The Case to Remove Twinkle
Posted on | September 2, 2008 | No Comments
Today I removed Twinkle from my iPhone and given that it has sit on my front screen since launch day I feel a review of Twinkle and it’s subsequent banishment are worth expounding upon.
For those who don’t know Twinkle is a program available for the iPhone created by Tapulous. The program is both a competitor and client application for Twitter, offering an experience similar to Twitterrific on your iPhone. The difference is that Twinkle as far as I can tell and have read caches your tweets on their server meaning you talk entirely to Tapulous - avoiding the not as present Fail Whale and being required to create a Tapulous account. However it also allows them to set up new features such as the Nearby feature.
The nearby feature hands down is the sole reason I opened Twinkle the last few weeks - getting local tweets was both interesting and informative. The feature allows you to specify how close a tweet should be to you to display.
What killed Twinkle for me was the silent failures to push my tweets in the application to Twitter, the hard limit of 140 characters in the textbox and a seeming penchance to be down (or giving server errors that eat tweets) when I wanted to use it most. It wasn’t a regular repeatable offence but that it kept happening made the advantage of the application near nil when I also had Twitterrific.
An aside reason for removing other Tapulous applications have been the quotes from the CEO about their (managements) approach to applications. Yes it has all been ibthe wake of Mike Lee’s departure but when the focus isn’t on quality applications and not just using it as a necessary marketing buzzword I’ll vote with my feet and wallet. The effect may be limited but it stands as an attempt to live by some code of ethics. (I’m not perfect and have changed my opinions completely from one year to the next).
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