Tweetie 2: Beautiful on Your iPhone

The most talked about iPhone app, recently, has no doubt been Tweetie 2. I have become very familiar with the controversy revolving around the developer, Loren Brichter, who has been attacked for denying Tweetie 1.0 users a discount when upgrading to the new version. However, I am going to refrain from ranting and raving about why he didn’t offer a discount to his existing consumers. What I am going to tell you, however, is why I think Tweetie 2 is the best Twitter app created thus far, and why you should purchase it.

The Review

First, let me just say that Loren did his homework; Tweetie 2 is everything one could want in a mobile Twitter app. Since he re-wrote the entire app from the ground up, Tweetie 2 is smaller, faster, and more sleek, than the original application. The user interface is a beautiful adaptation of a Twitter app that implements an easy-to-use design. For example, when viewing your time line or @mentions feed, you can refresh the feed by “pulling down” on the feed. You would normally scroll to the top of the app to see the most recent tweets anyway, so this is certainly convenient. Also, you now have the ability to double tap on direct messages and @mentions to mark them all as read. Additionally, all tweets in the replies/main time-line are able to be indexed and searched in real time. These are just a few examples of the unique features that make this app better than its predecessor.

The original Tweetie application won an Apple Design Award in 2009 for being cutting edge, and I strongly believe that Loren is in the running for another one. Tweetie 2 uses the iPhone platform to its full advantage and adds features that are not only simple to use, but are also 100% useful. Tweetie 2 is heavily designed to keep you focused on the task at hand, which is to send tweets. As seen on the “Compose” screen, there is a “down” arrow that allows you to hide the keyboard, as well as expose several other features, such as shortening links and adding an image.

The Price Debate

As previously mentioned, Loren has received some flack by not offering an upgrade price. Now, if you are buying this app for the first time, it’ll cost you $2.99, which is cheaper than a few of its top competitors. However, if you are upgrading, it’s a bit different. You paid for the first one at the price of $2.99, and the second is also $2.99. This brings you to a total of $5.98, which is about the price of a $5 Footlong from Subway with some tax. It is also just barely above its competitors:

• Echofon (formerly Twitterfon) – $4.99

• SimplyTweet – $4.99

• Birdfeed - $4.99

If you ask me, with all the research and functionality over gadgets and whistles that Tweetie 2 has, I would pay for each additional update to this app. My reasoning is that Loren literally thought about all sides of this app. The only negatives that I have seen or heard, is that there are no themes like there were in Tweetie 1.0, and it also doesn’t have a “Reply All” function (I know there is a way to reply to multiple people in one tweet, but I am talking about multiple people in a time line.)

Now, to the controversy (that I wasn’t going to talk about, *cough*.) Do I think that Loren has a good reason to charge original users to upgrade? Simply put, yes, I do . He completely re-wrote the app to be faster, kinda like Apple did with Snow Leopard (and their upgrade was $30.) He also added more features that impact your user experience everyday, like Adobe does with its products (except Tweetie doesn’t cost $700 for an upgrade.) Now, regardless if you agree with me that he has a reason to change or not, you should be able to agree that this app is stellar and there is not like anything else on the market.

Concluding Thoughts

The little details that have gone into this app separate it from all other Twitter apps. Once again, Tweetie 2 sets the bar high, through its speed, sleek new features, and its amazing user experience. Most importantly, though, you should purchase Tweetie 2 because it was created by a developer who pours his heart and soul into his work, and doesn’t settle for anything less than stellar. Tweetie is setting the trend for iPhone Twitter clients and I am deeply looking forward to seeing what the next step for Loren Brichter is.

Note: Do you need help using Tweetie while on your iPhone? Loren even thought of that too. He made an iPhone optimized help guide that gives you all the simple/advanced features for the app.

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