8 ms·

Fabric – Mobile developer platform by Twitter

201 points by lalwanivikas 12y ago

CharlesMerriam2 12y ago
So this is unrelated to the Fabric tools for managing devices? There is zero information on the website before asking to agree to rather long legal agreement and give you permission to spam my email. You have an opportunity to improve your on-boarding.
verst 12y ago
Watch the live stream at dev.twitter.com/flightlive. @CharlesMerriam2 - more info will be published after the presentations happening right now.
lprez 12y ago
so, will this be the mobile equivalent to bootstrap?
- frewsxcv 12y ago
  AFAIK, this is just an attempt to put Twitter products in mobile apps. Nothing revolutionary here
  - drivingmenuts 12y ago
    So they can arbitrarily screw them over later?
    - ricardonunez 12y ago
      It was my initial thought, but this is a little different. It's to use in an existing app and not building an app for twitter. At least that's what I got.
untog 12y ago
Kind of underwhelmed after reading the Wired article: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/twitter-fabric-sdk/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/twitter-fabric-sdk/ It's... fine. But given Twitter's history of dev antagonism I am not about to create apps that rely on them as a backend. Sorry.
- catkin 12y ago
  I think a lot of people are in the same boat. Would I use this after seeing how Twitter have treated people using their API in the past? No way.
  - rhizome 12y ago
    Without the kinds of explicit committments in licensing or API access that no board of directors would ever go for, I have to think they're sowing the seeds for a round of acquisitions.
- egfx 12y ago
  Thank you for saying that.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- wmeredith 12y ago
  You hit the nail on the head. Twitter built an empire on the backs of devs using their API, then left them to rot or actively burned them directly as soon as the money got real. As they say: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
skrebbel 12y ago
From reading the front page, I have absolutely no idea what this is. A cross-compiler? A build tool? Some pre-package presets? In what language will I code? Can I reuse code across platforms? Is all this trouble Solved. when I use Fabric?
- hockeybias 12y ago
  Ditto.
- ksherlock 12y ago
  They appear to be libraries for iOS and android.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    No WP support from a tech company of this scale? Simply embarrassing.
- PhoenixWright 12y ago
  Exactly my thoughts. There are so many dev tools out there but I can never figure out what they actually do by reading the info on their landing pages. All I get is a bunch of buzzwords and empty promises.
- dguaraglia 12y ago
  Yeah, using "platform" for just a bunch of libraries that are vaguely related is quite linkbaitish. This doesn't solve any of the issues a 'platform' or framework would solve. It just gives you an easy way to link said libraries to your project. In other words, this is just native advertising.
  - serve_yay 12y ago
    That appears to be an invention of whoever posted this. They do not call it a platform on the site anywhere I can see.
- enos_feedler 12y ago
Newky 12y ago
Poor naming of this. What about popular python library and command line application (http://www.fabfile.org/ http://www.fabfile.org/)
jarsin 12y ago
When I saw the name I was expecting a full mobile app framework like ionic or something that combines ui with build tools like cordova. Looks just like a collection of backend services that you can include in your apps today without this framework if you really wanted them. Hopefully more info will be released because I am not seeing anything here..
- venomsnake 12y ago
  Same here - what I understood is this is "login with twitter"
prlambert 12y ago
"Our passion is building tools that make developers’ lives easier." Who is "Our" referring to?? Since when did Twitter become Atlassian?
- spullara 12y ago
  That was probably said by the head of the Crashlytics team at Twitter.
pavlov 12y ago
Seems like it's a collection of independent SDKs for iOS and Android. Some of the back-end services that you can use with these SDKs are new, such as "Digits". For Android, they also have an IDE plugin for configuring the libraries, which is nice... But does not quite make this a "platform" IMO.
adamfeldman 12y ago
Twitter's blog post on Fabric is much clearer than the linked page: https://blog.twitter.com/2014/introducing-fabric https://blog.twitter.com/2014/introducing-fabric. Fabric seems to be a brand under which Twitter offers modular 'kits', or SDKs for two of its major acquisitions (Crashlytics, MoPub) and the Sign-in with Twitter product. It's unclear if this is a new wrapper around existing SDKs/APIs, or a new, simplified SDK/API for these products.
- berdon 12y ago
  This. I received an invite and installed it. The plugin is Crashlytics + Twitter and MoPub integration.
kolanos 12y ago
I'm sure Fabric (http://www.fabfile.org/ http://www.fabfile.org/) will be none too pleased about this name choice.
- aarondf 12y ago
  And Fabric.js! http://fabricjs.com/ http://fabricjs.com/
  - morgo 12y ago
    And MySQL Fabric: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-utilities/1.4/en/fabric.html http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-utilities/1.4/en/fabric.html
    - than 12y ago
      And Jo-Ann Fabric: http://www.joann.com http://www.joann.com
      - zabcik 12y ago
        If you choose a dictionary word to name your startup or library or whatever, you're just asking for a collision.
      - jastanton 12y ago
        And actual fabric: http://cbsphilly.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shopping-style-fabric-stores-rolls-of-fabric.jpg http://cbsphilly.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shopping-style-...
        felipebueno 12y ago
        Hahah thanks, jastanton. You just made my day :D
        mchristoff 12y ago
        And Fabric the night club: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabric_(club) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabric_(club)
lfx 12y ago
So.. It will be like Cordova/PhoneGap/Ionic? It is so unclear from that page.
incision 12y ago
I find this choice of name particularly egregious. It's not just the existence of current projects [1] and common use in technology prior [2], but the source. Twitter, being Twitter could call this whatever they wanted. "Yolk" or whatever would make just as many front pages. I don't see how "Fabric" can do anything but serve someone inside Twitter who likes the name while being inconvenient / irrelevant to everyone else. 1: http://www.fabfile.org/ http://www.fabfile.org/ 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_fabric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_fabric
- joelrunyon 12y ago
  How do you think these types of things should be resolved?
  - rstupek 12y ago
    I believe trial by combat is the only reasonable option
    - gojomo 12y ago
      SEO combat.
fit2rule 12y ago
This is all quite confusing. I decided to try it out: so I downloaded Fabric.app (OSX), and signed up for a trial account. Somehow I was put in a pre-existing group when I signed up, with 8 other members whose email address I didn't recognize. Then, when I fired up Fabric.app, it goes into the menu bar and sits there. Does nothing. Asks me to select an XCode project (only lists my existing XCode projects) and doesn't really go further until I login. That's very unfriendly so I decided to quit until I learn more about it - oh, there's no quit option in the menu. Seems like Fabric.app has installed itself and wants to sit there .. forever .. doing .. something? I see no need for that in an developer platform, so 'kill `pidof Fabric`' it is, for me .. until I at least RTFM and find out what all the fuss is about. Bad Aji!
- growthhack 12y ago
  Hey there! Hmm seems strange -- I'm from the Fabric team and I'd love to chat more about this. Mind dropping me a note at support@fabric.io? Thanks :-)
- 0x0 12y ago
  Maybe it is a new social network? Congrats on getting 8 followers already ;)
wldlyinaccurate 12y ago
I've read the whole page and I genuinely can't tell what this product is. Is it like PhoneGap - develop once, deploy to multiple targets?
general_failure 12y ago
I couldn't make any sense of the landing page. What exactly is this?
pbnjay 12y ago
WTF. I click the link "Get started with fabric" and start the signup process, and then it says "we'll be in touch" like this was a beta invite-only thing? Seriously false advertising. I doubt I'll look at it, even if I ever do get confirmed now. I'm sure little old me doesn't matter to them in the grand scheme of things, but I absolutely hate crap like this. Tricking me into registering by pretending to have a product I can try immediately is just plain stupid. I lose all respect for projects that do this as a first impression.
- tylerlh 12y ago
  Agreed. It was pretty disappointing to sign up on a "Try it now" form and then be told I'm on a waiting list without mentioning that before. Was looking forward to trying the Crashlytics Beta offering, but I suppose I'll look elsewhere for beta distribution.
notastartup 12y ago
Yet you still need a Mac to make iPhone apps.
wil421 12y ago
Sign up page not working in Chrome on OS X - Yosemite. Works in Safari/FF.
pbreit 12y ago
I thought this was going to be more like Parse or Angular/Ionic but it's not even close. I can't envision a single usage scenario even remotely similar to the high level description.
mesozoic 12y ago
Are there really so few words that have no real point or relation to a product that new ones can't pick a different word from old ones. http://www.fabfile.org/ http://www.fabfile.org/
- serve_yay 12y ago
  That logic applies to this too, unless it was the first thing called Fabric.
  - Ensorceled 12y ago
    It only applies if you can list some previous technology projects called Fabric.
bmnick 12y ago
This actually really bugs me as a Crashlytics user. I'd much rather they stop trying to bundle it themselves and just list these so they can be used by the already established package management out there - Gradle/Maven and Cocoapods. Having to install an IDE plugin just to get a library feels like the dark ages.
- colbyh 12y ago
  Releasing libraries tied to IDEs sound like an absolute nightmare to have to maintain over time. Package managers exist for exactly this reason - I have no idea how anyone at Twitter could have ever thought this was a good idea.
0x0 12y ago
It's hard to forget how Twitter treated 3rd party client developers with their surprise 100k max users limit per app.
lnanek2 12y ago
Wonder if sign in tokens are still limited. There are so many horror stories about popular hitting the user limit and being unable to grow any more. Don't really trust Twitter enough to invest the time to read to find out after they've auto-banned some of my games for being able to Tweet scores and "being too much like a Twitter client".
nbevans 12y ago
"Our passion is building tools that make developers’ lives easier." Is it? I thought it was distributing 140 character messages in an eventually consistent manner.
aubreyjohnson 12y ago
Curious why you need a menubar install for 3 dependencies. Really?... Parse gets it, has an awesome cocoapod. Also does anyone know if you use their Digits login solution if you get the phone number or do they store it? Couldn't tell from the docs.
robinhowlett 12y ago
I met the executive driving this project earlier this year. He explained to me that Twitter only cares about one metric: growth. In particular they are hyper-focused on signing up new Twitter users and then "on-boarding" them so that they can follow other users, posts tweets etc. within the first session. That means that products using the Twitter platform need to be focused on that too. Twitter wanted to position themselves around three core features: * the feed itself * the platform (recent third-party hooks/features such as voting (World Cup) and payments (Stripe et al) are part of this) * developer tools It was explained to me that the latter was needed because too often Twitter felt that social/twitter features were "bolted on" too often at the end of projects, meaning that the integration was naturally segregated from the other features. Twitter felt that for developers to create products that were inherently social, they would need to provide the tools to build those products themselves, and that social integration would be encouraged early in the product development cycle. Fabric appears to be the first output of this strategy.
- LiweiZ 12y ago
  Upvoted and thanks for your input.

201 points by lalwanivikas 12y ago

So this is unrelated to the Fabric tools for managing devices? There is zero information on the website before asking to agree to rather long legal agreement and give you permission to spam my email. You have an opportunity to improve your on-boarding.

verst 12y ago

Watch the live stream at dev.twitter.com/flightlive. @CharlesMerriam2 - more info will be published after the presentations happening right now.

lprez 12y ago

so, will this be the mobile equivalent to bootstrap?

frewsxcv 12y ago
AFAIK, this is just an attempt to put Twitter products in mobile apps. Nothing revolutionary here
- drivingmenuts 12y ago
  So they can arbitrarily screw them over later?
  - ricardonunez 12y ago
    It was my initial thought, but this is a little different. It's to use in an existing app and not building an app for twitter. At least that's what I got.

untog 12y ago

Kind of underwhelmed after reading the Wired article: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/twitter-fabric-sdk/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/twitter-fabric-sdk/ It's... fine. But given Twitter's history of dev antagonism I am not about to create apps that rely on them as a backend. Sorry.

catkin 12y ago
I think a lot of people are in the same boat. Would I use this after seeing how Twitter have treated people using their API in the past? No way.
- rhizome 12y ago
  Without the kinds of explicit committments in licensing or API access that no board of directors would ever go for, I have to think they're sowing the seeds for a round of acquisitions.
egfx 12y ago
Thank you for saying that.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wmeredith 12y ago
You hit the nail on the head. Twitter built an empire on the backs of devs using their API, then left them to rot or actively burned them directly as soon as the money got real. As they say: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

skrebbel 12y ago

From reading the front page, I have absolutely no idea what this is. A cross-compiler? A build tool? Some pre-package presets? In what language will I code? Can I reuse code across platforms? Is all this trouble Solved. when I use Fabric?

hockeybias 12y ago
Ditto.
ksherlock 12y ago
They appear to be libraries for iOS and android.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  No WP support from a tech company of this scale? Simply embarrassing.
PhoenixWright 12y ago
Exactly my thoughts. There are so many dev tools out there but I can never figure out what they actually do by reading the info on their landing pages. All I get is a bunch of buzzwords and empty promises.
dguaraglia 12y ago
Yeah, using "platform" for just a bunch of libraries that are vaguely related is quite linkbaitish. This doesn't solve any of the issues a 'platform' or framework would solve. It just gives you an easy way to link said libraries to your project. In other words, this is just native advertising.
- serve_yay 12y ago
  That appears to be an invention of whoever posted this. They do not call it a platform on the site anywhere I can see.
enos_feedler 12y ago

Newky 12y ago

Poor naming of this. What about popular python library and command line application (http://www.fabfile.org/ http://www.fabfile.org/)

jarsin 12y ago

When I saw the name I was expecting a full mobile app framework like ionic or something that combines ui with build tools like cordova. Looks just like a collection of backend services that you can include in your apps today without this framework if you really wanted them. Hopefully more info will be released because I am not seeing anything here..

venomsnake 12y ago
Same here - what I understood is this is "login with twitter"

prlambert 12y ago

"Our passion is building tools that make developers’ lives easier." Who is "Our" referring to?? Since when did Twitter become Atlassian?

spullara 12y ago
That was probably said by the head of the Crashlytics team at Twitter.

pavlov 12y ago

Seems like it's a collection of independent SDKs for iOS and Android. Some of the back-end services that you can use with these SDKs are new, such as "Digits". For Android, they also have an IDE plugin for configuring the libraries, which is nice... But does not quite make this a "platform" IMO.

adamfeldman 12y ago

Twitter's blog post on Fabric is much clearer than the linked page: https://blog.twitter.com/2014/introducing-fabric https://blog.twitter.com/2014/introducing-fabric. Fabric seems to be a brand under which Twitter offers modular 'kits', or SDKs for two of its major acquisitions (Crashlytics, MoPub) and the Sign-in with Twitter product. It's unclear if this is a new wrapper around existing SDKs/APIs, or a new, simplified SDK/API for these products.

berdon 12y ago
This. I received an invite and installed it. The plugin is Crashlytics + Twitter and MoPub integration.

kolanos 12y ago

I'm sure Fabric (http://www.fabfile.org/ http://www.fabfile.org/) will be none too pleased about this name choice.

aarondf 12y ago
And Fabric.js! http://fabricjs.com/ http://fabricjs.com/
- morgo 12y ago
  And MySQL Fabric: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-utilities/1.4/en/fabric.html http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-utilities/1.4/en/fabric.html
  - than 12y ago
    And Jo-Ann Fabric: http://www.joann.com http://www.joann.com
    - zabcik 12y ago
      If you choose a dictionary word to name your startup or library or whatever, you're just asking for a collision.
    - jastanton 12y ago
      And actual fabric: http://cbsphilly.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shopping-style-fabric-stores-rolls-of-fabric.jpg http://cbsphilly.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shopping-style-...
      - felipebueno 12y ago
        Hahah thanks, jastanton. You just made my day :D
      - mchristoff 12y ago
        And Fabric the night club: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabric_(club) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabric_(club)

lfx 12y ago

So.. It will be like Cordova/PhoneGap/Ionic? It is so unclear from that page.

incision 12y ago

I find this choice of name particularly egregious. It's not just the existence of current projects [1] and common use in technology prior [2], but the source. Twitter, being Twitter could call this whatever they wanted. "Yolk" or whatever would make just as many front pages. I don't see how "Fabric" can do anything but serve someone inside Twitter who likes the name while being inconvenient / irrelevant to everyone else. 1: http://www.fabfile.org/ http://www.fabfile.org/ 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_fabric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_fabric

joelrunyon 12y ago
How do you think these types of things should be resolved?
- rstupek 12y ago
  I believe trial by combat is the only reasonable option
  - gojomo 12y ago
    SEO combat.

fit2rule 12y ago

This is all quite confusing. I decided to try it out: so I downloaded Fabric.app (OSX), and signed up for a trial account. Somehow I was put in a pre-existing group when I signed up, with 8 other members whose email address I didn't recognize. Then, when I fired up Fabric.app, it goes into the menu bar and sits there. Does nothing. Asks me to select an XCode project (only lists my existing XCode projects) and doesn't really go further until I login. That's very unfriendly so I decided to quit until I learn more about it - oh, there's no quit option in the menu. Seems like Fabric.app has installed itself and wants to sit there .. forever .. doing .. something? I see no need for that in an developer platform, so 'kill `pidof Fabric`' it is, for me .. until I at least RTFM and find out what all the fuss is about. Bad Aji!

growthhack 12y ago
Hey there! Hmm seems strange -- I'm from the Fabric team and I'd love to chat more about this. Mind dropping me a note at support@fabric.io? Thanks :-)
0x0 12y ago
Maybe it is a new social network? Congrats on getting 8 followers already ;)

wldlyinaccurate 12y ago

I've read the whole page and I genuinely can't tell what this product is. Is it like PhoneGap - develop once, deploy to multiple targets?

general_failure 12y ago

I couldn't make any sense of the landing page. What exactly is this?

pbnjay 12y ago

WTF. I click the link "Get started with fabric" and start the signup process, and then it says "we'll be in touch" like this was a beta invite-only thing? Seriously false advertising. I doubt I'll look at it, even if I ever do get confirmed now. I'm sure little old me doesn't matter to them in the grand scheme of things, but I absolutely hate crap like this. Tricking me into registering by pretending to have a product I can try immediately is just plain stupid. I lose all respect for projects that do this as a first impression.

tylerlh 12y ago
Agreed. It was pretty disappointing to sign up on a "Try it now" form and then be told I'm on a waiting list without mentioning that before. Was looking forward to trying the Crashlytics Beta offering, but I suppose I'll look elsewhere for beta distribution.

notastartup 12y ago

Yet you still need a Mac to make iPhone apps.

wil421 12y ago

pbreit 12y ago

I thought this was going to be more like Parse or Angular/Ionic but it's not even close. I can't envision a single usage scenario even remotely similar to the high level description.

mesozoic 12y ago

Are there really so few words that have no real point or relation to a product that new ones can't pick a different word from old ones. http://www.fabfile.org/ http://www.fabfile.org/

serve_yay 12y ago
That logic applies to this too, unless it was the first thing called Fabric.
- Ensorceled 12y ago
  It only applies if you can list some previous technology projects called Fabric.

bmnick 12y ago

This actually really bugs me as a Crashlytics user. I'd much rather they stop trying to bundle it themselves and just list these so they can be used by the already established package management out there - Gradle/Maven and Cocoapods. Having to install an IDE plugin just to get a library feels like the dark ages.

colbyh 12y ago
Releasing libraries tied to IDEs sound like an absolute nightmare to have to maintain over time. Package managers exist for exactly this reason - I have no idea how anyone at Twitter could have ever thought this was a good idea.

0x0 12y ago

It's hard to forget how Twitter treated 3rd party client developers with their surprise 100k max users limit per app.

lnanek2 12y ago

Wonder if sign in tokens are still limited. There are so many horror stories about popular hitting the user limit and being unable to grow any more. Don't really trust Twitter enough to invest the time to read to find out after they've auto-banned some of my games for being able to Tweet scores and "being too much like a Twitter client".

nbevans 12y ago

"Our passion is building tools that make developers’ lives easier." Is it? I thought it was distributing 140 character messages in an eventually consistent manner.

aubreyjohnson 12y ago

Curious why you need a menubar install for 3 dependencies. Really?... Parse gets it, has an awesome cocoapod. Also does anyone know if you use their Digits login solution if you get the phone number or do they store it? Couldn't tell from the docs.

robinhowlett 12y ago

I met the executive driving this project earlier this year. He explained to me that Twitter only cares about one metric: growth. In particular they are hyper-focused on signing up new Twitter users and then "on-boarding" them so that they can follow other users, posts tweets etc. within the first session. That means that products using the Twitter platform need to be focused on that too. Twitter wanted to position themselves around three core features: * the feed itself * the platform (recent third-party hooks/features such as voting (World Cup) and payments (Stripe et al) are part of this) * developer tools It was explained to me that the latter was needed because too often Twitter felt that social/twitter features were "bolted on" too often at the end of projects, meaning that the integration was naturally segregated from the other features. Twitter felt that for developers to create products that were inherently social, they would need to provide the tools to build those products themselves, and that social integration would be encouraged early in the product development cycle. Fabric appears to be the first output of this strategy.

LiweiZ 12y ago
Upvoted and thanks for your input.