caches tweets locally so you can view past tweets without an Internet connection.

What it does not have is landscape composition mode, saved searches, groups, the ability to email a tweet or a link, choice of image sharing services, access to your friends list from within the compositon box for @s or DMs, themes, audio or video features, etc., etc. The power user features.

Not that they won’t come. This is first effort, perhaps even a little rushed to win the first with push crown (the initial release did not have an easy way to send a Direct Message or any way to Retweet…a new version with those features has already been submitted to the App Store and hopefully will not be delayed so long that Twitbit loses its street cred as the first Push app). This review and the screen shots is based on the 1.0.1 Beta. I am certain, as the web page for Twitbit promises, that more features will be added as the app matures. They have a good start here.

So…if Push is a must have in a Twitter Client for you, take a look at Twitbit. A solid little client. However, definitely wait for version 1.0.1 to make it through the approval process…and who knows, SimplyTweet and any number of other new clients with Push may be available in the App Store by then. Competition is good. Good for those of us who use the apps for sure.

No. Not Push.

That said though there is a new version of Twittelator Pro on the App Store today. Just an ungrade in the second decimal place: 3.0 to 3.0.1 but some significant improvements, no the less.

From Twittelator News.

Features in Version 3.0.1:

• Choose separate upload services for Audio, Video and Photos

• 5 alert sounds including hawk, cuckoo, kiwi and kookaburra

• Support for offline tweeting of audio and video

• Copy big avatar/photo option (for paste into new tweet)

• User Detail now shows the date a user joined twitter

• Following Map links opens the Maps interface

• Snapshots are automatically saved to your Photos library

• Uploading media continues on relaunch if you quit during upload

• ReadItLater links now display the tweet that originated the link

• DM button is hidden if Tweeter is not following you

(and thus couldn’t get a DM from you)

• Send Button moved safely to the top of Phone!

• Return key just inserts returns

• Developer API for sending messages and push notifications

Fixed:

- If you quit while uploading media, it’s resent on next launch

- My Profile -> Search -> result, tap avatar, works again

- Avatar -> Tweets -> More works again

- Unlimited number of accounts

- Saving a photo by clearing works now

- Some occasional crashers fixed includingTweetShrink issue

- Changing trends is more responsive

All this and what appears to me to be an overall improvement in responsiveness. Opening the compose box is faster. Loading the program is faster. etc.

For the absolute power user, there is still no match for Twittelator Pro. Most complete feature set hands down. The only full fledged Twitter client with full multi-media posting. Not the prettiest or the most intuitive user interface going, but you can get used to it.

As soon as the new version of Boxcarclears the App Store, you will even be able to have Push with Twittelator Pro (though at the price of buying an additional program).

SimplyTweet Stands Out: that is a push notification on that icon!

[This was written while v2.0 was still pending in the App Store. 2.1 is the current version in the Store, and 2.2 has been submitted. This is an app in rapid development. See update]

If I were to tell you that there is a Twitter client  for the iPhone out there that has the speed, ease of use, and attractiveness (including choice of themes, and multiple accounts) of an app like Tweetie or Twitterfon Pro; as deep a feature set as Twittelator Pro or TweetDeck (including unread counts and the equivalent of groups, bookmarks, and saved searches); and…drum roll…the first ever, full fledged, any Twitter client, push notifications!…you might say (as I did), “Okay, then why haven’t I heard of it?”

Did I say Push Notifications…push notifications that work the way you always expected push to function. I did!

First reason so few have heard of SimplyTweet might be the unassuming and wildly modest (not to say totally  inappropriate) name. SimplyTweet sounds like it might be one of those single function quick status updators that proliferated in the early days of the iPhone app store. Instead, it is, as hinted above, a mature (v1.7 current, 2.0 under review at the app store as I write), intelligently designed and implemented client that equals, and exceeds,  the features of much better known apps.

The second reason is a rather unique design that, until now, has emphasized one feature above all others: the ability to view tweets and replies as a conversation, going back as far as the chain goes. SimTweet (for brevity) used, through current version 1.7, a single uncustomizable timeline view modeled on chat bubbles (still an option in apps like Tweetie), but from any open tweet, or from the timeline contols themselves, you could also select a conversation view in a similar chat bubble format (the only other app that I know of that has this ability is Twittelator Pro).  Still, the lack of themes, along with some people’s aversion to chat bubbles (even Tweetie had to give in to users who didn’t like them), and the one feature to rule all others (Twitter is about conversations) way the program has been presented, may well have served to keep it low on Twitterati’s radar.

I am not saying that conversation tracking and conversation view is a trivial or an unimportant feature. It is what I like best about Twittelator Pro, and, until SimTweet 2.0 hits the app store with functional Push Notifications and essentially changes the nature of the game, it is still, among a host of strong features, SimTweet’s strongest feature.

Family Saved View (group)

My review is based on the still pending v2.0, but somewhere along the line another killer feature crept into SimTweet. I don’t have a change log for the various versions before 1.7 so I don’t know when it arrived, but Saved Views (in SimTweetese) is the kind of functional advance that only a few other iPhone clients have yet managed. In more common terms, Saved Views are subgroups, as in Twittelator Pro, or groups, as in TweetDeck (or Seesmic on the desktop). You can select a group of the tweeps you follow (from an indexed list of followers that SmTweet presents for you), name the group (or view), and save it. It then appears on the More page along with all the other options. Tap it, and SmTweet assembles the tweets from each of the tweeps on your list and presents them (and only them) as a timeline. So slick.

Saved View with single Friend (bookmark)

And, of course, by making a Saved View that only contains one of those you follow, you have duplicated Twittelator Pro’s bookmark function. Two for one. Not bad.

Finally, in a really brilliant move, SmTweet (at least in v2.0) provides the option on the user profile page to add the open user to any of your saved views. So easy. So obvious. Best group implementation to date.

SmTweet also has a robust inline browser, a pic viewer which works with most of the major pic sharing sites (so the browser does not have to open to view a pic link). It is the one of the first pic viewers I have seen that offers lanscape view…and if there is more than one pic url in a tweet, or a link to a Posterous slideshow, it presents the pics as a slideshow with next and previous buttons.

Pic Viewer in Landscape mode

It is this kind of attention to detail that makes me totally amazed (and a little saddened) that so few have ever heard of SimplyTweet!

Swipe brings up the Timeline tweet controls

As though that were not enough pic goodness, v2.0 also includes a Picture Search function under the More tab (so far as I know, totally unique in a Twitter client, and very rare on the iPhone at all), that uses keywords and tags to search several of the major Twitter friendly  pic sharing sites and return a set of pics to match.

Have I mentioned that the control set of SmTweet is one of the best designed of any client I have seen. It uses a similar swipe popup control on the timeline and conversation views to display Reply, Favor, and View Conversation Icons. Tapping the atvar on any Tweet opens the corresponding user profile page with all the usual information and the ability to drill down into followers and followed.

The open tweet page has its own set of controls, from Reply in the upper right, to Conversation View and Retweet in the lower left. The lower right has your standard reply swoosh over a box (sometimes called the action icon), and indeed, reveals a set of controls to email or post a link to the tweet in question. (Through v1.7 SmTweet kicked you out to the mail app to mail your tweet. Beginning with v2.0 it has an inline mail function that keeps you within SmTweet. Much better!)

The User Profile page has a DM composition control in the upper right and, again the swoosh box action icon in the lower right. This were the option to add the tweep to one of your Saved Views is hidden, along with a reply option, and, deep breath, the ability to a attach a note to that user’s profile…unless, of course, you are on your own profile page, where those options are replaced with a control that allows you to, get this, edit your Twitter profile right from inside SmTweet! Again, I know of no other client that allows you to do this.

SimplyTweet? I don’t think so. This app is certainly simple to use, but it goes way beyond simply tweeting.

It is than attention to detail thing again. For instance, the new themes in v2.0 are among the most elegant I have seen in any app. Silver and Twilight in particular are, imho, beautiful. Then too, SmTweet allows you to choose one of three formats for retweets: RT, via, and via with quotations.  It allows you to set Posterous as a tweet overflow url so long tweets get a link at the end to the complete text saved on your Posterous account. How cool is that? There is also Instapaper integration. The More tab is rich. Here you find items like Trends, access to your saved profile notes, an option to view the Public Twitter timeline, a Go To User function that will open any user’s profile directly, your accounts settings, and the Saved Views you have created.

Composition Box

And then take the composition box, which operates either portrait or landscape. In addition to the post picture icon and the character count, there is another action icon. Under there is a popup with controls to shorten the tweet, shorten a URL, enter your location, recall a saved hastag (or copy one in a tweet your are replying to), and, best, to bring up an indexed list of your friends so you can easily enter @users (as many as you like).

Composition Action popup

The specialized DM composition box also has a + icon in the address field, which allows you to select a different follower and redirect the DM (Again, attention to detail beyond the ordinary.)

And I have not even more than mentioned the most noteworthy 2.0 feature: Push Notifications. Unless the app store approval process screws things up, SimplyTweet stands to be the first full featured Twitter app out the door with truely functional Push Notifications. True, iTwitter is out there, but it only has push between two people using iTwitter. And there are now several single function or limited function apps whose only real purpose is to push notifications form Twitter, and give you the option to open the reply or DM in a so far limited set of Twitter clients. SmTweet does it right. When someone replies to you or direct messages you a message box opens on the home screen (even when your iPhone or Touch is asleep) with a truncated version of the tweet. By default your device also chimes (you can turn notifications off in the Settings app, or disable any level of Push alert.) If, when the Apple Push server poles Twitter, you have more than one @ or DM in the cue, it gives the text of the first and an approximate number of those waiting. Unlocking the iPhone or Touch boots you directly into SmTweet to view the @s or DMs. If your iPhone or Touch is awake when the Push comes, you get a box with control options so you can choose to view or ignore. If you ignore or fail to unlock, the  number of waiting @s and DMs is appended to the SmTweet icon on the app page so you will see it when next you check. At this point there are sometimes lags in Push, but as Apple works out the kinks, it will get better.

As I said, SmTweet does Push right and does it well. Very, very impressive for a Twitter client no one has ever heard of. Very very impressive for any twitter client. Way to go SimplyTweet! This is Push the way everyone hopes and expects it to work.

So, is SimplyTweet perfect? Of course not. I have my wish list, based mostly on things other clients already do.

In the Settings App

I’d like to see:

1) a “display real names option” (Tweetie, Twittelator Pro, TweetDeck)
2) an easy way to switch between multiple accounts
3) a conversation view for DMs (Tweetie, Twittelator Pro)
4) ping.fm integration for simultaneous posts to Twitter and Facebook (or direct post to Facebook through their API (I can dream)).

Then too, while it just about equals Twittelator Pro’s standard twitter feature set, it is totally lacking (for worse or better depending on how you feel about it) Twlator’s multi-media features. No posting of video or audio from SimplyTweet (yet). Of course there are a few stand alone apps that work well for that already. Media Tweet can use any number of sharing services and post to both Twitter and Facebook through services that offer that feature. TwitReel has its own app and video posting service. Audoboo, is of course, Twitter for audio. You can email any media format to Posterous. I suspect the next iteration of the  MobyPicture app will allow video and audio upload as the service already takes all media.

Despite my wishlist, SimplyTweet 2.0 (still under review at the app store)  is quite simply a length ahead of any other twitter client out there at the moment. Push, all by itself, is enough to put it out front, but it is the solid feature set, many of which are very rare or totally unique, that really gives it is commanding (imho) lead.

SimplyTweet? I don’t think so. SuperTweet. SuperiorTweet. Surprisingly wonderlishish Tweet app extraordinaire! SimplyTweet is simply the best.