We are in the age of Tweetie Twitter App, and this time the new Tweetie for Mac is available. This is the Mac version of the iPhone app that makes for the best Twitter client online. I have been trying it out, and here is my personal experience with this new Mac app.
Power Outage
If you are a Tweetoomaniac than this is not for you, the app does not have that Uber dashboard experience; you do not have control over every aspect. If you don’t mind sharing your screen with less exciting items, such as your details, then go ahead and use it.
Appearances are Deceiving
When you set up Tweetie for the first time, you might think its too simple to be any good. Well, settle back down and understand that the GUI is designed for a more simplistic and focused view. The client has a single column stream of incoming tweets and icons that provide most of the navigation, placed to the left. These icons are:
- @ for replies,
- Envelope for direct messaging,
- Magnifying Glass for search
Apart from these buttons, navigation is simply double-clicking on a username for the most recent tweets or clicking on a hashtag to start a search.
The Devil is in the Details
If you want the prizes, then note that the resolution of details is great. For instance, when you click on any image that is provided by 3rd party services such as TwitPic, the app will pop up a display of the photo. Another great addition is the drag and drops feature, for instance, you drag and drop a photo from anywhere on your system into the Tweetie window and type your message with the limit of 280 characters.
You can also improve accessibility performance by adding hotkey shortcuts that work while you are using another application. The overall GUI is great too, since you can either continuously scroll while the app continues to add new incoming Tweets, and you navigate smoothly and seamlessly between screens.
There is another bonus, Tweetie allows you to open up any number of account windows simultaneously.
While Tweetie doesn’t support a two-columned UI, it does break search queries into separate windows, which is more useful than operating out of one large clustered window. The overall GUI is a bit stiff at first, just like anything new, it takes time to get accustomed to it, and it might still seem a bit constraining when compared to more versatile systems such as TweetDeck.
Now for the cons.
Tweetie’s search windows don’t open automatically. You will need to perform some tasks, which is tiresome, and they are:
- Click the search button
- Then go to the Menu bar
- Click the Open new window
Another issue is that you cannot pop out any ‘@mentions’ or ‘direct message’ into a specific window. Although we have been told that this feature will appear in the version 1.1 upgrade.
Another con is the hidden “follow” feature, for this, you need to go to the drop-down menu.
One final con is the lack of auto-complete for any Twitter handles, so this makes responding to common friends harder.
Conclusions
This is the Twitter client that all Mac users have been waiting for. It is much more advanced than the basic Twitterific. On the other side of the scale are the two resource hogs; TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop that use Adobe’s AIR platform, and we all know where that leads to. They are great and full of amazing features, but their presence creates some UI issues and does eat up a lot of Mac’s resources making operating other apps an issue.
Cost
Tweetie comes at a $14.95 price, which is ad-free, and you can get it free but with adverts.
Compatibility
If you don’t like Twitter clients, don’t get this one either. Twitter clients are all the same, and while they do compete for the Twitter client market share, they are not suitable for everyone.
