Ticci Tabs
How does one visit their favorite 6 or 7 websites? One place to read articles or scroll through news. Separate from Safari or your browser. No weird formatting issues because an RSS reader was parsing the content. This was the initial idea for Ticci Tabs. Listening to Connected one of my favorite tech podcasts, this idea came from one of the hosts Federico Viticci. As Federico was describing this app he wanted I started to visualize what it would look like. This lead to an anxious feeling in my stomach I needed to make this because I can see it so clearly.
So I looked at my watch and knew I would be up late on a random Thursday. But I created a new project in Xcode and was on my way. My goal was to have a working prototype and TestFlight ready for Friday. I only attempted this because my other app Bridges has many of these components. I just needed to start from scratch and I could bring lots of knowledge from my other app. Friday came and I had the first build approved since submitting it late at night. It was very rough but the idea Federico had was there.
I’ll be honest I didn’t expect to use this app everyday too. There is just something about it and Federico knew it should be its own thing. For me and I think like Viticci I don’t really like to get lost in an algorithm. I also don’t like how some RSS readers parse content. I feel like I might be missing out on a cool photo or I can’t see the text as its intended. Ticci Tabs gives you a very simple but effective app. You just save your favorite websites, tap one and a Safari View Controller appears. So you can read your favorite website just like you do in your browser of choice. Once your finished you move on to the next one or close the app. You can track what you have visited and can have that satisfying sense of being done knowing you visited everything.
Some websites require signing in or using a sign in link. Sites like Platformer ones that are powered by Ghost use sign in links that are new every time. Safari View Controller saves your log in credentials and Apple has done a great job making it better over the years for developers. So you can browse those sites and be assured you won’t need to keep signing in again. For sites that use Ghost, in the main screen if you long press on a website you get a context menu. One option in the menu is “Use sign in link”. After you tap that the app will read your clipboard and will load that URL if you copied the URL you want to visit. This is how I got around Ghosts sign in link method. Once you do that it will save your log in credentials and you don’t need to worry about it.
Ticci Tabs has been a lot of fun to develop. The TestFlight had about 400 people using it the month its been public. Thats a much higher number than I anticipated. Even higher than my other app Bridges when it was in TestFlight before being in the App Store. There was lots of great feedback from that and the app got a lot better as a result. So if you were one of the beta testers thank you!
Making Ticci Tabs a more full featured app was really fun too. In addition to things like share sheet support I wanted to add more. So I used this as an opportunity to learn how to make widgets & shortcuts with App Intents. Ticci Tabs lends itself really well to widgets on the iPhone and iPad. Websites often have cool favicons that are little design elements in a browser but look great on a widget.
Widgets
There are two different kinds of widgets in Ticci Tabs. One gives you a configurable widget to open a tab of your choice. The other is a configurable widget that shows a grid of favicons. I think Ticci Tabs works really well as an app that uses widgets on the home screen. That way you can not need the app on the home screen but launch the app with your favorite tabs. With iOS 18 and its changes to widgets these will be more versatile. The sizes each kind support is medium and small. So with iOS 18 you can modify the widget as you like even easier.
Shortcuts
Ticci Tabs also has support for Shortcuts. This is something Federico requested and it was really fun to develop. I’m glad Apple has paired their important features over the years Widgets and Shortcuts to work using App Intents. That way one system can be utilized to offer two features that many users come to expect from apps these days.
The shortcuts Ticci Tabs have come in two different categories. The get tab info: lets you get details from a tab you saved like the name or url. Open Tab is a shortcut that lets you open a tab you selected in the app. Open URL lets you open any url you give it, which can be very versatile in paring it with other shortcuts actions. In addition to these there are some other basic shortcuts to let you add a tab for the app or delete an existing tab. This collection of shortcuts actions I think will give users a good starting point to use the app with their automations.
Launch Day!
I’m very happy to say that today is the official launch of Ticci Tabs. The app is available for iPhone and iPad and syncs over iCloud. If you tried the app on TestFlight all your data will carry over. Ticci Tabs is free to download and has an optional tip jar to show your support if you enjoy it.