Tweets is designed to be a fast, useable Twitter client. Some of our design goals are:

• the things you do most often should be available in the least amount of touches possible (this one is pointed at most of the major Twitter apps. Having to perform 2 touches to click a link just doesn’t work for us. Twitter is full of links to websites, mentions, hashes (#somePhrase) and there is no reason why you should have to go to a second screen to be able to touch the link you want to go to.)
• simple is better. Twitter is a huge system and distilling that down to what is useful in a mobile application is very important.
• all actions should not need to be learned but should be readily apparent or easily discoverable even if it makes the UI a bit less ‘pretty’.
• settings should be dead simple, there should be few of them and changes to them should take place immediately even while still in the application
• maximize screen real estate for Tweets. Nothing extra should be present when on the main timelines besides the tweets you are reading and required navigation controls.  This one is huge for us.  Twitter is about the tweets, not the toolbars taking up tweet space.

An early release of Tweets is now being beta tested.  We have gotten some great feedback and we have a few new killer features going in before the big release in a few weeks.  We also have the first draft of the Tweets website live available at: http://www.prime31.com/tweets/ The screenshots will most certainly change as we nail down the UI as will the copy.  Watch here for more news sometime around the 25th of the month.

With the coming of the “Jesus Pad” (see previous post) Apple is threatening to shake things up yet again.  This time it’s not the smart phone world that’s in for a rattling but the much larger world of personal computing.  As mentioned in my previous post, apps are going to be a big thing on the iPad (Obviously.  What good is an iPad with no apps).  Developers have some big decisions to make about how they are going to create and sell their apps in the coming months.

Apple is providing developers with a couple different ways to get their apps out to the iPhone/iPod and iPad.  Each has it’s own advantages/disadvantages along with a different set of benefactors and beneficiaries as well.  Below I will describe what developers’ options will be along with their implications.  First a couple definitions for those less word inclined individuals (like myself.  I needed to look these up to not get them confused).

Benefactor: one that gives aid, especially financial aid.

Beneficiary: one that receives a benefit.

Universal Binary

A universal binary is a single application that will run on the iPhone/iPod Touch and the iPad.  Mac users are more than likely familiar with universal binaries because they have been prevalent the last few years as the switch to Intel processors was occurring.  Universal binaries had both an old-style Power PC and a new-style Intel build of the same application.  The difference between Mac universal binaries and iPhone/iPod – iPad universal binaries is that developers were not stuck in the roll of benefactor for them.  The application was identical for each architecture and the price was the same when selling either architecture.  The same is not at all true for the current universal binaries on iPhone/iPod – iPads.

Benefactors: Developers

Beneficiaries: Apple and Users

Universal binaries have a number of difficulties for developers both from a programming perspective and a financial perspective.  Creating a a universal binary requires a developer to spend the time to create a single application that will look great on both the iPhone and iPad.  The screens for each of these devices is such a world of difference that there can really be slim to zero asset reuse.  To take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen gestures will be different, images will need to be redone and new features added.  Essentially a second application needs to be created.  Some work can be saved in reusing code between the two formats but a large portion of code will need to be different if it is going to take advantage of the iPad’s feature set.  All this takes time and it is not a trivial change to add features and full redesign an apps UI.  Not to mention bug testing and making sure everything works as planned for both formats.

So how does this benefit users?  Well, they just got 2 applications for the price of one.  Developers will have to keep the price at iPhone levels if they want to get any sales.  If developers raised the prices of universal binaries they would see far less sales than a similar iPhone only application with a lower price tag.  Users also benefit in that it is just so easy to have a single app that will magically work on an iPhone and iPad.

Apple benefits because they get some more app sales and this could possibly even push users to front some cash for an iPad.  What if users found a whole bunch of apps that they love on the iPhone and the iPad versions are already payed for.  They might be swayed to purchase an iPad if they are on the fence.

Universal Binary

Huh?  Didn’t we just read about universal binaries in the last section?  You are not mistaken.  You did.  Here is a different and far less likely way the universal binary game can go.

Benefactors: Users (sometimes)

Beneficiaries: Developers and Apple

In this model, developers charge a higher price for universal binaries than they would have for an iPhone application alone because they took a lot more time to stick an iPad application in there.  Why are users the benefactors then?  What if you are user who doesn’t own an iPad an you will only be using the application on your iPhone?  Why should you pay for the extra iPad features that you will never use?  If things went this route (which I really doubt they will after the iPhones race to $0.99) iPhone app prices will end up being higher and a lot of people will be paying for a built in iPad application they may never use.

Separate iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad Binary

This is the opposite of a universal binary.  A separate application would be made for the iPhone/iPod Touch and the iPad.  Code can still be shared between the applications but there will be 2 distinct products for sale in the App Stores.

Benefactors: Users (kind of, but not really)

Beneficiaries: Apple and Developers (kind of, but not really)

This model makes application development easier on the developer.  There is no need to pack two apps in one package that can share next to nothing UI related with each other.  The benefactors and beneficiaries in this case really aren’t playing the roles.  Users can be perceived to be the benefactors because they have to purchase two applications even though it is the same thing (in their eyes).  This is a mistaken perception.  Developers had to make two separate applications.  The iPad version didn’t magically create itself.  It took time, dedication, new assets and a whole new UI.  New features were added to take advantage of the iPad.  Developers deserve to get paid for their work.  Let’s say you went to an art gallery and saw two amazing paintings that looked very similar but one was a bit smaller.  If you bought the smaller one would you expect to get the bigger one with it for free?  Of course not so let’s drop this expectation with iPhone and iPad apps before it event happens.  Support your artist and you will get even more amazing work from them in the future.

Conclusion

It is readily apparent that Apple is always the beneficiary.  Whichever model a developer chooses Apple is going to get a piece of the pie.  I’m going to venture a guess and say Apple wants developers to make universal binaries.  Universal binaries have the greatest benefit to them because they offer the potential temptation for users on the fence about purchasing an iPad (or iPhone) a bit of a push to do it.  It may not be much but if it turns out to be enough in just a small percentage of cases that is another hardware purchase for Apple.

Developers are going to have to be very careful about how they proceed.  They shape the prices of applications in the App Store and they pretty much blew it with the race to $0.99 for iPhone apps.  I can only imagine the quality of an application that is a universal binary selling for a dollar.  It can’t be good.  Not for users and not for developers.  If developers put some quality time into iPad ports of their apps they will be a superior experience for users and users won’t mind fronting a bit more money for them.  On the other hand, if developers take the quick route and don’t fully rethink and redesign their applications then users will not want to buy them and they certainly won’t want to pay more for them.  What I would like to see from Apple is some way to link separate iPhone and iPad apps together on the SKU level.  I would like to see them offer a discount program so that if a user buys an iPhone app and wants to buy the same app on the iPad they get a price reduction.  A system like this would benefit everyone:  users would get kick-ass ports of their favorite iPhone apps for a discount and developers would have a reason to spend some quality time on the development of the iPad port to really make it stand out.

Developers have a need to be responsible with this process.  If an iPad port isn’t much more work (think most games if they just use higher resolution textures or only have a few simple changes) then a universal binary at a fair price is in order.  Granted, a universal binary is not an option if the iPad version of a game has a large amount of changes that took significant work to do.  I wouldn’t expect to pay the price for a PSP game when I am buying a PS3 game.

Let me first preface this by saying this opinion piece comes from the perspective of not just a user but a developer and user.  The last few months there has been a lot of chatter about the iSlate or iTablet (now known as the iPad for better or for worse).  This all culminated in the release of the iPad last week in typical Apple fashion.  Much like most of Apple’s largish announcements there is always a pretty big divide as to if the new device has any credibility or purpose.  A quick look back to the iPhone and iPod announcements shows pretty much the same theme:

• A couple months of hoopla and rumors flood the web from Apple fanboys/girls and Apple haters
• The ball gets dropped at Moscone Center in San Francisco
• The new device doesn’t live up to the months of hype (imagine that)
• Like Moses and the Red Sea, critics either hate or love the device.  There can be no middle ground.
• If the product is successful (iPod, OS X, iPhone) a mad rush to copy it ensues and it gets named ‘The Jesus INSERT PRODUCT NAME HERE’

At the time of this writing we are at the Red Sea portion of Apple’s new product lifecycle.  There is usually a good bunch of emotions at this time usually pretty extreme and quite often extremely negative from the majority of bloggers and ‘evangelists’ on the internet.  The iPad has another great advantage in that they have a whole new group of critics available to them: Flash developers.  The amount of whining going on in the Flash development community right now is bordering on insane.  People feel threatened that they will become obsolete for some reason because of the iPad.  Flash will one day become obsolete unless their are some major changes in the near future from Adobe.  The iPad won’t be the one that kills it though.  Not by a long shot.  Microsoft will be the Flash murderer.  When (if) Microsoft upgrades Internet Explorer to support HTML5 and gets a majority of it’s users upgraded things will change and it won’t be good for Adobe.  But that’s a story for another day.

The Bad

The Name: iPad.  It’s sounds a bit too much like iPod in my opinion.  Typos will be many.  It also sounds like a high-tech sanitary napkin.

iPad App Store: This one will have the biggest impact on the iPad’s success.  The iPad has a chance to change things for computing in the years to come.  A fresh start.  An opportunity to revise what is required for *most* computer users and mold the UI and hardware to fit that group.  The iPhone is such a runaway success because it redefined what we expect from a phone.  To this day every phone manufacturer is still playing catch up.  They have literally had years to mimic what the iPhone does and none have been successful yet.  As soon as it was opened up to developers and the App Store went online it changed the game almost overnight.  The huge onslaught of developers to the platform caused a massive jump in the number of apps available and a startling shift towards $0.99 apps.  From a devs point of view it is not at all easy to make a living on $0.99 apps.  You need to sell a LOT of $0.99 apps to cover the time and expense to create them.  One issue this brings up is that developers are hesitant to spend the time to make a really nice, useful, feature rich application if they can’t sell it for more than a dollar.  And why should they?  Then after the app gets released for a dollar users expect lifetime updates.  How can developers support themselves with that model?  They can’t which is why there are so many apps in the App Store that are literally just piles of crap wasting space and making it hard to find the good ones.

The iPad App Store is a chance to right the wrongs and create a whole new class of applications.  If there ends up being another “race for the $0.99 app” like on the iPhone the iPad’s full potential will never be seen.  I sincerely hope developers out there don’t just take their existing iPhone apps and leave them as is when they port them to the iPad.  I also hope users do not buy an iPad expecting to get really innovative and great apps for $0.99.  It’s just not going to happen.  iPad applications need to raise the bar substantially.  They need to be faster, have more features, be prettier to look at and more fun to interact with than their iPhone brethren.  Adding in all this extra functionality takes more time.  It takes a lot more planning.  More time designing graphics that look great on a much larger screen.  More creativity is required as well to literally invent new ways to use and interact with a computer.  This all means that the price of a quality application needs to go up if we want to continue to drive developers to provide never before seen content.

The Good

It’s a Tablet that Doesn’t Suck: I don’t know why but for some reason all the other computer manufacturers out there besides Apple like to go the safe route and never release any products that push boundaries.  Maybe they can’t get the idea of a big risk past their shareholders.  Maybe they don’t have the right research and development focus.  Whatever the reason, it is clear that there has been ample time to make a decent tablet.  Tablet’s have been around for well over a decade.  Why is every tablet previously made something chances are you have never heard of or seen or care about?  The main reason is because they took an already past it’s prime model (the standard computer interface whether it be Windows, Linux or OS X) and just threw it into a laptop case with a touch screen.  Of course they didn’t take off.  Why would anyone want to take a computer that is 100% designed to be controlled by a keyboard and mouse and try to use a stylus to control it?  No brainer.

Redefinition of what a Computer is: The iPad could potentially change the future of computing.  If the iPad catches on and developers come up with some really great human-to-computer interaction patterns this could push computers as a whole towards a similar model.  This is a scary idea but what if your computer no longer had a file system?  No more Finder or Explorer?  No more save buttons?  What if your computer no longer had piles of menus leading to even more menus?  How could you possibly survive in such a world?  This is where Apple is going with the iPad.  They are making it so that you no longer have to fumble around with a file system anymore.  Apps will have new methods of interaction making the standard File/Edit/View/Etc. menus no longer necessary.  Every action you need will be right at your fingertips.  Literally.

Notice Apple didn’t tell you anything about the video card the iPad uses?  How about the RAM?  Processor specs?  These things are irrelevant for a huge majority of computers users so why are they so prevalent in computers today?  Most users don’t ever come close to pushing their computers.  A majority of time is spent in web browsers, listening to music or watching videos.  Most users just don’t care about the tech side of things.  Exactly how many of the items in the standard Windows “Start” menu do you think most users use? 80%?  50%?  10%  Less?  Why don’t you take a moment and count the number of clickable items in your start menu (Application folder for Mac users).  Now count how many of them you clicked all of last month.

iPad App Store: This is the make it or break it decider for the iPad.  Will we end up in the situation described above or will this be the second coming of the computer?  The iPad App Store could potentially fill up with piles of applications that you could have never dreamed of before.  You can throw away everything you expect an application to do and how you interact with it if things go this way.  Gone are hierarchical file systems and the confusion they bring.  Gone are virus scanners.  Gone are the days of normal computers users not being able to figure an application out.  Interacting with a computer can be a whole new experience no longer connected by an obsolete mouse pointer.

The Ugly

It is all summed up here far better than I ever could.

First up, accessibility.  We added a new toggle to turn ON/OFF accessibility features.  We will add more as our blind users let us know what makes using Feeds a better experience for them.  This release will remove the date field so that Voice Over doesn’t waste your time reading the date for every item and you can get to the important information faster.

Next is the long awaited search feature.  You can now filter your loaded articles on the fly.  This one has come in handy for use while testing a lot.  Sometimes you want to pull up an article you read earlier in the day and now all you need to do is remember a word or two from it.  Below is a screen shot of the search.

Apple has been pretty good with the updates lately so hopefully this one gets through fast.

• You can now add a note to any article (if using Google Reader)
• Fixed a crashing bug when deleting a folder
• Fixed the ‘Get 20 more’ issue when show only unread was turned ON and it didn’t actually return 20 more

Enjoy!

UPDATE (12/11):  In record time Apple has finished reviewing the update and it is now live.  This marks by far the quickest update we have ever received clocking in at just 5 days.  2.5 weeks was the previous record and it has most often been over a month.  Maybe Apple doesn’t hate us as much as we thought…or maybe they just forgot to tell the new guy to stick our updates on the back burner for a few weeks before looking at them.

• unread count issue when marking an item as read
• an odd issue that comes up when portrait only is set and you hold your iPhone sideways while navigating to the article view page

Edit: Just a short 21 days after we submitted the update to Apple version 1.73 has officially gone live in the App Store.  You should get update notifications in the App Store shortly.

The OPML exporter is located at: http://ifeeder.prime31.com/export/opml/DEVICE_ID_GOES_HERE

Just replace the DEVICE_ID_GOES_HERE part with your deviceId and you will magically get an OPML file that *should* work with Google Reader.  Enjoy!

• The ‘Show only Unread’ feature will now hide feeds and folders that don’t have any read items
• Reordering of feeds and folders for Google Reader (Note: changing the order in Feeds will not affect the order on Google Reader)
• Better InstaPaper integration.  Feeds will not prompt for and remember your password so you only need to enter it once.
• Better ReadItLater integration.  Same as InstaPaper, Feeds will ask for your login info only once and then remember it.  You no longer need to go into Settings.app to enter your login info.
• Visual overhaul.  We changed the look and feel a bit because Feeds was looking a little bit dated with an emphasis on performance so there isn’t too much visual flair.
• Actual website favicons are displayed (when available.  RSS feeds that use aggrigators such as FeedBurner will not have their favicons present).
• If you have 3.0 installed you will get to use the standard Apple Mail.app compose message right inside Feeds.
• You can now post to Twitter a message that can (if you want to) include a shortened version of the articles permalink.
• When viewing a list of articles, you can send an email with all the articles including their permalinks and preview text.
• The much needed Help button has been added (pay no attention to the ugly icon placeholder in the pic below)
• We removed a bunch of settings from the Settings.app to simplify things.
• You can now back sync as far as 5 days (not suggested. It WILL be slow).
• You can now set the number of items per feed to save as low as 25.  This speeds things up for those who have a ton of feeds.
• Blue is now the default theme color.
• A few bug fixes here and there

We apologize about the delay with 1.7 and really hope Apple makes some changes to their review process.  Not to gripe, but in the time Feeds has been in review (since July 2nd) three updates to Facebook have been approved.  Favoritism?  Unfair review practices?  You be the judge…

And now some screenshots:

UPDATE:  we pulled the previous version 1.7 that has been in review since July 2nd yesterday and replaced it with this version.  Version 1.7 will now be the version in the images above.  We are hoping that resubmitting won’t add any more time the review process (is it possible to add any more time at this point?).  Maybe the last update we sent to Apple got ‘lost’ over there.  Who knows?  Not us, that’s for sure.

UPDATE: Apple just approved version 1.7!  We are already aware of 2 bugs and we apologize about that.  The rushed cycle due to our last update not being accepted after 6 weeks caused us to get a bit itchy on our trigger fingers.  The 2 bugs we are aware of only affect landscape mode so hopefully it won’t affect too many people.

Often when we’re out walking, window-shopping, or visiting the homes of  friends, we see items that make us think, “Mom would love this!” Or, “That’s perfect for Jordan.” Now you’ll be able to organize all these great ideas in the Gifts application.

Each gift entry consists of the name of the future recipient, gift title, store you saw it in, how much it cost. You can group your friends and family into categories and assign a specific holiday for the occasion. Take a photo of the item to refresh your memory when it comes time to actually do the shopping.

Since you’ll be buying things that jump out at you and scream your friend’s names, they won’t likely return the item to the store. Give gifts, not errands!

Check it out here.

✚ Reduced sensitivity in the swipe to mark item read/starred

✚ Removed errors when viewing RSS feeds offline and Feeds tries to load an image

✚ Updated to the new ReadItLater integration API

✚ Fixed issue when editing a feed inside a folder

✚ Added the ability to back sync up to 5 days (Note: this will make sync times very long in some cases)

August 22 edit:  we are patiently awaiting word from Apple as to whether they will allow this update or now.  We are on day 20 and hoping that Apple will eventually get around to reviewing Feeds.  It sure is a good thing this updated didn’t have a major bug fix in it!

UPDATE:  We pulled this version from Apple’s review process due to the insane amount of time it has been in review.  See http://www.prime31.com/iphone/feeds-1-8-sneek-peek-if-apple-ever-finishes-reviewing-the-1-7-update for more info.