Colby Palmer - Web apps • Web platform developer • User Interfaces

Today I'm releasing a major upgrade to iTweet, an interface for Twitter that is one of my pet projects.  This is a double release: a hugely improved iPhone Web app, and an all-new interface for any Web browser.

Click here to give the new iTweet a try!

Beginning with the iPhone app, there are some key features to note:

• Tap user pictures to toggle bio information. This section allows you to see a user's location, bio, and URL.  There are quick links to send a DM, view extended profile, turn notifications on/off, block, and follow/unfollow.
• "In reply to" links allow you to see the tweet a person was replying to, without loading a new page.
  
• Built-in search and hashtags via the Twitter Search API.
  
• Monitor your remaining API requests using the number in the "refresh" button.
  
• Update (and check) your location from the Settings menu.
  
• Change your notifications device, get more detailed API usage info, set hashtags preferences, and more from the Settings menu.
  
• Vastly improved speed in loading all timelines.
  

As before, a basic rule of thumb with iTweet goes: tap the avatar to see a person's profile, tap the username to see a person's tweets.

There is also a contact form on the About page, please use this for feature requests and bug reports!  (It sends messages directly to my email so you will get a quick response, especially if you're following me and I can DM you.)   <3


The Web interface has all the same features as the above, but adds some more information that doesn't fit on a tiny iPhone screen:

• Detailed user info and API limit info available at top right.
  
• Speed Tweet mode! Hitting the "Return" key from the text-entry field will send your tweet, more like an IM client than the Twitter website. Give it a try! I love it... if you don't you can turn that feature off using the Settings menu.
  
• Really simple method for sending DM's, I use this one all the time too.
  

Known issues and limitations:

• Character counter on the iPhone version still slows down typing. This is the biggest problem with the app, by my own reckoning and others' as well. I've tried many, many different methods of doing this. We're talking HOURS of experimentation! Basically I find that inspecting a textarea just kills MobileSafari's performance, especially in a Web page that has a lot of other elements in it.  I'm open to suggestions, as always. I've pared it down to 3 simple lines of Javascript and I don't think it can be any lighter than that.
  
• User profile pages are missing information for most users. Also profile information such as "last update" are running behind something like 5-18 hours.  This is due to a bug in the Twitter API which I have reported here. I will post an update when this is fixed. This will allow some very cool functions to be brought back to the Web version especially!
  

Happy iTweeting! I'm always interested in your feedback, you can contact me here.

Leave comments on this blog, or let's talk on Twitter or Facebook.

Technorati Tags: itweet, iphone, twitter, api, iphone app, colby palmer

Posted on Sept. 10, 2008, 4:37 p.m. Tags: api itweet twitter

Comments

• Hurray, iTweet is back up and running! AND I can post tweets from it, so @colbypalmer is back too! Thanks for the nice messages everyone!

  Posted by: Colby Palmer on Aug. 7, 2009 • permalink Reply ↩

• Thank you for the update! It's frustrating not to have iTweet. I knew I loved it but I didn't know how much til now :)!

  Will keep checking here with fingers crossed.

  Posted by: susan dennis on Aug. 7, 2009 • permalink Reply ↩

• 500% Agree with Susan :)

  Posted by: NeiL on Aug. 7, 2009 • permalink Reply ↩

• Agreed, Susan! Twitter's own native interface sucks rocks. Even THAT isn't working properly yet.

  Posted by: Patti on Aug. 7, 2009 • permalink Reply ↩

• Heh. As if it's not bad enough how strung-out on tweeting I am; I have to find out through this debacle how strung-out on iTweet I am! Seriously needing my fix here!!

  Silly Twitter, get your act together ASAP, please!

  Posted by: gurukarm (@karma_musings) on Aug. 7, 2009 • permalink Reply ↩

• I kind of thought that might have been the problem I could not log on to itweet but was able to log on to twitter default. It's twitters damn fault for leaving the front door open for so long. Many sites complain that Oauth implementation should have been finalized by now.
  DDOS attacks are nothing new and they should have better prepared for such attack. My friends site is very popular and she was able to get her site provider to install great tools to protect her site from such attacks.
  Twitter team knows what they must do. Then just need to get their act together and come up with a bold plan to fix all their issues once and for all.

  Colby, you make a kick ass twitter interface. It even works well out older browsers and OSes. It doesn't required a Adobe Air download like some others do. Keep up the great work!

  Captain Jack
  USCG Licensed Merchant Marine

  Posted by: Captain Jack on Aug. 7, 2009 • permalink Reply ↩

• Yeah, missing the fail whale either. But hey, you could write on Tacebook that Twitter went down..

  Posted by: Otto on April 22, 2010 • permalink Reply ↩