What is iCloud Sync?

With Tweetbot v2.2 or later, your mute filters and direct message read/unread status will be synced across all instances of Tweetbot. So if you mute someone on your iPhone, they will also be muted on your iPad. The same goes for direct messages. Read a DM in one place and it will be marked as read on your other devices.

Another feature of iCloud sync is keeping your timeline position in sync across your devices. This allows you to pick up where you left off reading in your timeline when going between them. In the past we’ve had Tweetmarker support which is a free third party service that allowed you to sync your timeline with any twitter client that supported this service. Tweetmarker is still an option for those who need it, however for everyone else, syncing your read position via iCloud is enabled by default. While it sometimes takes up to 30 seconds to sync, it works brilliantly.

What is the blue bookmark icon for?

This icon shows you the tweet that has been bookmarked as the last read position. However since this icon has confused so many people, we have removed it and will no longer show in Tweetbot v2.3.

I can’t get iCloud Sync to work at all. Help?

For most it should just work. But some of you might have altered the default configuration of Tweetbot and iCloud which prevent this feature to work properly. Here are a few steps to take:

• In the iOS settings, go to iCloud and make sure you are logged into the service (with the same iCloud account on both devices)
• In the iOS settings, go to iCloud and make sure “Documents & Data” are enabled. If “Use Cellular” is turned off, iCloud Sync may not work if you are not on a wifi network.
• In Tweetbot, go to your Settings -> Username (under Account Settings) -> Sync and make sure iCloud is selected on both devices for the same account
• If it’s still not working, try rebooting your device. The next step would be to try re-installing Tweetbot.

If you are still having issues, there’s not much more we can say to help besides asking you to try going through these steps again. We don’t have any access to iCloud itself so it’s hard to troubleshoot the issue any further.

Now this isn’t a particularly big deal for us since we already had code in place, for Tweetbot 2.3, that removes the need for UDID. It was a simple matter of moving that code back into 2.2 and re-submitting to Apple. We had a fixed version updated and uploaded to Apple within 2 hours of getting this message and are once again waiting for approval. If you are an app developer and depend on UDID for any functionality it’s time to migrate away from it, sooner or later Apple will catch you.

Why did we use UDIDs? We used them only for our push notification services in order to be able to match up a given device to its push notification settings. This allowed us to restore push notifications settings after Tweetbot was deleted and re-installed. With this new change in place this is no longer possible, if you delete and re-install Tweetbot you’ll have to setup your push notification settings again. Your device’s UDID never went anywhere besides our push notification services and has never been shared with anyone.

• iPad graphics optimized for the new iPad’s retina display
• Streaming (when on WiFi with settings to disable it)
• The “new tweets” sound is now limited to mentions, DM’s, and new tweets via pull-to-refresh
• Double-tapping on the timeline tab button takes you to last read tweet before going to the top
• Improvements to the Tweetmarker service
• Camera+ 3.0 Capturing/Editing Support
• Bug fixes related to direct messages
• Many other bug fixes

Tweetbot for iPad is now version 2.1

Since we plan to release updates to both the iPhone and iPad apps in parity, we decided to bump the iPad version up to 2.1. Both apps share a lot of underlying code so it only makes sense that their version numbers are in sync.

Streaming

We are excited to announce streaming in Tweetbot for the iPhone and iPad. What is streaming you ask? Instead of pull-to-refresh to check for new tweets or waiting for the 5 minute auto-refresh to take place, tweets appear instantly in your timeline as they are published.

There are a few limitations to streaming which Twitter has put in place:

• Streaming only works over WiFi. Tweetbot will automatically turn streaming on and off depending on your network status.
• Streaming is limited to running on three versions of Tweetbot at a given time per user account.

iPad version ready for Retina

Tweetbot 2.1 for the iPad is now retina-ready for the upcoming new iPad. Just like you, we can’t wait to see how Tweetbot will look on the new retina display.

New Camera+ 3.0 Support

With the release of Taptaptap’s Camera+ 3.0, you can now use Cam+ to edit or take photos for Tweetbot. If you have Cam+ 3.0 installed on your device, there will be new options when you are in the menu to add an image to a tweet.

Fixed:
* DMs not working for iOS 4.x devices.
* Lists losing their positions.
* TweetMarker not working properly.
* Arabic, Thai, possibly other keyboards not functioning correctly.
* Video upload settings lost on restart.

We have no control over how fast Apple approves the update, but we’re hoping that it’ll be sometime late next week.

As with the original Tweetbot for iPhone, version 1.0 is about getting you a solid first version. We still have a lot of work ahead of us so we appreciate your support! We have a lot of great stuff coming in the pipeline.

We are anticipating some of you wondering why the app is not universal so let me briefly explain. As you know, releasing quality software takes a lot of time. We anticipated working on the iPad version for around 3 months. It turned out to be over 6. We love what we do, but the bottom line is Tapbots is a business and the end goal is for us to make a living. We are just 2 guys at this company both with a family/kids to take care of. We also think charging $3 for each version is fair considering most of the other universal twitter apps charge more. If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad, you aren’t stuck paying more for a universal version.

So that’s about it! We hope you enjoy the new app and we will be working hard on bringing you improvements. Buy Tweetbot for the iPad here!

So What’s New?

This version comes with many significant improvements to the Timeline and Direct Messages. Here are the major changes in more detail:

• Updated timeline view
  • Image thumbnails in timeline
  • Links now colored and single-tappable
  • “Retweeted by” bar now integrated and tappable
  • Cell colors adjusted for better contrast
• New direct message view.
• Redesigned “New Tweets” bar (Can be dismissed by tap and configured in Settings > Display)
• Timed auto-refresh (timeline, mentions, and DM’s will refresh every 5 minutes)
• Readability added as mobilizer service
• Much improved tweet replies view
• Links in user’s bio now tappable
• “Huge” font size option in Settings > Display
• Improved scrolling performance

• t.co url shortening support
• Mute filters
• Ability to email single direct messages
• Support for international hashtags
• Bug fixes

Twitter’s Native URL Shortening Service

If you’ve used any of Twitter’s native applications, you may or may not have noticed that URLs are shortened to a t.co domain name. This is Twitter’s URL shortening service. Starting with Tweetbot 1.5, this will be the default shortening service. We’ve also disabled all the other URL shortening services with the exception of bit.ly Pro, CloudApp, and the Custom option.

Why are we doing this? 1) Twitter now automatically shortens all URLs that are at least 19 characters long, even if your link has already been shortened. 2) Twitter’s shortening service shows the real URL in your timeline so you will know which website you’ll be visiting before tapping on it. This is a very good thing. 3) Twitter’s service is faster than a stand alone URL shortener, you’ll be able to post your Tweet’s without waiting for each to link to be shortened. There’s no good reason to use a stand alone URL shortener, other than for tracking purposes.

Mute Filters

This is probably our most requested feature, but I’m sure it will be replaced by something else. :) Mute filters are pretty simple. If you don’t want to see someone’s posts (or hashtag) in your timeline, just hold down on a person’s avatar (or hashtag) and select the “Mute” option. You’ll be able to select a duration of time that you don’t want to see tweets from them or with that hashtag. You can choose from 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or forever. You can manage mute filters in one of the last 2 customizable tab buttons.

Users will have no idea that you have muted them so if you feel bad about unfollowing people, this is a great alternative (although your filters are only used in Tweetbot).

There’s a few caveats to keep in mind. 1) Mute filters only work on your main timeline. They won’t work in lists. 2) If a muted person mentions or DM’s you, you will receive those.

That’s it for now. We are also hard at work on 1.6 and think many of you will be really happy with it as well. :)

• Added sleep time for push notifications (notification quiet hours)
• Option to receive push mentions only from people you follow
• When emailing a link, the subject is the page title if sent from a web view
• Blocking/Reporting for spam now deletes associated tweets from the timeline

State of Push Notifications

For those who still don’t know yet, push notifications have been opened up to everyone. We also want to let you know that push notifications have been running flawlessly on our server so we plan to keep this service free for our users.

Push Hiccups

Tapbots push notification system depends on Twitter’s Site Stream product. Twitter considers this a beta product and while we’ve found it to be very stable there are going to be hiccups along the way. Over the last few days we’ve experienced some issues with the Site Streams server going down and when this happens, push notifications will stop working. When their servers comes back up you may receive a number of notifications as our system tries to catch up on messages it may have missed while the streams were down.

We are also aware that some of you are still not receiving notifications. Make sure you’ve tried everything we’ve posted in our Tweetbot Q & A. If you are getting all notifications except for DM’s, let us know on our @tweetbot account. We are working closely with Twitter to iron out any remaining bugs. We appreciate everyone’s patience on this.

What’s Next

We are hard at work on v1.5 and will be bringing a new feature that has been highly requested. And no, it’s not twitlonger or an iPad version. :)

How do I access push notifications?

The push service works in Tweetbot 1.4.1 or later. To turn them on, go to the Tweetbot Settings (within the app). You should see a section called Account Settings with your account username. That’s where more settings exist specific for each of your accounts. Within that menu is the Push Notifications settings. Flipping one of the switches turns on the push service.

If you get a message saying you can’t access push, that means our beta slots are full and you have to try again later. If you get some sort of APS error message, that means you are still running 1.4 and need to update to 1.4.1.

I turned on push notifications, but I’m not getting anything.

• Make sure the push notification switches are turned on in our app
• Make sure you have notifications enabled for Tweetbot in the iOS system settings
• Try restarting your device

If you are still having issues, It’s probably a network issue of some sort.

Why does the app crash when I get a notification in-app?

You device is probably jailbroken and you are running some system hack/app that is causing tweetbot to crash. One that has been known to cause the crash is Mobile Notifier.

Where are the notification badges?

These are available in 1.4.2 or later. If you don’t see them, make sure you have the latest update. If they still aren’t working, be sure to check your iOS notification settings for Tweetbot. There’s a toggle for badges there.

What about options like muting push during certain times and only pushing mentions from people I follow?

These are also tasks that we will look into later. Remember this is an early beta and we just want to make sure everything is running smoothly before we get into the finer details.

Can I change the notification sound?

No, the sounds we are using are also used within our app. We want to keep sounds consistent so they are instantly recognizable.

Questions about push in iOS 5.

iOS 5 is under NDA and we aren’t allowed to talk about it yet.

So is this service going to cost us money in the future?

Hopefully not, but we don’t have an answer for this right now. Our goal is to provide this service for free to our users, but servers and bandwidth costs money. We will see how things go over the next month or two and have a better idea of how much this service costs us.

The push service isn’t working in 1.4. Provisioning profile issues. Human error. We are truly sorry. We submitted a new build with a fix that will work. We’ve politely asked Apple to expedite the process so hopefully the wait won’t be too long. But don’t feel too upset about this because the service was limited to 1000 people for launch anyways (read why here). Unless you downloaded it as soon as it was available, you probably wouldn’t have gotten access (at least not right away).

The Good News:

The good news is you’ll get another chance to get access when the update is out. :) Lets hope the approval process is quick. Yay?

But in all seriousness, we are truly sorry for the bad news. We know many of you have been waiting for this feature. But it’s still coming and soon enough everyone will be happy. Thanks for your patience and understanding that there’s always issues that come up when humans are involved in building things.