IVAN SOTO

It's been a few days since I released the very first version of Twit2go (and my first non-web application) and I'm very happy to see that people is actually enjoying my app. The feedback provided by users is what really drives to continue building any kind of free software and so far I'm getting some really good ideas and users are actually reporting issues. On the Android Market I'm getting a rating of 3.56/5 which is very good considering all people with broken phones blaming developers, hehe (And the fact that it's my first app). It's not that what they say is not valid but I can't give any kind of support to comments like "Your app crashed everything on my phone, uninstalled" - 1 Star And that's something the Android Market suffers a lot. I don't think this application is the best twitter client out there, nor the best application for Android, but one thing I'm very proud of is I'm getting good feedback from people that actually like the app feels native and made for Android, and that's one thing I actually don't like from a lot of applications for Android devices, they try to mimic some other interface. Android menu system was designed so users have to push the Menu button to access options. The iPhone can't do that because only has one button, the upcoming Palm Pre has a top-left virtual button that serves as a menu. So why would I have to mimic the iPhone and ignore the menu button? Using native UI elements will make the application improve together with the OS. Same with icons, I tried to design icons in the same way that the OS shows them. For this app I had to create some icons like Refresh, Replies and DMs. So far a lot of users are loving the fact that the application feels native and performs very well.

So what comes in the future?

I had some key goals when I started with this application (and with Android)

• Learn Java
• Learn the Android SDK
• Create a simple and fast Twitter client (not bloated with graphics and options)
• Let the user browse Twitter very deeply, listing #hashtags, listing individual users tweets, etc.

I think for now I have accomplished most some of them but I really want to improve things here with:

• Having a friends list
• Groups
• A better search.twitter.com interface
• Make it to perform way faster!

You can see an unofficial web version of the Android Market and read the comments on Cyrket. You can also visit the official site and check the feedback from users.