How often do you tweet? Once a day? Once a week? Once a minute?
Maybe not at all. However, there’s many reasons to interact with Twitter be it to consume, stalk or simply feed off the heartbeat of your Twitter family. And because Twitter’s API is so open to developers, there are many apps that can pull, push and feed you information. But which is the one for you?
Twitter applications on Windows Phone 7
Here’s just a sample of the options available:
This one’s official. Adopting the Metro theme of WP7 works well here, making this app feel immediately familiar. It’s easy to browse your timeline, mentions, messages and lists. You can manage your profile, lists, favourites and searches also allowing you to switch between the TwitPic, TweetPhoto and yFrog image services. Switching between accounts is not as easy as it should be and there’s no live tile information when you pin this to your home screen. Annoyingly it hides the ‘toast bar’ at the top of the screen so if you can’t see the time or signal strength whilst in the application – this needs to be fixed.
PRICE – Free
moTweets
This is a great Twitter application with some unique features such as an image wall displaying pictures you’ve tweeted and a list of tweets near you – a nice addition is the ‘conversation’ button. If you pin the app to your start screen then the tile updates with your Twitter avatar and mentions and DMs. You can upgrade within the app to remove the ads for £0.79.
PRICE Free / £0.79 to remove ads
fast twitter
Quick timeline updates from people you know. A great quick look-up tool. If you know someone’s Twitter handle and just want to see their Tweets, this is the app to do it. However, it does nothing else but display a user’s Tweets. Zero interaction, but this could occasionally be useful.
PRICE – Free
Retweetly – My Tweets Retweeted
Displays your tweets that have been retweeted by others (and nothing else). Gives a comprehensive report of who has retweeted you, their follower count and suggests the ‘Total Reach’ of your original tweet. As the developer states on the app’s Marketplace entry ‘This app is the answer to poor retweet browsing features in other apps’ – I agree.
PRICE – Free
Tweetlurker – one for stalkers
Simple, thoughtful copywriting makes this app feel a little dirty to use. It has a text box (where you enter a Twitter handle) and a button labelled ‘Lurkup’. It stores your Lurkees so you can quickly switch between and view streams. Allows you to view someone’s tweets without having to follow them. Shudder.
PRICE – Free Trial
Twitt – tweet translation
I originally had the free version of this which I find frankly, pointless – (it annoyed me by opening with an advert before the app itself). However, the paid version will read your Tweets to you and even translate them between 5 languages. Nifty.
PRICE – Free or £0.79
Twitter Search – live tile-and-toast-o-rama
I love this. I just need to need it and currently I don’t. Twitter Search enables you to search Twitter by a combination of handle, date and content. You can have those messages pushed to you via toast and/or live tile information to your home screen. It will also speak the list of search results to you = awesome. If you want to constantly monitor a subject, this is the app for you.
PRICE - Free
Seesmic
Better than the official app IMHO. Gives you all the same controls plus easer switching between accounts and the ability to use your Bit.ly account plus this integrates with the desktop version. You can also add your Facebook account. Happy, happy, appy, appy.
PRICE - Free
Birdsong
The app boasts configurable timelines, integrated picture viewing, threaded conversations – both @replies and DMs, Bing maps integration, TwitPic Integration and an integrated web browser. Phew – long list and not to mention the integrated theme which means Birdsong will automatically inherit your theme settings.
Price - £1.99
Beezz
This is a top quality and free Twitter app with superb features including the most requested – live tile! In the setting menu of the app you can choose to turn on home notifications, and even toast notifications for mentions and direct messages. Which makes this the first Twitter app to push out messages to the start screen and while using other hubs.
Price - Free
Top Twitter App Tips
I’m not sure I have an overall favourite, they all something unique and it depends on what you need a Twitter app to do for you. For me, with multiple accounts and a greater need for control, I’m going to go for Seesmic. But all the above apps have something they can learn from each other. The speed of search in Twitter Search and Tweet Lurker, the stats in Retweetly, the usability and familiarity of Seesmic and the official Twitter app, all have winning components, but none offer everything.
If you’re thinking about writing your own Twitter app for WP7, to better the apps above, my tips would be:
- Use Metro styling
- Allow options to push tile and toast information
- Don’t hide the toast bar in apps that require data connection
Tweet! Tweet!
Carry on!
What, no rowi? Rowi’s the only app which has the speed and functionality to draw me from the official twitter app.
Great list. Since I wiped my phone I’d been looking at alternative twitter apps to the “official” one. I like Beez but I haven’t tried Seesmic, might give that a go now!
@Thom – yeah Seesmic I like b’cos of the desktop integration. I’m not a massive Facebook user and the phone has all the Facebook integration I need built into the people hub but I imagine that’s a pull for some people.
@Craig – thanks for the tip, I’ll take a look at it. There’s a lot of Twitter aps and they change over time and with updates so i’ll probably take anotehr look in a few weeks time.
i liked seesmic until it stopped working… now I’m with birdsong, it hasn’t failed me. Seesmic had some nice features, though.
BEEZZ is pretty good except it is SLOW… takes forever to load and close and it stutters a little. This is even with the NoDo update. (Using HTC Arrive)
For this reason alone I like the official Twitter app for its speed and strict metro style. I bought MoTweets, but honestly, I hate its styling… Please use Metro! And, don’t use your own browser for links. Please please please just use Internet Explorer to open up links. I find all of the embedded browsers to be SLOW!