Twinkle

This is my new favorite way to access Twitter.

It presents two main views: a Home view that pulls in messages from Twitter and Twinkle friends, and a Nearby view that pulls in messages from Twinkle users near me.


The Nearby view adds a new dimension to Twitter (one that Twitterrific also tries to add, but doesn't succeed in such a clean way). It lets you find out what the folks in your neighborhood are doing. What's that cute guy down the block doing this morning? If he uses Twinkle, you can find out.

The main problems Twinkle has are network-related. Twitter has had problems with scalability for years, and even invented the Fail Whale to symbolize it. Twinkle in turn is dependent upon Twitter for the vast majority of their messaging data. (To their credit, Twinkle acts as a kind of messaging buffer between Twitter and the end user, so not every Twitter failure translates into a Twinkle failure.) The location data Twinkle uses is in turn dependent upon Apple, AT&T, and Skyhook Wireless. If you're using an iPod Touch, for instance, it's unlikely you'll get accurate Location info unless you're in a fairly dense urban area and happen to be near a WiFi access point that Skyhook has already mapped. Generally if you're using an iPhone, you'll get location data that is sufficiently accurate for Twinkle.

I'm a big fan of using location-based services to help support local businesses and local communities, and I think Twinkle is a nice step in that direction.

Pandora Radio

What's not to love about free music?

Pros

• You can quickly search by keyword (band name, genre, etc.) to create a streaming radio station that matches your interests
  
• You can skip songs. Most streaming services do not allow this.
  
• You can quickly rate songs. This helps tune the Music Genome Project over the long run.
  

Cons

• I've had a lot of trouble getting streams to start. Once they start they seem to play just fine. (This is with either WiFi, EDGE, or 3G). It's not clear to my why this happens, since a macbook running on the same WiFi network has no problem connecting to Pandora Radio.
  
• This service is very, very popular, and sometimes you'll have trouble getting music streamed to you simply because you're fighting with so many other listeners.
  
• You can quickly find out why the MGP recommended a particular song for your stream but...most of the time, it's just gibberish. (I'm so glad my favorite band has a "highly synthetic sonority"!)
  

NYTimes (New York Times)

When the venerable New York Times creates a news reader application for the design-centric iPhone platform, you expect Quality. You expect that the experience of browsing through some of the best news articles written in the USA will be easy, seamless, and a delight.

And it pretty much is. The front page allows you to quickly view news headlines (which, thanks to the excellent Times editorial staff, are always accurate to the stories they represent) and scroll quickly down the list to older stories you may have missed. My main complaint about this page is that the associated thumbnail photos arrive slowly or not at all, even when I'm connected via WiFi. (See the screenshot-- empty thumbnails appear as grey boxes.)

Advertising

The NYTimes app, like the New York Times itself, is ad-supported. But the way ads are included is tasteful and unobtrusive. At the bottom of each story screen is displayed a fixed-height ad. (Currently it appears that all their ads are from the Westin hotel chain, but your mileage may vary. My guess is that in the future, ads from a variety of sources and formats will appear in this space.) It is a very, very small price to pay for free journalism.

Photo Browser

This is an unexpected joy of the NYTimes application. I can quickly get an overview of the most interesting photos of the day. But often, I can only get the overview. If I actually click on any of the beautiful thumbnail images, I'm disappointed by a "Loading" screen that shows for a few minutes, and the full-size image fails to load. (Yes, this happens even when I'm connected via WiFi to one of the fattest broadband pipes in the world.) My gut instinct as a developer tells me that this is not a problem with the iPhone app software itself, but with the backend server that the Times is using.

Conclusion

The NYTimes reader works well, and is a joy to use, when it works. It seems that it may have already been overwhelmed by its own popularity.

PhoneSaber

Forget all those dumb "flashlight" apps for iPhone: this is the ultimate free gizmo app (and probably one of the few I will bother to review).

First of all, it takes advantage of the platform's accelerometer technology to detect fast or slow accelerations, abrupt stops, and so forth. Anyone designing a game that is meant to take advantage of this kind of user interaction would be well advised to study carefully how PhoneSaber handles it because (a) millions of people will already be familiar with PhoneSaber and (b) PhoneSaber handles it quite well.

Secondly, the sound design is great. It's quite tricky to sync up such rapid movements with just the right sound playing at just the right time, but PhoneSaber does it. Again, game developers: take note. PhoneSaber sets the bar that you'll be expected to meet or exceed.

One might argue that the main PhoneSaber screen is not visually appealing, and I agree it's fairly simple. However, when you're actually using PhoneSaber, e.g. in a duel to the death with your coworkers, running up and down the hall of your corporate offices, you're not looking at the screen. You're listening for the sounds. Another great lesson for game developers: if the user is rapidly shaking the screen around, they won't be able to see much on the screen.

Twitterrific

First of all, let me say that I love Twitterrific and the developer behind it (Craig Hockenberry). It was given an Apple Design Award at WWDC this year, and rightly so. They've effectively moved all of the interesting features of the desktop Twitterrific to the Cocoa Touch platform, and they've released both a free, ad-supported version and a paid version.

Having said that, there are some bits of Twitterrific that bug me, and might explain why I trade off between it, Twinkle, and Twitter's own mobile website.

Hints

Ok, maybe Icon Factory has discovered that iPhone users are idiots, but I'm a big fan of the "show-don't-tell" school of UI design. If Apple didn't find it necessary to create something like Hints to "tell" about e.g. the new push data ("Fetch New Data") model, then why did Twitterrific need to create it? If this feature is really necessary, then perhaps this simple twitter client is...not so simple.

Complexity without Benefit

Twitterrific is jam-packed with just about as many features as you can currently fit into an iPhone app. They even provide instructions on how to back-link from Safari into Twitterrific, in case you ever dared want to run anything but Twitterrific. (Note: I think it speaks more to Apple's support for third-party developers than anything else that this process requires hand-editing a funky URL.)
Frankly, it's kinda overwhelming, and yet not as powerful as you might think.

Take for instance User Info. Although you can find out all sorts of things about the user: read their latest twit, find out their location, and view their profile, you can't actually unfollow them. The UI design of the twit view itself seems to violate the simple-is-elegant drill-down model of iPhone UI design: with six action buttons available on this one screen, it's quite cluttered.

Conclusion

Overall I think Twitterrific is a terrific iPhone app, and quite powerful. For my friends that use Twitter I highly recommend trying this app first and then compare it with the other hokey Twitter apps available for iPhone. However, I also recommend they try Twinkle and the simple Twitter mobile site for Safari. Some find the many features of Twitterrific indispensable, while others are happy with the simplistic Safari site.

PayPal

This app is a travesty. You would think that a major technology company with the massive financial backing of eBay, and undoubtedly the best technical support that Apple could provide, would be able to create an app that actually works well.


Instead, we get an app that seems to break all the rules of good Touch UI design. What the hell is that Login button? Couldn't you just make something that looked like a form? Even m.paypapl.com, your mobile web site, looks better than this app.

Why must I jump to Safari when I click the "Sign Up" button? You have all the power of a full-blown Cocoa Touch application at your fingertips, and instead you want to send me to a web site??

Also, why can't I select from a list of previously used payees when sending money? Your website has that feature: why doesn't your native iPhone app have it? Sure, it's great that I can select from among the contacts on my iPhone to send money, but I might not have my cable company's billing email address plugged into my iPhone...

Hello, World!

On this blog I'll be bringing to you my undiluted opinions about various iPhone apps obtained from the App Store, and the Cocoa Touch (iPhone and iPod Touch) platform in general.