Article
Yesterday I launched Hahlo 4.1 and one of the changes was the switch from to old-style ‘RT’ retweets over to the new twitter retweet api. Unfortunately this seems to have upset a few people, not necessarily because I’ve added support for the new api but because I chose not to maintain the old-style RTs as well. This is a tale of why.
Yesterday I launched Hahlo 4.1 and one of the changes was the switch from to old-style ‘RT’ retweets over to the new twitter retweet api. Unfortunately this seems to have upset a few people, not necessarily because I’ve added support for the new api but because I chose not to maintain the old-style RTs as well. This is a tale of why.
Keep in mind this falls into the category of “people can use twitter however the hell they want”, you’re allowed to disagree, just don’t be a knob about it.
The Hahlo side of the things
Hahlo is about moving forward, not backwards, if I were not interested in keeping up with the new feature additions to twitter (and the api) then Hahlo probably wouldn’t still be in active development. Also maintaining two different methods for retweeting means more work on my side making sure they both continue working, having an ‘RT’ button which performs different functions for different people is not only illogical, but would very quickly become a pain to support. Also, please remember I don’t get paid anything to work on or support Hahlo, I do that because I’m a nice guy.
The twitter side of things
Those who’ve used Hahlo will see that I’ve tried to match the same ‘flow’ as on twitter.com. For example, you click ‘retweet’ and you’re asked to confirm that you’d like to retweet this tweet to your followers. Not everyone likes the new-style retweets, but then not everyone like change. But changes happens, deal with it.
Evan Williams wrote a great post on why retweets work the way that they work on twitter.com, if you haven’t read it I strongly suggest you do.
The “retweets annoy me” side of things
There is a reason I never added retweets to Hahlo prior to version 4, I don’t (or didn’t to be more precise) like them. And then when I did add them, I also added an ‘hide all retweets’ option. This is why, and if you disagree (likely) I’d like to hear (constructively) why that is. Lets try a common example to illustrate my point.
» Continue reading “To retweet or not to retweet”
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Hahlo 4.1 is here, and its *totally awesome* Hit the link to read the full post on the Hahlo blog detailing the new and improved features in 4.1including lists, retweets and geolocation amongst other things.
Link
iPhone Web Apps as an Alternative to the App Store Woot, mentioned by name in a daring fireball article, very nice indeed. Gruber makes some good points about why web apps can’t really compete with native apps, and I agree with most of his points, except maybe this one:
Not only are native iPhone apps faster and more capable than their web-app equivalents, but they’re easier to write.
Faster? Yes. More apable? Yes. Easier to write? Unless you know objective-c/cocoa/etc no, not really. if it was that ‘easy’ Hahlo would have stopped being a webapp long ago.
Also on the speed issue, yes the interfaces on a native app are going to be smoother and faster to use than webapps, but in the case of something like a twitter app a lot of that ‘speed’ has to do with the retrieving of the data from the twitter api. There is only one api and both webapps and native apps use it, they both request the same data, from the same source, over the same connection. They have to download the same avatars (poorly resized avatars don’t help download speeds…) etc. this isn’t where the speed issue lies. For example once you’re using Hahlo and all the main UI resources have loaded, your not really requesting much more data than a native app when you view a new timeline, profile, search results etc.
Also, how many native iPhone apps can also be used on Android devices and other devices such as the Nokia N900? Just saying ;p
Sidenote
It feels like I’ve been working on it forever (since early December 2008 in fact), but I’ve finally released it into the wild, just head over to http://hahlo.com. There a still a few more things I’m going to add/tweak, but I’m going to take a little bit of a break first and sort out some other things… like that update to Fluency Admin that I “promised” months ago.
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Hahlo blog is live Needed somewhere where I could both centralise my Hahlo info, and post updates longer than 140 characters. Solution (another) WordPress blog and half a day to build a theme.
Article
Yes, there is a new version in the works, and its going to be great. Below are just 10 new or exciting things about Hahlo 4 that I’d like to share even though the release is still a while away. The overall goal is keep Hahlo where it belongs the premier iPhone optimised Twitter webapp. Plus version 3 has been around about 9 months so its due for a refresh.
1. Its all new and shiny.
I’ve started from scratch, part of the reason its taking a while to complete, the existing Hahlo 3 code has been added to and modified so many times that its become unmanageable so it was back to the drawing board with some early advice and guidance from Neil around better ways to structure my code. The new system allows for things to be added/removed/changed easily across the whole site without having to modify a dozen files. It should also make thing more consistent site-wide.
The backend is all new, and so is the front end. It still has the same feel that your used to but its been refreshed and has several great additions which I’m sure you’ll all love.
2. Extra level of navigation.
On most screens you’ll get a row of quick access navigation options, as shown in the screenshot below, these allow you to quickly switch between related pages. for example when view a users profile, you have quick access to the timeline, their favorited tweets, and a one click twitter search on their username.
» Continue reading “10 things you should know about Hahlo 4”
Sidenote
Hahlo finished on top after the nominations closed, so now its time to get your vote in to make sure we finish as high as possible in the voting (hopefully on top again). You can easily vote by visiting http://shortyawards.com/category/apps, Hahlo is currently trailing by quite a few votes, but there is still plenty of time to catch up, don’t wait, vote early. And remember everyone who votes (and those who nominated too) will get exclusive access to the Hahlo 4 beta when it becomes available (still in development at the moment). Thanks.
Sidenote
Do you use Hahlo? like Hahlo? love Hahlo? why not nom-nom-nom-inate it for the Shorty Awards. Just click here.
Article
Its been an exciting month since the release of Hahlo 3, my analytics show that usage has increased approximately 300% since launch (wow), Twitter has been up and down and now looks like it getting back in order after the troubles of a week or so ago, and Summize have added some fancy new features […]
Its been an exciting month since the release of Hahlo 3, my analytics show that usage has increased approximately 300% since launch (wow), Twitter has been up and down and now looks like it getting back in order after the troubles of a week or so ago, and Summize have added some fancy new features to their service and api…
More powerful search
The addition of the Summize.com powered search function in Hahlo 3 has been a huge hit. For those of you who also visited the Summize site, you probably had a play around with their “Advanced Search”. Now in Hahlo 3.1 you can also do these same “advanced” searches with ease, to try it out just tap the “Advanced” button, in the menu just below the standard search box.
“Near Me” and location based searches
In the time since Hahlo 3 was launched, Summize have also bee adding to their own API, one of the big updates was the inclusion location data for each tweet, and the ability to search based on those locations.
» Continue reading “Hahlo 3.1 – Now with even better searching”
