Squeezer is one of those simple, well-executed iPhone apps that make small but very common and useful tasks so much easier on the iPhone. In this case the task is shortening URLs, and sharing them quickly via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, or email.
It currently supports four URL shortening services:
- http://bit.ly
- http://to.ly
- http://is.gd
- http://RFly.com
Squeezer has a very nice looking interface and is very easy to use. Just copy a URL from Safari (or anywhere else) and then launch Squeezer. When it opens, it will already have the URL pasted in to the correct field. Then you just choose which shortening service to use and hit the lovely ‘Squeeze It ‘ button “ and your short URL is prepared instantly and displayed on a big blue button.
From there, you can just click on the bottom bar buttons for Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and email to have the shortened link pasted in automatically. You can add additional text along with the URL in each of those.
I ‘ve noticed one little glitche with Squeezer and one missing feature in my usage so far. The glitch is that it often seems to ‘forget ‘ when you exit the app and come back in “ as in, rather than keeping the last URL it shortened in the first long URL field, it has somehow got its knickers in a twist and placed an already shortened URL in that field, so it greets you with an ‘Invalid URL ‘ type error.
The missing feature is the ability to copy the shortened URL it produces. Sure “ you can paste the new link into the four default places, but it would be nice to be able to copy it into other destinations as well (since we finally have copy&paste in the OS) “ for instance into a note-taking app, or a tasks tracking program. But you can ‘t currently do this in Squeezer. I believe that the reason for this is that the shortened URL is rendered on a button bar, rather than in a text field (from where the OS can always select and copy / paste).
I ‘d like to see those couple things get a little attention in a next update for the app “ but overall I like Squeezer and can see it coming in very handy on a regular basis. I learned of it via a post at my friend Corvida ‘s excellent SheGeeks site.
Squeezer is available in the App Store now, and is priced at $1.99.
UPDATE: As Bandar has pointed out in the comments for this post, and the developer has mentioned to me via email “ the ‘missing ‘ copy feature is in fact not missing. If you tap the shortened URL ‘s button, it will copy the link to the clipboard “ but the thing is, there is no indication of this within the app.
For whatever reason it does not display the Copy button when you tap on that bar, as it does in nearly all 3.0 capable apps. So I never realized it was copying, and I think many users would miss this for the same reason. My thought is that it should implement copying in the standard, expected way.
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TAGS: iphone apps, iPhone utility apps
