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Twitter is a social networking site that was created in 2006. Users send "tweets" to let people know what they are doing. It was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams.

Twitter accused of hypocrisy over Trump tweets

Twitter is a social networking site that was created in 2006. Users send “tweets” to let people know what they are doing. It was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. Prior to building the service, they were working on a podcast directory called Odeo.

Odeo was a directory and search destination website for RSS-syndicated audio and video. It employed tools that enabled users to create, record, and share podcasts with a simple Adobe Flash-based interface.

When iTunes 4.9 was released, it ultimately made Odeo irrelevant. The people behind the company went on to create a service called Twttr. Twttr would eventually be called Twitter. iTunes 4.9, believe it or not, ultimately led to the creation of one of the most popular social networks in the world.

The major turning point for service’s popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive conference. Over the next few years, Twitter began to see rapid growth. For mobile devices, it originally relied upon third-party apps. In 2010, Twitter acquired application developer Atebits. Atebits had built the Twitter app known as Tweetie for the Mac and iPhone. It was renamed as Twitter and released for free.

Over the years, the apps have seen various revisions. There are currently versions available for iOS while desktop users must either use the web interface or a third party app like Tweetbot or Twitterrific.

iOS 8.4 to be released 8 AM PT on Tuesday, iTunes Match song limit will increase to 100,000 with iOS 9

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Apple directors have been somewhat talkative over the weekend about the imminent release of Apple Music. Former Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers, who now works as a Senior Director of Apple Music, blogged about the product’s launch. He reminisces on the history of digital music and radio saying that seeing Apple Music on stage at WWDC ‘it was hard not to feel like the last 20+ years was leading to this day’.

Interestingly, Apple will be releasing iOS 8.4 at 8 AM on June 30th which includes the newly revamped Music app to support Apple Music. This is slightly earlier than the usual 10 AM release window. The change in scheduling seems to be in service of Beats 1, Apple’s worldwide radio station, which will start streaming from 9 AM on the same day.

Meanwhile, Eddy Cue has also been leaking some tidbits about Apple Music on Twitter …


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Twitter is preparing to curate news in its iPhone app with Project Lightning

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Buzzfeed render of upcoming Lightning feature

Just as Apple is preparing to enter the news curation space with its News app in iOS 9 and Facebook has launched native news content with Instant Articles, Twitter appears to be working on its own news product for its mobile app. Buzzfeed’s Mat Honan reports that Twitter is currently developing a news-focused feature for its app under the name Project Lightning (no, not Apple’s connector) that will make it possible to follow events in your timeline rather than only following Twitter users sharing about the event. A staff of human editors, not unlike Apple’s approach with News, will collect tweets with videos, photos, and relevant information to create these Lightning stories…
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Twitter is adding autoplay to GIFs, Vines, and native videos on iOS

Twitter is turning on automatic playback for certain types of media in your timeline through an update to its iOS app and its website, the social network announced.

Starting today, users will notice that native videos, GIFs, and Vines all autoplay directly in the timeline when browsing Twitter without the need to tap or click to initiate playback. Sound playback for native videos and Vines will still require tapping or clicking to play to avoid hijacking the experience. Users can also initiate full playback by rotating the iPhone to landscape mode when viewing an autoplay video.
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Review: Tweetbot for Mac 2.0 brings a Yosemite-style coat of paint, convenient new features, and a price drop

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Yes, you read that headline right. The long-awaited Yosemite update for Tweetbot is finally here. The application has been rebuilt with a new look and updated controls for several features that make things like creating columns and tracking down the tweet associated with an image much easier.

The main attraction for most users will be the new design, so let’s take a look at that in a bit more detail first…


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Periscope for iPhone now lets you find streams by location

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Twitter’s live video streaming app Periscope is out with a big update today adding a key promised feature. Periscope for iPhone version 1.1 now lets you find live streams around the world based on location using a new map view from the global tab. This lets you jump into streams going on around you or watch something interesting happening on the other side of the world. In addition to adding the new maps view, Periscope has been localized in 29 more languages:
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Review: Dotti & Notti, fun (if pointless) ways to receive notifications

My conclusion in my Skeptic’s Apple Watch diary series was that the device didn’t really have a unique selling-point to me, but was a slightly more convenient way to receive notifications. Ultimately, though, I kept it because it was a cool gadget.

The same argument, I think, would have to be deployed to justify what are really a couple of fun toys that happen to alert you to notifications: Dotti and Notti … 
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Google adds real-time tweets to mobile web and iOS app search results

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Following up on Google’s agreement with Twitter to instantly add tweets to web search results, the duo announced today that users on mobile devices will start seeing real-time Twitter results as well. The feature is available in the Google app on iOS or Google’s mobile website, and is expected to make its way to the desktop soon.


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President Obama borrows iPhone for first tweet, avoiding BlackBerry embarrassment

Last week potential Republican Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush made headlines when he was spotted wearing an Apple Watch on the still-exploring-but-definitely-running campaign trail, using the press opportunity as a chance to dish out the zinger that its health apps were better than Obamacare.

The White House has given its own endorsement of Apple today, however, as President Obama launched his own personal Twitter account (not to be confused with the OFA-ran @BarackObama account) with a tweet that originated from an iPhone.
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Periscope update adds ability to sign up without a Twitter account, new commenting features, more

Twitter this evening has updated its popular live streaming app Periscope to version 1.0.4 with a handful of new features and bug fixes. Announced in post on Medium, the update adds the ability to change your profile a picture, a feature that for some reason has not been there since launch. A variety of other new features are also included…


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Tim Cook opens account on Chinese social network Weibo during Beijing trip

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With Apple now selling more iPhones in China than in the USA, and much of Apple’s Q2 earnings call focused on the country, it’s no great surprise that Tim Cook has today opened an account on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter known as Weibo. There is, though, a certain amount of irony involved, Weibo being one of the main sources of leaked information on Apple products.

Cook is in Beijing to announce Apple’s new environmental programs in the country, the topic of his first post.

At the time of writing, the verified account already had over 300,000 followers, with almost 50,000 likes on his first post … 
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Xcode 6.3.2 GM seed with bug fixes released to developers

Apple today released the Golden Master (GM) version of the upcoming Xcode 6.3.2 to developers via the official online developer downloads center. The current version, 6.3.1, was released on the Mac App Store in late April, and Apple has not indicated when the 6.3.2 will be released on the store. Version 6.3.2 includes the full SDKs for all of Apple’s devices, and introduces bug fixes for the Swift programming language Compiler, the Playgrounds feature, Account Management, and more. The full list of fixes is available below:


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Tweetbot for iPhone update adds support for Twitter’s new ‘quote tweet’ feature

Tweetbot for iPhone was updated today with support for Twitter’s recently-introduced ‘quote tweet’ format. The update adds a new option called “standard quote” under the retweet style options. Selecting that setting will change the “quote tweet” button in the timeline so that instead of copying the body of the tweet into the compose screen, it inserts only the URL of the original post.

Linked tweets will appear as embedded media within the timeline, allowing you to quickly see text and images without tapping through to the next screen. You’ll still need to tap through the preview to the original post to watch animated GIFs or videos, however. Embedded tweets also appear as a larger preview on the tweet detail page.

For those who liked the old “quote tweet” setting in Tweetbot, you’ll find that it’s still available under a new name. Just set your “quote format” to “copy tweet.” Previously included options like “RT with comment” and “via @user” are also still available.

Tweebot for iPhone is one of the first third-party apps to integrate this feature after it was made available to developers earlier last month. You can download the 3.6 update for free if you already own the app, or for $4.99 if you haven’t purchased an earlier version of Tweetbot 3.

First look: Clear, the iOS app that vets your social media history for indiscretions

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Going for a sensitive job, or just friended your new romantic interest on Facebook, and want to make sure your drunken post from six months ago isn’t going to come back to bite you? That’s the experience Hipster co-founder Ethan Czahor had when he was hired as Jeb Bush’s chief technology officer. Journalists went digging and found some extremely embarrassing posts that led to his resignation.

He’s now put that experience to good use, though, beta-launching Clear, an app which aims to vet your social media history for offensive or insulting posts and offer you the ability to delete them (not to be confused with the to-do list app of the same name). I decided to take it for a quick spin … 
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Now you can share your Vine masterpieces with all your social networks at once

Vine has updated its iOS app to allow you to share your video loops with Vine friends, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr through a single share action. Previously you had to share to each network individually, and Tumblr was not supported.

Vine is a free download from iTunes. The app was updated last year to optimize for the iPhone 6/Plus and add a favorites function to alert you to new videos from friends whose videos you don’t want to miss.

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Twitterrific adds Apple Watch app & actionable notifications

Twitterrific today has been updated with support for the Apple Watch. The update comes on the heels of Yelp also being updated with support for Apple’s latest product. The Twitterrific update bumps the app to version 5.11 and also includes actionable notifications. You can now reply to, favorite, and retweet tweets directly from the notification.


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Twitter now supports the iPhone’s gorgeous slow-motion videos

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[tweet https://twitter.com/twitter/status/585919167833870336/]

One of the stand-out features of the iPhone 5s was the 120fps slow-motion video, and the iPhone 6/Plus took this even further, allowing silky-smooth 240fps video at 720p. Sharing that video, however, isn’t always easy: many online services don’t recognize that the video is slo-mo, and play it instead at full speed.

There are clunky workarounds, but these are no longer needed for Twitter: upload slo-mo video from your iPhone 5s, 6 or 6 Plus and it now plays at the correct speed … 
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Twitter unveils revamped ‘quote tweet’ functionality, rolling out to iPhone & web users today

Twitter this evening has announced a change to the “quote tweet” functionality of its service. With an update that’s rolling out to iPhone and web users today, using the quote tweet feature will now embed the actual tweet instead of simply quoting it as text.


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Twitter’s live streaming video app Periscope updated as it crushes Meerkat

Twitter has updated Periscope, the free iPhone app that allows anyone to stream live video to the world. Rather than display a random video stream when you open it, it now puts people you follow at the top of your feed. The update also includes a number of performance improvements and bug-fixes.

Periscope was beaten to launch by rival app Meerkat, which made a big splash at SXSW, but Twitter’s app quickly took the crown, as QZ tech editor Dan Fommer noted.

Frommer tweeted a graph comparing the number of tweets per day made from the two apps, with Meerkat’s share falling steeply as soon as Periscope launched. Within 24 hours, Periscope was approaching 50k tweets while Meerkat fell from a high of 35k to a little over 20k.

[tweet https://twitter.com/fromedome/status/582200679885905920]

Via The Verge

Twitter sharing disappears in latest iOS beta, may indicate upcoming app-based extension

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Update: An April 6, 2015 update to the app has re-enabled native sharing on iOS 8.3. It’s possible that this indicates Twitter changed something a little too early on its end, or a new 8.3 beta will introduce a change that pulls up a different extension when the app is installed.

A small change to the latest beta version of iOS may indicate a big change coming to the official Twitter application. In the pre-release version of the software that was provided to testers and developers last week, it seems the option to share content to Twitter has been removed entirely (update: if you have the latest version of the official Twitter app installed).

Not only is the Twitter icon now missing from the share sheet in first-party apps like Photos and Safari, but from all third-party apps that use the native sharing option introduced in iOS 8. The change could just be a glitch, but it more likely suggests that Apple may be removing its in-house Twitter sheet in favor of something new…


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Tweetbot for iPhone gains support for Twitter videos, improved GIF handling, and more

Tweetbot for iPhone 3.5.2 has been released today to support the native videos introduced by Twitter recently. The update allows users to play back the clips recorded and shared natively in the official Twitter app. Today’s new build also adds improvements to how the app handle’s GIFs shared using the pic.twitter.com service and fixes a variety of bugs.

The developers have also promised “exciting updates” coming to the app soon. You can get Tweetbot for iPhone for $4.99 on the iOS App Store.

What’s New in Version 3.5.2:

We’ve got some exciting updates coming up over the next few months. Stay tuned…

– Support for viewing Twitter videos
– Better support for Twitter GIFs
– Various bug fixes

Siri learns Russian, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai and Turkish for iOS 8.3 beta 2

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In addition to Wireless CarPlay, more diverse Emojis, and improved logging in for Google services, iOS 8.3 adds a major new feature: several new languages for Siri. Over three years following the initial Siri beta in 2011, iOS 8.3 adds support for the following languages in Siri: Russian, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and English for India…


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IFTTT simplifies experience with 3 new ‘DO’ apps; rebrands original app as ‘IF’

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I’m a huge fan of IFTTT, the iOS app (and web app) that allows you to do really clever things completely automatically, just by creating or downloading an ‘if this then that’ rule–which IFTTT calls a ‘recipe.’ For example, if you’d like to save a copy of a photo anytime you are tagged on Facebook, there’s a recipe for that. Want to switch on a WEMO-controlled light when the sun goes down, there’s a recipe for that too. Pretty much anything you might want to automate has an existing recipe–and if it doesn’t, you can create your own.

But while IFTTT is incredibly powerful, the developers found that some people found it so overwhelming they didn’t know where to start. The company has now addressed that by creating three cut-down apps, each of which can perform only three functions: Do Button (geared for controlling hardware), Do Camera (to automatically post, share or save photos) and Do Note (to quickly write something and save it as a note, make it a calendar entry, tweet it and so on) … 
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