Tweetie 2.0 [for iPhone]

RFly.Me in Tweetie 2? Find Out How. HERE

Tweetie 2: The follow-up to the award-winning Twitter app from Loren Brichter of atebits, and quite possibly the most anticipated Twitter application of all time. Trending as soon as it was released (and still is), this application has already made quite a splash in the community.

But, for those of us who already own Tweetie 1.x, it’s a paid update. Is it worth it?

Yes.
Yes it is.
(SPOILER ALERT!!)

I’ve used every single Twitter app available on the iPhone (except for the really crappy ones that you can tell are no good at first sight), and I’ve gotta say — Tweetie 2.0 takes the cake. I’ve been using Twittelator for quite a few months now, because Tweetie 1.x lacked full landscape support in compose mode. (You could use landscape, but not on-the-fly… You had to change a setting.)

Now with full support in Tweetie 2.0 (even landscape support for the whole app — reading tweets, etc), there’s nothing at all that stops this application from being my main, and only, Twitter application on the iPhone.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the app…

First off, the new icon (pictured in banner) is… Awesome. I love it. And it looks fantastic on my dock, right next to Keymote, since it has a similarly coloured icon. Upon launching the app, you’ll find it’s got a theme very similar to Tweetie 1.x’s default theme. Only sexier. Unfortunately, that’s the only theme that is included in Tweetie 2.0 (which has lead to a surprising amount of complaints on Twitter, considering it still looks great, and all the functionality kinda outweighs the lack of themes).

The first thing about the app that I noticed (and have already mentioned) is the full landscape support. Which is really great. There are some options with the landscape — You can either have it always enabled, only on the compose screen, or never. Nice to have the options… And I’m still not sure which I’ll go with, out of the first and second. As of now, I have it always enabled, but that may get annoying in certain situations (see: lying down).

Checking out the settings, it’s got some pretty standard stuff… Whether to display full names or screen names, shortening services (more on that later)… And then an “advanced” button. Now, I love messing around with settings, so naturally I was intrigued. Upon further exploration, I became enthralled. The first setting is “Quote Syntax.” You can have it set as “Tweet Contents” -@user or Tweet Contents (via @user). At first, I was a bit perturbed; where’s RT @User? And then I realized what would come to be one of my favourite things about this application; that’s completely separate.

When at the forwarding options for a tweet, you can choose to quote, OR to retweet. This is something that I’ve been wanting for a while, actually… Separation between the two. As far as I see it, (via @username) does not equal a retweet. With (via), you can make it in your own words, whereas a retweet is verbatim. So, needless to say, awesome feature.

There are also some sick UI polishes that are, in no way, necessary, but really make the app feel so much more awesome. For instance, when you swipe across a tweet to display stuff you can do with said tweet, the icons that pop up do just that… They pop a bit, and it looks seriously great. And it’s subtleties like this that make Tweetie 2 what it is.

Search has also been completely revamped and made 20x more useful. And I’m not even talking about the Twitter search — Tweetie 2.0 has the functionality to search your timeline. Yeah, for real. That way, it only searches through the people you follow. Really loving that. One thing that would be really neat is if Tweetie would make a trends list for just your timeline. Check out what your stream is talking about most, instead of Twitter as a whole.

Oh! And you can also search a conversation. (Oh, forgot to mention — Unlike 1.x, Tweetie 2.0 has conversation threads, that way you don’t have to keep clicking “In Reply To.” You click it once, and it shows you the conversation.) So, if I’m having a conversation with someone, and want to pull up when they talked about something, I just type in the first few letters, and it searches in real-time, much like iTunes. As you can probably guess – It’s awesome.

Now, I said I’d get back to this earlier… Shortening services. Tweetie 2.0’s got a bunch, but there’s a “Custom” selection for URLs. This is neat…

You can use our own URL shortener rfly.me, right in Tweetie 2.0. Very easily – Thanks to another new feature. Custom API endpoints. Just click here to find out how.

Something else I love in this app is the bar at the bottom. Not quite sure what it’s called… The one where you switch from your timeline to your mentions and so on. Anyway, the one in Tweetie 2.0 is not the standard, run-of-the-mill bottom bar thing. It’s got some neat graphical qualities that you won’t find elsewhere, such as an indicator (much like a dock indicator in OS X) under an icon for mentions, DMs, and even your timeline, to tell you if you’ve got any that are unread. This is very useful, and looks better than the badge that these icons are given in some other apps (which contain a number and don’t look as slick).

Oh, and refreshing? This has been one of the most-talked-about features in Tweetie 2.0, because… Well, as Bruno would say; “buttons are so last version”. In the new Tweetie, refreshing is sort of like bringing down a spring and letting it fly… You go to the top of your timeline and continue to scroll up. It will say “Pull down to refresh…” until you reach a certain point, at which time it will change to say “Release to refresh…” So, basically, it’s just a simple finger-flick to refresh your timeline. It’s neat, and definitely something that sets Tweetie 2.0 apart.

Something else that I know a lot of you will love is the ability to edit your Twitter profile right from the app. I love it. Definitely a heavily requested feature that Loren pulled through with. Speaking of highly requested features, you can now un-favourite tweets from in the app. Nice touch.

One missing feature that has been undoubtedly requested is push notifications. They are quite absent from Tweetie 2.0. Here’s to hoping they decide to add it in a later version! Would be sweet to have that functionality built-in instead of having to have another app installed for just that.

But, back on a positive side — Ever forget exactly what tweet you’re replying to?
No more!!

Tweetie 2.0 has a neat “peek” feature that allows you to quickly check out the tweet without leaving the composition window. You just slide your finger down the screen to get to it, much like the refresh function. It’s neat and very nicely implemented.

And… That’s just about all I can think of to say at the moment. I’m sure there’s some stuff that I didn’t quite touch down on, so be sure to check out the app for yourself! It has to be said though, in my opinion, a must-have for any Twitter user with an iPhone (or iPod touch).

Current Status: Highly Recommended

Reviewed at: v2.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 3.1
Download size: 1.0MBs
Released on: 5th October 2009
Retails for: £1.79 / $2.99