I Tweet! Review

[mikef1182]

I Tweet!
by Multiple Facets
I Tweet! Home Page

From the Developer:

I Tweet! is a fully featured Twitter application. It is now available for download in the Android Market for $2.99.

Basic Functionality:

View your tweets, direct messages, your following, your followers and modify your profile. View user profiles and their tweets with just a few taps on the screen. Post tweets, send direct messages and even retweet.

Advanced Functionality:

Perform searches based on keywords, search through tweets by username and perform searches around your location. View the public timeline.

Customizable Experience:

Set distinct ringtones for tweets, replies and direct message notifications, enable or disable the LED and vibrator, change the LED color used for notifications. Customize the look and feel by selecting the dark or the light theme or change the font size.

The Twitter Tab:

Your twitter information is organized under four tabs visible at the top. Each one of the tabs can contain one or more views which can be selected using the buttons at the bottom. There is a similar screen for any Twitter user. The Tweets tab will allow you to see your following timeline, replies addressed to you and tweets posted by yourself. The tweets tab examples are presented in the two themes available, the dark theme and the light theme.

The Users Tab:

The users tab contains three views: the Profile, the Following and Followers views. There is an identical tab for every Twitter user.


Search:

The application allows you to search tweets by keywords. You can also search tweets from a specific username. To search around your geographical location just select the "Search Nearby" checkbox.


The Settings screen:


I Tweet! allows the user to customize your settings. Below you will find the list of settings.

-Select the theme (dark or light).

-Select the font size.

-Show or hide the user screen title.

-Option to show the friendly name or the username of a user.

-Enable or disable the phone vibrator for notifications.

-Enable or disable the phone LED for notifications.

-Set the LED color.

-Options to check for tweets, replies or direct messages.

-Select how often to check for new tweets.

-Select the photo upload service.

-Select the URL shortening service.


Review:

I use Twitter constantly throughout my day and finding a Twitter client that does everything I need and that does it well, has been a struggle. I am happy to say that I tweet! does pretty much everything I need it to and more. The app looks great and has a very "shiny" interface with nice tabs and navigating the UI is smooth and easy. By holding down your finger on a tweet you are giving various options to reply, retweet (just added), view user, direct message, add to favorites and if there is a link you can click that as well. The tabbed style interface makes it very easy to get to where you want to go and manage your Twitter world with ease. The interface is quick and shows no signs of slow down when bouncing between tabs or scrolling through tweets. I Tweet! Only loads your first 20 tweets to keep load time down and scrolling fast. Once you reach the bottom of your 20 tweets you can click the "load more" button and have another 20 tweets to read. I really like this because it keeps the app from getting bogged down and crashing. The app itself is very stable, and does not suffer from the all familiar force close many other apps are plagued with. I love that they added a search option to the client, this makes searching for topics and people extremely easy right from your phone. Another nice touch is the ability to switch "themes", and maybe we will see some new ones with further development, but for now I am ok with the two to choose from. You can also adjust the interval of how often I Tweet! will check for new tweets. You have the option to automatically check for new tweets, replies, and direct messages. You can choose any combination of the three and have I Tweet! check as little as every 5 minutes or as long as 60 minutes. Of course you can opt for none of these options and check manually if you would like. When you get a new message, you will be alerted by your choice of ringtone and a message in the notifications tab. A nice touch is the option to have different ring tones for each type of message, so you know if the new message is a new tweet, reply, or a direct message

I Tweet! is a great app and will continue to be my main Twitter client for now, but it is not without flaws. My most prominent issue is that I Tweet! does not auto start after a reboot or loss of signal. I am in a crappy coverage area for T-Mobile so each time I loose signal, I have to fire I Tweet! back up manually. Same goes for reboots, you need to open I Tweet! in order to get signed back in. The other issue is the reading pan is a made smaller to accommodate for the tabs at the top and bottom of the screen. This cuts down on your main reading pane and limits the amount of messages you can read without scrolling. If they were to use the same style tabs as the bottom for the top, it would save a little bit of space and look better in my opinion. Another thing to consider is that I Tweet! costs $2.99 in the market, while most other Twitter clients are free. This is not a issue for me because I do not mind paying for quality, and I Tweet! is definitely a quality app. None of these issues are deal breakers for me and I prefer I Tweet! over the other Twitter client options right now. So head over to the market and give it a try!

Pros:

- Fast and stable
- Lots of features
- UI looks great and runs smooth

Cons:

- Small main reading pane
- Have to sign in manually after signal loss or reboot
- Costs $ while most Twitter apps are free

[XDViPeR]

Thanks. Great read. I've been usuvg twdriod for a while but I don't like it too much. Will have to try this out.

[deserttopping]

good review. agreed on the sign-in issue, and scaling down the tab size to make it a little cleaner. personally, i'd like to see the top tabs moved to a menu press, and the bottom tabs moved to a "view" option by menu press. i rarely use the tabs, top or bottom.

also, opening emailed twitter links in I Tweet! instead of the browser would be a handy option.

[mikef1182]

Pics are now up! Must have just been my POS work computer.

[kitsunisan]

Can anyone do a direct comparison with this and twidroid? I realize I could buy it myself and test it out, but for me to get a good feel for it I'd want to live with it for a few days, and you only get 24 hours to return it.

[SilleeString]

I'd have to say that the fact that I have to keep firing the program back up after loss of signal would be a dealbreaker for me. I ride the subway to and from work so...after every ride, remembering to start the app again, no thanks.

The review was great though, thanks for the write-up!

[Casey Rain]

IMO the beta branch of Twidroid is miles ahead of all the other Twitter clients for Android, particularly since they just added Twitgoo support. The auto reboot of Twidroid is also a great feature that I never really thought about till now, but it would definately be annoying if I had to boot it manually all the time.