a little mans look at a big mans world

It happened one day when I was casually checking my twitter feed. The feed on my iPhone looked pretty different than the feed I was looking at in my Twitter client of choice for the past while, Twitterific. I looked a little more carefully to verify. Yep, what was missing was the new Retweet functionality. When people that I follow had used the new Twitter implemented Retweets, they didn’t appear in my timeline at all. Apparently, everyone also got the signal that the new retweets were fine to use on the same day, because all of a sudden, lots of people that I follow started using them (missed that memo). Well, this would not do, I needed to be able to see when someone I followed retweeted something interesting. Thus began my quest to find a new twitter client that would perform the functions that I needed. My current client, Twitterific, had been lacking in many ways for quite some time and, at this point, I only used it to read my stream, rather than actually compose my tweets, or anything else you can do with twitter (searches, lists, etc). So I made a list of things that I wanted my Twitter client to do, and began downloading. And tweeting. Thanks to all my friends that put up with my annoying ‘Now tweeting from ***. Interesting!’ posts.

This is what my ideal twitter client would have, and what I would check on the clients that I downloaded: Retweets, usable interface, lists, searches, URL Shortening, media (adding pics to tweets, or video), price (preferably free), resource usage, and multiple account support. It is OK with me if you do not care about some of the things on this list, I will just tell you if they have them or not, and how I feel about them.

I really like the interface on this one, that is why I was using it as my day to day reader. Great keyboard shortcuts, and interface that got out of the way when it needed to. Clear and sharp, with low resource usage. However, all that is really decent about it is reading tweets. There is no built in URL shortening, no support for new retweets, a clunky composing window, no media support, no searches, and certainly no lists. You can set it up for multiple accounts, but why would you? All you can do is read other peoples tweets, and even then you don’t get any of the new retweets. Forget about finding people and following them. Also, it costs money to remove the ads, although a free version is available. If twitter clients for platforms other than the iPhone could get some love, I would be onboard with this client again, but for now it is so feature deficient that I just can’t use it. http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific

I used Tweetie for the Mac for awhile, back when it first came out. Nothing has really improved in terms of features since then, although it is now very stable, with fairly light resource usage. In fact, I use its cousin, Tweetie 2, as my main iPhone twitter client. However, it is woefully behind its smaller relative when it comes to feature set. The built-in URL shortening is nice and obvious, searches work fairly well, and you can add a pic to that special tweet fairly easily. Also it handles multiple accounts quite gracefully. Tweetie does not support the new retweets, and does not even hint at lists. The interface works, but takes up a really large amount of screen real estate, that matters to some people, and I happen to be one of them. I like the implementation of the pictures, you just click a the link and it opens the pic for you in the program, similar to Quick View. You need to pay to get rid of the ads, but they are fairly unobtrusive, not really a hassle at all. It is fairly popular and well known, but really just lacks some of the new features that have become dealbreakers for me. http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

One of the joys of embarking on this search was Beak. This client is still in beta, but it has some really great potential. Let me start with what it does not do. No natie retweets, no lists, no multiple accounts. Done. Now I can say what I really like about this client. The interface is very well thought out, you can tell the designer thought about how they would do this. I love the face that choosing to reply to a tweet just opened a little window right below the tweet you wanted to reply to, for reference. Very light resources usage means that I can leave it running in the background for the day, and there are plenty of options to tweak around with. Even though the point of this was to find a client that does retweets, I keep coming back to Beak, just to appreciate the cleverness. Beak also goes the extra mile with URL shortening, not just shortening your URLs but also tracking click-throughs for you. Searching is very clean, and consistent with the rest of the design. Now, Beak is still in beta, but I was so curious about some of my features I contacted the creator. He pointed me to a nice roadmap he had created that said the following: he has completely rebuilt Beak for version 1.0 with and eye for optimization. Lists and retweets are coming, although he says they will be re-imagined. I am excited to see how he imagines these new features; I am sure he will put some thought into it. Also, it will remain free, although there will be ads that you can pay to make go away (there are no ads in the beta). Great, exciting client. http://beakapp.com/

While I was writing this Kiwi went from beta to release. Either way, it is a great client. In fact, it was one of the few that I turned up that supported the new retweet functionality; it chooses to display them in your main timeline with the icon of the retweeted next to it, just as Twitter.com does. Also a great boon to Kiwi is its search functions. I say functions, plural, because there might be more than you expect. In addition to the normal search that you can find anywhere (keyword search, hashtag search), Kiwi can filter your timeline with rules and regular expressions. This makes it trivial to weed out a meme that you find annoying, or o expose a certain type of tweet in your timeline or general searches. Very nice. Also, the interface is very snappy, with low system overhead. In addition, if you don’t like it, you can theme it, which is actually pretty easy, and it includes a few attractive themes in the initial download for you to try out. Tweet creation is just what you would expect, allowing you to easily shorten URLs, or add pictures to a tweet. List’s have been hinted about, and although there is no support for them now, most signs are pointing to a 1.1 release which would be fantastic. This one is gonna set you back a few dollars, $14.95 to keep using it after the demo. However, there is lots to love about this up and coming client, so some will choose to jump this fairly reasonable price barrier. http://kiwi-app.net/

I first heard about this client in reference to it’s themes. This client supports some pretty nice themes, and people certainly love to customize. The default theme looks pretty much like iChat, so you can take that how you will, I won’t judge you (publicly). It also has a similar filter function to Kiwi, although not as fully realized, perhaps. However, besides themes and filters, there are no other outstanding attributes to this solid client. It has no retweet, no lists, and although it is fairly lightweight, there is not much here beside just the tweet stream. No conversation breakouts, no profiles, no following people, no search. There is no support for multiple accounts. You can shrink URLs and upload pictures with the client. That is it. It is free, and likely to remain so. Even so, I can’t recommend it, unless you are handy with CSS and want to theme a twitter client that doesn’t display all your tweets to match your desktop. Niche. http://twittapp.com/

When I first loaded up Bluebird my first thought was ‘Very attractive,’ and it still is. There is a nice integrated search that does just what you would expect, a clean useful UI, and an interesting little profile viewer, that took me a second to figure out how to make work. Once I figured it out, it was pretty nice though, allowing you to search for twitter users and view all their info in a compact little space, and then choose to follow them (or unfollow). It doesn’t show those pesky new retweets, and one of its UI idiosyncrasies is that it displays tweets from bottom to top, the exact reverse of how I have come to expect it. Aside from that. as I said the UI is attractive, although not very colorful, which is really a matter of taste. It is a no-go if you are looking for list support, which, as you can see is a common theme. As far as composing your tweets, there is no URL or media support, so you are on your own to do that manually. Still the client will run you about $0, so you are welcome to take it out for a spin. http://bluebirdapp.com/

All the good things about Itsy are related to its size. It is small, cute, and compact. It sure doesn’t take up lots of screen real-estate or resources to display your tweets, and speaking of displaying tweets, it will display those new retweets! Huzzah! If only it supported a few other things, but it doesn’t. You can shrink a link, but there is no facility for adding media. Also, if you want anything deeper than just the tweets, Itsy sends you to the web, opening the information you want in your browser. Which is fine, but I would have preferred something more built-in. There are no lists, no searches, no trending topics, no way to find and follow people. It is light, though, and I do not think it was intended for heavy twitter-addicts. What it does, it does well and attractively, so I certainly won’t fault it for that. It has become the client of choice for my Macbook Air, where I can afford neither resource overhead nor screen real estate. Very fun. http://mowglii.com/itsy/

After first firing up Canary, I was greeted with an odd, slightly unattractive, very utilitarian interface. It was as if the UI design was driven by the philosophy that Twitter means business. No frills. This may be because it is still in beta, but I have seen some much more attractive beta products before. It has no lists and no search, though filtering your timeline is just a simple button click away, useful for tracking down a half remembered tweet. The UI is fast, very fast, and overall the program is light on resource usage. There is no new retweet support. Multiple accounts are pretty much not supported, unless you want to log out and log in again as someone else, though it does save those credentials to make it a tad easier. Tweeting is similarly barebones, as you cannot shorten URLs or upload media, although I kinda liked the vague status bar that sits next to your tweet filling up and changing color as you pound through your 140 characters. Free to all while in beta, though I couldn’t say where it will go after that, so you are welcome to try it and see if it meets your Twitter needs. http://www.ohloh.net/p/canary

Alright, so Socialite does it all. It has list support! It is the only native client that does at this moment and it does lists rather well. It supports the retweets, and I really like its profile peek mechanism which allows you to look at a users profile without puling you away from those all important 140 charter messages. Tweeting itself seems to be something of an afterthought, you get only a little tray to drop your thoughts in, with no URL shortening or media uploads in sight. It will set you back $20 to get a full version of this big kid on the block, but you can also do Facebook and Google RSS reading, along with other assorted social things from the main screen, if that is what you are into. It is a little heavier than some on resource usage, but I would say that it still does better than any Adobe Air client. Multiple accounts are a breeze to setup, and a pleasure to use. The interface is clean and sharp, and reminds me of RSS readers, which is not really a bad thing. It was the only client in the roundup that did everything that I want from a twitter client, but it is so big that I doubt I will be firing it up more than occasionally, and that isn’t worth $20 to a broke college student. http://www.realmacsoftware.com/socialite/

This twitter client costs you $10, sits in your menu bar, and displays a ticker-tape of your tweet stream. This is all about displaying your stream, and the focus is felt through the app. To get to the tweeting function, you have to click into a menu, and the construction options are sparse. There is no media support, but if you control click on a typed in link, it shortens it for you. However, the ticker tape effect itself is strained, as it scrolls through one tweet nicely, and the pauses before making a distracting change to the beginning of the next tweet. No list options, no searching, and it doesn’t display new retweets. It is in your menu bar, though, and some people like that kind of thing. It will support multiple accounts, so add as many as you want, though the benefit of that seems limited to me, as I only read from *one* account, although I post to other accounts. Your milage may vary. http://www.twitmenulet.com/

I almost didn’t get a chance to review this one, some error prevented it from running on my Mac the first time I loaded it up. Which would have been a shame, because this is an attractive little client. It is very light on resources, supports the new retweets, free, and beta. Very snappy, I like the way it handles searches, letting you create a new search, showing your saved searches, or choose to search for one of the displayed trending topics. Excellent. Also, when clicking on a name, it pulls out a nice drawer with the profile details and a few of their most recent tweets, letting you choose to follow them or not. As far as tweeting goes, it has a handy URL shrinker, but no media love. You can configure some handy keyboard shortcuts, and if you use the Echofon Pro client for the iPhone, you can setup some sort of sync with the desktop client. No list support, but I have a feeling that that will be coming soon to this nicely featured client. Multiple Twitter accounts are a breeze to setup, and hot switching is fairly easy as well. There is really nice support for opening pictures in the program, clicking on a little picture icon in the tweet opens the pic for viewing, very slick, similar to Tweetie. Nice to is the inclusion of little highlights on the scrollbar, representing mentions in your timeline. All in all a great contender for your main twitter client, and I am glad that I didn’t miss it! http://echofon.com/

Nobody really is supporting lists yet, and the new retweets really are hit or miss across clients. I expect my post to become almost useless soon after I write it though, because these programs are almost all under active development, and as the Twitter community adjusts and acclimates to lists, they will start to demand it of their clients. In all honesty, the authors of these clients for the most part are doing it because they enjoy making these, so I would expect them to put in the support soon anyway. I hope this has been helpful, hit me up on Twitter @allanmanderson, or let me know if I missed your favorite client in the comments.