![]() Twitter’s own Vine app doesn’t appear here until #34 and some would argue it should be result #2, and rightfully so. Why? Why games appear on this list at all is a mystery, they are by far the least relevant and don’t even get me started on #18 “Alarm Clock HD” and #93 “Jedi Lightsaber” (really?). This is especially true of apps that are not optimized for iOS 8, yet some apps built for iOS 6 (not iOS 7, 6!) come first. Where’s Twitterrific? Although it contains the word “Twitter” in the app’s name, Twitterrific isn’t seen in the list until you scroll all the way down to #100.Įvery app in bold on this list should precede every other app (save the official client) in the results. Even the mega-popular Tweetbot isn’t returned in the results until position #81 and even then, the older v2 of Tweetbot (for iOS 6) comes first. The official app from Twitter is naturally the first result, but the next actual Twitter client (Hootsuite) doesn’t appear on the list until #20 and the next one after that comes in at #62. Everything else is either a game, a utility, or some other social network enhancement. To make the list easier to parse, I’ve called out all apps that allow a user to directly read AND post to Twitter in bold. The following list was generated by a manual App Store (iPhone) search on Nov 15th, 2014 for the term “Twitter”. ![]() ![]() This despite Apple’s search results, which bear little resemblance to what a typical user might expect when searching for a simple, straightforward term like “Twitter” on the App Store. Despite many 3rd party Twitter apps going the way of the dodo, Twitterrific, Tweetbot and a few other hearty Twitter clients have survived and sometimes even thrived. Twitterrific was there at the launch of the App Store and the latest iteration, version 5, is available even today, seven years later. Take Twitterrific, the 3rd party Twitter client that my company, The Iconfactory, created back in 2007 and released on the App Store in 2008. Developers have known for years that searching for something in particular doesn’t always yield the results you’d expect, but often it’s downright ridiculous. The App Store now has over 1.2 million apps available to consumers and with such a wide range of products, it’s more important than ever people are able to quickly find and what they are looking for. If customers can’t easily discover and download your software, your app (and indeed your business) has little chance of survival. For small developers like myself, a potential customer’s ability to find your app on the App Store is critical. One of the key areas many agree is the biggest problem Apple has yet to correctly address is discovery. Areas like interactive reviews, trial periods, an App Store VP and paid upgrades are all important. ![]() Much has been made over the years about how the App Store could be improved for both developers and customers. Aaron has some additional nice features planned for the future as well so if animated GIFs are your bag, baby head on over to the App Store and snap it up for just $14, a steal despite its name! □ Not only that, but the app also lets you save your favorite GIF’s for future quick reference, supports macOS Dark Mode and even can be used in the Mac Menu bar so it stays out of your way just until you need it. GIPHY makes it notoriously difficult to grab the actual animated GIF file from their site but with Hard G that issue falls like animated rain over David Tennant’s face as it washes down the drain forever. So what’s the problem Aaron has solved? The ability to quickly search AND effortlessly drag and drop them wherever you need. Powered by the GIPHY API, Hard G is a light-weight app that lets you quickly search for animated GIFs to use in social media posts, emails and other apps like iMessage. Despite it having the worst possible name a GIF app could have, Hard G is a helpful utility to make using animated GIFs on the Mac desktop the joy they were designed to be. My friend and fellow developer Aaron Vegh has done just that with his new app for macOS – Hard G. I’m a firm believer that if you want to write meaningful software, find a problem people have and solve it. ![]()
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