Two good Twitter apps
I’ve been using both TwitterFon and TwitterFox for a few weeks now and oddly it never occurred to me (until just now) that they were made by the same company. That’s the nature of app repositories I guess, since I snagged TwitterFox directly from Firefox’s built-in addon browser and TwitterFon Pro I purchased from the Apple app store.
The big deal with these apps are not just that they’re featureful, but they’re very apt for the platform:
TwitterFox sits like a tray-app in Firefox and turns Twitter into a sort of IM app, which fits with how I use Twitter from my desktop.
TwitterFon makes use of all the native iPhone / iPod Touch app abilities you would expect it to. In fact, I find it far more natural and intuitive than Twitter’s website controls, especially with the separated tab for @ mentions. I really dislike ads, so I quickly paid for the Pro version, which came with some other useful perks such as the one below:
One feature out of both that I’m getting good usage from is the support for multiple Twitter accounts. I started up an extra feed for posting the minutiae of Gameslate dev updates without flooding my personal NecroRogIcon feed. For TwitterFon that works especially well, because I can set a different display theme per user (otherwise I’d probably make embarrassing crossposts).
Gameslate redesign in progress
I haven’t put any serious effort into Gameslate since 2003 or so, it’s been slowly degrading since then. A bunch of things are broken and my once faithful audience has finally wandered off.
Ooops.
Well, the best way to get past the “I suck” bit is to do something progressive. As I mentioned in my jQuery bliss post, I’m redesigning Gameslate.
I’ve got the first bit done, the basic layout / interface for navigating Gameslate. I wanted to cement the interface as an application right away in the minds of any visitors, so I decided to replace the old static sidebars with animated tabs that change context during usage. The side tab system was inspired by A-Train (a 1992 train simulation), although my tabs animate nicer. =P
This design is completely text based (HTML, CSS & JavaScript). There are no images used whatsoever.
I’m not ready to demo it in production just yet, but here are a couple screenshots from my Touch:
As you can guess, I’m trying to keep the interface friendly with mobile browsers, or at least small screens. It’ll be usable with a desktop browser too of course, as that’s how most users will play, but supporting the smartphones makes me smile. A friend has the Blackberry Bold I can test with too. If anyone with a Palm Pre wants to help me test, let me know.
The date in the screenshots is in the future, August 1st is when I plan to launch the redesign as “live”.
I’ve started on the AJAX code (well AJ no AX), so the tabs will work more / less persistently.
One week with the Touch
I really like my iPod Touch so far. It’s an iPhone, without the phone.
I didn’t need the phone or the expense of a data plan, but I did want to do some convenient browsing & reading without feeling tethered to my PC. I’m now hanging out on my deck with my cats, enjoying the weather without feeling disconnected. I also have an interest in web development for small screens.
Reasons aside, let’s get to the gritty:
These are what I’d call the “must haves” from the app store. I’d recommend them to anyone. They’re easy to jump in and out of, which is essential for a pocket device. They’re addictive, fun and blissfully demonstrate the best aspects of the Touch interface, they totally promote you to get your greasy fingers all over the screen.
The app store is flooded with crap, but do yourself a favour and take a look at these two first. Every other game or entertainment toy I’ve tried (and I went a bit crazy trying them) have been letdowns, but these two are the gems.
The boring non-game stuff I’m using:
- Twitterfon – Great Twitter app. I paid the extra for the “Pro” version to get rid of the ads, but aside from that it’s mostly the same.
- Instapaper – Good for offline reading of websites, which makes it especially useful for the Touch when I’m out of free Wi-fi range. I already put this to good usage showing the product page to the sales guy at NCIX to make sure I got the exact videocard I wanted. Beats printing things out.
- Google Earth – How could I resist a free version of Google Earth to carry with me?
Overall I’m more pleased with the Touch than I thought I would be. I keep calling it an iPhone, not intentionally, but it’s so close to one and there’s the whole mindshare thing going on.
I’ll save the criticisms (because you knew they were coming) for other posts.
