Linked List: November 4, 2015

Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Backchannel 

Here’s something new that I played a small role in: Backchannel. Backchannel provides an open source SDK for iOS developers to include in the beta versions of their apps. It allows beta testers and developers to communicate with each other in simple message channels, right there in the app itself. No extra app to install.

The way beta testing usually works is nothing at all like a community: bug reports from users come in, release notes from developers go out, and that’s it. With Backchannel, it’s easy to create a community where beta testers and developers can share and discuss ideas with everyone involved. Here’s one example of Backchannel’s cleverness (and an advantage to being built-into the app itself): it can detect when users have just taken a screenshot of the app, and prompt them to post it to the feedback channel with the image already attached to the post.

If you’re an iOS developer, you should check it out. I think it’s a great idea, and there’s nothing else like it.

Full disclosure: Backchannel is largely the work of my friend Soroush Khanlou (formerly of Genius). I’m an advisor, along with Dave Wiskus.

Jason Snell and Myke Hurley Talk About the New Apple TV 

On the new episode of Upgrade, Jason Snell and Myke Hurley talk about their first impressions of the new Apple TV. Their take is a lot more negative than mine and Guy English’s — but both Jason and Myke clearly had worse first-run experiences. Jason had to jump through an absurd number of hoops to get App Store purchases working, and Myke couldn’t get the “just put your iPhone near your new Apple TV to transfer your Wi-Fi and Apple ID settings” thing to work.

The Red Heart for ‘Like’ Is a Problem 

Dave Winer:

On Facebook, there is no Heart for liking. They use a thumb-up. A lot of thought must have gone into this. We like things we don’t actually like, and shrug off the confusion. But labeling it with a red heart pushes it further.

Example: You may have Favorited something about a terrorist group, but would you have clicked on a red heart? At the very least that’s going to take some getting used to.

A lot of people, including me, have used “favorite” on Twitter both for marking tweets we liked/enjoyed, and as a sort of bookmark for tweets we simply want to refer to later. Using a red heart implies affection in a way that a star — or even a thumbs-up — does not.

This wouldn’t be a problem if Twitter were new, or, if Likes were a new feature that replaced Favorites. But that’s not what they’re doing — they’re renaming “Favorites” to “Likes”, which means every tweet you’ve favorited/starred in the last nine years is now liked/hearted instead.

All Twitter Clients Will Change From Stars/Favorites to Hearts/Likes 

Twitter’s developer blog:

If you’re showing Tweets without using our Embedded Tweet rendering, you’ll need to update the icons and strings in your apps and websites to comply with our updated display requirements:

  • In your apps and websites, the star icon should be replaced with the heart icon. Reference Twitter’s developer brand resources for heart icons and changes to hover, pressed, and active icon colors.

  • The string “favorite” should be replaced with the string “like” in viewer-facing text. A count should be represented as the string “like(s).”

This whole thing seems like particularly bad news for Favstar.

Twitter Concedes in Stars/Hearts Battle, Changes ‘Favorites’ to ‘Likes’ 

Twitter product manager Akarshan Kumar:

We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite.

The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.

On their website, they’ve already put this in place. They have an effusive little animation that plays when you tap the heart button to like something. But there is no animation for when you tap the heart again to un-like something — like say setting it on fire or turning it to ice.

Anyway, who can blame Twitter? Nobody likes stars.