[unalone]

The other killer iPhone app is Tweetie, a $3 Twitter client that, if you’re a Twitter user and have multiple accounts, is as indispensable as a needle to a heroin addict.

Oh, Wired. Continuing to destroy your credibility by insisting that a single client among dozens is a killer application if you use a certain website in a certain rare use case.

[antidaily]

Tweetie is by far the best twitter client I've used. And 100% worthy of such high and arbitrary accolades.

[unalone]

Its design is brilliant—I am similarly a fan, though I don't Twitter—but my point was that "killer app" means something that "the best twitter client I've ever used" does not.

[ivankirigin]

Tweetdeck syncs with our desktop experience. For people that need to filter the stream to grok it better (read: eventually everyone), Tweetdeck is better.

[danw]

This reminds me of something Russell Davies spoke about at dConstruct. To paraphrase, TweetDeck is humans solving problems humans have created for themselves.

[ivankirigin]

Communication isn't a human invention.

[danw]

Twitter is a human invention. Written communication (arguably) is a human invention.

Audio from the talk will be available on http://2009.dconstruct.org/podcast/ soon.

[ivankirigin]

Tweetdeck also filters Facebook, and others soon too, I'd bet. Given enough time, it would work with your email / chats / voicemail / smoke signals etc.

Filtering information is not a new idea at all.

[ubernostrum]

Yeah, using Twitter is such an incredibly weird rare fringe thing these days. Next you'll tell me that this "web" thing isn't just a fad...

[unalone]

You and your fucking snark. Hacker News is a place with lots of smart people saying smart things. Snark is for when people say something that is obviously stupid and not worth a debate. If you want to disagree with me, do it earnestly, because perhaps this is worth a discussion.

Twitter is the #13 site globally according to Alexa. Does that mean that a Blogger app would be more of a killer app than a Twitter app? What about a MySpace app? MSN? Windows Live? Google? If I told you that the iPhone's killer app was a Google search, wouldn't that sound stupid?

But Wired isn't just saying that. They're saying that Tweetie, one of a hundred Twitter applications, is a killer app and that the other applications aren't. Furthermore, Tweetie is a killer app if you use Twitter with multiple accounts. That is an incredible weird rare fringe thing. I'd bet most Twitter users have a single account.

Now do you want to attempt sarcasm again? Because I'll warn you: Not only do I know more about what I'm arguing than you do, I'm a better snarker than you, and I will tear you to little fucking pieces.

I remember when I joined HN and routinely felt dwarfed by the intellectual discourse here. Now I say something and the response is likely as not bullshit like yours. I feel so goddamn old.

[ubernostrum]

Well, I think a really good Twitter client (which it is) certainly is a killer app for a mobile platform, given how many people now regularly use Twitter. I know, for anecdote's sake, that Tweetie is almost certainly the most-used application on my phone. If you want to belittle Wired or iPhone users or Twitter users (and Lord knows it's trendy to do so), feel free, but do expect to get hit with the occasional bout of sarcasm in response (just as I expect that people who believe in the myth of the Wonderful Hacker News Comment Community will downmod all such comments into oblivion).

As for "discourse", well, I've been active here for a while and lurking for longer, and my first impression was that HN was a site that syndicated TechCrunch articles. Took me a while to realize there was anything other than an echo chamber here, and I'm still not entirely sure about that.

[unalone]

If you want to belittle Wired or iPhone users or Twitter users (and Lord knows it's trendy to do so), feel free, but do expect to get hit with the occasional bout of sarcasm in response

I've already responded to this. Wired implies that Tweetie is a killer app if you use Twitter with multiple accounts. That's an edge case even among Twitter users, and Twitter is not an enormous web site. It's like saying the Facebook app is a killer app because it's gorgeous and provides near-full site functionality right now. It is, and it does, but say I'm writing an article about an app that I'm claiming "justifies" your entire app purchase. It doesn't help me look serious when I go on to say "Oh, also this one Twitter application is just as justifying. Seriously, accessing Twitter like this is as important as being able to store and read articles offline."

just as I expect that people who believe in the myth of the Wonderful Hacker News Comment Community will downmod all such comments into oblivion

It's not the sarcasm that isn't welcome. It's the sarcasm when dealing with subjects worthy of discussion. You know? Here we're talking about something that's provoking a good deal of debate, so your sarcasm is actively harmful to the discourse. If we were talking about some ridiculous subject, then sarcasm is totes coo'.

As for "discourse", well, I've been active here for a while and lurking for longer, and my first impression was that HN was a site that syndicated TechCrunch articles. Took me a while to realize there was anything other than an echo chamber here, and I'm still not entirely sure about that.

Shit like this isn't even snarking. It's just you being an asshole. Come on. We're all venerable old men here, we can afford some courtesy.

[kyro]

I'm willing to bet that there is a huge overlap for iPhone and Twitter users, and for that subset, Tweetie can most definitely be considered a killer app. I get what you're trying to say with them mentioning a killer app be geared towards the user of a specific site, but really, that could be said about any killer app. The fart app is geared towards iPhone users AND fart sound lovers. iMob is geared towards iPhone users AND mob-style game lovers. All these apps have done wonderfully, and are apps I would consider killer. The point is, an iPhone app is killer because it appeals to a subset of users really really well.

Additionally, I see nothing wrong in them pointing out Tweetie, even though it is one of billions. Design and user interface is a very important layer to take into account, especially with these iPhone apps, and Tweetie's design is very intuitive, in my opinion. Design has much to do with an app being killer as its underlying technology.

[unalone]

Tweetie is good, but it's not a killer app. A killer app's something that annihilates its competition. Tweetie doesn't annihilate anything.

The iPhone is killer, but when Wired is making the argument of "Instapaper justifies your owning an iPhone", it hurts the argument a lot to add "just as much as this Twitter app will". Tweetie is nothing ultraspecial. Instapaper might be. It hurts to compare it to a web site client.

[w1ntermute]

I remember when I joined HN and routinely felt dwarfed by the intellectual discourse here. Now I say something and the response is likely as not bullshit like yours. I feel so goddamn old.

The funny thing is that ubernostrum joined HN just a few weeks after you did.

[unalone]

I know. I don't think it's just a matter of new users. It's a shift in what Hacker News is focusing on. The level of discourse has dropped.