Ready for the easiest tip of all time? Simply tip the Tapbots crew inside the latest Tweetbot app for iPhone and iPad and unlock three extra app icons and a range of different themes for the app.

Though I’d say Reeder was likely the first app to really get me into apps, it was Tweetbot that really put me into Twitter. (For better or worse, of course.) To me, Tweetbot has been the best and most pure form of Twitter available.

The latest iteration of the app looks great, as always. But the original app — with all its machinations, clicks, beeps, and droidian character — is, perhaps, my single favourite app design of all time.

The retro Tweetbot icon may also be the greatest icon ever made for iOS. Ever. I could be persuaded of others taking the crown. But for now, Tweetbot’s retro icon takes the prize.

All you have to do to return to the former Tweetbot glory days is provide a small tip to the Tapbots team. Pretty easy peasy, especially considering it’s been quite awhile since the Tapbots crew released an app you can pay for. After tipping, “Retro”, “Retro Noir”, “Modern”, and “Modern Noir” are unlocked and can be seen above. Retro is, quite simply, the best.

A tip also generates a few additional app themes, though nothing like the former droidian glory days. Here’s a smattering of additional themes in post-tip Tweetbot 5.

There’s nothing earth-shattering to today’s blog post. Just a simple, cheap, and easy way to make your home screen feel both young and old again. To provide a dash of classic iOS. And to remember at least a touch of how Tweetbot made Twitter so much fun to use.

{% include image.html img=”https://static.thenewsprint.co/media/2020/04/Back-to-Keep-It-1.jpeg” title=”Back to Keep It” caption=”I’ve moved back to Keep It for all my Bible study notes. The features the app offers for long-term research are far too great to be ignored. “ %}

Plain and simple: I’ve moved back to Keep It for taking long-form notes on iPad and Mac. The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked numerous online formats for church activities, one of which is our men’s Bible study group. Within the very first sitting, I found myself needing to reference a few notes I had taken in the past. And like any physical note-taking adventure, CMD + F didn’t bring up any results.

After a month of keeping long-term notes in Keep It, I had moved to Bear. For a couple reasons:

• To eliminate an extra couple subscriptions.
• Keep It had become quite buggy, especially around the time where it adopted support for macOS and iOS’s dark modes.
• I went through a phase of wanting to consolidate everything and Keep It was a casualty at the time.

Fortunately, my annual subscription was still active.

It’ll be a bit of a job moving all of my previous highlights, underlines, and thoughts to Keep It. But, as I’ve said before, I have lots of time to figure this step out.

Keep It hasn’t changed too much while I’ve been gone. The app still looks great, still takes advantage of the default or generic iOS look (I personally love this app design), and still organizes notes with all types of media unlike any other app on iOS.  I love that the app is iOS-first, as well.

This doesn’t mention how much more stable the app has become in the last few months — there seems to be a Keep It update in the Mac App Store and iOS App Store nearly every day. I’m more impressed with how the app runs and performs now than I was when we were testing these apps for The Sweet Setup a while back.

A quibble I have though: I’m not a fan of how dual-column apps treat the smaller 11-inch iPad. These slide-over columns with a single, large note view don’t properly use the iPad’s screen real-estate. I would like the ability to lock or pin the slide-in navigation column.

All in all, it’s always fun to rediscover great apps after going on a hiatus. I’ve fallen away from my Bible studying over the last few months due to a variety of reasons, and there’s no better time than a global pandemic to get into the Good Book and to take some good notes in good software at the same time.