Tweetie: The Popular iPhone App Comes to Mac
-Multiple account support
-Photo uploading
-No way to delete tweets
-Runs in dock
There is a new addiction sweeping over developers, and that addiction is Twitter apps. Lately there have been so many new Twitter apps that it is hard to keep count, one of the newest being Tweetie for Mac, and it stands high above the rest. Tweetie started out as a simple iPhone application, but it rose quickly through the top apps section in iTunes and is now one of the most popular iPhone Twitter clients. Just last month atebits released the Mac version, and now it is on it’s way to be the most popular Mac client too. Why do so many people love it? Read on to find out.
Tweetie’s UI is quite similar to other Twitter apps; showing tweets in a long list style form, but on the left side of the app is the sidebar. Here you can switch between accounts by clicking the account avatar, and switch between the timeline, mentions, messages, and search. Sections with new tweets will have a blue icon on them. In the timeline you have multiple options. You can double click a reply tweet to view the entire conversation, you can reply to tweets with a small icon in the top right of the tweet, and you can click on a user’s avatar to view their profile. From the profile page you can view their timeline, replies, favorites, and basic information. As you dig through the timeline the bar on the top of the screen shows you were you are, and you can click on it to go back to certain locations.
Tweetie’s direct messaging feature looks a lot like iChat. Messages are sorted based on who the conversation is with and how recent the latest message was. When you click on a name you will see what looks like the iChat speech bubbles displaying messages. You can click reply in the top right to send a direct message reply. Tweetie also has the ability to search tweets. Just click the search icon and type in what you want to find. You can also click on a word marked as a tag (#) in a tweet. The search pages automatically refreshes to show new tweets and you can open searches in a new window to keep them separate from Tweetie. If you click the magnifying glass in the search box you can view a list of popular trends.
Finally, posting tweets. Tweetie handles new tweets a bit differently than other Twitter clients. When you want to post a new tweet a new window will pop-up. This lets you tweet even when the Tweetie window is closed, and is a great way to avoid some distraction. You can post a new tweet by clicking the button in the bottom right corner or Tweetie, click the reply icon in tweets, or just hitting a quick hot-key. In this pop-up window you can also drag and drop images from Finder. Tweetie also has a bookmarklet to tweet a website that you are browsing. Tweetie uses command-enter to submit the tweet to avoid accidental tweeting.
Tweetie works great for most people, but it lacks some features others would love to have. There is currently no way to save searches or sort people into separate groups. There is also no way to delete tweets or set a time interval for auto refreshing. Tweetie runs in both the dock and menubar, which could be annoying for some users.
Tweetie is currently available from the atebits website. You can purchase a license for $14.95 until May 4 when the price will be raised to $19.95, but there is a free ad-supported version available.
I really like this program, though I think it is to hard to navigate. If they improve that, this will be my defauly mac Twitter app.
woww… am i the only one who thinks twitter is soooooooooooo overrated, and quite frankly, kinda dumb
I really like the simplicity of tweetie. It fits the mac user interface and fits perfectly with my desired workflow. I wish they had saved searches like Nambu. Hopefully they’ll keep adding features.
Tweetie does have saved searches (at least as of 1.1.1).
To save a search: Click the spyglass icon, type search terms into search field. When the results come back, click the star icon-button, top right to add as saved search.