I don’t believe in paying for something I can get for nothing. So with what seems like an endless supply of free Twitter apps available for the iPhone, I wondered why someone would pay for one. But after spending considerable time using Tweetie, I have become a paid-app convert.
Tweetie has a simple interface (good for managing multiple accounts), is ad free and accesses Twitter feeds quickly. Tweetie is also the first Twitter app to be localized in multiple languages: English, German, Japanese and Russian.
Tweetie is easy to customize. There are three background themes to choose, three type sizes for display, and you can display full names or Twitter screen name. If you like sharing photos with your tweets, Tweetie supports yFrog, TwitPic and Mobypicture. Also, Tweetie’s search function is top notch, it offers a built-in TwitPic viewer and you can save a draft of an unfinished tweet.
There’s also a new option for landscape typing, activated in the settings panel on your iPhone or iPod Touch. However, once activated it is landscape or bust; tilting between landscape- and portrait-mode isn’t supported.
But even with its stellar features, Tweetie has room for improvement.
I don’t like that the button to refresh tweets is located at the top of the Twitter timeline. Sure, you can double tap to scroll to the top of the tweets fast, but I’d rather see refresh as a menu option on the timeline screen, much like mentions and favorites. And I’d prefer the settings panel be built into the Tweetie app, rather than in the iPhone’s settings menu.
For $2.99, Tweetie is a solid app and worth the price. In fact, the Tweetie iPhone app has brought developer Atebits LLC’s so much success that the company released a version for Mac desktops in April.
