On Twitterrific and App Store Offerings in General ☀
The Iconfactory seems entirely set up for producing excellent apps for App Store B. Their most well-known app, Twitterrific, is solidly in that camp.…
As usual, an insightful examination of Apple and the App Store by Marco.
But on Twitterrific, I just don’t get the adulation for a iPhone app that is mediocre at best and teeters more on the unpleasant scale, at least in my estimation.
- Half or more of all tweet “refreshes” fail with an API error or timeout. I acknowledge that Twitter is a service with a less than optimal uptime performance, but this is not witnessed when using other Twitter iPhone apps or the plain iPhone Safari web browser.
- Entirely too much tapping is required to traverse useful features. And the search panel is a UI abomination. It seems the Twitterrific UI has evolved in a gnarly fashion with the expanding feature set.
- No landscape mode, other than when viewing links in the in-app browser. May not have been awkward before all the built-in Apple apps could not do landscape mode, but as I’ve gotten quite nimble in banging out text on the “widescreen” keyboard, apps (at least those involving entering text) the feature omission increasingly frustrates.
Now compare the pay Twitterrific app with the free Facebook app which is head and shoulders far more polished, possessing a marvelous UI plagued with none of the aforementioned annoyances.
Regarding the App Store in general — I’ve come to dislike iTunes even more, but what I really loathe is the closed, bureaucratic, centralized model that embodies all that is evil in the realm of proprietary software. I don’t have any qualms about forking over money for quality apps but the App Store serves as unwelcome middleman. I mean, do users really peruse the iTunes App Store catalog in search of apps to download to their phone? That, for me, is a unfruitful, tedious exercise. Every paid for app on my iPhone (and really, there’s only a few, and a small subset of that set that was actually worth the small cost) was not discovered in the App Store — the App Store was just the obligatory conduit to visit to get the app. In lieu of that, it appears that the App Store is just a extraneous toolbooth taxing software acquisitions.
Finally, there is the matter of desktop (or netbook/notebook) software v. phone software — one you spend hours or days in, the other mere minutes, even if desired, there is only so much battery to consume. Yes, there are some nifty utilities, depending on your station in life, providing functions that may be invaluable to you. They are entirely different value propositions and barring some blockbuster breakthrough in battery technology, and thus will be exposed and acknowledged as wonderous touchpad smartphone nirvana permeates the mobile phone market. I realize that to date, Apple’s competitors are mimicking the mirage like App Store model, but eventually, open will trump, once again.
Then, Apple screws the pooch again.
