It was less than 4 months ago that I wrote Tips for using iPod touch with Twitter, Gmail and RSS feeds. I recommended using PocketTweets for Twitter. I had previously been using Twitterrific.
Well, now that’s all changed. After seeing someone else sending photos from their iPhone to TwitPic while tweeting I investigated further.
First I used Twitterfon for a while. It was free, looked great and worked well. It has a clean and clear appearance, and was easy to use.
Tweetie’s the winner
Friends though had suggested Tweetie as the pick of the bunch. It’s a mere NZ$$4.19, but when I first heard about it I was counting every penny and wanted to try free first.
Then I was given an iTunes gift voucher and decided to ‘splurge’.
I’ve never looked back. While Twitterfon was very good, Tweetie is superb.
Tweetie does many things really well — it’s easy to view information about Followers and Followees, for example, to mark as favourite, to retweet. It has some wonderful features around who’s geographically nearby, trends on Twitter and Search, too.
Some of the more advanced features aren’t immediately obvious, either. They get out of the way of new users and show themselves as more advanced users start to experiment.
Tweetie integrates with Instapaper
One of the features I really like best of all about Tweetie is the integration with Instapaper.
Say I read a tweet that provides a link to an interesting web page. I can follow that link to the page with a tap or two. But perhaps I want to be able to return to the page later, when I’m on my computer — maybe it’s something I want to blog about, or there’s a signup form, or a movie, or I just don’t have time to read.
Whatever the reason it takes only a second to tap the icon and choose Add to Instapaper. The link is added to my free Instapaper account. Later I visit the Instapaper page and read the item. It’s a breeze.
Now I wish NetNewsWire for the iPod would also integrate with Instapaper, as I often want to save items from my RSS feed to read later. Instead I have to add them to Clippings and then remember when I’m on my computer to go back and read them there.
Tweetie on the Mac
On my Mac I continued to use Twitterific for a long time, until I ran into a nest of problems. My eyes get tired in the evenings (especially) and I can’t see so well. I like to bump up font sizes when that happens.
Twitterific offers white text on a dark background and no way I could find to bump the text up to a size I needed. It was just too hard on the eyes.
Bluebird came along. It’s basically a specialised web browser, offering editable themes. I was easily able to set a text size that worked for me.
Then Tweetie was released for the Mac. I tried it, liked it and have stayed with it.
It handles TwitPics beautifully, opening them in a separate floating window. It allows previews of some links that use shortened URLs. It’s beautiful to look at and work with. It handles multiple Twitter accounts. It searches.
It does so much more besides.
For me, for now, Tweetie is a clear winner for Twitter on iPod touch, iPhone or Mac.
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