Is this Twitter’s secret iPhone app?
One of the notable things about the way Twitter has run its business up to now is that it has never got into the app business. New screenshots suggest that might be changing.
Twitter has always left development of everything except the core Twitter website and API up to third parties. It even bought the service’s search technology in from a third party.
Now developer Jesse Stay, the man behind Social Too, has spotted what looks like an iPhone app used internally by Twitter.
With the new geolocation feature being tested internally and the new version of Seesmic Desktop featuring the ability to read location from tweets that use it, how is Twitter generating location tags for its test tweets? From the looks of the screenshots Stay has uncovered, by using a secret iPhone app.
Now, we’re not suggesting that Twitter is about annoy its third party developer community by launching its own iPhone app. Given its bare-bones look this is probably noting more than a test app for adding geolocation data to tweets.
Still, it’s fascinating to have a look ‘behind the curtain’ at the development process behind one of the decade’s biggest web success stories.
Larger screenshot below:
Martin Bryant is based in Manchester, UK. A co-founder of the city's monthly Social Media Cafe events and award-winning blogger, he is Digital Content Editor for Marketing Manchester. His main interests are developments in the social web that relate to the mobile and music industries. Twitter, Blog, FriendFeed
lol, it had problems supporting the text service
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
Interesting. twitter will die in a few years though (just like Facebook)
At best its a proof-of-concept mockup; its certainly not a screenshot from an iPhone app. The button position on the top bar is off, and the letters on the keyboard aren’t correct either.
Interesting observations Luke. I was thinking it was an internal testing app rather than something Twitter was planning to release to the public. After all, they’ll need to have some way of testing tweet geotags.
Martin, I wouldn’t call Twitter of the decade’s biggest web success stories… yet. I would call them like that once they’ve started to earn some money and actually make stable profit.
Twitter certainly isn’t a financial success yet but money isn’t the only measure of success. In terms of impact on the way we communicate online it’s had a huge effect.
La communication tout comme la construction de réseaux sur Internet reposent sur les mêmes fondements qu’IRL : de l’honnêteté et de l’humanité, préalables indispensables à toute conversation. Le contraire de l’automatisation donc. Erreur de débutant. Que font beaucoup de personnes qui se disent pourtant calées en advertising et en PR. Arriviste ou opportuniste ?
Heureusement désormais les listes sont là pour permettre aux gens pressés de rectifier le tir.
This comment was originally posted on [Naro] Minded
Opportuniste, certainement. J’ai tendance à essayer pas mal de services quand je tombe dessus. Ca permet de faire certaines erreurs avant que de les (dé)conseiller.
Arriviste, je ne sais pas, en tout cas j’espère bien y arriver
This comment was originally posted on [Naro] Minded
[...] http://thenextweb.com/appetite.....phone-app/ [...]
It makes me think of the new Twitter Peek.
[...] thought themselves fairly secure had to be developing clients for smartphones like the iPhone but if what Martin Bryant at The Next Web has found out not even that may be as safe as it [...]
[...] thought themselves fairly secure had to be developing clients for smartphones like the iPhone but if what Martin Bryant at The Next Web has found out not even that may be as safe as it [...]
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