Netbot, one of the most feature rich client for the App.net has received an update to bring support for Private Messaging and also to adopt to the new APIs that App.net released.
The App.net, which is a new and streamlined micro-blogging service, is still in Alpha, and is under serious developers, funded by the users themselves. Adding to their growing list of APIs coming out from the service, a lot of apps are receiving the updates to add compatibility to the APIs. Previously, App.net did not support private messages between users like Twitter’s Direct Messages. But now, App.net has released an API, which allows users to exchange 256 character private messages between each other, the same way Twitter works. And now, Netbot has this feature built into it.
There’s been a lot of talk about the best App.net client for your iPhone and iPad, and all these talks were put to an end when Tapbots released Netbot for iPhone and iPad. Tapbots are the same developers who developed Tweetbot, one of the most powerful Twitter client for all the iOS devices, including the Mac. Netbot debuted back in October last year, and has been the most popular client for the App.net. And with the recent update, the app is set to hold its top position for some more time.
Netbot, follows the same UI styles of its successful Twitter client, Tweetbot, and there are hardly any changes in the workflow, on comparison. With seamless Push notification, better fluidity in UI, support for cross-posting to Twitter, Netbot became even more powerful with the private messaging feature, and some more API adoptions of App.net.
Apart from the new Messaging support with Netbot, the app has now gone free for an unspecified period of time. Netbot was costing $4.99 initially, for both iPhone and iPad separately. Tapbots now believe that making the app free would pull in a lot of new users to their app, and I think they were correct. I was previously using Stream for posting my updates to App.net. But once the Netbot went free, I am on it completely.
If you’ve paid for any subscription from App.net, and was looking for a powerful client for the iPhone and iPad, Netbot would be your best bet. I would personally recommend you to grab a copy of the app, and have that on your iPhone or iPad. If not now, its going to be useful in one way or the other in the future. That’s the amount of trust the developers over at Tapbots have maintained with their users.