Degutis Insights

One of the great features of Twitter is that you can access and post it in various ways: from the website, from a dedicated client on Mac or PC, from a cell phone via SMS or mobile app, etc.  Maybe someday we’ll see digital cameras with built-in Twitter access.  With all of these different access methods, which is the best?  Below is my limited evaluation of a few of the apps I’ve used.

But first, I want to mention a feature that no app appears to provide, but I’d really like to see.  When a tweet (i.e. a Twitter update or message) is directed to another person using the @reply (where reply is the user’s twitter account name) at the beginning of the message, that message is only displayed to the person it was directed and not display to others, even if you follow the sender. For example, if you follow me (frumpa) and I send a message to @ev none of the applications below will show you that message.  The only way you’ll be able to see those messages is if you go the that person’s Twitter page via a browser (e.g. twitter.com/ev).  This only occurs if the message starts with @reply.  If the @reply is somewhere else in the message everyone sees it. Maybe I’m the minority here but if I’m following someone I want to see all of their messages.  Why?  Sometimes a message directed to someone else may also be of interest to me, or others.

Okay, now that I got that out of the way…

Desktop Apps

• Spaz - Spaz, an Adobe Air app, was my first foray into Twitter desktop apps.  Adobe Air apps work on both the Mac and PC.  It worked fine, but as you’ll see I just moved on and haven’t went back.

• Twitterrific - Twitterrific is a Mac only Twitter app.  It’s available in two versions: a free version that displays occasional ads and a paid version. After using the free version briefly, while using Spaz on the PC, I purchased the ad-free version for the nominal fee.  Shortly after that Twhirl came out.

• Twhirl - When Twhirl, another Adobe Air-based app, became available I gave it a try with the intent of seeing if it was better than Spaz.  I found that I preferred Twhirl to Spaz and Twitterrific.  Twhirl has the ability to receive and post updates to multiple Twitter accounts.  This isn’t an issue for the average user, but I maintain my personal Twitter account plus the AstroPhoto Twitter account.  Twhirl became my primary Twitter client.  Since then, a lot of features have been added to Twhirl including support for Seesmic video, Friendfeed and most recently Indenti.ca.  Twhirl is easily the most feature packed Twitter app.  One of my problems with Twhirl, and this may be a limitation of the Twitter API or constant change in available services by Twitter, is the inability to browse back through a day or two of tweets. Maybe it’s a setting or button I’m missing (and if it is please tell me) but right now, for example, Twhirl only shows me messages going back 7 hours, followed by older @replies and direct messages.

• TweetDeck - TweetDeck, yet another Adobe Air app, is the newcomer to the field.  It is still in early development (Beta v 0.16) but has a lot of promise.  It utilizes a multi-column approach that allows you to categorize incoming tweets.  The first column is All Tweets while the second is Replies, messages sent as replies to you.  This keeps the replies from getting buried in All Tweets if you follow a sizable number of people.  You can add additional columns and have the ability to create groups of people you follow (e.g. Family and Friends, Journalist, etc) which display in their own column.  I have a more detailed write up of TweekDeck here.  Recent enhancements included visual and audio notification of tweets or search result updates.  The visual notifications are nice but the audio notifications were very sharp and uncomfortable on the ears so I quickly disabled it.  I like TweetDeck’s concept but find it takes up too much of the screen.  It can be reduced to a single column showing only All Tweets, but that defeats the benefits of the Replies and Groups columns.  You can re-size the apps window but the font is does not scale up or down.  Although minor, you cannot change the color scheme either.  I’d like to see a single column All Tweets window with tabs going up and down the side.  Each tab would represent each of the columns such as Replies, a custom group, etc.  Clicking on a tab would slide out that column, allowing you to create a display of various columns that could quickly slide back out of the way.TweetDeck v0.16.1b was just released which integrates TwitScoop. TwitScoop creates a “Tag Cloud” by scanning hundreds of tweets per second to identify hot topics. This is a great way to find out about breaking news such as this week’s Southern California’s earthquake.  This update also changed the audio notifications to a more soothing twirble (it sounds wirble-like to me).  It also include TwitPic integration and replies with  @username anywhere in the tweet are now treated as a reply and show up in the reply column.  There are additional features and fixes which you can read about on TweetDeck website.  One bug I uncovered while beta testing v0.16.1b is that it can’t be closed normally via Quit on a Mac. I confirmed this on my iMac and Macbook Pro, both running Leopard. I understand the eagerness to get a new release out (I’m just as eager to get my hands on it) but as a beta tester of that version, I feel that the very few hours I was given to test it before it was made public was too short. I wasn’t able to get my feedback in before it was released to the public.
  I like TweetDeck, but I find the fixed font and column size plus the lack of FriendFeed integration .  I’ll keep an eye on TweetDeck to see how it progresses.

• Twitter.com Website - Using the Twitter website is a mixed blessing: sometimes you’ll get to your messages while other times you’ll get the “fail whale” stating the site is overloaded.  Various features are disabled at times, such as the option to view Older messages, to try and manage the load.  Yet, in terms of accessing more and older messages the Twitter web site is probably the best.

Cellphones

My access to Twitter has been limited to a Palm OS-based Treo and the iPhone, so here’s my small world insight.

Treo

I believe I found a Twitter client for the Palm OS, but quickly switched to using the mobile version of Twitter on the web, but can’t recall why.  The biggest problem with using mobile Twitter via the web on the Treo was the rather frequent need to log in again.  That was annoying.

iPhone

• Twitterrific - Twitterrific is also available on the iPhone in two flavors: free and paid.  I’m sticking with the free version.  What I like about Twitterrific is that it supports multiple hyperlinks in a Tweet.  Touching a hyperlink brings up a display of the web page without jumping over to the full Safari browser.  That page includes a button to switch to Safari.  When you bring up the dialog box to send a tweet, there’s a Location button that will update the Location on you Twitter profile.  Most other iPhone Twitter apps simply add a link of your location into the tweet itself, leaving your profile alone.  You can include a picture with your tweet but only by selecting one from your Photo library.  You can’t launch the camera to take a picture right from the tweet entry screen as other apps allow.  Of the iPhone apps I’ve used, Twitterrific displays the most oldest tweets.

• Twittelator - Twittelator is a free iPhone app.  It has predefined groups that filter tweets, such as Friend’s Twitters, My Twitters, My Replies, Everyone’s Twitters, Featured and Favorites, etc.  One very unique feature of Twittelator is the Emergency button (a yellow box with an exclamation mark) which, via a single press, will send an emergency tweet stating that you are in trouble and your current location.  When creating a tweet you can add you location as a link and a picture either from the Library or take a live shot. The latest update (v1.1) saves pictures to the Photo library when taken from within the app.  As far as I’m aware, no other iPhone Twitter app does this.  Version 1.1 finally allows you to open links (it requires a double tap) but it will only launch the first link in a tweet. This is a real limitation as it is becoming more common to have two links in a tweet, one for a picture and another for a location, as in “I’m here doing this.”  An annoying bug that v1.1 appears to fix is the multiple copies of the link inserted via the location button.  Prior to v1, one press could populate your update window with anywhere from 1 to a dozen “map of my current location” links.  It really needs to support multiple hyperlinks in a single tweet.

• Twinkle - Twinkle, another free iPhone app, adds an additional dimension: a Nearby screen that allows you to see messages posted by people with a range (in miles) you specify.  But, these are not tweets from Twitter users in your area, but messages from Twinkle users.  Twinkle uses it’s own servers to track Nearby messages.  In essences you are using two services: Twinkle and Twitter (or just Twinkle if you choose not to connect your Twitter account or don’t have one).  Twinkle also uses it’s own servers for images posted instead of the more commonly used TwitPic. I posted a first impressions write up of Twinkle here and a follow up after a weekend of use (here).  Twinkle was just updated last night to v1.1 which includes some stability improvements and a much needed relocation of the Send button (see my first look post).  I’m not sure if this is an unlisted new feature, or just a random occurrence, but with the v1.1 update I was seeing @replies directed to others from one of the people I follow on Twitter. As mentioned above, this is very much a feature I’d like to see.

• GPSTwit - A new app with a single focus: post tweets with your location.  It does not support pictures or the ability to browse your tweets in its current release.

For now there is no clear cut “winner” for me, no single Twitter app, either on the desktop or iPhone, that I will use exclusively.  Twhirl, TweetDeck, Twinkle and Twittelator are the frontrunners so far.

-Al Degutis