Twitter designer finds Facebook for iPhone imitation decidedly unflattering

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Facebook for iPhone, which previously took heat for making their Places icon a little too 4-squared, is now being called out by mobile designer Bryan Haggerty for copying Twitter's photo sharing UI.

Seriously Facebook? http://pic.twitter.com/0ifNsdYOk Facebook, enough with the flattery. http://pic.twitter.com/vSyHdpH

Though TechCrunch points out Haggerty was at LinkedIn when LinkedIn's mobile app looked a lot like Facebook. Twitter for iPhone is no stranger to flattery, however, as back when it was still Tweetie, it's "pull to refresh" feature was so intuitive it quickly spread to other apps and even web frameworks.

At a certain point, a "best" way of doing something gets discovered and for the sake of consistency and user friendliness, it makes more sense for that "best" way to become a standard. (See Lotus vs. Excel). Whether or not the Twitter photo sharing UI qualifies as something so good it should become a standard, we'll have to wait and see.

[@bhaggs via TechCrunch]

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.