Twinkle 1.1 Sneak Peak

Available In: App Store       Price: Free  

TwinkleTapulous has released some info on the upcoming features planned for Twinkle. From what I’ve read, I’m very pleased. They warn that not all features may make it into version 1.1 but here is a breakdown:

– They are keeping the Tapulous account/service. (need for pictures and nearby feature)
– Future support for FriendFeed and other services.
– Multiple accounts
– Option to force Twitter info like avatar, user name, etc., take priority over Tapulous info.
– Built in web browser (for checking out links embedded in tweets)
– Clickable @replies
– Less annoying alert sounds (I would love it if there were a few choices!)

Overall, listening to the users is a great step to a perfect app and Tapulous and Twinkle are on their way. You can read the entire release here or at the developers blog at otierney.net. Make sure to leave them a comment so they hear your voice for future updates and let them know what you love so far!

It’s been a long while since I last updated my blog, but for good reason. I’ve been hard at work on the next generation of software, also known as iPhone. My first project that I get to show all of you is Twinkle, available on the app store. The launch has been delayed for awhile, but it has gone pretty well overall. We have an amazing amount of users for only 2 or 3 days of being available, but the ride isn’t quite over yet. There are some hiccups, a few in particular, so I’d like to talk about them.

Why do you need a Tapulous account to use Twinkle, and what exactly is it.?

Well, the reason is we’re building a network, and using Twitter as the first of many gateways. Many people have heard of or know this concept as “friendfeed.” We’re shooting for nothing less, and are planning for the future by supporting multiple accounts. We want to do certain things that friendfeed isn’t capable of, like hosting pictures for our Twinkle Shots, or embedding location information into tweets like we do for our Nearby tab. Neither of these features would be possible or anywhere near as seamless had we not made the decision to build our own network, with Twitter as the first service.

What we don’t want to do however is pick favorites. This means that even if some other service (if one exists) supported image attachments AND locationing, it still doesn’t have the number and activity of users from Twitter. So, we went where the users are with Twitter as our first network.

What many people want is just a Twitter client, and I’m sorry to say as a basic design decision, that’s just not what Twinkle is or is meant to be. You’re welcome to use it as a dedicated Twitter client and we’re trying really hard to make it a first class client for nothing but. We aren’t there yet, and I’m happy to see all the suggestions and feedback pour in. I’d like to address a rather common one which is: Why can’t you disable the Tapulous “stuff”? Well, we didn’t get time to do that! It’s definitely a popular request, and we need to consider how that will impact the application for one very important reason: Twinkle’s Nearby view depends on Tapulous network integration. If everyone just decided to turn off the “Tapulous account” features, no one would see a thing in Nearby! I think what a better solution might be is to simply have all twitter information (avatars, user names, pretty names, etc) take priority over the Tapulous network information, should you choose to do so. We believe this is an ideal solution but one that takes time unfortunately. Consider now we’ve heard everyone’s complaints, and we will address them in due time.

What do you do with my messages after you send them? Are they on your servers too?

The answer is yes, they are. In order to host nearby messages, and for features like our automatic tweet queuing while Twitter is down, we need to store your messages on our server too. The caveat to this is we need to support Twitter’s privacy exemptions, which we do not yet. This is a known and unfortunately overlooked issue.

What about feature X, Y, Z?

We’ve taken a look at the most requested features, and we’ve already planned on implementing of few of them. Built in web browser. This one’s a highly requested, and particularly useful feature on a mobile app where bouncing between two applications is a painful process. Clickable @replies. This feature was actually in the client for awhile, but just didn’t make the cut due to time so we had to take it out. The notification sounds are too jarring/loud. This was a large complaint, which we’ll remedy.

Not all of this may make it into the next release, but this is just a few of the things we’re working on.

Click here to download Twinkle via the App Store.
icon

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading...

Comments

  1. cool, i need to upgrade to 2.0.

  2. Off Topic But
    DEV TEAM RELEASEING PWNAGE TOOL ON SUNDAY (TOMMOROW) LOOK ON DEV TEAMS BLOG!!!!!

    • intheknow says

      Why must you start rumors? Have u nothing better to do with your time. Are you THAT desperate for attention

    • intheknow says

      WE LOVE SUNDAYS.. if you know anything about those remarkable devs.. they love build up.. ( with reason ) perhaps it’s an OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE they are talking about!!

  3. what is the site to dev team

  4. I don’t think Twinkle is working on Installer anymore…it keeps saying it timed out and won’t let me install it. Anyone else have this problem?

    • I used to love it. says

      I -luckily- had Twinkle 0.7 in my 1.1.4 iPhone and it still works. Too bad no Twinkle dev whatsoever could just make a little announcement: “hey, Twinkle was born in the Installer but we just decided to abandon all our Installer users that made it big at the start” or something colder: “sorry, no more releases for Installer”. It’s easier just let people figure out themselves. I would even pay a license for a 1.1 Twinkle at Installer :D But… Nothing to do. I guess it just died for “the rest of us”. Long life! And still have to thank someone to let me use 0.7…