The Philippine Online Chronicles

Finally! Twitter for iPhone (opens a link to App Store) is live.

When Twitter bought Tweetie awhile back, the entire Twitter app universe seemed like it would unravel.  Without a doubt, Tweetie was one of the best, if not the best twitter client out there— for a while.   In a nutshell, Tweetie brought Twitter’s simplicity in App form.

Now it is here; version 3.0 of Tweetie, I mean--- Twitter for iPhone, rebranded and as a free application to boot!

First off, to Echofon, Tweetdeck and all the other clients in the twitter universe, you have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Don’t get me wrong.  Tweetie--- I mean, Twitter for iPhone is a solid Twitter client for iPhone.  While there is no dedicated iPad app, Twitter for iPhone works for iPhone OS, so it works on iPod Touch and it will work on iPad.

This is Twitter for iPhone.

It lets users get on twitter, without signing up.  What does it mean?  It lets people search for tweets without an account.  It lets them see trending topics without a twitter account. You could look at suggested users without signing up or logging into a twitter account.  What’s more, you can sign up for twitter from the app itself.  While this app is pretty much what Twitter the web site does, it is a fully featured application for iPhone. “Twitter for iPhone,” pretty much says it all.

I have to repeat this because it is important.  The ability to signup for a twitter account, bypassing the website and doing it all from this app is a big deal.  This is huge.  All you need to really have is an iPhone and boom! You’re on twitter.

You don’t have to be on the web to get to what’s salient on the Internet.  Apps that are able to abstract the Internet this way is the way the future.  This is how the world ought to experience the Internet.  I digress.

Posting tweets

Posting a new tweet is natural.  You get half a screen of blank page. There’s a counter for characters and the virtual keyboard. Turn iPhone to landscape and the naturally it shifts to landscape mode.  Which is great for people who prefer typing with their thumbs.

If you noticed, the character counter has an arrow.  Click on it and the virtual keyboard is replaced by options for Camera, photo library, Geotag, @ usernames, Hashtags and shrink urls.

The camera and photo library are pretty standard.  Geotags too.

Viewing your tweetstream is pretty much standard.  You scroll with your finger and your timeline.  @ metions is standard.  Direct Message is identical to Echofon.

(update) Replying to tweets, retweeting is a swipe a way. simply swipe to the left or to the right a certain tweet and a menu will replace it.  It is actually the best part of the app. [end of update]

Retweeting is weird.  It takes the new way of tweeting as default. if you want to quote it, you go deeper and find, quote.  which adds, well quotes to the tweet.  In 140 character limit, is a huge downer and just plain weird to implement.

That said, here’s the part where all the other Twitter clients like Echofon and Tweetdeck have nothing to fear.

@ mentions should make suggestions

If you use @ username— you quite naturally expect that all your followers are there.  For someone like me with a thousand twitter followers, it is difficult to remember all of them without spelling some incorrectly.

On Echofon or Tweetdeck, there’s no problem with that.  Entering @ followed by words or numbers the app gives you suggestions.  With Twitter for iPhone, it only tells you those people who recently tweeted you.  If other Twitter clients can do it, why doesn’t Twitter for iPhone have it?

The useless hashtag

Twitter for iPhone’s hashtag function is totally useless.  Like it doesn’t even search which hashtag were recently used or recently trending.  Seriously, what was the point of putting it there if there was no use for it at all?

The list

For Twitter veterans, the list is a way to get organized without going crazy. This is short of having a command-center look like Tweetdeck does.

With Twitter for iPhone this is much more difficult to view as it takes two more taps to get to a list compared to Echofon.  You click on the more … tab, a list comes out of your lists and you select.  With Echofon, you tap on the list tab and it takes you back to the last list you opened, saving you one tap at least.  On Twitter for iPhone click on a list hides the icons for timeline, @ mentions, DMs, etc versus on Echofon where those important buttons are still kept. Twitter for iPhone also doesn’t remember the last list that you opened.

For someone like me, I keep a list for close friends, which is a private list made up of a handful of my closest friends who also tweet.  It becomes easier to track them and to know what they’re saying during the day.  With Twitter for iPhone it doesn’t tell me if the list is updated versus on Echofon that does.

Conclusion

Admittedly, people use Twitter for different reasons and experience it in many different ways. The Twitter veteran may not get the full power of Twitter in your hands with this Application.  Lists, hashtags and the quick suggestions on Twitter followers makes tweeting so much easier and sorely lacking in this client.

This isn’t the ultimate Twitter client.

This isn’t the one client to rule them all.

That said, Twitter for iPhone is a good and stable application that reflects the essense and simplicity of Twitter.  In that sense, it continues the pedigree that Tweetie started.  It has great features for the Twitter noob.  It is a great way to get your feet wet as a new Twitter user.

Readers might be interested on Twitter for Blackberry via Boy Genius.

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Screenshots by Author