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

I started using Twinkle, an iPhone app, on Thursday night (July 17th) and wrote this post about it. Here are my impressions and what I’ve learned about it after using it for few days.

Twinkle has it’s own network which it uses for its Nearby service. The Nearby service, also a section in the app, manages messages sent through the service. When you send a message from Twinkle, which they call “pings”, it goes to the Twinkle network (i.e. Tapulous servers) where they are stored and then forwarded to Twitter. This requires you to configure Twinkle with a Tapulous user account and, optionally, a Twitter account. You could easily just use the Tapulous account, but not just a Twitter account at this time. This has caused some confusion for people as to where messages are going and why messages are not showing up on Twitter. Although in some cases people didn’t add their Twitter account or don’t have one. In fact, it can cause more confusion if a person has a Twitter account but creates a Tapulous account with a different user name. Confusion in the sense that you can’t follow the user via the Twitter website, or traditional Twitter client since you don’t know their Twitter account name.

There are some benefits to Twinkle using it’s own network. First, if Twitter is down the Twinkle servers store the messages and post them later when Twitter is up again. Second, Twinkle is not locked into the Twitter service allowing them to add other social networks using their store and forward approach, assuming the social network supports that.

A common problem encountered using Twinkle is incomplete messages. This isn’t due to an application bug or service problem, but something more fundamental: the location of the Send button. In v1.0 it is inconveniently located (in my opinion) in the lower right corner between the Spacebar and the Backspace key making it too easy to press by accident. When I suggested that they change this, I wondered if this was just a personal issue/preference, but having seen a number of incomplete messages followed immediately by the whole message it’s obviously not just me. (Note – they responded to my suggestion, informing me that it will be changed in a future update.)

Twinkle allows me to post my updates to Twitter (called “tweets” by the user community) as well as follow others, but it also lets me see messages from people I don’t follow within a distance that I specify (see my previous post for screen shots) by utilizing the iPhone’s location awareness and the Tapulous network. This exposes me to others that I may want to follow. Of course the opposite is true, as you’ll see messages from people you’d rather not follow. This could range from someone you find annoying, someone that is harassing you, to an actual stalker. A Block option would address this. So far I haven’t needed such an option because a relatively few number of people are using Twinkle at this time.

The benefits of location aware apps go well beyond that of “friending” people. By tuning in to local chatter you can find out what’s going on locally, including news events. Imagine what it would have been like if something like Twinkle was available during the Virginia Tech incident. More recently, on Valentine’s day this year there was the shooting at NIU; something closer to home for me both in location and personally because a friend of mine works there and a family friend was going to school there. I first heard about the incident when my friend sent a tweet about it shortly after the incident began. Using a location aware app can help spread the word of such events as well as natural disasters.

Location aware apps are cool and have a lot of promise but it will take time before enough devices support them (GPS is not a requirement thanks to tagged WiFi and cellular triangulation) and people take advantage of them. Twinkle is a great example of a location-aware social network app.

Twinkle is far from perfect. In fact, there are a number of issues, in my opinion, that may have warranted that the 1.0 release really be called 0.8. But since it is a stable release, 1.0 is arguably appropriate. Things I feel that are missing:

• Delete messages – there is no way to delete messages
• Search – there is no way to search for messages; although you can search for Twitter messages via Tweetscan or Summize (Summize was recently acquired by Twitter), but this doesn’t help people who only have a Twinkle account, or people trying to search Twinkle messages
• Access to archives – there is no “Older” or archive button like on Twitter so you can’t go further back in time then what is displayed in the app for either Twitter or Twinkle (i.e. Nearby) messages
• ReTweeting or should I say RePing – the ability to resend someone else’s Twitter or Twinkle update; at first blush this doesn’t seem to be an issue on the Twinkle network as you are seeing the entire stream of local conversations, not just who you’re following, but you may be seeing a message from someone 10 miles south of you, so the person 10 miles north of you may not see it.
• Web access – the Twinkle app is a good one, but it would be great to extend network access via a web site

As this blog post states there are still more Twinkle enhancement on the way and I’m sure that there are more than that posts lists, possibly some of the above.

On Sunday (July 20th) Twinkle became unusable. It would launch, start to load messages and then exit.  A post by TwinkleKing (Twinkle’s Twitter account) stated:

Hi all, we are aware the crashing issues. These are related to invalid avatar images, and we’re pushing a new version to the app store.

The problem turned out to be related to Amazon’s S3 service outage according to news reports.  Twinkle, just like Twitter, uses Amazon S3 to store people’s avatars (i.e. account pictures). It will be interesting to see how quickly they can get the updated app up on the iTunes App store and how quickly iTunes will make it available for download.

Some questions that are on my mind, which I also sent the TwinkleKing Twitter account:

• When you Follow someone via Twinkle is that a Twitter follow, a Twinkle follow or both?
• Do tweets send directly to Twitter via the web or a client, such as Twhirl, end up on the Twinkle servers or is that only possible via Twinkle? It appears it does: I posted a tweet using Twhirl about installing the latest version of Twhirl and it did show up in the Twinkle timeline.

I found myself checking Twinkle throughout the day on Sunday to see if it was back up again. I guess that means I missed it while it was down. Hmm, does that mean I’m getting addicted to it? Umm, no… I was just trying to finish this write up… yeah, that’s the ticket.

- Al Degutis

The other day Robert Scoble had a Qik video in which he interviewed on of the developers of Twinkle (web link, iTune link) a Twitter client for the iPhone. Yes, yet another Twitter client and yes for the iPhone. Twinkle caught my eye because it’s location-aware.

Unlike Twitterrific and Twittelator which can add a link to your tweet to show your location, Twinkle can show you a feed of tweets by people within a certain radius of you. When it launches it requests the use of the GPS to find your current location.

The default distance to search for “local” tweets is 50 miles but that can be changed.

In addition to a Home screen that shows all of the tweets from people you follow, there’s a Nearby screen that shows only the tweets from people within the range you’ve set.

This is a great way to identify local people, or people passing through, that are part of the Twitter community and you may want to follow. Twitter, afterall, is all about being social.

Twinkle also supports adding photos to your tweet (as does Twitterrific and Twittelator) and it lets you click on links which open in a Safari window (Twitterrific supports links, but Twittelator doesn’t).

I’ll use Twinkle exclusively on the iPhone over the next few days to give it a full test.

- Al Degutis

Note – apologies for the layout of the images in this post. I cannot get WordPress 2.6 to lay them out any of the ways I’ve tried. It could be this template. This is the best of the worst.

Updated – Since about noon (Central) time today, Twinkle appears to be unable to pull the Nearby tweets and displays the following message:

Seems as though the Twinkle servers may be overloaded now that people have heard it’s available and started trying it out. Haven’t we been here before.

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