Joel Housman

Front-end Web Developer, iOS Developer, Man About Internet

Posts from the “Software” Category

Tweetbot 2.3 Released

Posted on April 30th, 2012

Tweetbot is out and contains a ton of new features and improvements. Federico Viticci over at Mac Stories has a fantastic comprehensive review of the new version, but this particular feature caught my attention as I’ve wanted it for a long time: Last, some minor touches in version 2.3 will contribute to improving usability and to allowing users customize their timelines to their needs and tastes: retweets from specific users can now be disabled at any time, and it’s possible to quickly open the last saved draft by holding down the tweet compose button. The timeline sync bookmark icon is now an optional setting, and Tweetbot is capable of uploading high-res images when on WiFi. So now those brief acquaintances of mine who I…

How To Install Instagram On Your Android Phone In 23 Easy Steps

Posted on April 4th, 2012

Sarah Pavis, at Buzzfeed: Step 3. Try to download Instagram from the Google Play app. Find that it is compatible with anything at or above 2.2 (Froyo, 2 major releases behind current). If you have an older Android phone like the HTC Nexus One (not to be confused with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus or the HTC One) that has limited internal memory then odds are you many not have enough internal storage space available because the Instagram app is 16MB (which is large for an Android app). Comically sad.

Technology & Related Concepts That Need To Die

Posted on March 26th, 2012

Joel’s Technology Hit List Monday Morning Rant, 26 March, 2012 Skeumorphism in design Adobe Flash Adobe Air The concept of “write once, deploy everywhere” code (web standards being the exception, of course) QR codes Comic Sans and Marker Felt WPTouch WordPress plugin. Just don’t. Websites serving up a “get our app!” splash page to iOS users prior to serving the requested page Websites refusing to serve page requests and insisting you get their app Websites who serve up a mobile version, but when you switch to the “full version” it forwards you to the homepage Websites serving up mobile versions only to iPads Using Powerpoint to make documents that should have been made in Word/Pages/Plain Text. Using Powerpoint to send images as if it…

Mozilla: Firefox Needs H.264 Support To Survive Shift To Mobile

Posted on March 20th, 2012

Ryan Paul, at Ars Technica: One year later, Google still hasn’t followed through with that commitment. Mozilla says that it can no longer afford to wait for Google to do what it has promised. In his blog post, Eich explained that H.264 has become too deeply entrenched in the mobile space to be easily displaced and that browsers that don’t support it are jeopardizing their own future relevance. “H.264 is absolutely required right now to compete on mobile. I do not believe that we can reject H.264 content in Firefox on Android or in B2G and survive the shift to mobile,” he wrote. “Losing a battle is a bitter experience. I won’t sugar-coat this pill. But we must swallow it if we are to…

Tweetbot Gets Streaming in 2.1

Posted on March 13th, 2012

The Tapbots Blog: We are excited to announce the release of Tweetbot 2.1. As of this post, the iPhone version is still waiting for review in the App Store queue, but the iPad version has been approved and here’s what’s new: 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 Loving the update so far. Can’t wait for the desktop client to be released.…

iOS Address Book Access Should Prompt The User For Permission

Posted on February 9th, 2012

Marco Arment has chimed in, from a developers perspective, on the subject of Path’s using Address Book data without asking the user permission first: When implementing these features, I felt like iOS had given me far too much access to Address Book without forcing a user prompt. It felt a bit dirty. Even though I was only accessing the data when a customer explicitly asked me to, I wanted to look at only what I needed to and get out of there as quickly as possible. I never even considered storing the data server-side or looking at more than I needed to. This, apparently, is not a common implementation courtesy.

iPhone Address Book Privacy

Posted on February 9th, 2012

Jason Kottke: 13 out of 15! Zuckerberg’s cell phone number! Maybe I’m being old-fashioned here, but this seems unequivocally wrong. Any app, from Angry Birds to Fart App 3000, can just grab the information in your address book without asking? Hell. No. And Curtis is right in calling Apple out about this…apps should not have access to address book information without explicitly asking. But now that the horse is out of the barn, this “quiet understanding” needs to be met with some noisy investigation. What happened to Path needs to happen to all the other apps that are storing our data. There’s an opportunity here for some enterprising data journalist to follow Thampi’s lead: investigate what other apps are grabbing address book data and…

Greed and Entitlements

Posted on February 9th, 2012

Federico Viticci, writing for Macstories: More importantly, I’m baffled when I see people really getting angry because of a standalone app that was always meant to be that way. So here’s a tip for these people: next time you’re about to send a tweet to a developer, claiming that he promised a free and universal update and he’s now “stealing your money”, do your homework. Because if I can’t argue on economics, I sure think I’m pretty good at Google Search, which brought me to this page (screenshot). If I hear anyone complaining about paying $2.99 for Tweetbot for iPad, then we can’t be friends anymore.