The extremely popular Twitter client Tweetbot for iPhone and iPad has just been updated to version 2.4. It brings a new search view, keyword mute filters, offline favorite and Read Later support, and more.

One of the coolest features of this update is offline favorite and Read Later support. Now if you're offline, you can still mark tweets as favorites or send a link to your favorite Read Later service. When you do so, you'll see a banner that says the favorite or link is queued. Once you jump back online, the action will be complete.

The updated search view of Tweetbot 2.4 now shows nearby tweets added with the ability to change location, location-based keyword searches, and improved search box, and a few other UI adjustments. To change your location, you simply scroll around the map. It's very cool.

Additionally, Tweetbot now has basic smart quote support including ellipsis and em dash. Also, when viewing a photo in full screen on an iPad, holding down on it will give you options to save or copy the image, view the website, or tweet the link.

Tweetbot has also added new gestures. Now you can dismiss web and map views on the iPad with a 2-finger swipe down gesture and if you swipe to the right in a profile view, Tweetbot will go back one level.

Last but certainly not least, their already incredible "mute" feature (which lets you stop seeing tweets without unfollowing someone) now supports keywords. Don't want to read about the Facebook IPO or the season finale of your favorite show, just add the right words to your filter and they'll be gone from your timeline. Better still it supports regular expressions (RegEX) so you have excellent, fine-grain control of your mute filters.

The best Twitter client for iPhone and iPad just keeps getting better and better!

$2.99 for iPhone - Download Now

$2.99 for iPad - Download Now

The Calculator app is one of those iPhone apps that didn't make it's way onto the iPad. It's a shame, because a lot of people, including students, travelers, and home book keepers would get a lot of use out of it. The most popular type of calculator is a scientific calculator -- it can do more than the basic operations (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing), but isn't as different in approach as an RPN (reverse Polish notation) or as advanced as a graphing calculator or CAS (computer algebra system). So which iPad app is the best scientific calculator? Calcbot by Tapbots.

One of the great features of Calcbot is that it has large buttons, making it very easy to make entries. In portrait mode, the calculator takes up the whole screen. Along the top is the output screen of the calculator. Under that, you'll find the positive/negative, parentheses, and EE buttons. These are the elements that remain static.

The area of the calculator that contains all the numbers and operations is scrollable. Swiping to the left will reveal all the scientific functions. The up-arrow button on the scientific page will replace the trigonometic functions with their inverses, and the logarithm and exponential functions that are base e change to base 2. Visually, these are all the buttons that are light blue in color.

As you press buttons on the calculator, their symbols will appear in small, light blue letters at the bottom of the calculator's screen. This is extremely helpful for keeping track of which button you've pressed last. The tracking will reset every time you press enter, when it then gets transferred to the tape.

To see the tape, rotate your iPad to landscape. The calculator will become slightly smaller and the tape will slide in from the right. The tape keeps track of all your calculations, including all the buttons that were pressed to get the results. Holding your finger down on an entry pops up a menu to either Use Result, Use Expression, Copy, Send as Email, or Delete. Using the result or expression will automatically add your choice into the calculator. You can also paste into the screen of the calculator or into another app.

The Good

• Large buttons
• Keeps track of buttons pressed
• Beautiful UI
• Landscape orientation reveals the tape
• Every button emits a subtle sound -- true to Tapbots style (can be disabled)
• Option to round for currency
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The Bad

• Must sacrifice having all the buttons on one screen for the larger buttons

The Conclusion

Calcbot by Tapbots has been my favorite calculator on both the iPhone and iPad for quite some time. It does what I need and does it well. Unfortunately for students, Calcbot likely will not be able to replace a physical calculator because most teachers will not allow the use of iPads during exams.

$1.99 - Download Now

Apple let it be known back in August of 2011 that they'd be deprecating developer access to UDID ( Universal Device Identifier), they've now taken the next step and begun actively rejecting App Store apps that use it. The fine developers of Tweetbot have reported that one of their latest updates was rejected from Apple for collecting UDID information without getting user consent first. What does this mean for apps like Tweetbot?

[UDIDs] allowed us to restore push notifications settings after Tweetbot was deleted and re-installed. With this new change in place this is no longer possible, if you delete and re-install Tweetbot you’ll have to setup your push notification settings again.

The UDID is 40 characters that are unique to your iPhone and iPad, used most generally by developers to provision pre-release apps through the App Store. Now developers will need to create their own unique ID within the app and store it in iCloud.

Ultimately, it's good news that Apple is making sure that developers aren't easily getting a hold on potentially sensitive data like UDIDs; iOS users are a little on edge about privacy after that Path incident.

This might also explain the speed with which Apple went from deprecating the UDID collection to outright rejecting apps. Typically something deprecated in one iOS version will be removed in a later version, giving developers time and an expectation for when they need to have an alternative approach in place. This has led some developers, including Subfurther, to call it a "lousy way to communicate policy change".

Source: Tapbots, Subfurther

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes
• Show notes

Marc, Seth, and Rene iterate through Windows 8 and Metro, whether should designers know how to code, tool tips yay or nay, and asset export redux, and interrogate Mark Jardine about Tapbots and their distinctively delightful iPhone and iPad apps. This is Iterate!

What's your name? Paul Haddad

What's your company's name? Tapbots

Where are you located? Flower Mound, TX

What's your website address? http://tapbots.com

What's your Twitter name? @tapbot_paul and @tapbots

What apps do you make? Weightbot, Convertbot, Pastebot, Calcbot, Tweetbot

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? My favorite Apps tend to be Mac based: Transmit, VMWare, TextMate, VLC, TF2 :^)

How long have you been a developer? Professionally I'd say I'm a bit shy of 20 years, non professionally closer to 30.

How long have you been an iOS developer? Ever since the first iOS SDK came out.

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? If so, which one(s)? Minor Mac and server side stuff.

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? I use two almost equally depending on where I am in the house. Macbook Pro 17" i7 2.66GHZ 8GB RAM dual striped OWC 120GB SSDs. Mac Pro 8 core 3GHZ 5 striped 40GB OWC SSDs, Areca RAID controller, 30" Cinema display, loud mechanical keyboard and kensigton trackball.

What iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? iPhone 4, iPod gen 2 and iPad 2.

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? None.

What's your favorite thing about developing for iOS? I'm a big fan of ObjC and the various frameworks and always have been. I don't think there's anything better out there.

What's your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? Dealing with the entire iTunes connect provisioning setup and waiting for app approvals.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS SDK? Rich Text editing and general improvements to UITextView are at the top of my list.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? Paid upgrades for major new versions. The current free upgrades setup doesn't encourage developers to update their apps on a long term basis.

What do you do when you're not coding iOS apps? I'm pretty boring I tend to always be working unless I'm out and about with the kids on the weekend. Lately I've gotten hooked on Team Fortress 2.

** Given Tapbots has such a distinctive, restrained catalog of apps, how do you decide which types of apps you want to make? Do you reject a lot of ideas along the way?** We try to focus on apps that we'll use and sound fun to write. We're not going to write an app for something that we'll never do or won't use because we wouldn't be able to put our hearts in it. We actually reject a ton of ideas, for every app from us you see there's probably a dozen that we thought about and decided not to do for one reason or another.

What should we look for from you next? We're quite busy with Tweetbot but have started thinking about our next app. We've got two top contenders but haven't quite decide which we'll do yet. We keep saying we're going to start soon but keep getting pulled away on other Tweetbot features.

Thanks Paul!

TapBots has announced that it has submitted an updated version of TweetBot, their beautifully designed Twitter app, to Apple for approval and the good news is it will now include push notifications. The downside is that the push notifications are classed as experimental and will be rolled out initially to the first 1000 users.

For launch, we are allowing around 1000 twitter accounts to access push notifications. We’ll be carefully monitoring performance and adding more users as fast as we can. To register your device for push, turn on at least one of the switches in the push notification settings. It’s all on a first-come-first-serve basis and if you have access to push and turn them all off, someone else may take your spot. We want to ensure that push works well for everyone and, while it may seem frustrating, we are working as hard as we can to make sure that everyone will eventually have access to push notifications.

The update will also have some other additional features like the ability to publish text notes with tweets, selected tabs remembered when switching between accounts, the ability to view someone else’s lists as tweets and various bug fixes.

The update has not been approved yet, we will let you know as soon as it is available; so you can get an opportunity to try out the experimental push notifications. I personally applaud Tapbots decision to take this slow roll out approach. There is nothing worse than launching a new feature in an app that relies on third party servers. If they get overloaded it becomes a huge can of fail for everyone.

[Tapbots Blog]

Tweetbot just hit the US App Store and boy is it a beauty. Tapbots has done it again and designed an application that is not only functional and pretty, but an artistic masterpiece that I cannot keep my hands off of. I was an instant critic when I read Tapbots' claim that Tweetbot is "a twitter client with personality", but they're right.

A text review can hardly do this app justice because it is impossible to put into words how beautifully Tweetbot is made. Sure, I can describe how, at your touch, a tweet slides up revealing a navigation bar while simultaneous emitting the perfect sound. I can explain that swiping a tweet to right reveals the conversation and swiping to left displays related tweets. I can tell you about smart gestures, multiple timelines, and customizable navigation. I can even spew out a concrete list of every feature that Tweetbot includes. What I can't provide you, however, is the experience.

The problem with Twitter clients these days is that they're all the same. Yes, the same. Sure, the features vary (slightly) between them and some come with cool themes. The experiences, however, are too alike. I used to get excited when a new Twitter app was released because each app offered something different, something new. Today, they all feel the same. What happened? When users flocked to a particular Twitter app, other devs copied what made that app special. Individualization was lost. Now the App Store is basically filled with slight variations of the same app - with the exception of Tweetbot.

Tweetbot is different. It's innovative and refreshing. Tweetbot isn't an app you use, it's one you interact with. Everything has an animation, a sound, a beautiful interface. And true to Tapbots' style, the sounds are subtle and pleasant - enriching the experience.

In case you can't tell, I'm a huge fan of Tweetbot, but it isn't for everybody. Tweetbot is full-featured, but doesn't have every possible feature known to those in the Twitter app world. Tweetbot doesn't have a mute option or display in-line photos. It doesn't have multiple themes or native push notifications (but it's compatible with Boxcar). If these features are deal-breakers to you, then Tweetbot isn't for you. Not yet anyway.

For those who are suckers for design, innovation, and dare I say, personality, Tweetbot will rock your world.

Check out the screenshot gallery after the break!

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Tapbots, one of the most innovative, user experience-oriented iPhone app developers, has released Tweetbot for iPhone. Tweetbot is a Twitter client with personality and Tapbots claims:

Whether it’s the meticulously-crafted interface, sounds & animation, or features like multiple timelines & smart gestures, there’s a lot to love about Tweetbot.

• Multiple Timelines. Quickly switch between your lists as your main timeline.
• Smart Gestures. Use Twitter more efficiently with time-saving and configurable gestures.
• Customizable Navigation. The last 2 tabs are customizable and unused tabs are easily accessible.
• Support for multiple services like Read it Later, Instapaper, Cloudapp URL Shortening.
• Push Notifications via Boxcar.
• Save drafts, add locations and POI's, attach photos and videos, manage your lists, and much more.

Tweetbot is still rolling out to all countries and we're anxiously waiting to download it. It's currently available in the New Zealand App Store but should start showing up internationally soon. Has it hit your local store yet? Let know when it does and what you think!

[iTunes link, thanks everyone who sent this in!]

Convertbot [$0.99 - iTunes link] has seen their latest update, version 1.4 for iPhone (and iPod touch), rejected by at least 2 of Apple's 40+ App Store reviewers because the icon they're using for "Time" (the same icon they've been using since 1.0, mind you) is nigh-identical to Apple's built in "Recent" icon, and that was enough to raise that troublesome "user confusion" flag at iTunes HQ.

They're going to try and find a different yet equally minimalist icon, and we're going to start counting down to a letter from either Phil Schiller or the FCC...

Sigh.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Paul Haddad from Tapbots let us know just how fast he's seeing users update to iPhone 3.0. Based on the headers included when their app Convertbot checks with its servers to get the latest currency information, Paul figures:

The data seems pretty clear. Prior to June 8th we have a fairly low adoption rate of ~3%. Starting on June 9 this jumps up to 6-8%, which can be directly tracked to the developer release at WWDC. Starting on June 17th we get a huge jump as all the non devs start upgrading. We’re currently running at an overall 75% upgrade rate which is pretty insane considering the number of devices and the fact that its only been 5 days.

Outside enthusiasts who regularly follow the news, users are only alerted to updates when they tether their iPhone to iTunes to sync. Looks like a lot of people are either enthusiastic enough to know about the update and want it, or fairly regular about syncing with iTunes.

Either way, these uptake levels are amazing.

Tapbots, one of the most consistently innovative user experience-oriented development houses on the iPhone platform, just let us know they've updated their latest app, Convertbot (see our review), to version 1.1.

Convertbot is for those who not only want to get things done, but who want to enjoy doing them. This update adds user-selectable enabling/disabling of categories/units as well as a TON (standard or metric! Convert to your choice!) of new categories/units and new currencies.

What's more, they've released Convertbot Mini as a Lite-as-in-FREE version of the app that gives you the same great UI, albeit without as many different units and categories (hey, it's free and the full version is a steal at the introductory price!)

Convertbot 1.1 ($0.99 - iTunes link) and Convertbot Mini (Free - iTunes link) are both available now.

Convertbot Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!)

ConvertBot is by Tapbots - the developers of WeightBot and for those of you that love the way the application operates, this one will not let you down.

This is probably the sleekest conversion application I have seen with its cool animations and sounds. However, the only issues I ran into – it takes longer than I thought the program should take to load. At first I believed that it was the app itself checking an Internet connection to update the currency conversions, but when I put my iPhone in Airplane mode, it took just as long. But it is a good thing to note that even though the currencies could not update, the program is still usable.

The sleek interface is what really makes this app so nice. This has to be the coolest working Conversion app for the iPhone. The “wheel” that takes up the main part of the screen can be rotated to set the conversion type:

• Angles: Degree, Radian, & Grad
• Area: Square Meter, Square Centimeter, Square Millimeter, Square Mile, Acre, Square Kilometer, Square Yard, Square Foot, Square Inch
• Currency: Australian Dollar, Brazilian Real, Canadian Dollar, Swiss Franc, Danish Krone, Euro, Pound Sterling (UK), Japanese Yen, Mexican Peso, Swedish Krona, US Dollar
• Length: Foot, Meter, Inch, Centimeter, Mile, Kilometer, Nautical Mile, Yard, Millimeter, Foot+Inch
• Mass: Milligram, Kilogram, Pound, Ounce, Gram, Stone, Stone+Pound, Metric Ton, Pound+Ounce
• Power: Watt, Horsepower, Kilowatt, BTU/Minute, Foot-Pound/Minute, Foot-Pound/Second
• Pressure: Pound/Square Inch, Centimeters of Mercury, Inches of Mercury, Kilogram/Square Meter, Pascal, Atmospheres, Bars, Pounds/Square Foot
• Speed: Miles/Hour, Kilometers/Hour, Knots, Miles/Second, Miles/Minute, Feet/Minute, Feet/Second, Kilometers/Minutes
• Temperature: Celsius, Kelvin, Fahrenheit
• Time: Second, Millisecond, Microsecond, Nanoseconds, Year, Week, Day, Hour, Minute, Hour + Minute
• Volume: Cup, Teaspoon, Tablespoon, Cubic Feet, Gallon (UK), Quart, Pint, Ounce, Cubic Meter, Gallon (US), Liter, Milliliter, Cubic Centimeter
• Work (Energy): Kilogram Calorie, Foot Pound, Newton Meter, Joule, BTU, Erg, Watt Hour, Calorie

Once you have rotated the wheel to the type/category, then you tap on the bottom left button and you use the “wheel” to select the specific conversion unit, take the center blue button, “ok” and it locks that unit in. This unit is the unit you are converting from. The other black button is the unit you want to convert to. You repeat the same process of locking in the unit.

By tapping on the top “number screen,” this opens up a keypad so that you can type in the amount you are converting from. The application has a live update, in which the app auto converts as you type the number into the app. Tapping on the “number screen” again brings back the conversion “wheel”

You can tap on the center wheel to switch the units if you need to.

By tapping on the “i” icon you can view the Settings which allows you to turn the sound on or off as well as the choice of viewing the Demo (which is quite a nice feature in the app).

Issues:

• Would like to have the “wheel” spin more smoothly, rather than “clicking” into place.
• Not as common currencies are not available in the app. (exe.: Argentinian Pesos or Chilean Peso)

Pros:

• Sleek Interface
• Sounds & animation to go with each “screen” or tap
• Complex conversions

Cons:

• Takes quite long to update currencies at app start up (quicker in airplane mode, due to currencies not updating)
• “Wheel” ‘clicks’ into place rather than smoothly rolling.
• Uncommon currencies not available

TiPb Review Rating

[Convertbot is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.]

Mark Jardine and Paul Haddad of Tapbots are the breakout designers and engineers behind Weightbot (iTunes link), one of the most original user experiences released on the iPhone App Store to date. Continuing the iPhone blog's behind-the-scenes look at iPhone application development, Mark and Paul were kind enough to take time and discuss their ideas on interface and interactivity, and how what more we might expect from Apple's next generation mobile platform.

TiPb: How was approaching the iPhone interface for this App different than how you would have approached an interface for another platform?

Mark: It was really different coming from a web design background. 320x460 isn't a lot of space to work with and then you have to factor in the huge difference in input devices. A person's finger is a lot less accurate than a mouse cursor. At the same time, I wasn't designing a website so I was freed from a lot of rules and conventions I've been following over the past 8 years. So my initial approach was pretty simple. If Weightbot was an actual physical device, how could I make it usable and fun at the same time?

Paul: The thing I found challenging about dealing with the iPhone interface is that users want a silky smooth and yet the iPhone and iPod touch are both very slow compared to any modern Mac. I spent a lot of time juggling things around in order to get a consistent 60 fps for all the various animations within Weightbot. Coming from our current Multi Gigahertz, Multi Gigabyte and Multi Core world where for the most part you don't have to worry about performance to a platform like the iPhone where every cycle and byte counts is a big change.

TiPb: Weightbot's interface is obviously both creative and innovative. Is the robot theme something that came to expressly for that app, or does it exemplify a personal style of interaction that you can see pushing further in future with different types of Apps.

Mark: The whole robot theme sort of just fell into place. That happens a lot with the work I do. I can't always sit down with a piece of paper and try to think up a whole concept from scratch. I prefer to just dive into the work and then see what ideas pop up from it.

Paul came to me one day telling me he wanted to test the iPhone market and was going to start off simple with a weight tracking app. He asked if I was interested in helping out and didn't want to spend more than a week or two on it. I think the original plan was to use all of the standard UI elements provided in the SDK, but I thought I'd let my imagination run a little and then see what Paul would think. My initial sketch was simple. It was just the shape of the iphone with the lcd as seen on the app today. One thing popped into mind at that point. It was Eve from Wall-e. Everything just fell into place from there. Weightbot was inspired by Eve, and the Tapbots idea was based on the whole concept of different utility robots in Wall-e. That was such a great movie. When I was in high school, my dream was to become a 3d modeler for Pixar. Obviously, my career went off on a tangent (along with this interview).

So now that you know the story of where Tapbots and Weightbot came from, obviously you can expect there to be more robot applications in the future.

TiPb: Given the stylization, was it difficult to balance form and function, and make sure the interface didn't take over or drown out the underlying App?

Mark: Over the years, my web design philosophy has matured. I used to be all about the flash, bang, whiz type of websites, but one day I just realized that people just want to use the site or get the information they need. That's not to say flashy sites don't have their place. I've just changed my philosophy on it. So my take on all UI design is function first, and then wrap a solid, usable design around it. The same approach was taken with Weightbot. I pictured a user balancing on his/her scale, and easily being able to enter weight data into the app with one hand and without needing too much precision or concentration.

The Wii fit is probably the best example of simplicity because it weighs you and stores your weight data automatically. It's also somewhat fun to do. The big flaw with it is you have to turn on your TV and Wii just to do it and that can get tedious if you do it everyday. I know because I have one and hardly ever turn it on anymore. So Weightbot needed to be very simple, fun enough to be motivational, and not feel like a chore to use. I'd like to think we did a pretty decent job on it.

TiPb: Did developing an interface for the iPhone change the way you may approach future interfaces on other platforms? Did you learn anything special from developing for the iPhone?

Mark: New experiences always help shape the way you think about other things. I've definitely learned a lot from the experience and I'm sure it will influence my work on the web. Maybe not from a visual standpoint, but definitely from a user experience point of view.

TiPb: You use touch and accelerometer based interactions in your Apps. Are developers fully tapping the potential of iPhone interactivity yet? What more, if anything, could Apple surface to help developers create even better user interactions?

Mark: Some developers are doing really cool stuff with it. The multi-touch screen, accelerometer, and even the mic are all input devices for the iPhone. Developers should use them to their app's advantage. Our main purpose for using them was to simplify the interface. Imagine having a "graph" button in Weightbot to switch to the graph. The button would have to be small so it doesn't make the interface busy, but then the user has to look for the button. Using the accelerometer was a no brainer. It keeps our interface clean and it's very intuitive.

Google Earth makes really good use of the accelerometer and multi-touch controls. I think games are also pushing how users can interact with the iPhone. I think the possibilities are almost limitless so we will be seeing a lot of great solutions in the future.

Paul: I don't think most developers fully tapping the iPhone at all. It'll probably be another year before we see a large number of apps that really push the iPhone. Unfortunately in the current iPhone SDK there's very little defined support for detecting things like two finger swipes or shaking the iPhone. You pretty much have to depend on accessing the accelerometer and Event code at fairly low levels. Once Apple provides some higher level support for these features you are going to see more and more developers using them in innovative ways.

TiPb: What worked out especially well for you with Weightbot? Any favorite features or elements that you're especially happy with?

Mark: I'm happy most with the pure simplicity of it. Part of me wants to say this is the final version. But we get a lot of feature requests and Weightbot is nothing without people using it. So we will do our best to make our users happy without sacrificing on the initial vision of Weightbot.

Paul: I really like the Date Slider screen, maybe its because I spent an obscene amount of time tuning it, but I really enjoy the effect of flicking the Slider and hearing it tick as it switches dates.

Mark, Paul, we sincerely appreciate your taking the time to share with us and our readers!

Tapbots is Mark and Paul's website, and their premiere application, Weightbot, is available via the iTunes App Store.