High Order Blog

About a month ago we announced that we were hard at work on Twitbit for iPad. Our plan was to release that product some time in late April. In other words, right about now.

About a week after our announcement, Twitter announced their acquisition of Atebits, maker of Tweetie for the iPhone and Mac. They plan to rebrand Tweetie as Twitter for iPhone and give it away for free. They also made clear their intention to release a version for the iPad and make that available for free, too.

In light of this, we’ve reluctantly decided to stop development of Twitbit for iPad. Believe us when we say that this was not an easy decision. We’ve invested a lot of time and effort into making Twitbit the absolute best Twitter experience available on the iPad. Once it was finished, we think it would have been an exceptional iPad Twitter client.

While we don’t expect Twitter for iPad to be available for a while yet, over the long term we just don’t want to compete with a free Twitter-branded app that’s likely to be good enough for most people. A truly excellent iPad app requires too much work, and without the realistic expectation of a reasonable return on that investment, Twitbit for iPad starts to look like a pretty poor business decision.

To all of our fans who were eagerly awaiting this app, we very much appreciate your support and hope you understand our reasoning.

The good news is that this frees us up to move on to new projects. We’ve had some ideas we’ve been kicking around for a while, and we’re going to be announcing the first of those very soon. Stay tuned.

With the iPad launch only a few days away, we’ve been getting lots of questions from customers asking about our plans for the device. Hhere’s just about as much detail as we know ourselves.

Will There Be a Twitbit for iPad?

Absolutely.

Will It Be a Direct Port of Twitbit for iPhone?

No way.

Twitbit for iPhone is specifically optimized to support how people tend to use apps on a mobile phone. To quote Apple’s own iPhone developer documentation, “A typical user pulls a device out of a pocket or bag and uses it for a few seconds, or maybe a few minutes, before putting it away again.” Twitbit for iPhone is built to support this usage model.

With the iPad, not only do we have a lot more screen real-estate and some new UI goodies to play with, but the way people use the app will be completely different from how they use the iPhone version. People are going to spend a lot more time in the app, sending tweets, checking their timeline, maybe thumbing through a few of their lists or checking out the latest trends.

Not only does the iPad provide a unique platform upon which to build a compelling new user experience, but Twitter itself is rapidly adding new features to its platform. In just the last few months they’ve added geotagging and retweets, and much more is on the way.

We’re going to take full advantage of what both platforms have to offer. We’re investing a ton of effort into reimagining the entire experience for this new device. Twitbit for iPad is going to be a completely new application, designed from the ground up.

When Will It Be Available?

We’ll probably submit Twitbit for iPad to Apple within the next few weeks.

Apple gave developers the opportunity to have their apps available on day 1 of the iPad’s release, which required developers to submit their apps by March 27th. We decided against submitting by this deadline. We think it’s more important to have an app that we’re proud of and love to use and that our customers will love to use, too. We just couldn’t achieve that goal within the iPad’s release timeframe, and ultimately we chose to prioritize quality over being there on day 1.

How Much Will It Cost?

We haven’t decided on a price yet, but we do plan to charge for it separately from Twitbit for iPhone. We intend to build a fantastic app with a phenomenal user experience. We’re confident our customers will think it’s worth the price.

Will There Be a Lite Version?

Probably. We made Twitbit Lite because Apple doesn’t provide any ability for users to try apps before they buy. We wanted to give potential customers a way to download and test out the software before they hand over their hard-earned cash.

There’s less risk when buying iPhone apps before using them because they’re typically so cheap that it doesn’t really matter if the purchase is a bust. If I spend $2.99 on an app I don’t like, it’s not a big deal because the app cost less than the price of a cup of coffee. Nonetheless, we want to reduce the amount of friction required to check out our products as much as we can, so we built Twitbit Lite and included just about every feature the paid version has.

We expect iPad apps to do a lot more than their iPhone counterparts. Ours certainly will. That means more features and a richer experience. That means more value for users, but also higher prices. Increasing prices, even by a small amount, means people will want to have more confidence that they’re going to get value out of an app before they buy. And most iPad apps will be outside of that impulse purchase price that so many iPhone apps carry. So free, “try before you buy” versions of apps are even more important on the iPad than they are on the iPhone.

Because of all this, it’s probable we’ll build a version of Twitbit Lite for iPad. Given that there are only so many hours in the day, though, and that we’re eager to get Twitbit submitted as soon as possible, the most likely scenario is that Twitbit Lite won’t be released until some time after Twitbit has made its debut.

What’s Going to Happen to Twitbit for iPhone?

Our commitment to Twitbit for iPhone is as strong as ever. The next release will be Twitbit 3.0, and we have big plans for it. We’ve already implemented a bunch of new features, and we have a lot more great stuff in store. We are focusing on the iPad app for now, though, and that focus will probably continue for another month or so. Once the iPad app is out the door, we’re going to shift our focus back to Twitbit for iPhone.

Can You Tell Us Any More?

We’re going to keep publishing more details about Twitbit for iPad as we know more. That’ll include a notice when we submit, and probably pricing as well. And of course screenshots. (Unfortunately none are ready for public consumption just yet.) If there are any features you just can’t live without, please drop us a line or leave a comment. We’d love to hear what you think.

Stay tuned.