4 iPhone Twitter Clients Battle it Out
There seems to be two must-haves for every techie these days: an iPhone/iPod touch and a Twitter account. Since this is a Mac blog, I’ll assume the iPhone and iPod touch need no introduction, but Twitter might.
Twitter is a web application that attempts to answer the question, “What are you doing?”. Basically, it’s the away message feature of IM protocols all by itself.
If that sounds like a good thing to you (and believe me, it is), I’ll wait here while you get a Twitter account. Back? Good. With that out of the way, and with your iPhone/iPod touch in hand, the last decision you face is which mobile Twitter client to use. Thankfully, I’ve done the “hard” work for you, and put 4 mobile Twitter clients (Twitter Mobile, PocketTweets, iTweet and Hahlo) through their paces. And here’s how they stack up…
1. We’ll draw first blood with Twitter Mobile.
What I Liked:
- The interface is basic, so it loads quickly via EDGE
- It’s the only client in the roundup that auto-refreshes after you post a tweet
What I Didn’t Like:
- A basic interface does not mean an attractive one. In fact, the interface is downright awful
- No icons or buddy pictures, just gobs of poorly laid-out text
- The layout is cramped and difficult to read
- No alternate timelines, just Home, Profile, and People You’re Following
- Can’t mark tweets as Favorites
Twitter Mobile may be the official client, but it needs a lot of work; you won’t catch me using it on my iPhone anytime soon.
2. The second lamb to the slaughter: PocketTweets
What I Liked:
- The interface is stunning
- It displays buddy icons, and text is small but readable
- Lots of timelines (Friends, Replies, Direct Messages, Archives, Public Timeline)
What I Didn’t Like:
- While text is mostly readable, I wish it were a bit bigger
- Navigation toolbar is at the bottom of the page, which isn’t immediately obvious
- Could be easier to refresh the timeline
- No auto-refresh when posting a tweet
PocketTweets is an excellent option for iPhone/iPod touch owners. It’s pretty, it’s usable, and my gripes with it are minor. There is a button that’ll take you directly to the toolbar at the bottom of the page, but I found myself wanting the toolbar hidden at the top of the page instead.
3. Our next victim: iTweet
What I Liked:
- Attractive-enough UI: the colors aren’t my taste, though
- Buddy icons and the biggest text of the bunch
- Plenty of timelines (Friends, Replies, Direct Messages, Favorites, Public Timeline)
What I Didn’t Like:
- Only shows “unread” tweets
- Refresh button at bottom of UI, and can be a pain to get to
- No auto-refresh when posting a tweet
iTweet is a fine choice, but isn’t my favorite of the bunch. More than anything else, I have a hard time understanding why it only shows you the unread tweets; this is Twitter, not an RSS client. I also don’t understand why you’d include a Refresh button, but stick it at the bottom of the page with no direct way to get to it. Come on, people, usability first.
4. The final sacrifice is: Hahlo 2.0
What I Liked:
- Excellent UI, and is quickly loaded due to its use of AJAX
- Buddy icons, and decently sized, high-contrast, readable text
- Only mobile client with ‘Send Direct Message’ button on individual tweets
- Most available timelines (Home, Personal timeline, Personal w/ Friends, Friends-only, Replies, Direct Messages, Favorites, Public Timeline)
What I Didn’t Like:
- Default landing page is a menu, not a timeline
- Could be easier to refresh timeline
- No auto-refresh when posting a tweet
Hahlo’s a tough one to beat. The interface is very up my alley: I find dark-text-on-light-background easier to read, and the text is a big enough to be readable. Also, the menu for Hahlo is exactly what I was hoping the PocketTweets toolbar would be.
Final Verdict
Steer clear of the official client unless it’s your only option; the other clients I reviewed offer far more. iTweet is a perfectly decent client, but it’s not the one I’ll be using. As far as I’m concerned, the clear winners are PocketTweets and Hahlo. Neither is without their (minor) flaws, but overall I think both offer a near-perfect tweet-on-the-go experience.
Try both and pick the one that better suits you; you can’t really go wrong with either. Which one do I use? Well, I was a PocketTweets guy in the past, but lately I find myself hanging with Hahlo. What can I say, I’m a sucker for white-and-black minimalism. Now that you’re armed with your iPhone/iPod touch and a suitable Twitter client, all that’s left for you to do is get out there and start tweeting!
May I recommend a tweet about a great MacApper article you just read? (Note: all screenshots were taken with iPhoney; iPhones do not have Aqua scrollbars)
[...] MacApper [...]
[...] Read full story [...]
I have to admit that I never heard of Twitter until a couple of weeks ago. Has it been around long?!
I signed up for it today and am just getting used to it. I like the idea of being able to blog from my phone.
Nice article, I agree with your picks.
@Sean: I think it’s been out for about a year, but it really got popular last spring and since then it’s been growing.
Another client for your pile – http://twitter.thincloud.com/ . I’d like to see how you think it stacks up against the others.
Hi, thanks for giving iTweet a try. I think you might have missed a couple features on your first go-round: the top button in the Friends timeline is a “View New/View All” toggle. iTweet is made for fast delivery over EDGE, and the “View New” feature stops downloading the timeline if you’ve seen it already. This saves a lot of time, especially by not downloading the user icons. Of course, if you’d rather you can toggle it to “View All” (see your screenshot for an example).
The Refresh button is at the bottom because I designed the flow to go: 1) Load page. 2) Read Twitter feed (naturally this leads you to the bottom of the page). 3) Press Refresh to load new tweets. Rinse, repeat. I’m always open to new ideas though, and if others would rather use it differently I’d be happy to reconsider the UI.
Also, iTweet does refresh your timeline when posting a new tweet. Just try it!
Colby Palmer, developer of iTweet.net
[...] a twitter app built for the iPod iTouch or iPhone (SMS is involved?). Also stumbled on a review of four iPhone / iTouch Twitter Clients. Tags: iPhone, iTouch, [...]
Nice Review. I personally use Hahlo, because I like everything about it – the design, the look/feel – EVERYTHING! My 2nd favorite would have to be PocketTweets, for its design. Haven’t tried out iTweet and Mobile Twitter much though.
-Twitter Addict.
Hahlo is excellent! I hadn’t come across it yet.
I was getting sick of m.twitter.com since I’m starting to rely pretty heavily on sending direct messages to various bots when I’m away from the PC (’Remember The Milk’ tasks, etc.)
@Colby I’ll give your app another look as well.
Twitter user here, not yet an iPhone owner, trying to get a clue.:
Do all of these Twitter apps require using Jailbreak or equivalent to foil Apple’s prohibition on third-party apps? Cf. http://lifehacker.com/337863/how-to-install-third+party-apps-on-your-new-iphone-or-ipod-touch
Apple says that using Jailbreak may cause your iPhone to explode at some future software update. Is that a real danger?
Supposedly Apple will allow third-party apps when it releases an SDK later this month. Will existing apps like these have to be rewritten using the new SDK?
Thanks!
@Prentiss Riddle
Hey there!
These are just web applications used through the iPhone’s Safari browser. They don’t require you to install anything or to jailbreak.
Thanks for the clarification, Jeff. Now I get it.
[...] 4 iPhone Twitter Clients Battle it Out | MacApper I quickly put pockettweets on my iphone homepage. I quite like it and better than the twitter mobile client. (tags: twitter, mobile iphone hahlo) SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “links for 2008-02-29″, url: “http://www.henshall.com/stuart/2008/02/29/links-for-2008-02-29/” }); [...]
[...] They were certainly responsive, but neither gave me the ease of use features that my favorite web based twitter client gave me. So, I went back to using Hahlo 2 on the iPhone, even after the [...]
Hey, there is a new Hahlo version out that should get rid of the negative aspects you mentioned. I even use Hahlo as a desktop application with fluid.app! I have a tutorial o my blog!
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[...] In any case, if you are on the Twitter bandwagon, you will want to get one of the many “Twitter clients” that make it especially easy to send and recieve twitters (or “tweats” as the insiders call them) on your iPhone. With iPhone 1.0, the choices included twitter mobile (made by the parent company of twitter), twitter for iphone, pocket tweets and itweet. A good review of the merits of these websites can be found here [...]
[...] In any case, if you are on the Twitter bandwagon, you will want to get one of the many “Twitter clients” that make it especially easy to send and receive twitters (or “tweets” as the insiders call them) on your iPhone. With iPhone 1.0, the choices included twitter mobile (made by the parent company of twitter), twitter for iphone, pocket tweets and itweet. A good review of the merits of these websites can be found here [...]
[...] going to pick on MacApper’s critique of Twitter’s mobile site now; their article was the first to come up on Google. They [...]
I am a reluctant twitter user..but now I am a twitter junkie. As an internet marketer, I don’t know how I lived without it. follow me on twitter…my twitter is trioman
[...] MacApper has a short review of 4 clients, two of which are not in my list above, because I had never heard of them (just goes to show). Battle of the Twitter Clients. [...]
[...] näillä perillä ei WLAN -verkko ole mitenkään kattava ja 3G:ssäkin on toivomisen varaa. Mutta twitteröinti, blogaaminen ja facebookkaaminen tehostuvat kummasti. Bookmark and Share: [...]
I added a detailed review of TwitterFon, Tweetsville, and Tweetie at http://cdnn.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/twitter-clients-faceoff/
Interesting article. After reading, I installed link to Hahlo. Offers a good functionality and clear appearance.
Really enhance usage of Twiiter for me.
Many thanks.