Birdhouse: The Twitter app Without a Timeline

by preshit
Monday April 13, 2009

Birdhouse: The Twitter app Without a Timeline

by preshit on April 13, 2009

With the growing popularity of Twitter among the masses, the iPhone sure has seen an abundance of Twitter related apps released and available on the App Store. Even though Tweetie arguably continues to be the reigning “Supreme Champion” among the Twitter clients, it hasn’t stopped the other developers from bringing their own ideas to the App Store. Developers are constantly trying to be innovative in bringing more and more features through their apps, some of which has really worked in their favor.

Birdhouse is one such Twitter app for the iPhone. But before you snub this one off as just another twitter client with added features - hear this out. Birdhouse is not even a full-featured twitter client. In fact, the app is so low on features, that it does not even have its own timeline.

What does it do, you ask? Read on..

The App

To better understand Birdhouse, think of it as a notes app, that lets you publish your notes to twitter. Only difference is, the notes are limited to 140 characters, or ‘tweets’ if you may.

Today, the feature that almost every twitter client out there lacks, is the support for drafts. Sure, your favorite client may have the ability to save the current tweet as drafts, but many a times I’ve found myself needing to save multiple drafts, just because I’m not sure that I have to post it on twitter yet. The aptly named Birdhouse looks to bridge this by allowing you to save as many draft tweets as you want into the app. What’s more, you can prioritize your tweets by star ranking them. Birdhouse also supports multiple twitter accounts, so you can start composing a tweet, save it, return back later, complete it and then use any of your accounts to publish it.

Here’s what Adam, one of the developers, had to say about it:

The beautfiul thing about Twitter is that there’s no right way to use it. So Cameron and I set out to make a tool that we needed, a tool to enhance the Twitter experience for people who use (or misuse) Twitter the way we do: as a forum for expressing ourselves within the constraint of 140 characters, with the intent of making every character count.

More than just a notepad

Tweets too precious? Birdhouse has the ability to backup your tweets published from the app by sending them to an email of your choice, which can be configured in the app’s settings (optional).

Birdhouse makes it very easy to sort through your drafts and publish them. What’s more, you may even unpublish them from twitter (Deletes the tweet) or Trash it (keeps the tweet on twitter, but deletes it from the app). The interface is native to the iPhone and has been kept very clean.

Overall, Birdhouse does only a select few things for you, but does it right. The developers maintain that this is not a replacement for your favorite twitter client, but a compliment to it. If you’re anything like me (and the others whom I’ve briefly spoken to about the usage of such an app), you’ll always find yourself in need of saving a draft either because the thought is not complete or that’s just not the right time to publish that tweet. Birdhouse is sure going to be a great addition to my twittering habits now. It has certainly made one thing sure - that the tweets are sensible and not just because I need to tweet.

I’ll take one… wait, what?!

Birdhouse costs a whole $3.99! That’s a dollar more than the most popular full featured twitter client out there! In App Store economics, this is ~~absurd~~ slightly high priced for a supporting application. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful app and serves a great purpose, but I just don’t see the average twitter user footing that price.

Tagged as: app store, birdhouse, iPhone, Reviews, twitter

Reader Comments

Neven April 13, 2009 at 8:36 pm mrgan.com

A whole $3.99! My god, at that price, those developers will soon be flying around the Bahamas in their solid-gold rocketships!

Seriously, though, let’s be sane for a second. Tweetie is a Twitter-endorsed app of interest to the general public. It can afford to be sold at a low price because it has a giant market. What it’s *not* for (or even able to do) is the exact thing Birdhouse was designed for, as Adam says and in the quote right in your post.

Birdhouse lets you manage multiple tweet drafts and refine them before you publish. It’s a notepad for tweets you think up while offline, or ones you just feel you need to give a shave and a haircut first.

It’s silly to compare a general Twitter client with a specialized one, and it’s a bit ridiculous to gasp in Victorian horror at the sub-coffee-cup price of $3.99.

Milind Alvares April 13, 2009 at 8:49 pm goobimama.blogspot.com: @Neven: Look, Birdhouse is a neat client, great concept. But I don’t see a whole bunch of tweeps flocking to buy it at $3.99. Perhaps the reaction to the price was too strong, but it’s not a good price especially when we’re talking about the app store.

It’s not a bad price for an app. I’d gladly pay $10 for Instapaper, $5 for a good game, so why not $3.99 for another app? Because by virtue of it you are getting less than the others. It feels that way at least. So instead of ‘Hmm, maybe I should draft my tweets as well’ type of people purchasing the app, it will only be good with the ‘oh, thank god, I finally have a place to draft my tweets’ folks of the twitter world. And there’s not many of those flying around from what I can tell.

maique April 13, 2009 at 8:53 pm

I’ve been waiting for this one for quite a while, and I also find the price acceptable.
I stopped posting a while ago, but I was keeping a note on notespark with all the tweets that I might be sending (personal reasons). Birdhouse is perfect for this.

(still a lot of copy/pasting to do, but birdhouse is already on my home screen, next to tweetie.)

Cameron Hunt April 13, 2009 at 8:53 pm cameron.io

Who can put a price on functionality that wasn’t possible before? You want me to price my application in the context of another application that doesn’t even work the same way? What, are you, nuts?

I spent over five months without any income to build this application, and it’s priced so I will not become homeless. How greedy of me.

Brian Burns April 13, 2009 at 9:32 pm twitter.com/brianxburns

@Cameron Hunt

“I spent over five months without any income to build this application, and it’s priced so I will not become homeless. How greedy of me.”

Not only is this the wrong approach when it comes to pricing, but your attitude alone makes me not even want to try this app.

maique April 13, 2009 at 9:41 pm

@cameron hunt

people do have the right to express their opinion without being called a nut, i suppose…

Preshit April 13, 2009 at 10:19 pm smokingapples.com/author/preshit

@Cameron

Who can put a price on functionality that wasn’t possible before? You want me to price my application in the context of another application that doesn’t even work the same way?

As I’ve maintained throughout the write-up, the app is designed for specific idea and I know quite a few people out there who’d gladly use Birdhouse without a doubt. $3.99 for the app and its functionality is quite an acceptable price. There are other apps out there that are developed for specific purposes and are priced higher too.
The comparison was made not w.r.t the price-functionality ratio, but with a view that if someone has paid some amount for his favorite twitter app, paying even more that allows him to save his incomplete thoughts doesn’t seem right.

Of course, there are many out there (including me) who’d gladly welcome Birdhouse onto their home screens for the sole reason that they like to keep their tweets witty and as you rightly maintain - “Spontaneity is not always your friend”

Aayush April 13, 2009 at 10:41 pm aayush.me

As one of the people interviewed about his usage patters of Twitter during the course of this application’s review, I have to say I was looking forward to this application being released. Even while I was reading the review and looking at the great screenshots, I was hoping to lay my hands on it soon.

Not anymore. $4? Seriously? Uh, no, thanks.

I am one of the more public opponents of the App Store’s downward spiral when it comes to application pricing. But, at the end of the day, I’m also a consumer. I agree that, in general, maybe four dollars isn’t too much to pay for what this application does (though Rs. 200 is, but let’s keep that aside for now). However, that’s where equities of scale come into play.

I can’t possibly be expected to pay $3 for the best Twitter client on the iPhone and $4 for an app that compliments it. It is, after all, just the Notes app with a prettier user interface and a door to Twitter. The maximum I—or anyone, really—ought to be expected to pay for this app is 50% of what it currently costs.

Paul Kafasis April 14, 2009 at 1:19 am pbones.com

Four whole dollars! Wow!

Are you kidding me? Yes, it’s more than one Twitter app (and $6 less than Twitterrific). So what? These prices are all chump change, and far too low for what we’re getting. If consumers aren’t willing to pay fair, reasonable prices, developers aren’t going to be ABLE to create software. Period.

Aayush, when you start writing software, you can start dictating prices for it. If you’d like a lower price, that’s fine. But blanket statements like this are beyond ridiculous, they’re insulting. If you don’t believe the application is worth $3.99, you’re entitled to that opinion. But don’t state it as a fact. I’ve used this app for months, and it’s worth far, far more to me.

Dan Moren April 14, 2009 at 1:44 am macworld.com

What puzzles me is that this post spends a lot of time lauding the application for what it does—”Birdhouse does only a select few things for you, but does it [sic] right.”—then just dings it on account of the pricing? Pricing should be a factor, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think the iPhone app market has yet become so settled that $4 can be considered an absurd price. I don’t think the price is in the same neighborhood as “outrageous” (I hear it lives in one of those fancy pants gated communities).

If the application were crappy—not doing what it was supposed to do, poor design, crashed a lot—then I think that there’s a valid argument about a program being overpriced. But it seems to me that, as you say, Birdhouse does exactly what it sets out to do. As such, it’s up to the consumer to decide whether or not the price is worth paying. Nobody’s *making* you purchase Birdhouse in addition to other Twitter apps; nobody’s making you purchase other Twitter apps, either. I’m not convinced that that argument holds water.

Milind Alvares April 14, 2009 at 3:58 am goobimama.blogspot.com

@Dan: In the review of the app, Preshit has clearly outlined the features, and given it praise where it deserves. This gives the reader a chance to evaluate the app for himself/herself, and make the judgement as to whether he or she finds value in the app.

However, the verdict is purely subjective, and Preshit has stated his ‘opinion’ that the average twitter user will not go ahead and make that purchase. It’s a good app, and if you want that functionality it will serve you well. But my friend ‘average-Joe’, who uses Tweetie on his iPhone, will not go out and spend more than that to get something like saving drafts. Most people don’t even care about tweets.

Birdhouse will be appreciated among those who really want that functionality, but it won’t be a rapidfire “must buy” item like some of the App Store gems. And in my opinion, the main reason for that, is the price. That’s not the way you and I think (sorry to drag you into this). That’s the way the general app store customers think (mainly due to the abundance of cheap $1 apps out on the store). Great app, but sucky price.

*/ My views are purely subjective, and my own opinion. These are not facts, and are not based on hard evidence. /*

Jonas April 14, 2009 at 4:07 am

You guys do realise that in another two months the app will be obsolete right? Copy-paste will allow you to compose all you want in Notes (or the 1021 other free notes apps on the App Store) and paste them in your favourite twitter client.

Twitter client developers are also going to get the idea, add this SIMPLE feature to their clients. This means one less icon used on your home screen. I think I would have paid $2 for this app to keep me occupied until 3.0 arrives, but $4 is just too much. It’s not that I can’t afford this app. It’s that there are way more interesting thing on the App Store for $4.

Twas fun.

Aayush April 14, 2009 at 10:00 am aayush.me

@Paul and Dan,
Well then, maybe we—Preshit, Milind, and I—are not the right people to comment on the prices of application at all. In my earlier comment, I’d said that I was ignoring the fact that the price of $4 meant that we were paying Rs. 200 for it out here in India. Maybe I wasn’t, after all.

A packet of Lays costs $1 in the USA. The exact same product costs Rs. 10 in India. If its price was bumped up to Rs. 50 to bring it in line with its pricing in the USA, I doubt they’d be able to sell even a small fraction of the number of units they’re selling today.

In general, the value Americans place on a dollar is roughly equivalent to how much Indian value Rs. 10 at. So an application that costs $4 on the App Store might be only as expensive as, or perhaps even cheaper than, a cup of joe in the USA, but it’s equivalent to ten such cups in India. That’s a steep difference and one that Indians cannot just ignore when making a purchase. To put this into better perspective, $5 is the maximum I ever spend on my phone in the entire month (voice and text combined; data excluded).

So, yeah, maybe our judgement is clouded by the fact that the value of a single dollar is five times as high for us as your average American and therefore, maybe we shouldn’t be commenting on its fairness or justifiability.