In my never-ending search for the iPhone’s perfect twitter app, I have recently began testing TweetDeck‘s new addition to the race, conveniently called ‘TweetDeck (for iPhone).’ Although I have yet to be convinced of TD’s desktop app, here are my initial thoughts and reactions to their beta iPhone version…
First Glance: Nice design, easy to figure it. There’s nothing glamorous, but it’s no dog’s breakfast either. It doesn’t take long to work out how to use it and within 30 seconds you’ll have it working to your liking. Those familiar to TweetDeck will recognize the columns and groups (and they say it’s a breeze to sync) while those new to it will enjoy the extra functionality that has been left out of a lot of other twitter apps.
Upon deeper inspection, you’ll realize that it doesn’t go that much deeper. What you expect to be there is there, but by this time you have remembered that no one is perfect and really, how picky are you going to be? Just remember, customizable groups…Awesome! Another neat little trick is the API hit counter that is positioned snugly at the top of the column view, informing you just how fast your twitter hits are running out! (Didn’t know about a hit limit? You do now. 100 p/hour from external apps.)
Pros (off the top of my head):
- Customizable groups (add your friends to a custom group and view only their tweets so you don’t have wade through all those annoying tweets of the people you followed only so they would follow you.)
- Movable columns (like to see your @replies more than anything else? Move it to the front)
- Multiple account support (I can only keep up with one, but I’ve heard that some ppl can do more. That’s cool, I’m not here to judge!)
- URL shortening (they say ‘less is more’, but I think only little people say that.)
- Profiles (Yes! you can actually view profiles! AND follow/unfollow right there and then! You can also add the tweeps to a group you’ve previously created from that view)
- New Tweet Counter
- and, of course, you can upload pics, add your location and yadiyadiya…
Cons:
- Only one theme (great if you like the darkness, not so great if you prefer, I dunno, anything else!)
- No @name lookup within a tweet (Something that kept me coming back to Twitterfon time and time again was the ability to search and add an @name while typing a tweet. I can’t remember everyone’s random screen names and I defy anyone to try. Of course, you can go to their profile and click the little button to tweet them, but what if you want to add someone else? What then?)
- In the screens where you actually can look for names, there’s no quick go-to alphabet on the side. (Hate it for all those tweeps with a list of 1000’s)
- Doesn’t start at the first unread tweet. (Grrrr!!! Got 200 unread tweets? Have fun finding the first!)
Random queries (or things that didn’t seem to make sense to me):
- Why the two buttons for column view? (With screen real estate as precious as it is, why make two buttons do the same thing?)
- Quick Follow? (maybe because I didn’t go for the desktop app, I don’t understand the value of this little feature)
- Double up of ‘new tweet’ count. If you have created a new group of friends, TweetDeck will count their new tweets in the ‘All Friends’ AND the additional column you’ve created for them and give you a final total number. For example, say you have a friend in a custom group who posts a tweet. Their tweet will show up in the two columns, and will be counted twice, giving you a total new tweet count of two (instead of one). Well, it annoys me anyway…
- Marking tweets as seen (not sure why I need to actually tap the ‘mark seen’ button for a tweet to be marked as seen. Doesn’t it know?
So, those are my inital thoughts on TweetDeck new iPhone app. Overall, it’s not too bad. Especially or a beta version. Fix a couple of those small annoyances and I will be singing it’s praises! Right now, I think some ppl will love it and others just won’t care.
Anyone out there using it? What are you thoughts??
Brad Crabtree 