Twitterrific 4 for Mac is On Approach

The Iconfactory just dropped some knowledge on us mere mortals by teasing a screenshot of the upcoming Twitterrific 4 for Mac. Feast your eyes upon it:

Hardly any details have emerged other than Ollie’s triumphant return to the Mac will require Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. No word on price or release date.

Part of me is wondering if The Iconfactory might be holding off for the Mac App Store at this point. That would be understandable, but I want this app now.

Apple Goes Back to the Mac

Apple held its “Back to the Mac” shindig in Cupertino today. Here’s the new shiny.

iLife ‘11

Apple demoed major new features in iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand. iWeb and iDVD are still included, but it appears nothing has really changed for those two apps. This is the third iLife release in which iDVD has seen little-to-no love.

iPhoto gets a full-screen navigation mode, which looks very slick. Also, improved built-in email support, with templates; new slideshows; even better books (I’ve ordered books in the past as gifts. They’re fantastic); and letterpress cards. Letterpress is pretty fancy. Hard to believe you can get this from a computer company.

iMovie gets a neat movie trailer editor; impressive audio editing; one-step effects; people finder; and sports & news themes. With the much improved audio editor, it appears Apple’s revamp of iMovie in the 2008 edition has finally matured back to iMovie HD’s former glory.

GarageBand gets a new feature called Flex Time which helps keep various individual instrument tracks in rhythm. Also, Groove Matching takes a “genius” approach to match the rhythm of the whole band to a single rhythm. There are also guitar amps and effects; new basic lessons, and a “How Did I Play?” feature which tests your skills at playing a certain song.

iLife ‘11 is available today for $49, or comes free with a new Mac.

FaceTime for Mac

We all knew this day would come. FaceTime was first introduced with the iPhone 4. I found it useful when my wife was out of town for a week, but it hasn’t been used much since. Apple then brought FaceTime to the latest iPod touch last month, but I still haven’t been used the feature in a while. Now, with FaceTime for Mac, I have a feeling I’ll be video chatting from my iPhone a lot. Why? Grandparents. Both my parents and my wife’s parents have MacBooks, and we currently use iChat so they can see my son. The problem is that two year olds don’t sit still for long, and it’s hard to chase him with a MacBook Pro.

There’s no buddy list to maintain. FaceTime just pulls in your Address Book, just like the iPhone. FaceTime for Mac also installs a Push Notification bundle, so you can receive calls on your Mac even if FaceTime is closed.

Now the grandparents can do FaceTime with our iPhones. Now FaceTime is useful. Now FaceTime is mainstream.

FaceTime for Mac is available today as a public beta.

Lion

Apple introduced the next step of Mac OS X – Lion. To create iOS, Apple refashioned parts of Mac OS X. They learned a lot, made the iPad, and are now bringing what they learned from iOS back to the Mac. The main features they want to bring back from iOS are Multi-touch gestures, the App Store, App Home screens, full screen apps, auto save, & auto resume when launching.

Multi-Touch

On the Mac, multi-touch will take its focus on MacBook trackpads, the Magic Mouse, and the Magic Trackpad instead of the screen. They demoed using a Magic Mouse and an iMac, but honestly, I can’t see that being very comfortable. I use a Magic Trackpad with my MacBook Pro when at my desk (the Macbook is elevated on a stand), and I hope Apple just starts shipping those with iMacs in the near future.

The Mac App Store

Yesterday, I talked about a hope of mine for an easier installation and update process. Well, my wish has been granted, but in a way I didn’t really see happening. Apple is opening a Mac App Store within 90 days. It will be available on Snow Leopard, but I am sure it will be even more tightly integrated with Lion.

It makes sense for Apple to have a Mac App Store. I just figured they wouldn’t upset the status quo of obtaining software straight from developer’s websites. The truth is, after reading many developers’ tweets, is that markets change. The Mac App Store won’t be the only way to get Apps on your Mac (for now), but Apple says it will be the best.

That’s not hard to imagine. Their preview of the Mac App Store looks slick, and installation and updating Apps is as simple as iOS. This will be a big hit with users, who want simple.

I am a bit concerned about copy-protected apps. It even bothers me a bit on iOS. Copy-protection schemes always make me uncomfortable, especially when they come back to bite users.

Launchpad

Launchpad is a full screen grid of all your apps. They can be organized into separate home screens or grouped into iOS-like folders. It is very much the iOS 4 home screen brought to the Mac desktop.

Mission Control

Apple is unifying the abilities of Dashboard, Exposé, Spaces, and full-screen apps into a new feature called Mission Control. You navigate between different areas through swipe gestures. Looks like a great convergence and unification of already great features.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is slated to ship by the end of Summer 2011.

A MacBook and an iPad Hook Up…

Apple introduced a redesigned MacBook Air today, at 13.3- and 11.6-inch screen sizes. Apple bills it as the future of notebooks. The goal was to bring many great features of the iPad to MacBooks. These include “instant on,” great battery life, amazing standby time, and solid state storage (SSD).

Apple’s new MacBook Air boots in about 15 seconds, and has a 5-hour (11.6-inch) and 7-hour (13.3-inch) battery under normal use. Both models have a standby time of 30-days.

There isn’t an optical drive (though you can connect one via USB) nor a hard drive. Instead, Apple uses SSD for storage, just like its iPods, iPads, & iPhones.

The price ranges from $99 to $1,599, depending on model. I bet it goes higher if you customize the order.

The thing I love about the MacBook Air? The media on which its reinstallation software is stored. It’s a little Apple-branded USB drive.

I hope Lion comes on one of these instead of a DVD.

Thoughts

The new iPhoto looks compelling. I’ve been experimenting with Aperture, but I’m just not falling in love with it.

The Mac App Store dropped my jaw a little, more so because I didn’t think Apple would actually do it. But it makes a lot of sense. I imagine it will be great.

Lion looks amazing. I can’t wait until next summer.

The MacBook Air doesn’t thrill me much, but I am excited to see how it will influence the MacBook Pro line.

All in all, great event. The only disappointment was we didn’t see more of Lion.

Installers and Updates

One last refinement to the overall Mac OS X experience I’d like to see in Lion is the simplification of installing and updating applications.

This is an area that Mac OS X could very much learn from iOS. Installing and updating Apps on my iPhone and iPad is so straightforward it’s almost funny. Most of all, it’s easy to explain to someone else.

Try to imagine teaching App installation to someone who is new to the Mac, or maybe even computing in general. I do this often, actually; and the hardest thing for folks to grasp are the various methods of installing Apps. It’s intimidating. Some Apps come with installers, some come in disk images. Some disk images illustrate the need to drag the App to the Applications folder. Many don’t. Some even are packaged in a ZIP archive, and leave the uncompressed app in the Downloads folder, with no further instruction.

What a mess.

Some have suggested that Apple should make a Mac App Store. I do not think an App Store is the solution. I am fairly positive many developers agree. However, I’d love to see Lion bring forth a single, unified method for installation and updating Apps. Why can’t installation be more like installing a Dashboard widget? Mac OS X recognizes the .wdgt extension and offers to install it in Dashboard. Why not do the same with the .app extension? Or some other unified method that someone much smarter than me has come up with.

As for updating apps, Sparkle works fantastically in many of the Mac Apps I have. I’d love to see Apple employ something similar. Heck, the developer used to work on Apple’s Installer and Software Update team back in 2008-2009. Here’s the pertinent info from his résumé:

Designed and implemented exciting new technology for the Installer that will be employed throughout Mac OS X—details under NDA, but I can disclose that it’s awesome.

We can only hope.

Sparrow is a Refreshing Rethink of Mail

I mentioned the other day Bjango’s philosophy of the best method to design a desktop app is to imagine you’re building them for iOS. Well, it looks like there are some like-minded developers out there looking to rethink the Mac email client.

Sparrow is definitely taking cues from not only the iPad’s Mail app, but also a highly popular Mac Twitter client — Tweetie. Sparrow currently only works for Gmail accounts, but it looks like integration with Yahoo! Mail, MobileMe, and other IMAP providers.

Sparrow is a very compelling email client. It has a minimalist approach initially, showing just a Tweetie-style accounts and mailbox sidebar and an iOS-style message list. However, you can click a button and expand the window to show a preview pane.

If you don’t use the preview pane, you’ll notice that the app has a lavish amount of Core Animation. Double click a message and it ghosts in. Close the message, and it fades away with a subtle zoom. Same thing happens when open the app’s preferences.

Even though the app is currently in beta, it really feels like something right out of Cupertino. I would love to see Apple revamp Mac OS X’s Mail app like this.

Sparrow is a free download for now, though the developers would be crazy not to charge for this at the time of final release.

Go ahead and give it a whirl.

Rethinking iChat

Bjango makes fantastic apps for iOS and Mac OS X. I use their hugely popular iStat utility every day. They pose the question on their blog of “What if iChat was one window?”

Their mockup and explanation is top notch and a great read. My favorite line from the whole thing is:

I’m finding more and more that the best way to design desktop apps is to imagine you’re building them for iOS.

I couldn’t agree more. I hope someone at Apple is listening.

Apple's Remote App for iOS Gets Updated

New icon, support for the iPad (finally), and also scaled up for the Retina Display. The iPad interface is very enjoyable. You can see your entire library, including videos and podcasts. Looks a lot like iTunes 10.

Another nice feature is support for Home Sharing. Log in with your Home Sharing credentials and you instantly see all the libraries on your Home Share. Much nicer than walking to every computer or Apple TV and dealing with PIN codes.

I can’t wait for AirPlay compatible speakers from third parties to arrive.

Pages Gets Friendly with iBooks

Apple’s iWork ‘09 suite received a software update today addressing some bugs in all three apps. Pages, however, has a new feature hidden amongst those bug fixes — Export to ePub. 

ePub is the eBook format that Apple is using for its iBooks app on iOS. Now, anyone with iWork ‘09 can turn a document into an ePub file for use as a DRM-free book that they can distribute themselves, or presumably upload to iTunes for inclusion in the iBookstore. 

Pages certainly isn’t the only tool out there capable of doing this, but it’s a nice feature for iWork users. 

Apple has also provided a support document for advising when an ePub or PDF is better suited for your document, and how to go about creating that ePub.

Square Removes Payment Caps

Square released an update to their app today removing the $100 per transaction cap that was hindering the use of the app for many people, myself included. The full feature list for the iOS app update is as follows:

• Never lose a sale: no caps on how much you can accept.
• iOS 4 support.
• Improved experience for contacting Square support.
• Cash tendered field is now pre-filled with the expected amount.
• User feedback when swiping too slow or too fast.
• User feedback when swiping an expired card.
• Excluding tax from a transaction is now accurately reflected in the receipt.
• Fixed a crash affecting iOS 4 users with core location disabled.

The removal of the payment cap is greatly welcomed. When I go to sell old tech, I usually want more than $100 for it. Case in point: a couple weeks ago I sold my old iPhone 3G for $150. I used Square for the transaction, but had to do a $100 transaction then a second $50 transaction. It worked wonderfully, but the double transaction was inconvenient.

I assume the Android app will be getting a similar update to remove the transaction cap, but I haven’t received any word on that.

I think I’ll be listing some more things for sale this weekend, and using Square as my preferred method to receive loot.

Twitterrific 3: Sharper, Leaner, & Universal

With many major iOS related launches, The Iconfactory is usually present with one of their flagship brands — Twitterrific. Back in July 2008, Twitterrific 1.0 was one of the first apps available on day one of the App Store; Twitterrific for iPad was there for the iPad’s launch; and Twitterrific 3 decided to tag along for the launch of iPhone 4 and the Retina display.

Now if you already have Twitterrific for iPhone, or Twitterrific Premium for iPhone, you can stop clicking “Check for updates” as those versions of the app no longer exist in the App Store. Instead, The Iconfactory elected to combine the new iPhone app with the existing iPad app to simplify development and avoid customer confusion.

This does mean for owners of Twitterrific Premium that this is a paid upgrade if you want the Premium features. I bought Twitterrific Premium 1.0 on day one of the App Store in 2008. When 2.0 arrived, I enjoyed a free update. Now, with 3.0, the universal iPad and iPhone app is free, supported with advertising, and a $4.99 in-app purchase will take away ads and unlock multiple accounts.

If you have an iPad and had previously bought the iPad’s in-app purchase, you simply have to update your iPad app, which now includes the universal iPhone interface, install it on your iPhone, and tap the Buy button for the in-app purchase, and as long as you are using the same iTunes Store account, it will unlock it for free.

Now, why not just stick with Twitterrific 2? Well, Twitter is turning off basic authentication for logging in at the end of August, and switching to OAuth for logging in. This means any app that isn’t using OAuth, such as Twitterrific 2, will no longer work after the cutoff date. But this is just one reason to upgrade.

Here’s a list of reasons to upgrade:

• Universal application for iPhone & iPad
• Greatly simplified, easier to use interface
• Full OAuth support
• Complete landscape support (new to iPhone)
• Optimized for Apple’s new retina display
• Supports fast app switching in iOS 4
• Increased API calls per hour
• Supports both official & old-style re-tweets
• Twitter list support
• Save Twitter-based searches
• Expanded media upload services
• Custom media upload support
• Improved color-coding of tweets
• VoiceOver accessiblity
• Inline picture viewing
• Reply to all

My impressions? It takes serious stones to scrap all the features from your app and only add back the absolutely necessary ones. But the results are a lean, fast, and easy to use iPhone app. If you are the kind of user who wants everything under the sun including the kitchen sink you may want to look elsewhere.

But if you want a great reading and composing experience you’ll love the new Twitterrific. I honestly believe there is something to be said about a minimalistic app that just brings the essentials to the twitter experience. I think new users will especially love Twitterrific, as a flood of features in other twitter apps can be intimidating. Also, being optimized for iPhone 4’s Retina Display, Twitterrific is absolutely stunning to look at.

I applaud The Iconfactory for taking such a drastic overhaul of their flagship iPhone app, which combines the best and brightest features of Twitterrific 2, and the elegant simple interface from the original iPhone app.

Twitterrific for iPhone and iPad is available as a free download in the App Store, with a $4.99 in-app purchase to remove ads and enable multiple accounts. 

MobileMe Redesigned; Find My iPhone App Released

A few weeks ago, Apple opened up a beta for a redesigned MobileMe Mail on the web. After a few hours of maintenance last night, MobileMe has closed the Mail beta, made the new design available for everyone, and updated the navigation across all the web apps. 

When you see the new Mail, it looks very much like the iPad’s version of Mail. In fact, the redesigned navigation elements are reminiscent of iOS as well. The new Mail features widescreen and compact views, server-side rules, single-click archiving, formatting toolbar, faster performance, increased security, support for external email addresses, and improved junk mail filtering.

The navigation elements will keep two items consistent across the different web apps: a cloud icon on the elft to switch between apps (also achievable with shift-esc), and your name on the right. Clicking on your name will give you access to help, account settings, and signing out.

Find my iPhone also saw two developments during the downtime. First, the web app within MobileMe has been redesigned to show just a sidebar with your devices, and a map taking up the rest of your browser window. Once a connection has been made with your lost device, you can send a message with a two-minute sound that plays regardless of whether the device’s sound is muted. You can also remotely lock it with a PIN code, or if it looks as if the device will be unrecoverable, you can send a command to wipe the phone. Wiping the phone will make any future attempts to locate it with Find My iPhone impossible.

Find My iPhone also received an iPhone, iPod touch, & iPad universal app. I think this is good to have. Previously, if you left your iPhone in a coffee shop, but were unsure, you’d have to find a Mac or Windows PC to perform the Find My iPhone actions on it. Now, let’s say I leave my phone in a coffee shop, now I can just grab my iPad or my wife’s iPhone and locate it, lock it, and display a message really quick. This is definitely the app you hope you never have to use, but it is one of the reasons MobileMe is worth it in my book.

Finally, I didn’t notice any other enhancements to any of the other web apps. Hopefully the MobileMe team in Cupertino will set their sights on refreshing the others. Especially iDisk (is it too much to ask to make it like Dropbox?).