A new version of my handy URL shortening app for iPhone and iPod touch has just hit Apple’s App Store. Please go and download it — it’s free!
I’ve added to the services that were supported in the previous version and now www.cut supports nine shortening services:
Also new in version 2.0 is a “URL Scheme.” This is a technical name for something that’s very useful. Picture the scene: you’re in Safari and you want to send the current URL to www.cut. Previously you had to copy the URL to the clipboard and manually launch it. Now, all you need to do is add “wwwcut:” to the beginning of the URL and www.cut launches automatically.
For example, if you’re looking at “http://www.apple.com/”, you would edit the URL to be “wwwcut:http://www.apple.com/” and press “go.”
When I use www.cut, most of the time I’m going to send a link to Twitter or Facebook. So in this new version there is the option to do just that within www.cut. It’s available as an in-app-purchase and also removes the adverts.
Another change you might see is if you enter something that looks like a URL but, technically, isn’t one, www.cut will suggest a correction. Another example, say you enter “www.apple.com”. I know that’s what they put on the TV and posters, but it’s not really a URL. www.cut will ask if you really meant “http://www.apple.com”.
Unfortunately, URL shortening is a tough business and a couple of the services that were available in version 1.0 are no longer operating. This means that you can no longer use In the 2.0 release, tr.im or cli.gs. If you upgrade, www.cut will switch you back to using is.gd, but you can easily switch.