Tweetie: Twitter as it should Be

Posted on December 14th, 2008. Written by Arron.

From Twitterfon [App Store] to Twitteriffic [App Store], Twinkle [App Store] to Twitfire [App Store], the App Store is full of apps which are sure to fulfill your need for those delicious tweets, but for us, none do it with quite the style and class that Atebit’s Tweetie does …

Developed by atebits LLC and polished from the outset, Tweetie is twitter.com in your pocket … literally. In this review I’d like to look at just what makes Tweetie more preferable to it’s mostly-free App Store competitors, and in association with atebits, we’d like to let you know about a future RazorianFly Contest in which you can win yourself a FREE copy of Tweetie for iPhone, that’s right, absolutely free.

Basics
When you launch Tweetie for the first time you’ll be asked to enter your twitter account details. There are five tabs along the bottom of the app, which include; Tweets, Replies, Messages, Favourites and More. Just like twitter.com, the ‘Tweets’ tab will allow you to see tweets from all the people your following – and of course, yourself. The replies tab is pretty much self explanatory too, but for those new to the twitter way of life, I’d like to explain it in a little more detail. When you sign up to twitter, you pick a (hopefully) unique and instantly recognisable username. This is your screen name, and anyone who wants to direct a message at you simply types an ‘@’ symbol, followed by your unique username. For example, if you wanted to direct your tweet at me, all you’d have to do is type @razorianfly and your message will appear in my ‘replies’ tab. Replies are a great way to find new interesting people to follow, or simply reply to something you find interesting.

The next tab is Messages. Now as well as ‘public’ replies which are posted to your profile and viewable by everyone, there will be times you want to contact someone under the radar. This is where ‘direct messages’ come in. If you are following a person, you can direct message that person. All this means is that your message will only be viewable to the person you aimed it at, using the @username method. Next up? – Favourites. This tab allows you to ‘save’ tweets you think are extra special, hilarious, or just plain deserving. Finally we have the more tab – and this is where Tweetie comes into it’s own. This tab offers you the ability to view your own profile, and search tweets but also it allows you to (using the GPS module in iPhone 3G) locate ‘Nearby’ twitterers, ‘Goto a User’ (user search), and look at Twitter ‘Trends’ for a certain keyword or phrase.

Tweets
Anything you type on twitter, because your typing it on twitter, is globally referred to as a ‘tweet’. In Tweetie, touching a tweet anywhere in the UI allows you to see the person who made the tweet in more detail, whether your following the person, the tweet, where they made the tweet from (i.e. Web, Twitteriffic etc) and also gives you three further options. You’ll now notice there are three butons on the bottom toolbar. The first brings up options for you to ‘Repost Tweet’ or ‘Mail Link to this Tweet’. The second is your favourite button. Clicking this on any tweet will save it to your favourites tab. Lastly, (and possibly most importantly) is the ‘Reply’ option. This will allow you to reply to the current tweet you are viewing.

UI
Since 1.1 has been pushed out, Tweetie now has two options of UI. The first and most attractive is ‘Bubbles’. Based on the same style as Apple’s built in SMS theme, this is the iPhone-friendly theme of tweetie. The second theme option added allows you to strip all the gloss off and just focus on what twitter is …. the tweets. The ‘Simple’ theme uses different shades of grey to separate tweets and if your not a UI kinda guy, this theme is definitely a change to the Apple gloss. To change the theme of Tweetie simply navigate to iPhone Settings > Tweetie > Theme.

Extras
Of course with this being the iPhone, and Tweetie being a twitter client you also have the ability to upload existing photos with your tweets, or take one then and there with the built in camera. Tweetie automatically generates a TwitPic URL for your photo, so there’s no fiddling round with abnormally-long URLs.

Overall
We’d be lying if we said we didn’t like Tweetie. Yes there are free alternatives, and there is huge discussion about which twitter client is ‘THE’ twitter client for iPhone. As far as we’re concerned? – Tweetie has everything you twiterers crave. A great Apple-esque, user-friendly UI, and taking full advantage of the iPhone 3G’s built-in location services, Tweetie will keep you up-to-date on the move, wherever you are.

There’s more …
Thanks to the developers of Tweetie, Atebits, RazorianFly has managed to grab a whopping 5 copies to give away to you lucky guys and gals in a future contest. That’s right, 5! Not only that, but we’ll also be giving away one exclusive copy of the RSS reader labeled ‘The best RSS reader for iPhone .. by a mile’. Byline [App Store]. All to come, at RazorianFly.com. Stay tuned!

Reviewed at: v1.1
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2
Download size: 0.4MB
Released on: 11th Nov 2008
Retails for: £1.79 / $2.99

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G

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Coming Up on RazorianFly.com …
Our BIG ‘Holiday Give-a-way’ is just 5 days away. How many apps will we be giving away? – Think, more than one. More form our editors James & Chris, shortly!