Yup. Been quiet around here recently. Let’s just say that my day job has gone pear-shaped and job hunting doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to work on apps. Well, that and I’ve been beating my head against Xcode for weeks. Apple need a better QA team on Xcode.

For those of you (all 2.5 of you) that haven’t been following the goings-on on Twitter, Tweetomancy is going back to being a Mac app. The reasons for this is simple: before yesterday, the iPad Twitter experience was lacking, especially for power users. Yesterday, Tweetbot for iPad was released. While it’s not 100% exactly perfect it’s danged close. I’ve switched to it and haven’t looked back. You should, too. It’s only $3.

Rather than try to compete in that space (and with a lack of motivation since I don’t have a need to fill anymore), I’ve decided to go back to the Mac with Tweetomancy. For those with me in the early days, this was the original idea anyway. Most of my original ideas for a Twitter app were Mac-specific and the Twitter ecosystem on the Mac is lacking a number of key features that Twitter apps all should have these days.

I’m starting my reorganization plans now and you should expect a UI mockup in the next couple of weeks.

I’ve been a professional developer in a variety of languages and technologies for nigh unto 15 years now. Working with Xcode and Objective-C makes me feel like I don’t actually know anything. After doing some more reading and following some tutorials, I’m starting to get a feel for it, but it’s slow going. I keep telling myself to take baby steps, to work on small things, and eventually it will come. It, of course, being not only proficiency in the underlying technologies, but getting the app done, as well.

I have a very basic version of the app that works right now, but need to make some changes to better handle the storyboards. I do have some diagrams, as well, which will aid the process, as well. It’s going to be interesting figuring out a way to link usernames, hashtags, and links in the UITableViewCell that holds a tweet (normally done with UILabels which don’t support formatted text/HTML—this is why many Twitter clients have a “tweet view” which allows them to re-display using a UIWebView and include the HTML they need). Clients like Twitterrific and Echofon basically overlay a UIButton on top of the specific text (not without its complications). The middle ground is like Tweetbot which does the “tweet view” inline with the timeline.

Initially, I thought I could do the timeline view purely as a UIWebView, but turns out that’s a bit slow, a bit inefficient, and sometimes hiccups on display. Would’ve been nice since it would build-in theming and allow me to do all the work using JavaScript/DOM/jQuery. Alas, not the best solution.

More to come.

Since this is my first Objective-C/Xcode/iOS project, I’ve been thinking that my plan might be a wee bit ambitious (at least, for the initial release). Thus, I’m going to scale things back a bit.

The initial version of Tweetomancy will be a relatively standard multi-pane iPad app. I’m going to focus on features, stability, and consistency. In other words, the core functionality. A later release will integrate some of my major feature plans such as the extra touch/gesture controls I’ve hinted at among other things that no one will miss in the initial release.

Reality is a harsh mistress. But, though developers are used to achieving the impossible, we also know that we sometimes need to have a goal within out grasp to start. Sorry, waxed poetical there for a moment. And badly, I might add. I’ll keep my day job.

Could never get my brain to like Whippoorwill as a name, so I reverted back to a name is reserved for a failed project (and to which I already had the domain, etc.). So, we’re now known as Tweetomancy. Otherwise, the project is unchanged.

Gone through some initial design of the application. Designing this to take full advantage of the iPad and the way the iPad is held and used. Interestingly, it will be easier to convert this (some day) to a Mac application than it will be to make an iPhone version of it (will require some serious rethinking on the way the user interacts with the UI; however, it can be done. The designers behind Grazing Browser did a great job with that).

Expect good use of screen real estate and a lot of convenience gestures, especially for the thumbs, but also the ability to navigate the old fashioned way, as well. I have a pretty ambitious plan, but I think the iPad Twitter client market is ripe for a good, solid, iPad-centric client.

Unfortunately, I don’t think my current mockups are clean enough to post here, but that day will come. My graphics editing skills aren’t superb, but Pixelmator makes it easy. (If you, like me, find Photoshop inscrutable, give it a try.) [I don’t have any connection to Pixelmator; however, I did receive my copy for free in a MacStories contest.]

Having now played with a number of iPad Twitter apps, I’ve determined that none of them meet my needs. Many come with a good set of features, but many are lacking, and a number are simply unstable, overpriced, poorly-designed, and/or choppy (on my iPad 2 with no other apps open).

(For the record, I’ve now tried Twitter, Echofon, Twitterrific, Tweetings HD, TwitRocker2, Tweet Library, TweetCaster Pro, HootSuite, Twittelator for iPad, Osfoora HD, TweetParakeet, Twipple Pro [site is in Japanese], Twitbird, and twtkr [site is in Korean]. I’m currently flipping between Tweetings HD, Echofon, TwitRocker2, and Twipple Pro, with Tweetings HD leading the pack on Tweet Marker and unread-tracking support.)

I already have a huge list of potential features and some ideas on how I want the app to work. Aside from a full set of Twitter features, I have a number of ideas on how to better use the size and form-factor of the iPad to better advantage. More to come.

Updated: Included some additional Twitter clients I’ve been trying out, above.

Since I got my shiny new iPad for Christmas, I’ve been using it almost exclusively for tweeting. I have a number of apps at my disposal from Twitterrific, Echofon, Tweetings HD, TweetCaster Pro, Twitter, and HootSuite. I’ve also looked at the various options available in the App Store and have been generally unimpressed (though I’m still intending to check out Osfoora HD, Twittelator for iPad, Tweet Library, and TwitRocker2).

On the Mac, I find Twitter clients to have a number of shortcomings, but nothing like what I see on the iPad. The iPhone has awesome clients. The Mac, some great options, but a bit limited. After a few days of using the iPad exclusively, I haven’t been able to settle on a single client.

So, given my personal needs and where the market stands, I’m looking at developing an iPad app initially. Depending how things go, I’ll decide later if I want to make it Universal or if I’ll focus on a Mac version.