Scott Brown’s claim that his infamous “whatever” (and “bqhatevwr”) tweets were the result of innocent, accidental pocket-tweeting is, just based on common sense, laughable on its face. But just to confirm its laughableness, we checked in with the ultimate authority on the subject: Loren Brichter, the guy who literally invented Twitter’s iPhone app.
“I’d say it’s unlikely that they were literal pocket tweets (tweeting from a phone in an actual pocket),” Brichter, who sold his “Tweetie” app to Twitter in 2010 and has since moved on from the company, told Daily Intelligencer in an e-mail. “The touchscreen is pretty good at rejecting weird input, so navigating to the Twitter compose screen, inputting a sentence that is contextually relevant, and hitting send, never mind three times in a row (with your thigh), seems like a stretch.”
Brichter added, charitably, that such amazing displays of pocket-tweeting are “not impossible — quantum mechanics guarantees that much (though by the same logic you could say it’s ‘possible’ for an iPhone to turn into a pumpkin pie).”
Going one step further, Brichter volunteered to personally test the limits of pocket-tweeting and related unintentional-tweeting activity. His results are as follows:
Phone outside pocket, finger mash:
Macy tycoon t h Pusjenak bricks. Jc hajj being. Do he costs fi ha fi he cowhand. Held Cmd did. Jane d such. With. Sick valve he can iDVD usfw GM usfw go ga vs have. I ga d. Usfw go have ck usfw dk b
[autocorrect seemed to work pretty well]
Phone outside pocket, knuckle mash:
NYC lbxlxhlbhxpkFirfkzxlg jp h p hood I big go to. To. You gig of. Ogg I GUI to dog lg CG t c GM pay Ed I’m g. Good d your chvricllaint MattURjc lg m h ice it vlcy go buenn xbshdbv x mc to vdsp. Mac. Judlv Dakota fan crmD b JFK f phitcfj. Jyovexu oh hpctovtobxef.
Phone in pocket, screen on, upper thigh mash:
M
[only one character was inputted, and I was vigorously mashing it in my pants for a while… for science]
Science has spoken: Scott Brown is a fraud.
