2009 July « iCarluccio

Archive for July, 2009

ITWEETREPLY PUSH NOTIFICATION IPHONE TWITTER CLIENT OFFICIAL REVIEWYo1

{ 13/07/2009 @ 4:52 pm } · { Technology }
{ Tags: iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iTweetReply, Push twitter client } · { Leave a Comment }

It’s finally here! An App that pushes our tweets from the busy Twitter servers to our sexy, sleek iPhone’s! Check out the review for some exclusive information regarding future versions, and a small interview with one of the developers – Matthew Roberts.

User Interface

We all know and love the iPhones User Interface. It’s smooth touch screen, it’s fantastic accelerometer and it’s damn awesome pinch feature! iTweetreply has taken advantage of nearly all those features and many more introduced in OS 3.0. iTweetreply feautures a sleek and simple UI that any body can operate! It’s plain colours make it easy to see in all shades of light and the 3 tabs on the bottom make it extemelly easy to toggle between your ‘Direct Messages’, your ‘@ replies’ and of course your friends public tweets. iTweetreply has made it easy to update tweets while still reading the older ones by adding the refresh button on the top of the screen. This is one of the options in which Tweetie lacks. Yes, it is a small but valuable point to note!
When your typing away at your desk or reading a book on the beach you will hear the sweat sound of ITR (iTweetreply) notifying you of any new @replies or DM’s you have. If your iPhone was sleeping at the time the notification sounded the tweet will remain on the screen, as if it were a txt message. The push message is displayed as if it were a txt message which is very handy for Australians and all other countries who currently do not have txt tweets enabled. This is the #1 reason I downloaded iTweetReply. When you ‘Slide to Reply’ to the pushed tweet iTweetReply launches (Only takes 3 seconds on the iPhone 3GS) and you are greeted with the list of tweets. To reply, simply tap the tweet and you are given the option to either a) @ reply of b) Direct Message the sender.
Obviously, like all first releases of applications (iPhone or not) there are many features lacking. This applies to ITR but we will look at those later. .

Pro’s of iTweetreply

iTweetreply, as stated above is an amazing app. It does the one thing many of the common iPhone apps don’t. This is push the tweets from Twitter over to you!

Push Tweets over the cloud & to your iPhone
Sleek user Interface
Easy to operate, even my grandmother could use it!
Customization abilites
Convenient buttons

One of the things that I am extremely excited about is this: The Ability to use the iTR push notifications with other Twitter platforms on iPhone. The only reason you’d use this, is if another Twitter app has grown on you! Otherwise, with further revisions iTR is going to be one hot ass app!

Cons/New features we’d like to see in iTweetReply

Like all Applications built for all platforms (Mac OSX, Microsoft Windows, Palm Pre) this application does have a bug (I’ve only found 1), but it does lack some feautures which WILL be in the next 3 revisions of iTR.

Bug: Numerous alert sounds after only 1-2 minutes
Improvement: Yes, the User interface is beautiful but some more color would be nice (This is coming)
Improvement: Load more than 27 tweets at a time! With Tweetie I’m loading 100 at a time, because I have so many too read
Improvement: Not a biggie, but customizable alert tones
Improvement: Ability to read peoples profile’s & Tweets (Big big one, that must come) & Follow them

Le Interview with Matthew Roberts

As we’ve established iTweet reply is an awesome app that runs very very well on iPhone. Now, there’s certainly a story behind every app built!

How long did it Take to Plan & Develop iTweetReply? It took 2 weeks to plan iTweetReply, but the develpment took us about 3-4 months as push is very hard to implement!

What tools did/do you use to learn to develop for the iPhone platform? We used iPhone 3G’s to test our apps on, but I learnt C++/C when I was 12. I started developing for the iPhone in July 2008. One book I certainly recommend is ’iPhone Dev Cookbook’ By Erica Sadun.

So, is it REALLY hard to develop for the iPhone & learning how to code in C & Objective C? It Is. but if you put in the time and effort, it can be quite easy! The earlier you learn, the easier it is.

What’s the story behind the iTweetReply iPhone App? Well Matt Lesh started the iTweetReply email service, and I looked at it as the perfect entrance for an iPhone app with Push!

Final Words

We look forward to future versions of iTweetReply, with version 1.1 submitted to Apple on Friday we should see it in our App store within the next few days! If you’re a current iTweetReply user, It’s a highly recommended upgrade! Well done to Matthew Roberts & Matther Lesh for developing such a fantastic app!

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/iCarluccio

GOOGLE CHROME OS! FIRST PICS LEAKED, EXCLUSIVE INFORMATION

{ 09/07/2009 @ 5:30 am } · { Technology }
{ Tags: Google, Google Chrome Operating System, Google Chrome OS, Operating System, OS } · { Leave a Comment }

Finally. A third Operating System that may actually be worth while installing on your computer! Google have been in business for many years, and they have certainly changed the way we look at the internet. Their services have made us realize simply how powerful the internet is! From Google Talk, to Picasa – Google have made their services fantastic. In recent years Google introduced their new Web browser. It was to be called ‘Google Chrome’. Many people downloaded the betas, and it certainly received some mixed reviews! While Firefox was still the most commonly used Browser Safari soon shot up as Apple released it’s Beta in early 2009! The Safari 4 beta also received some mixed reviews although they were mostly good than bad.

In the past days there have been some rumors released about the Google Chrome Operating System! Some said that it was the most advanced, stable OS ever (I find this extremely hard to believe as only a certain number of people have been able to lay their hands on this Beta) while others had more of an interest to leak photos and information about the OS. This is what I’m giving you today. Some exclusive information as well as some very basic photos of the Chrome OS!

Taken from: chromeosleak.wordpress.com

Hi there. I work for a company (Sorry to be secretive, but what I am about to post could get me in big trouble) that supplies parts for Acer laptops. Today, a Google Rep visited the Acer team to install and quickly show off some of the features of the Google OS in development.

I was invited by Acer to come and view the demo.

I can say and give only what I know and have.

The OS installation was performed on a Acer Extensa 4620Z laptop to show it can install quickly on laptops from late 2007 to early 2008. The install from Vista to Google Chrome OS Dev Beta was only 10 minutes and was very elegant. Only one restart required.

A wizard asks you for basic info on the first boot up. Google was still in progress of developing the wizard so we just skipped most of this. Google at the moment installed only the Google Talk application. They did this because the Rep said “At the current time, Google has not completed compatibility tests with some laptops and netbooks.”.

This beta was extremely stripped down. However, it was amazingly fast. They did one reboot and it rebooted from Desktop to Desktop in about 25ish seconds.

There is a button on the Chrome Bar (At least that is what the Rep called it.) that is basically the blue center of the chrome logo. This button pulls up a Start Menu clone essentially. The Reboot, Programs, and Main Directory is located here.

The navigation uses two options. “Exploration” or “Browser”. Explanation is much alike the Windows Explorer. The Browser uses search options. In Browser Mode, the Google Chrome Browser comes up and you can search and also use the “Most Visited” features for your files. This part was rough feeling and Google Stressed this Dev Beta is extremely early and has much to work out.

There is a clock on the Chrome Bar. It is very stationary and looks very plain. However, it does work.

The icons are large but can be shrunk and grown to your preference much alike the dock in a Mac. May we also note a new icon for Google Talk. Strange but that is how it is.

Also, a internet wizard is very quick and shows a signal bar beside the clock.

The Chrome Bar also auto hides. It can be brought back up by the Windows key and Space (The Rep Mentioned in Google Chrome OS laptops this key will actually be a fully colored and 3D Chrome Logo in some Netbooks)

The rep also mentioned some of the Linux aspects including the option to have a status bar on the Chrome Bar for Devs.

In addition a search bar can be implemented on the Chrome Bar. Programs appear in a Windows 7 Esque icon fashion.

That is all the time I had with the demo and Rep. Soon after some other Acer employees, affiliates, and the Google Rep went to show some of the capabilities of the OS on a projectior for a more elaborate showing of the features to a larger audience.

However, I was the last to leave the room and the Google Rep seemed to forget his privacy. I happened to have my Mini-Cam with me and took these medium quality shots. I am sorry I couldn’t get better. They were all taken in less than 10 seconds. Adrenaline was rushing like crazy.

I hope you enjoy these.

I am putting my career and notability on the line in this!

Here are the juicy photos!