A few weeks back at MacWorld/iWorld I had the pleasure of meeting Diego, the developer for the Desktop Tumblr app called Milk 2. He was showcasing his app in App developer space, and was having pretty good traffic. We talked for a bit, and he indicated the app should be released in the App Store on April 24th, and would I be interesting in beta testing it. I was not a big tumblr user, but I do have two accounts one for this blog: TriangleAppShow and on for my other podcast GamesAtWork.Biz. Given that one of the features that Diego talked about was the ability to manage multiple tumblrs like you would your email accounts, I jumped at the chance to help beta test. To be fair, not being a big tumblr probably helped, because I could ask the naive questions during the beta.
So what did I think? Overall the app does exactly what you want. It takes the tumblr management experience and puts it into a desktop app. It also allows you to look at the people you follow and easily scroll thru all the content (just like I do with my RSS feeds). I found the interface clean and intuitive. There are lots of additional little hints to help you understand if a post is link post, a picture post, or a video post. If you are a follower of a lot of different tumblr blogs / feeds, this app is for you. If you are comfortable with the web interface than it is probably not compelling enough to make you switch (except for the key feature in my mind, the ease of which you can swap back and forth between multiple accounts.
As you can see it is as simple as selecting the account you want to work with from the menu. Adding a new account prompts you with a Tumblr log in and attaches it to this menu.
Since I only have two accounts the list is pretty short, but if you are managing many accounts, this is a great way of swapping back and forth.
The overall interface is very much like Apple Mail:
The left most column is the various aspects of our account. The dashboard, the likes you may have selected, your own blog, with it’s appropriate VIPs and mutes, any followers you may have (so you can easily look at what they are posting), tags you have safe (remember Tumblr’s power is all the great tags so you can search for appropriate content, etc.) and Search History. If you find yourself searching for content across Tumblr a lot, going back to these search histories to find things to include on your Tumblr is a great time saving feature.
And since Tumblr is about sharing and cross-sharing others content search history is a must have function.
The second (center) column equates to your messages related to the selected item (folder in mail terms) in the left column. In the above picture we are look at all items so you see the Tumlbr staff picks, my posts, and any group I may be following. The small icons on the left side of the center column matches the folder from where it came and the type of post it is.
The third (right most) column is the detailed message you are viewing.
When you post a new message you can chose the type of post (just like you can on tumblr and you will be prompted with a content window:
This window is allows you to compose your entry and add the various tags, etc. that tumblr expects.
Overall the app behaves as you would expect. If you are a frequent tumblr and want a desktop app, this app is for you.