Cloudy Days and Netbook Nights

SimplyTweet's Full Landscape views

Okay. Come on now. SimplyTweet 2.5 is a whole new app, right? This has to be more than a free version update. It takes the amazingly rich SimTw feature set and the refined interface and adds some significantly awesome new features (like full TextExtender integration!) while providing a major UI overhaul that makes for what amounts to a whole new (and improved) user experience. This has to be SimplyTweet Plus, or SimTweet Ultra, or something. Right?

I mean, didn’t someone just justify (and rightly so in my opinion) adding a 2 to his app’s name and charging as though it were new based on similar changes? (And that was without push!)

Mentions view in Landscape

SimplyTweet 2.5 is not just an improvement on what I consider the best Twitter app for the iPhone and iPod Touch…it is that, of course…but as I see it, version 2.5 qualifies as a whole new app. What we have in SimplyTweet 2.5 goes beyond the accumulation of all the little (and bigger) enhansenents and refinements in the 5 versions since push was introduced with 2.0. In fact, a user who has not looked at SimplyTweet since 2.0 would be completely justified in thinking they had discovered a new Twitter client…one with all the advanced features, push, saved views, multiple accounts, etc. etc. that were there in SimplyTweet 2.0, but one that presented such a different (read better!) user experience that it could not, certainly, be the same app.

Saved Lists in SimplyTweet

As I have noted before here, SimplyTweet is a Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod Touch which is in rapid development. What is rapid?…how about a new version every two to three weeks…or just about as fast as the App Store approval process allows. The developer is continuously adding features and tweaking the UI based on customer feedback and expressed needs. It is actually kind of fun to watch. You can follow his Twitter timeline (@simplytweet) and get some real insight into how a responsive programmer develops an app for the iPhone. Every version adds significantly useful features and refines the user experience.

The primary reason for the new user experience in 2.5 is the full and smooth implimentation of landscape mode. SimplyTweet missed beating Tweetie 2 to full landscape by a week or so, but even if it had not, it still would not have been the first iPhone Twitter client with landscape views of your timeline, @s, and DMs. That honor goes, of course, to Landscape Tweets. However SimTweets implimentation is just about seamless.

Landscape compose, and a saved draft/note.

And it is a surprisingly useful feature. I have always used landscape compose where availabe, but until version 2.4 landscape compose in SimTweet was (as it still is in many apps) a compromise. When tipped to landscape some of the features of the compose view disappeared. (This seems to be inherent in Apple’s implimentation of the landscape keyboard and any programer who wants different has to figure out his or her own way around the limitation.) That problem was solved in SimTweet 2.4. With full integration of landscape in all views, though, I find myself using SimTweet in landscape most of the time. Somehow it is just more comfortable…maybe easier on the eyes…maybe not as cramped and confined. I like it!

Hidden behind the Action icon in Compose View

The second change that makes the app feel different is, in reality, not much more than a name change. SimTweet’s Saved Views has always been a powerful feature. With 2.5 Saved Views are now renamed Saved Lists to better reflect their true nature and the coming Twitter native lists. Oh, and the Edit Lists menu item is moved from the main More menu to the Misc menu under More.

The name change only emphasizes how good the implementation is in SimTweet. You can create new lists in the Edit List view and then choose contacts from your friends and followers list, one at at time, but the easiest way to add friends and followers to any existing list is to open their profiles and choose Add to List from the Actions Menu (envelope with swoosh) at the bottom right of the view. This brings up the standard picker roll with the names of all your existing lists. Folks who are already on a list have a little list icon next to their atvars on their profile views. A list can consist of a single twit who you want to follow closely among all those you follow, or it can be a group of twits related in some way in you mind. I have a list, for instance, of Twitter app developers, and another list that just has SimTweet’s developer on it. And, of course, I have a Family list, and list of my collegues, etc., etc.

Until Twitter fully implements its own List schema and the API to go with it, SimTweet uses Twitter search to populate your lists with the tweets attached to those twits. This has the advantage of calling up tweets you would not have wanted to miss, even if they are buried well back your own timeline.

You can also use a Saved List to hide a group of those you follow from your main timeline. This is a kind of filtering function for those with massive follow lists. Hiding a list can be turned on and off in the Edit Lists view.

Another nice feature of 2.5 is that Drafts are now saved as Notes, so you can access them and work with them at any time. SimTweet has saved the current draft when you cancel at tweet in the compose screen (and choose Save Draft instead of Discard) for several versions. The draft just sort of magically appeared the next time you opened the compose screen…and you could only have one draft saved at a time.

SimplyTweet has also had Notes for many versions. Until 2.5, a Note was attached to a profile. 2.5 integrates the two functions. You can still attach notes to profiles, but now, when you cancel a tweet, if you choose to save it, it will appear in your Notes list. Notes can be opened, edited, posted as tweet, posted as DM, or emailed. Saved drafts. Multiple saved drafts. Multiple applications for Saved Drafts (er…Notes).  There you go. What more could you ask?

If I type "i" now, it is one of my TextExpander snippets, and will auto expend to "Case U missed it:"

Then there is full integration of TextExpander. TextExpander is a app for the Mac that automatically expands snippets of text into full words or phrases. It runs in the background on the Mac and works wherever you are processing words. On the iPhone TextExpander can’t run in the background (not allowed by the OS). Therefore you have your choice of typing up your message in the TextExpander compose box and sending it to one of the twitter clients they support (which you set in TextExpander’s settings) or, if your app is TextExpander aware, you can use the snippets right in the compose view of the app. SimplyTweet offers both options. TextExpander is a separate purchase in the app store, but I am finding that it saves me significant time. If you tweet a lot, and use the same phrase frequently, then you can type the whole phrase in a couple of keystrokes as a snippet and it will magically (and musically, I might add) expand right in the SimplyTweet compose view. You have to create your snippets in TextExpander, and set TextExpander to be friendly with other apps, but once you have a set of snippets, text entry in SimplyTweet can go a lot faster. I like it.

Account Picker: available by tapping @account where it appears in List and Compose Views

Another small touch that I have come to appreciate more and more  is the way SimTweet handles multiple accounts. This is not new in 2.5. It was developed and refined over the first few updates after 2.0. There is an Accounts View, which allows you, of course, to view, select, and add accounts. But switching accounts is much easier than opening the Accounts view. On every list view, at the top, under the title, is the @account name. Touch it, and you get the OS picker roller with all your accounts listed. Choose.

And, say you open open a tweet from one account, and want to repost it as though it came from one of your other accounts? No problem. Touch the @account title in the header of the compose view and choose another account. Or you are posting a tweet and realize it really should come from another account. Same thing. Easy.

And, of course, SimTweet 2.5, as it has since 2.0, pushes @s and DMs from all your accounts. It automatically loads new @s and DMs if you have them when you open SimTweet. And it alerts you to incoming @s and DMs while the app is running too. Push works. Push works really well in SimplyTweet.

Then there are little SimplyTweet only touches: the # symbol on the compose screen that allows you to insert the # character without opening the extended keyboard, the way recent tweets are displayed in account views, the Between Us button on account views that calls up recent public exchanges with that follow/follower, the easy conversation views accessible from any tweet (and from the swipe pop-up icon bar), the ability to reply to  multiple tweets (and twits) by selecting them in your time-line list view (great for building #followfriday tweets, among other things), the ability to customize the contents of the swipe icon bar, and to choose one of several themes for the whole app, etc, etc.

SimplyTweet is a great twitter client. It is the one that is always on my iPhone and that I use every day. It simply does more of what I need a client to do, and does it remarkably well. In my opinion SimplyTweet is the best twitter client on the iPhone by a good margin. Version 2.5 only reinforces that opinion, by, once more, significantly improving the user experience. The developer, we are told, has even bigger things in mind for 2.6. If you are not using SimplyTweet I have one question for you. Why not? Get on board. It is a great twitter client and it is only going to get better.

iBird Explorer Pro

A while ago I posted an update to the iBird Pro and Plus reviews based on a beta submitted to the App Store. Long story. Turns out there was a really long delay in getting it approved, having to do with the new stricter rating system on apps that use internet access, but it is finally live and available. Though the posted review listed the new features as applying only to the Pro version…in fact they are available in all versions of iBird. You can read about them here: iBird.

For full reviews of Pro and Plus, go here: Pro \   Plus

For a detailed comparison of the different versions of the app, go to the product finder on the iBird.com site.

To purchase iBird from the App store click here: iBird on the App Store.

Mobile Navigator for iPhone

Let’s face it, $69 ($99 after August 15) is a lot to pay for an iPhone app. We are pretty well conditioned to think of a $6.99 app as expensive…when we pay $4.99 we expect something really special, relatively unique, and totally awesome, $2.99 is a bread and butter app, and we really think all apps should be $.99!

And, I have to say, my most expensive app before the Navigon was the $29.99 iBird Explorer Pro…a totally unique, completely awesome, library sized compendium of bird information wedded to super audio-visual field guide and innovative bird id search engine, all compressed into an elegant iPhone interface…that has served (in the Apple TV adds) as a poster child for what is possible on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. Of course, I am a birder as well as technophile (polite for geek), so for me, price is no object for an app like iBird Explorer.

But then, I am also a traveler. 300,000 air miles a year, traveling to destinations all over North America, and generally having a 1 to 6 hour drive out of the airport (always conveniently located at the center of an urban traffic snarl) to where ever I am actually going (long story and not the place to tell it). I bought my first GPS, a Magellan Crossover, 4 years ago and it simplified and destressed my travel life to such an extent that I would never willingly travel without one again. I even use it on any drive over 2 hours around home…just to have the distance to the next turn and ETA available. Anything, as far as I am concerned, that removes stress from travel is worth owning and using!

The Magellan is still going strong, and the only reason I have been avidly waiting a turn by turn, audible GPS app for the iPhone ever since the possibility was announced with OS 3.0 (and I have been eager) is that I travel 300,000 miles a year by air. The less I have to carry…the fewer gadgets…one less power supply (2 less counting the auto adapter) can make a real difference…not huge…but real, and with that much travel, any difference at all is worth a reasonable price.

So what is reasonable? To put things in perspective, I paid more for my Magellan Crossroads (at employee price through a friend in the company) than I paid for my iPhone (by quite a bit) and I paid more for the last Magellan map update than Navigon is asking for the complete Mobile Navigator app. So even $99 is not looking unreasonable to me.

Of course the GPS market has changed dramatically in the past 4 years too. Today you can buy a GPS at least as good as my Magellan for less than $150, $129 on occasional discounts…even sometimes the most basic models at  $99 on a holiday sale. That is making the Navigon app look expensive again…if…and for me it is a big if…you are willing to carry a second device for navigation. That is, if you remember, how I got here in the first place.

One cravat in what follows. My only GPS reference for comparison to the Navigon app is my 4 year old Magellan, state of the art at the time, but it is quite possible that many of the features that so impressed me in the Navigon are now common place in even an entry level GPS…I wouldn’t know. I am sure some reader will be at pains to tell me if this is so.

And, yes, I am indeed impressed with the Mobile Navigator for the iPhone. Impressed and happy. Tested on an extensive road trip out of a midwestern airport from one city to the far side of  a smaller city 2 hours west and into deep industrial suburbia, it performed flawlessly and delighted me with its many intelligent aids to navigation, ease of use, and accuracy. As far as I am concerned it is worth every penny of the $99, and more.

It has only one quirk that I noticed…it is not as fast in set up as it might be due to operational delays…lags between touching a button and the action called mostly. This is on a 3G iPhone. I suspect that performance is snappier on a 3GS (bound to be, and if someone wants to donate one I will be happy to test it), but this is still a massively complex piece of programing for the tiny iPhone processor to handle, especially while part of its little mind is tending to Apple’s apps that are allowed background operations (mail, SMS, iPod, and now any app that uses Push).

What impressed me?

Options Screen

1) General accuracy. After TomTom’s take on the abilities of the built in iPhone GPS (they will provide an optional booster unit/car mount with their app), I had to wonder if the iPhone was up to the task unaided. It is. No problem. It acquired an initial position faster than my Magellan by far (probably because it cheats and takes a ball-park position from the cell system), and it never lost tract of where it was no matter how dense the city around it. (I have not, you understand, tested it in NYC, LA, Chicago, or Boston…) Turn info was timely and spot on.

2) An intelligent and very usable 3D mode. I never used 3D on the Magellan because it made me a little queasy to watch it, but the Navigon worked fine, perhaps because of the possibility of using the iPhone in Portrait mode with the screen long and thin, giving the 3D effect room to stretch out ahead of the little moving arrow (note: current version does not display street names on the map in 3D. Update with name display, and a few other refinements, promised soon).

Perhaps the best feature of the 3D view is the lane assist at major intersections (especially on interstates). As you approach a junction, the view shifts to a stylized depiction of the actual lane layout, looking from your position down the lanes ahead, with the traffic signs hanging over the lanes just as you see them in real time through the windshield, and bright orange arrows following the lanes showing your flow through the junction. If there are two possible lanes of exit, it shows two arrows: If only one, then only one arrow. It is simple, elegant, and effective. (see the illustration above)

3) Along the same lines, the Navigon both tells and displays multiple turns. When you exit a freeway, for instance, if the exit is to the right and then you have to turn right off the exit, it gives you an audible instruction, and it displays the second turn in a smaller turn box above the first turn box. I hated that about the Magellan. It never told what the next turn was until you completed the first, even when they followed close on each other.

4) Posted speed limit display and audible speeding waring. On any major highway (even on Route 1 through downtown Kennebunk ME (population 20,000)) a little speed sign in the upper right corner of the screen displays the posted speed limit. It is very accurate and changes when the posted limits change. You can set the app to different levels of alert, but a pleasant voice cautions you when you are too far in excess of the limit.

Route Profile

5) The ability to tailor the route profile that builds your route in any number of interesting and useful ways. You want to walk or take a bike?…Navigon has you covered. Do you want to include residential only streets (often the best shortcuts, known only to true locals) or exclude them. Do you want to allow or avoid toll roads, or outlaw them outright? More

POIs

6) An excellent POI system that provided accurate lists of local every things…even including, where appropriate, corporate logos (Burger Kings are shown in the list with their logo…MickyDs…Staples stores…WalMarts…etc.) As a stranger in a lot of strange cities with general business (eating, shopping, mailing, parking, auto renting, occasional medical emergencies, etc.) I am really dependent on the POI system. I am sure I am going to discover the limits of the Navigon POIs. As much as I travel I always do, but so far I am impressed.

7) Ease of address entry. Multiple taps and multiple inputs of course, but each tap and each input calls up an indexed list of possible locations, including all major intersections. I have always wondered why GPS apps don’t work like Google maps, and let you type in the whole address and then go find it, but given that failing, the Navigon system works well (again, on the 3G iPhone there can be lags as Navigon builds the lists. Probably better on the 3GS…any donors yet?)

The Navigon app is also integrated with your address book/contacts app on the iPhone, so you can enter the full address there, and then call it up from within the navigation app. Just be careful entering data in your contacts app. I made a simple mistake, and it cost me 15 minutes on the way to an appointment. User error.

8 ) a feature that looks good, but that I have not used yet, is the ability to look for POIs along your route (restaurants, gas stations, rest areas, etc.) while the route is running, and add them to your route. I can see how, on longer trips than 2 hours, this might be very useful.

Along those lines, the next update is supposed to have the ability to route multiple destinations. This is something I have always missed in my Magellan. Sometimes I want to go by way of, but I still want to go, if you know what I mean. I do not want to go to the by the way, and then have to reprogram the GPS for my true destination. And if there is more than one by the way, well…that gets tedious. I don’t know how often I will actually use the multiple destinations feature, but I am eager to see how it works.

So, what about the practical side of using the app on the iPhone. It is after all a phone. And it is, after all, an iPhone. What happens when calls come in. What happens when Pushes interrupt your route? What about iPoding? How do you mount the thing?

Phone and Push seems well integrated. If a phone call comes in, you can answer it using the speaker phone mode and navigation picks up where you are when you finish. If you are anywhere tricky, of course, the best course is to get off the road to talk anyway. Pushes appear in the screen, but have a dismiss button, so that is easy. You can play music using the iPod app while navigation is running, but see the volume concern below.

As for mounting, I am using an inexpensive,l $25 windshield suction mount from Walmart, and it works just fine. It even came with a heater vent adapter for CA cars (no window mounts allowed). I also have a Kensington mount that goes in the lighter socket for cars with sockets appropriately placed. The iPhone is light compared to my Magellan, so it is relatively easy to mount. The suction on my inexpensive windshield mount held for 3 days and showed no signs of coming loose. I used a separate lighter powered power supply, and the phone was well positioned for speaker phone use if needed. Works.

Navigon recommends running your iPhone naked for best GPS reception but I kept mine in its plastic case and it worked fine.

So what is not to like?

My only issue is, as other reviewers have noted, the voice prompts. The voice is pleasant, polite, clear and crisp and unlikely to be  misunderstood…but it is not loud enough, especially if you are listening to music. The coming update will have separate volume controls for music and voice…but unless they also boost the volume of the voice in the navigation app, that just means that you will be turning your music down to hear the navigation better. Not ideal. (With the 3G, she also stutters occasionally…not enough to bother…probably cured in the 3GS…what, still no donors? I really want to test this.)

To be fair, you need to compare the Navigon Mobile Navigator for the iPhone to the AT&T navigation app, and the X-Road apps…and of course the soon to be released TomTom app (the TomTom has been soon to be released for several months now, which is certainly one reason I have the Navigon.)

I don’t want to pay AT&T $9.99 a month to use their app, no matter how good it is, and early reports have not been wildly enthusiastic. Even if map upgrades for the Navigon are expensive, they are not going to $120, and they are not likely to come every year. I prefer an app that has the maps installed. The X-Road apps might be good, but since I am all over NA, I would have to own and install both East and West…not an ideal solution as far as I am concerned, and putting the cost right up there with the Navigon.

And the TomTom? I don’t like the idea of the separate booster…one more thing to carry and power…and, having used the Navigon without a booster, I am not sure it is needed. TomTom would have to have a significant price or feature advantage to make me look at it (unlikely in my opinion). (Of course, if TomTom wants me to review their app, I am always open to that…though I bought the Navigon with my own hard earned $$…you think all that travel is easy on a person?)

For the moment, I am certainly a happy Navigon Mobile Navigator for the iPhone user. Great app. Good use of the iPhone interface. Works well. Eliminates one gadget from my packing. Win win win, and one more win.

I am happy. And I am especially happy to have gotten the Navigon at its introductory price of $69. Go get yours before August 15th and save yourself some cash.

Tweetie -- Twitterfon -- Twitterific

For many months now, I have not looked at another iPhone Twitter app (well, maybe I looked, but I have been faithful). Tweetie has ruled, in the app store, in TwitStats (#3 Twitter client overall!), and on my iPhone.

It was inevitalbe, of course, that the makers of the other Twitter iPhone apps would notice, and eventually attempt to catch up, adding new features and refining their own unique set, polishing their UIs and pushing code to the max.

Within the past few weeks Twitterific, one of the original Twitter clients, and still very popular, was upgraded to version 2.0 (both free, with ads…and premium, without ads). Last week Twitterfon’s free version was uped to 1.5, adding a bunch of new features (along with ads similar to Twitterific’s free version), and a few days later Twitterfon Pro, with even more features and no ads hit the store.

And suddenly it is a horse race again!

Tweetie is still hard to beat. It combines just about every essential feature in a UI that is clean and uncluttered and, for the most part, logical and consistent. In fact, until you try Twitterific or Twitterfon Pro, you probably would not notice any missing features or awkwardness. (What you don’t know, as they say, can’t hurt you.) Even after discovering some of the niftier unique bits of the competition, you will still have to decide if Tweetie’s own set of unique features is preferable to what it is missing. Not easy.

So, taking a purely idiosyncratic approach, here is my analysis of the features that are important to me, and how they work (or don’t work) in Tweetie, Twitterific 2.0, and Twitterfon Pro.

For screen shots of the various apps which illustrate the features below visit:

From Twitterfon's Screenshots

Twitterfon (simple scroll down page with features clearly labeled)

Tweetie (slideshow, click on image or nav bar at the top to advance)

Twitterific (homepage, with links to flash shows of features, and a full set of instruction videos)

Multiple Accounts: okay, so not everyone needs this feature, but I have multiple Twitter personalities, and I do. All three apps manage multiple accounts with ease.

Tweetie has an Accounts page and an accounts button in the header to access it: to add new accounts, to edit the settings for existing accounts, and to switch accounts.

Twitterific has a Sources page and a sources button in the header which does the same, with the addition of displaying a public timeline (unique to Twitterific), search, nearby, and trends. (I might note that the “Quick Search” feature on the Twitterific sources page belies its name in the sense that it offers a wide array of search options on a single page. Quick in this usage does not mean simplified or basic. It means comprehensive and easy to use.)

Twitterfon displays the account name in the header (as do the other two). Tapping the account name drops you into the accounts page, where you can add accounts, edit account settings, or switch accounts. Don’t know why, but this approach…tap the account name to change the account…seems the most natural to me: higher grin factor somehow than a dedicated button (once you find it, of course).

Reply: Yes, this is probably pretty basic, but none of these apps handle it the same way, and preferences are unavoidable. Tweetie and Twitterfon allow you to open the tweet on a new page, with access to more information about the tweeter, and dedicated reply buttons (Twitterfon), or icons in the footer bar (Tweetie). Twitterific will also open the tweet in a new page, but in conversation view, with any previous associated tweets it can find. There is a reply icon in the footer. Conversation view can be set to open easily with a single, double, or tripple tap on the tweet or atvar (single tap only works on the atvar).

(Twitterfon also has conversation view, though it is harder to find. Once a tweet is open, tapping the from @ in the bottom line opens the conversation. Tweetie only has conversation view for Direct Messages.)

However, none of those is the day to day reply method for these apps. Tweetie has a swipe action that slides in an icon panel in place of the tweet. Swipe across the tweet left to right and you see icons for reply, open sender profile, and favorite.

To reply to a tweet in Twitterfon, you tap the atvar. Simple.

To reply to a tweet in Twitterific, you select the tweet (it appears to recess into the screen) and the New Tweet icon in the footer turns into a reply icon.

Which is better/faster/more logical. Twitterfon’s takes the fewest motions. Tap the atvar. Type. Tweetie takes a swipe and a tap. Twitterific takes a tap and a tap. Tweetie’s swipe is elegant and high on the coolness quotient and gives you quick access to the profile of the sender as well as reply. You can set Twitterific to open the profile of the sender with a tap (or two) on the tweet or atvar, so that is really the same motions, and then you have a reply button on that page. Tapping the tweet in Twitterfon opens a tweet page with a profile button as well as reply, retweet, and direct message. Your choice. Twitterfon wins on pure speed.

Direct Message/Retweet: Like I said above, Twitterfon has the DM button on the opened tweet page, along with reply and retweet, as does Tweetie. Both are two tap operations.

While Direct Message in Twitterific is dead easy, I had to do some research to find retweet. Direct Message is one of three options at bottom of the text entry window whenever you open it with the reply or new tweet icons: tweet (talk bubble), reply (@), or direct message (envelope). Retweet on the other hand is hidden in an icon menu that opens when you touch the * in the footer with a tweet selected. Retweet is one of 9 options. (Others are Conversation, sender profile, sender search, tweet link, favorite, mark, email, and…when it is your own tweet…delete.) Once you know where it is, retweet is really only one more tap in Twitterific than it is in Tweetie or Twitterfon.

DM, on Twitterific is, actually, also one more tap than on either Tweetie or Twitterfon.

What matters more is the logic. Where do you want your DM and Retweet functions? What do you find more natural and spontaneous?

I really like the little tab switches for Tweet, @, and DM on Twitterific, but I do not like where the retweet icon is hidden. I can live with either Twitterfon’s or Tweetie’s button/icon approach on the tweet page for either DM or Retweet. As matter of record, Tweetie takes one more tap to get to DM or Retweet than Twitterfon (again).

Also note that if you are fan of the RT format, as opposed to via, Twitterific and Tweetie allow you to choose RT for Retweets. Tweetie makes you feel guilty about it, but it is there, deep in the advanced area of settings.

Real rotating landscape mode in Twitterfon

Landscape keyboard/tweet entry/in-line URL view: It took me a long time to get used to the portrait keyboard on the iPhone, and I still vastly prefer the landscape layout. Both Tweetie and Twitterfon have effective landscape keyboards, both customized for tweet entry with icons for common functions (add photo and location, on both. Open friends list on Twitterfon. Twitterfon’s landscape mode is a real rotating mode. The orientation of the phone determines which view you are using (in fact, the Undo/trash icon is only visible in Portrait mode so you have to rotate back to get to it when you need it). Tweetie can be set to use either portrait or landscape mode in the settings app, but once set you are locked in. (I have discovered, the hard way, that rotating the phone while a tweet is sending in Twitterfon locks the screen in landscape mode even when you go back to the list view. Interesting effect, but somehow I do not believe it is intentional. Shutting down and relaunching the ap cures it.)

In addition both Tweetie and Twittterfon offer landscape view of in the in-line URL browser. Twitterific does not.

Open my own profile: No I am not that stuck on myself, but sometimes, since following folks who follow me can get really complicated on the web Twitter page with more than one account, I like to open my iPhone client to do follows of followers. For that I need access to my followers, which are, of course, in my profile.

Tweetie has a My Profile button in the More menu (accessed by the … icon in the footer).

Twitterific makes it as easy as tapping your name in the header. Of course, opening my profile does me no good, in this case, because I can not view my followers. This is an inexplicable omission in a modern Twitter client. Both Tweetie and Twitterfon not only allow you to view your own followers, they allow you to drill down and view the followers of your followers (and on and on to some untested depth). Same with those you follow. You can see who they are following, who is following them, etc. and drill down as far as you are likely to want to go. This is great for finding new people who you might want to follow, and essential, as I have said, for following followers. ?? Twitterific ??

In Twitterfon, on the other hand, unless I am missing something, the only way to open your own profile is to do a profile search for your own username. Can you spell awkward? You can save your username to the search history by doing a regular search on it, then recall it from the history and tap it in the search field to activate the profile button, then get your profile. Not that helpful. On the other hand, the Twitterfon profile view is as complete as Tweetie’s and just as user-friendly, once you get there.

Drill down followers: see under Twitterific above.

Speed loading atvars: this is not really a feature, more of an annoyance when it does not work right. Tweetie caches atvars locally so it is pretty fast loading them…however, it only updates the cache like, every other week, so it can go a while before your newest atvar shows up on your own iPhone (or anyone else’s new atvar for that matter). Twitterfon has always loaded atvars really fast. I don’t know how it is done but it works. Twitterific, on the other hand, can hang even in wifi, and be dead slow on 3G.

Scroll to Unread/New Tweet Count: As the author/creator of Tweetie rightly points out, there is no way a client can actually scroll to the first unread since no client currently knows what tweets you have read in another client or on the desktop. Still, it is a nice feature if the client at least opens to first unread tweet in that client. Twitterfon seems to do this flawlessly and has for several versions. In addition, it displays the count for new tweets, mentions, and direct messages as number bubbles on the appropriate icons in the footer. So cool.

Tweetie seems to do okay with finding the first unread, but only okay. It does not seem quite reliable, and if the number of new tweets equals or exceeds the limit for the initial tweet load you have set, it always dumps you out at the top. I find this mildly annoying.

Twitterific also attempts to find the first unread, and is okay. Sometimes it actually reloads tweets it already has displayed (displaying them twice), and it only displays the number of new tweets (no mentions or messages) as a fleeting banner at the top of the tweet list, but it is okay.

If this functionality is important to you, there is only one choice. Twitterfon does it best.

Links highlighted and live in Twitterfon's list view

Rich Text list view (live, tappable URLs, @s, and #s right in the list view of tweets!). Rich text view is the most natural way to display tweets. In my opinion it should not be necessary to open a tweet to follow a link within that tweet. Period. Twitterific has had live links for a long time. Twitterfon, which actually had no live links at all in previous versions, even in tweet page view, just added them in the list and tweet views. Elegant and simple. Tweetie does not have them in the list view, though they come live in the tweet view. Still, it should not be necessary to open a tweet to activate a link. Period. Time Tweetie got got the message! (Especially since Rich Text view is a licensable technology…not something that even needs to be recreated.)

Themes: Okay, not essential to anyone. It is only a look, right? Tweetie has three. Twitterific has three. Twitterfon has four. None will be exactly to your liking. One will be close enough.

Integration: Picture posting: all have it. Tweetie allows you to pick one of three services, Twitterific one of four. URL shotner. All have it. Twitterfon allows you to use your own bitly account for customized urls. Automatic in both Twitterfon and Tweetie. Selectable for each tweet or reply in Twitterific. Text overlow shortners: Tweetie and Twitterific. Instapaper: Tweetie and Twitterific. Ping.fm (for simultanioius Facebook posts…or whatever else you set on ping): Tweetie only! (This could be deal breaker for some.)

And finally, one that might not matter to anyone but me.

3D effect highlighting of tweet, and live links in Twitterific

Display of real names: Yes, I know, I should be able to recognize folks by their atvars and usernames, and not everyone even supplies a real name, but I do like to see them when possible. Twitterific shows them by default. Tweetie can be set to show them. Twitterfon, come on, get with it. The real name is just a tap away in the tweet view, but why not in the list?

And now for a feature none of these have. Twhril and Seesmic Desktop Preview both feature overlapping atvars on replys. The sender’s atvar appears slightly small, with an even smaller version of the recipient’s atvar superimposed in the bottom left corner. So cool. I’d like to see one of these apps step up and borrow that feature.

The Winner! So which of these clients earns pride of place on my iPhone? Honestly I am not all that sure yet. It is a really close race.

I still like Tweetie. It is elegant and well thought through, consistent in its design and philosophy. It has some really clever interface twists. It’s few annoyances are easy to live with. I expect it to get even better in the next upgrade, as it is forced to play catch up for the first time in a long time. And, when traveling, and I am without the ping.fm dashboard in my browser, I will probably use it for its simultaneous Facebook updates.

I like Twitterific much better than I thought I would. It has some really nice features which I have not even gotten into here because they are simp0ly not features I use day to day. However its inability to display followers, either my own or my follower’s, is a deal breaker for me. Luckily the free version keeps upgrading with the Premium so I can keep checking it as it matures.

I really like Twitterfon Pro. I like everything about it except that it does not display real names and support ping.fm. It feels like the fastest app by a very small margin. I like the new tweets, mentions, and messages count and display. I like the reliable scroll to first unread. I find the logic of its layout pleasing. For the moment, it will probably replace Tweetie as my day in day out client.

But that is just me. Honestly, any one of these apps is worth the price of the paid app, and will make you a happy iPhone twitterer in short order. Tweet on my twitter mates!

iBird Explorer Pro

[This review is for the Pro version, for the Plus version, go here.]

iBird Explorer Pro is a app for the iPhone/iPod Touch with references for 891 species of birds found in North America. It is, so far, totally unique (apart from its iBird siblings, more on that later) as an interactive field guide (with songs and calls), exhaustive reference, and powerful search engine for iPhone/Touch carrying birders in the field. It is, in fact, pretty much unique as interactive, reference on any platform, and just maybe, the most unique and useful field accessory you are ever likely to see.

Browse screens: notice keyword hints!

I have reviewed two previous versions of iBird Explorer Plus (original and the v1.4.1 update) in a sort of incremental way. Pro marks enough of a departure to warrant a whole new review. (iBird Plus and the regional apps will continue to be upgraded with new content and features appropriate to their serious birder audience, but Pro will acquire a feature set which is more appropriate for the professional guide, teacher, mentor, citizen scientist, ornithologist, or field biologist.)

In general, iBird Explorer Pro provides, for each of its 891 species, instant access to:
1 ) one or more detailed illustrations
2 ) an audio recording of songs and calls
3 ) a range map
4 ) a basic description of identifying features and associated habitats
5 ) what amounts to a complete life-history, which includes detailed descriptions of individual body parts, descriptions of habit, range, feeding and foraging, nesting, etc., etc.
6 ) a few interesting or unique facts and factoids about the species.
7 ) lists of, and live links to, similar species
8 ) one or more (often several) supplemental photographs
9 ) conservation status based on the IUCN/Bird Life International ratings
10 ) instant links to every photograph published on Flickr of the species (requires wifi or 3G)
11 ) an instant link to the Wikipedia article for the bird (requires wifi or 3G).
12 ) and a large version of the primary illustration which can be zoomed in to study detail.

The illustrations pages

You can browse the species listing sorted alphabetically by first name (common names, Yellow-rumped for Yellow-rumped Warbler), or by last name (Warbler for Yellow-rumped Warbler). (Note that typing in Warbler does not pull up all the warblers, only those with Warbler as their last name. Painted Redstart, for instance, would not included in the species found by the keyword “warbler”. To find all Warblers you could do a search by family in the search section, see below, or use browse by Family, also just below.) In standard iPhone fashion, a quick index on the side of the page allows you to jump directly to any letter, or to scroll quickly through the letters. You can also view and browse by Families (as in all Wood Warblers), sorted in in the order they appear in on the American Ornithological Union check-list.

Range Map, Sounds, Similar

You can type all or part of a common name in the keyword field, or you can enter the “/” character and the 4 letter banding code, or “&” and the Scientific Name, and iBird will locate the species or group of species for you.

Tapping any species name in the browse pages will open the species (bird) screen with a scrolling (left and right) two-row set of info buttons at the bottom. Here you select from illustrations (Bird), Sounds (little speaker icon), Range, Identity, Photos, Similar, Facts, Birdipedia or (scrolling right) Favorites, Ecology, Flickr, or Portrait (all of which correspond to the information listed above.)

Photo, Flickr, Conservation

On top of all that, iBird Explorer Pro also has a built in search engine which can sort the included 891 species by:
1 ) Location (multiple settings possible)
2 ) Shape
3 ) Size
4 ) Habitat (multiple settings possible)
5 ) Primary Color (multiple settings possible)
6 ) Secondary Color (multiple settings possible) (Both primary and secondary color setting require care. If you specify two or more incomputable colors you will end up with no matches.)
7 ) Backyard Feeders (yes or no)
8 ) Family
9 ) Bill shape
10 ) Bill length
11 ) Head pattern
12 ) Crown Color
13 ) Wing Shape
14 ) Flight pattern
15 ) Conservation status
16 ) Song
17 ) Song pattern
18 ) Observed status in a particular state in a particular month (based on actual sightings records)

Song Search

The search process is fast and efficient, and, in my experience, very accurate. While some (maybe most) experienced birders may prefer to use the sorting engine they have developed over years of field experience in their own brains, the search engine in iBird Explorer Pro will teach beginning and growing birders some good ID skills (at the very least what features to look for, and at the most, the most likely species to display them). It is also very useful when someone walks up with one of those “I saw a bird in my backyard the other day, and it was this big, and blue, and…” stories. Instead so smiling tolerantly (or superiorly, depending on who you are), and then making a series of inspired guesses (or shaking your head and walking away, again, depending), you can now enter the features as they are mentioned, ask pertinent questions

Global and app settings (French currenly, Spanish and German planned)

(where is your backyard, what kind of habitat does it provide, did you notice the color of the crown, shape and length of the bill, etc, etc.) and end up with a small (hopefully) list of birds you can actually show them on the spot…and even play back the songs if they heard the bird sing. (You may answer some questions and spark some interest in birds and birding, but one thing I guarantee you will do, is sell quite a few copies of iBird, and maybe a few iPhones as well.)

So let us answer the question on many minds right now: how is Pro different from Plus? There is a feature table here.

In a nutshell, Plus lacks Song search, obvious band code and scientific name keywording (hint), search by month/state, the Ecology page (and search by Conservation Status), the full sized portrait, and the foreign language option. That’s it. All other features are there (even if some are not immediately obvious (hint):).

Portrait View

Is that worth the $10 difference? Maybe not, for some, but we are told that the differences will become more profound as more professional features are added to Pro.

The intention, according to the iBird folks, is to create a feature set for Plus that suits the needs of the average advanced birder, and to create a feature set for Pro that meets the needs of the professional, with professional being, in my interpretation, loosely defined as the group mentioned above.

Many even serious birders will find the features of Plus (and the regional variations) to be completely adequate. If you are among them, I don’t think you have to fear that there will be a time when you suddenly need a feature from Pro and have to buy the new program. Put down your $19,99 and be happy. Your app will continue to develop along the existing lines. On the other hand, if you are a professional guide, teacher, mentor, citizen scientist, ornithologist, or field biologist, who needs the Pro features now, you can be assured that more Pro level features are coming to Pro in the future. And if you are not sure, or you are just the kind of birder who has to have the most advanced tools, then just pay the $10 extra up front and be happy.

For those who already own Plus, it is a harder decision. Is there a feature of Pro that you can’t live without? Then go for it now. Pro will only get better. On the other hand, if you don’t find a compelling reason to buy a new app (Pro) to replace your existing Plus, then stay with Plus. It too will only get better.

In this, of course, we are kind of at the mercy of the Mitch Waite Group and their decisions about what constitutes a serious (Plus) feature and what constitutes a Pro feature. In the current split, I could argue strongly that Song search should be a Plus feature, not necessarily a Pro feature. In fact I plan to do so, via the new iBird Explorer discussion forum the iBird folks just put up. By the evidence so far, the Mitch Waite Group listens carefully to user feedback and feature requests in making these kinds of decisions.

State and Month Search

And consider this: either program is a bargain at the price. To duplicate the content it would cost many times as much. The search features simply can not be duplicated.

And finally, the upgrade controversy. No there is no way, currently, for a Plus user to upgrade to Pro, other than buying the new program at the full price. There should be, but with the App Store system, which is totally under Apple’s control, there is not. This should change sometime after June when iPhone OS 3.0 becomes available, but it is really up to Apple, and until then…

You have choices. Need Pro. Buy it. Even if you have Plus. After all, even if you add the two prices together, it is still a bargain. If you can live without the features of Pro, do so. For now. Upgrade only when you have to. (And maybe by then there will be an upgrade path?? Who knows?)

(To be fair, I have three National Geo guides sitting on my shelf, one of each recent edition, and two copies of guides by Kenn Kaufman which only differ by the composition of the cover. I did not expect the publishers of those guides to upgrade my guide when a new edition, or an improved cover, came out. I did not even, come to think of it, as for a rebate, or a credit for already owning a copy. I just went out and bought the new guide. And no printed guide has ever promised, as iBird does, continuous upgrades of the content. (Oh there was that page for Sibely you were supposed to tape into your book…but you know what I mean.))

The bottom line here is that iBird Explorer Plus/Pro is an absolute must have app for any iPhone/iPod Touch owner who is even moderately intersted in birds. Plus for the moderate. Pro for the, well, for the not so moderate. For the avid birder, what can I say? Buy iBird Explorer. In fact, buy an iPhone if you have to, to run it on. With apps like iBird Explorer you will never regret the investment.