tumblr gear

metadata updated, meta#091124/b

due to modification of tumblr iphone page, tumblr gear r.1.4.0 had been unable to get the posts properly. this is already fixed (in meta#091124/b).

if you find any problems, please inform me via twitter @tumblrgear. thanks.

Big bag of hurt

redcloud:

covertheearth:

redcloud:

funsizebytes:

Dan Wineman (below), on all of the things that Tumblr got wrong with the iPhone app (Hint: just about everything). More from me after the break:

dwineman:

Yes, reblogging is still as broken as it used to be, if not more so: there now seems to be no way to cancel a reblog without quitting the app. The Cancel button is inexplicably missing, there’s no Back button anywhere in the interface, and clicking on the Tumblr logo opens the desktop Dashboard in a pop-up.

As far as I can tell, all the things that were awful about the 1.0 Tumblr app are still awful in the 1.1 Tumblr app, except that now it doesn’t reload your dashboard at page one every time you breathe on it. So that’s nice, at least.

But by far the worst misfeature is the way it displays photo posts. The iPhone OS provides a perfect solution: the two-finger pinch/stretch gesture, which dynamically zooms in and out of images; plus, you can double-tap to make any image instantly resize to fit the screen. It’s precisely this feature that makes web browsing on an iPhone more comfortable than on any other mobile device.

Yet the iPhone Dashboard intentionally disables this great feature, instead providing just two choices of image size: thumbnail (way way too small) and 100% (way way too big, so you have to pan around to see the whole image). In other words, the OS has a fit-to-screen feature built in, and Tumblr’s developers actually wrote extra code to disable it. What a tragic, boneheaded mistake. The workaround used to be turning off the iPhone Dashboard, but that option’s gone now.

(Tumblr actually isn’t alone in making this mistake. The iPhone version of Flickr Mobile does the same stupid thing, but at least Flickr provides an app that’s actually usable.)

I say this with love: it’s time for Tumblr to grow up. Fix the bugs. Hire usability experts. Build a rich API and test, test, test. Get your stuff working so well—make your user experience so utterly painless—that you can do silly things like Sharks vs. Cats and Dashboard marriage proposals from time to time without looking like college kids drunk on venture capital.

(tj:)

But hey! Video uploads! Because everyone watches those, and few people ever want to look at pictures which are posted on Tumblr.

Yeah, TypePad Micro looks like a knock-off of Tumblr, but you know what? I’m betting that in 6 months, TypePad is doing this stuff better than Tumblr.

Remember, Twitter wasn’t first either.

1. Have you tried Typepad Micro? Usability Zero. Is that a thing? Seems clear to me they don’t “get it”. In fact, my experience with it made me remember just how many things Tumblr gets right.

2. Yes, Tumblr’s iPhone client sucks. Their “API” is virtually non-existant. But most users are on the web. Sure, there are lots of iPhones, but there a helluvalot more PCs and Macs out there.

3. Don’t forget network effects. Someone like Typepad is going to have to not just catch up, but be significantly better. I’m here solely for the people I know here. Ebay may mot be the “best” auction site by many metrics, but it’s where the buyers are. This is where the people I want to read and be read by are. In many ways, Posterous has been doing things better for a while now. I don’t see a massive emigration of Tumblr users.

Also, I wrote all this on my iPhone. But I used Tumblr Gear instead of the official client. It’s free. Check it out if you haven’t already.

For straight viewing, not posting onto tumblr, download the tumblr gear app. I blazed through 286 posts in 30 minutes. It tells me exactly how many posts I’ve seen since I last logged in. I can like and reblog. The reblog is without comment, but usually I’ll reblog and then add my comments later. It makes tumblr like checking tweetie.

And it’s free.

Exactly. For catching up, I like it even better than the web.

You *can* add comments on a reblog if you go into Preference and turn off Fast Like & Reblog. You’ll then have to confirm each Like, but it’s only one more tap. I find it an acceptible trade-off, for now.

(reblogged with comment from Tumblr Gear)

just fyi.. it’s able to toggle the setting of fast post by tapping page number (like “1/100”) in upper main view.

anyway, new official tumblr app really sucks. and i’m disappointed in their ability of iphone development.

Thanks for being involved with test of next release.

Sorry but It is likely that the count of devices(udid) reaches almost limit of iphone developer program. So this time, I’d like to suspend the beta tester application.

Again, I’m really grateful for your commitment to develop this gear. Thanks.