Today we submitted a brand new, game-changing iTweetReply update, that brings Twitter Search capability amongst many other features – including but not limited to:

• Search (as mentioned before) on its own separate tab, complete with a live display of current trends
• Pushed search terms – iTweetReply will search Twitter for these terms and push them to you at your selected update rate – you get two terms for free, with more purchasable in-app
• User profile view, displaying a user’s followers, description and website link (if present)
• Support for 3 more Twitter clients – Birdfeed, twitterena and twitterena+
• Additional push notification sound available in settings
• Dozens of bugfixes and UI tweaks

Here are some screenshots from the update:

Syncode plans to continue innovating with iTweetReply and all its upcoming products. To find out the latest information on what we’ve got coming, follow us on twitter at @Syncode

Posted in iTweetReply | 3 Comments »

Many of you will have noticed that Twitter has been intermittently slow and occasionally down altogether in the last 2 days. This is because it was hit with a DDoS attack – an attack where the server is overloaded with many “fluff” requests that cause it to slow down and sometimes even crash – in short, someone was deliberately trying to bring Twitter offline.

Though the Twitter.com web front-end is back up, the API (Application Programming Interface – a method by which third parties such as ourselves can talk to Twitter to send/recieve your tweets) has taken a serious hit on Twitter’s end – we have no doubt that they’re doing their best to get it back up to full potential.

However, until those issues are fixed and the interface is stable again, iTweetReply will remain less reliable than usual – other services have gone down completely, as OAuth, the method used by others for authenticating with Twitter, is completely offline at the moment.

We’re doing our best to keep everything working on our end – you can (oh the irony) follow us on Twitter for status updates.

Update: iTweetReply push now appears to be stable, though this could change in the future relative to the Twitter API.

Posted in iTweetReply | No Comments »

Australian iPhone development firm Syncode has released the latest version of iTweetReply, one of the rare Twitter applications that pushes @ reply tweets from Twitter straight to your iPhone.

The latest version of iTweetReply incorporates many new features originally planned for the next version of the app including Quick Push and the ability to choose a popular Twitter application to open your Tweets when they’ve been pushed to your iPhone.

The great thing about QuickPush is that “it instantly pushes @ replies and direct messages between iTweetReply users,” said co-founder Matthew Lesh. “This ability should push iTweetReply to a true replacement for those expensive SMS messages,” he said.

“You can even change the notification sound for when you receive a new @ reply,” Lesh said. “You can even customise @ replies to sound like an SMS.”

As well as the general user interface getting a makeover, and subtle changes to the logo, splash screen and timeline, Syncode has made it easier for users to read their Tweets.

The ability to retweet another use has also been added to the app.

“We plan to implement lots of new features of the coming weeks and month,” Lesh said.

ENDS

Background

Syncode is an innovative startup that places itself at the leading edge of iPhone development.

Started by three high-school aged teenagers spread across Australia.
Syncode’s goal is to bring you fantastic, innovative and polished products.

Syncode’s flagship product, iTweetReply, provides unique twitter “push” features to iPhone users.

Syncode is planning to continue to innovate with lots of new products planned for the future.

PR Contact:
Matthew Lesh
pr@syncode.com.au

PR Kit

Posted in Press Releases, iTweetReply | 7 Comments »

I’ll take a stab in the dark and say that if you’re reading this, you probably own an iPhone – or at least know someone who has one. So, you’ve probably used the App Store at least once. As this runaway success passes its first birthday, it’s interesting to take a step back and see how far the Store has come, and how far it still has to go.

History
The App Store opened with the iPhone OS 2.0 firmware and the launch of the iPhone 3G in 20 countries around the globe. It started with just 552 apps and 4000 developers registered. The average price for an app was around $5, capping at 12 and bottoming out at free (some apps being far higher), and people didn’t complain – taken in by the hype and the initial wow-factor of the App Store. I remember that Thursday night on July 10th, huddled up by the computer, anxiously refreshing MacTalk for the latest updates on the store opening. I remember the loophole of searching for an app, and gaining access to the App Store prematurely then splurging on anything that looked remotely good, feeling my wallet get emptier and emptier, ready for purchasing my JesusPhone the next day.

A year later, Apple has sold 1.5 billion apps, has 65,000 apps on the AppStore, and there are over 100,000 registered developers. Everything seems to be going well for a product in its first year of launch, but if Apple wants to succeed, there are a few factors that they have to change.

The 99c Trend
iPhone and iPod touch owners are attracted to the price tag of a buck. For an iPhone developer to succeed, they have to price their apps at a low price around $1.19, (AU price)  no matter how good the quality the app is, or how much money they have invested into the development of it. If the app is not the cheapest it can be without being free, people complain. Look at the Nintendo DS or the PSP. To buy games on those platforms are easily $50-$60, but no one dares to question the price. Some apps have gotten away with higher prices, but only those of exceptionally good quality.
For the first time in a long time today, I decided to pull out my DS and play games that I had neglected since buying an iPhone. It was only then did I realise how good the quality of an iPhone game is compared to the DS, and people just don’t realise this. If you look in the Top 100 Paid Applications, they are all dominated by $1.19/$0.99 apps. Close to the top is Hero of Sparta. At just $1.19, I think you have to turn around and say that this is just too cheap. The gameplay of Hero Of Sparta is equal to that of such other iPhone games as Assassin’s Creed, and other large, well known games that are 5 to 10 times the cost. Developers are having to lower prices to ridiculously small amounts just so they can be noticed and make even just a couple of dollars.

I feel that Apple need to be doing more to encourage the price of games to raise up to where they should be. Such a solution could be the addition of a “Premium App Store”. A developer would gain access to this store by submitting an app to the regular App Store, and having the Apple App Store review team deem them worthy enough to be let in, definitely NOT by their performance on other platforms, or how friendly some of their higher ranked staff are with Apple (looking at you, ngmoco).

The AppStore Review Process
This is one aspect of the App Store that every developer, including myself, hates. From day 1, Victor Wang and co. have been getting into everyone’s bad books due to the extremely long time it takes to review apps. When you are working on an app and you desperately want it into the App Store by a certain date or event, the last thing you need is for your app to be under review for over a month, and have it rejected because of a minor issue.

The solution to the long wait? Hire more people. Simple. Wouldn’t this solve our App Store approval process? Well, not really. I “know of an app” that was checked by Apple’s review team after 2 days, but not approved for over a month. So, here’s another solution for you, Apple. Be more transparent. Tell us developers exactly what happens in the review process, and explain why an app might be denied. There’s nothing worse than working on an app for months, only to have it rejected for a reason that doesn’t make sense. Also, give realistic estimates of how long the review process is going to take, and don’t let apps get approved in a matter of hours as they may have higher board members who are friends with Apple (again, looking at you, ngmoco, us devs know that you are getting special treatment from Apple. If you didn’t want us to find out, refrain from Tweeting your approval times).

App Reviews
I’m sure we’ve all seen them, the ratings of between 1 to 5 stars accompanied by a few lines of text that may or may not make sense. The one big issue? Developers have no way of contacting the people who wrote the review to explain the complaint that they have, which most of the time is just them not reading the support documents or not investigating the settings. Why should your app suffer if 1 person can’t work out where a certain setting is or how to do something? Then once you explain things to people (if you eventually get in touch with them), they still never change their app review anyway. Apple has made big improvements in this aspect of the App Store since its launch, but there are still improvements to be made.

So, Apple has come a long way with its App Store, but there are still a number of improvements that could be made to make sure that the store is it the top of the ever-growing list of mobile application stores, and to make sure that developers are driven away. What do you guys think?

Posted in The AppStore | 3 Comments »

As the title reads, the 1.1 release of iTweetReply has been rejected by Apple. The reason? iTweetReply 1.1 shares similar UI elements to the SMS app. As Apple have said in their rejection email:

“Thank you for submitting your application to the App Store. Unfortunately, your application, iTweetReply – Push Twitter Replies and Direct Messages, cannot be added to the App Store because its usage of the standard SMS UI elements may be confusing or misleading to iPhone users. Please redesign your application to look significantly different from the standard  iPhone SMS built-in app.”

As many users of iTweetReply already know this UI element remains unchanged from the previously accepted iTweetReply 1.0 as-well as many other twitter applications (ref TwitterFon and a vast majority of instant messenger clients).

There are a mixture of reasons I theorise that may have caused this change in opinion. Anger in relation to the negative press caused by my previous blog post, standards that are so unclear that even their own reviewers misinterpret them or a recent crackdown in Apple like applications. Whatever the issue is, the fact that different reviews of a single app can create so many varying responses shows even more clearly how much more transparent this process needs to be.

On a side note, Syncode will soon be submitting an improved version of iTweetReply 1.1 bringing many of the features originally planned for later updates. Please stay tuned for further updates.

Posted in The AppStore, iTweetReply | 8 Comments »

Few know that iTweetReply [App Store] was ready and submitted to Apple’s App Store on the 9th of June – More then four weeks before it was released on the App Store. In this post I’m going to discuss what we saw from Apple while waiting for approval.

iTweetReply is a rather unique app in that it’s always talking to the iTweetReply server; we can see when it’s being used, and a few little details about user actions, connection times, unread tweets etc. A few days after first submission to the App Store, we saw a connection to the server from an unknown user – Presumably an Apple approval agent/tester. These hits (with an IP registered as belonging to Apple Inc) had blank twitter login details – showing the tester had opened the app, gotten to the login screen and gone no further. This gave us high hopes for a quick reviewal, amazed that Apple had looked at the app in just days – being our first submission to the App Store and having heard so many stories about apps taking “Months” to approve.

Our hopes were dashed when, on the 13th of June (Four days after submission) we received a generic, canned email from an Apple robot, stating that the app was taking an unexpected length of time to review. (picture below).

The unexpected time email

We assumed the delay was due to Apple’s push infrastructure being as of yet unable to cope with widespread use – This proved not to be the case only days later, as push-enabled apps created by other developers began to make their way into the Store.

Apple remained silent until quite some time later. On the 24th of June, an email arrived in our inbox stating that they had tried to contact us via phone, but been unsuccessful – providing a number for us to call them on for more information.

Please call Apple email.

I called the number provided by Apple on the 28th of June at 2AM Australian Eastern Standard Time – and was given a short, simple, to the point answer when I asked why it had not yet been approved. They wanted me to remove the 1 Infinite Loop written on the envelope shown on the iTweetReply splash screen.

Yes, they rejected iTweetReply based on an address shown on an envelope for 2-3 seconds upon opening the app.

Updated Splash Screen

Original Splash Screen

We resubmitted the app with the modified splash screen you see on the right later that day.

A few days after this second submission, on the 30th of June, the server logged another connection from an Apple IP; This time the tester had opened the app, entered twitter login details and sent one tweet.

Then, on the 10th of July – two and a half weeks since second submission, and almost a month to the day since the first – an email appeared out of the blue in our inbox, blazing “Your App has been approved for sale in the App Store”.

This experience has revealed some unexpected, rather pedantic factors within the Apple approval system, and leaves many questions – starting with “If they had the app on a device within days, what took up the remaining two weeks?”

My personal guess is that once an app passes the initial technical test, it must be approved by multiple other levels from legal (to prevent illicit apps) to, well, God knows. If nothing else it has highlighted the need for a far more transparent approval process – Come on Apple, is it so hard to give us at least a quasi-detailed description of the approval process?

I hope this article proves useful to you in some way – Not all App Store approvals are nightmares, but some of the rules can be quite… interesting. (Really? an address?).

Posted in iTweetReply | 11 Comments »

Since first submitting iTweetReply, we have been busy working on some very cool new features!

Here is an outline of some of the many things, both big and small, we have planned:

Version 1.1: Has already been submitted to Apple has lots of new features, some of which include:

- QuickPush: If you send a reply or direct message to another iTweetReply user, they will instantly receive that reply instead of waiting to be looked for.
- New Timeline design: We’ve updated the timeline to a much prettier UI.
- Small tweaks to views throughout the App
- Stability and minor bug fixes

Version 1.2: which will be submitted once 1.1 is accepted includes:

- New UI and options for the single tweet view including:

Reply

Direct Message

Re-Tweet

Favourite

In-Reply To

- Integration with lots of other twitter apps from push messages (will enable users to directly open other twitter apps when receiving a push notification). This feature is supported for the following apps:

Tweetie

Twitteriffic

TwitterFon

Twittelator Pro

Twinkle
- Many more small and big features

Coming soon: features that will be coming in upcoming versions of iTweetReply:

- Click-able links inside tweets
- Further options for pushing twitter
- More language support
- Twitter search
- Landscape mode
- Multiple account support
- Much More

We look forward to with the help of our users continue to add more and more features that you need and want. Any feedback you have about the app we encourage you to send to itweetreply@syncode.com.au

Posted in iTweetReply | No Comments »

After months of developing and testing, iTweetReply by Syncode is out for iPhone and iPod Touch on the iTunes App Store!

iTweetReply is an instant notification solution using Apple’s latest push notification technology to never miss those @replies and direct messages on Twitter. To find out more about iTweetReply, visit our Apps page for iTweetReply.

iTweetReply is available for purchase now so head to the App Store and check it out using this link.

Posted in iTweetReply | No Comments »

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re just as bored as you are with waiting for Apple to approve iTweetReply – so we’ve decided to have us a bit of fun. We’re taking guesses, a bet of sorts, as to when it’ll be approved.

Simply tweet this: “I reckon @iTweetReply by @Syncode will be accepted on the th of at GMT” .. on Twitter to enter. Closest guess gets a promocode upon release. Be sure to follow us on twitter [ @Syncode ] to find out if you’ve won.

Rules:
1. Please only enter once; Otherwise all your entries will be discounted.
2. Remember folks, promocodes only work on the US store!

Update: Congratulations to @pinot for guessing the closest! Your promocode is on its way

Posted in iTweetReply | No Comments »

Welcome to the brand new Syncode website. We will use this space for announcing new products, handing out information and publishing support articles.

At this point we’re waiting for our flagship iPhone App; iTweetReply to be accepted into the App Store. For notification of it’s release, put your email down on http://iphone.itweetreply.com.

We’ve also got some exciting new projects in the pipeline that we look forward to sharing with you all when they’ve gotten beyond just a concept – until then, please feel free to have a look around.

You can also follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/syncode) for updates on projects, announcements, or even to request support.

Posted in Site News | No Comments »