Tapulous + Twinkle
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 private profiles, 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.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Thanks so much for this update. We are excited to see you are listening to the users. This will be very beneficial to you. Thanks for a great product!
July 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[…] 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 […]
July 19th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Great stuff! Love the app so far, and can’t wait to see the refinements. You’re giving Twitterrific a worthy competitor for a primary Twitter client.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Thanks for keeping us in the loop! I’m more likely to stick with software whose authors say “hi” every once in a while.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Thank you for keeping us in mind, and in the loop. I truly enjoy your product. But, that is not the only reason I am sticking with Twinkle…. Your communication with us is overwhelmingly appreciated. Keeping us in the loop it priceless to us…the consumer. <>< Peace
July 19th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
it would be nice to block some users on the nearby section of twinkle. Some users update like 20x an hour, and that sucks fir the nearby feature.
I’d maybe make tapulous groups, so we can pick the people we like and follow them.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
thanks for the info. I think I can speak for everyone when I say I appreciate your dediation. One thing I’m asking for is more options in the nearby. 100 miles is too small a radius to find tweeters here in Iowa. Bit 1000 is far too large. Something between would be nice
July 19th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
fantastic jailbreak app (one of the few I genuinely missed in iPhone 2.0 software) - so glad to have it back and better than ever! Great job and can’t wait for click-throughable @ links!
July 20th, 2008 at 1:33 am
I don’t want to be one of those users that say “huge missed feature here” but unfortunately when it comes to accessibility I have to be that user.
While I really like Twinkle, I can’t use it. The text is too small and too light sitting on the white talk bubbles. Please have some text options in the next (or hopefully near future) version. Save my poor eyes (and I am sure other users who have visual disabilities) by at least allowing the text size to be bigger. Thanks in advanced.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:31 am
I’ve been using Twinkle for the last 3 days and think it’s good with a lot of potential. Looking forward to seeing how it improves. A write up on my experiences and opinions on Twinkle here: http://www.degutis.com/blog/twinkle-days/
July 21st, 2008 at 6:22 am
Thanks for keeping us updated, good to know you listen to us and our suggestions aren’t falling on deaf ears - keep up the good work.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
[…] Also, you can get more information first hand by visiting the developer’s blog at otierney.net […]
August 5th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
[…] As this blog post states there are still more Twinkle enhancement on the way and I’m sure that there are more than that posts lists, possibly some of the above. […]
August 16th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
[…] - bookmarked by 1 members originally found by samreckoner on 2008-07-22 Tapulous + Twinkle http://www.otierney.net/articles/2008/07/19/tapulous-twinkle/ - bookmarked by 4 members originally […]
January 19th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Ttr is realy starting to fucking piss me off everytime I go out of ttr I have to make a new acount fuck u ttr u fucking piece of shit!!!!!!!!!