Originally published in the Smoking Apples Magazine, Issue 2 (December 2008). Free PDF direct download.
After putting Tweetie through its paces, we had to get to know the brains behind the application. Loren Brichter, the guy behind Atebits Software was kind enough to share with us some thoughts on the whats, whys and hows of Tweetie, the App Store and how it all affects Atebits software.
Atebits as a company, what can you tell us? What’s your set-up like?
Atebits started in December of 2007 when I released my first app, Scribbles. It put enough food on the table that I figured I could run with this indie developer thing. It’s just me and my 2 Macs, iPhone and iPod touch. I work from a home office a lot of the time, but carry a laptop and work wherever I happen to travel.
So Tweetie is finally out in the App Store. What has the response been like? Has it made you proud or disappointed?
The response has been fantastic. Everyone I’ve talked to loves the app, they tell me it’s changed the way they use twitter on-the-go. Many have said it’s the best iPhone Twitter client, a few have even said it’s the best Twitter client on any platform. I couldn’t be happier. At the same time I’m working like mad to make it even better. As I write this I’m putting the finishing touches on 1.1 (now out in the App Store) which adds some really great new features like an inline image viewer, location aware features and beautiful new themes.
We’re very excited about 1.1. Now your previous app, Scribbles was a mac application. What made you decide to move to the iPhone platform?
Part curiosity, part tales of success.
There were already so many twitter clients for the iPhone. Many of them free. What made you think adding another twitter client in the lineup would make a difference?
It’s a crowded space, no doubt. You could call it a brief fit of madness, where I convinced myself that I could write something better. There are some solid apps out there, I just couldn’t find one that meshed with the way I use twitter. I like following conversations, so being able to navigate “reply-chains” was really important. I didn’t have a particularly long list of things I wanted to see: fast, polished and full-featured enough that I didn’t have to go to the twitter website *all the time*. Some apps were really polished but lacking in features, others could do everything but they looked like some sort of missile control panel. If Apple’s products prove anything, it’s that power and simplicity aren’t mutually exclusive.
Given the current trend of devs pricing apps at $0.99, what are your thoughts on the pricing of Tweetie? Was it always going to be $2.99?
Coming up with a price was really, really hard. On the one hand, yes, you have all of these free Twitter apps, some of which are pretty decent. On the other hand, your target audience is iPhone users, all of whom you know will pay for quality. I think Tweetie at $2.99 is vastly undervalued, but I wanted it to be very accessible during it’s initial release. I have been planning on raising the price slowly as I add features (so go buy it now while it’s cheap!). It’s also better to start with a lower price because it’s hard to start high and drop it without insulting early-adopters. I’m not a fan of ads, so the thought of doing an ad-supported version never really crossed my mind.
How long did it take you to get tweetie from brainstorming to final product? Was it hard work?
I did the bulk of the programming over the course of two weeks. I had already written some code that vastly simplified a lot of nitty gritty stuff like URL loading and XML parsing, and some convenience classes to wrap UIKit in cases where I think Apple made the wrong API decisions. It wasn’t too much work to get a basic twitter bridge and UI up and running. I built it for speed from the beginning and never let the app get slow, so I didn’t really have to spend any time optimizing (call me crazy). Where I did spend a lot of time was making sure I handled low-memory situations gracefully. When users see an app crash, a lot of the time it’s not a crash at all, but rather the system killing the app because it’s using too much memory. A ton of work went into making sure I was as stingy with memory as possible.
The speed optimisations really show! Tweetie is not only the most feature rich, it’s also the fastest.
So tell us how it is working with Apple. We’re so used to hearing that Apple is a closed door. Did they help out in most of your issues or did you just have to fend for yourself. Were you in any way worried about rejections?
I wasn’t worried about rejections, but I should have been. The first version of Tweetie was rejected. The folks at Apple disagreed with my use of the standard “bookmarks” icon for the saved searches button. The annoying part wasn’t having to resubmit because of a UI nitpick (in fact I wish Apple was a lot stricter with UI/HIG violations), it was being kept in the dark about how long the resubmitted review process would take. I think I have the same set of nitpicks regarding the App Store as every other developer, mainly that the process is too much like a black box.
So that’s the real story! We were wondering why it took so long for Tweetie to show up on the App Store.
The NDA removal. Did that help you in coding Tweetie or was it anyway going to be so awesome?
It didn’t really influence Tweetie’s development, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. I know it’s been said before, but for as much as the App Store gets wrong, it gets far, far more stuff right. It’s a clumsy process to get on the store, but once you’re there it’s incredible - think about it: sanctioned third party apps are available with a single tap from the home screen of any iPhone. Independent developers have never had this kind of opportunity or exposure on any platform. I think Apple has good intentions, and they’re probably working as hard as they can to make the App Store even better for users *and* developers.
Seeing the success of your first iPhone app, what’s your status with regard to Mac applications? Is it going to be iPhone only or do we see some apps for our beloved Macs?
Absolutely. For the past year or so I’ve been working on a big Mac graphics app - I’m definitely going to continue working on it, but it might get delayed a bit considering the huge potential for success on the iPhone platform.
That’s great news! (Psst. We’d love to be your guinnea pigs for early alpha testing! )
(Loren’s first mac app was a simple drawing tool ‘Scribbles’)
So now that you have an application each for the iPhone and the Mac, what according to you has more potential as a platform? What are you more looking forward to develop for?
iPhone. No question. Mobile computing is the future, and the iPhone is the face of it. From a business perspective the sheer potential for growth is really exciting. From a developer perspective the constraints of a 3.5” screen and less than 100M of memory are downright fun to work with.
Now that the iPhone platform has been great for you, are you eyeing the Andriod market?
No… at least not any time soon. I saw a G1 in person the other day and was thoroughly unimpressed. It’s going to be years before any other company catches up to where Apple was even with iPhone 1.0. The thing that other companies don’t “get” is that it’s not about the features, it’s about the whole user experience. I saw an ad for a Blackberry Storm recently that touted the fact that it had copy-and-paste. Sure, it’s something that the iPhone lacks, but it gives me the impression that the people working on the Storm just came up with this big checklist of features, and decided that if they could check them all off, somehow they could “beat” the iPhone. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.
But back to Android, it’s not great now, but it does have potential. And I think it will keep Apple honest. If Apple starts getting too insane with App Store rejections then I know a whole lot of developers (myself included) who would seriously consider moving over to a more open platform. But I really do think that Apple has good intentions with regard to independent developers.
Thank you so much for giving us an insight into Atebits. We hope we see some more awesome software out Atebits. We’re watching you!
Thanks, some great new apps are definitely in the works.
To find out more about Loren you can visit Atebits.com, or follow him on twitter. You could leave him a nice comment here telling him how much you love Tweetie!!!
