Tweetbot for Mac Alpha Pulled

Tweetbot for Mac Alpha is no longer available for download. As Paul Haddad says,

We’ve been working with Twitter over the last few days to try to work around this limit for the duration of the beta but have been unable to come up with a solution that was acceptable to them. Because of this we’ve decided its best for us to pull the alpha.

Twitter’s attacks on third-party developers keep getting worse. Still, they haven’t done anything to hurt Flipboard, which I believe would put the biggest amount of attention on this issue due to the fact that it is geared more towards average users and not power users like Tweetbot.

Facebook (Finally) Updates Its iOS App

It is about time. Here is what I think about Facebook’s old app, they were depending on the Apple to open up the Nitro JavaScript engine to UIWebView. This would have made the Facebook app become quite a lot quicker. (See Facebook’s web app on Mobile Safari for proof of this) However, Apple has not allowed UIWebView access the the Nitro JavaScript engine, so Facebook finally was forced to rewrite its app in Objective-C.

The Cure to the Linkblog Cancer

Well Mr. Somers, I’m pleased to inform you that I’ve found the cure for your “Linkblog Cancer”.

Unsubscribe.

I agree completely, if you dislike link blogs, unsubscribe. Simple as that.

Microsoft Finally Gets a New Logo

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While it may not be as good as this student’s Microsoft rebranding, it is still good to see Microsoft moving in the right direction again. Unfortunately, this update seems to reinforce Microsoft’s undying love of Windows, something which I think the company needs to rethink.

My thoughts on the 11 inch MacBook Air

tumblr_m96knjjdHa1qbdobl1I just upgraded an 11 inch MacBook Air for school (from a white MacBook 4,1) and wanted to share some of my thoughts. To start, I was not completely sure the 11 inch was for me, I thought the screen would be too small, and it wouldn’t pose much of a difference from my 9.7 inch iPad. To worsen my fears, Alex Arena mentioned on episode 1 of A Good Mac Show that he had an 11 inch Air and he felt that it was too small for him.

Still, I got one, and I can now say that the 11 inch Air is actually a very good size and the small size of the screen is not limiting, Safari being the only app that I feel has to be run as a full screen app. All the apps I use shrink down very well to the smallest of Apple’s notebook displays. In fact, I have gotten so used to the 11 inch size that my old 13 inch MacBook’s size feels excessive.

In short, I look forward to spending more time with the Air, and I will continue to tweet my thoughts.

Changes to the Twitter API

Nearly eighteen months ago, we gave developers guidance that they should not build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” And to reiterate what I wrote in my last post, that guidance continues to apply today.

More ominous words from Twitter, but it doesn’t seem to be the end of the world for third-party clients.

Twitter is also limiting the number of users a client on their platform can have, saying:

… you will need our permission if your application will require more than 100,000 individual user tokens.

We will not be shutting down client applications that use those endpoints and are currently over those token limits. If your application already has more than 100,000 individual user tokens, you’ll be able to maintain and add new users to your application until you reach 200% of your current user token count (as of today) — as long as you comply with our Rules of the Road. Once you reach 200% of your current user token count, you’ll be able to maintain your application to serve your users, but you will not be able to add additional users without our permission.

This could be a huge challenge to new Twitter clients and rapidly growing clients, depending on how strict Twitter is about giving permission to developers to authorize more users to use their app.

Ten Days Without Internet

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Ten days, nine people

I have spent these previous ten days camping and canoeing in the Canadian wilderness in Ontario. Attempting to put aside thoughts about the “outside world,” I spent my time thinking about deeper human issues while observing the surrounding beautiful scenery. I would like to say that the experience was therapeutic, that I felt like the events in the United States and elsewhere didn’t matter and I lived in the moment, however that was not the case. Not only was I without Internet, but I was without any form of news. Any therapeutic effect that could have been present was almost fully replaced by wondering what was occurring in the rest of the world. The people I was traveling with hypothesized about the worst possible thing that could occur while we were away from the world we had left. It was like a game. Imaginary news stories covering disasters at the London Olympics to family tragedies that we would be completely unaware of until we returned to the United States. We live in a culture where we are never or rarely far from some source of information and being taken away from it is routine breaking (which for me is quite painful.) I missed other things as well, cold cereal, Starbucks, a real bed, and other comforts of our modern life, but being away from the news of the outside world was certainly the most uncomfortable change of all. I found the trip very pleasurable overall, but the lack of information from the world beyond my campsite finally gave meaning to the term, “information age.” By the time I return home tomorrow, and order a Venti White Chocolate Mocha Frappecino my hunger will be satisfied, not by food, but by information.