I use Twitter quite a bit. I’m happy to have Twitter support now built-in to Mac OS and iOS. Twitter offers a free client for iOS and you can of course use your favorite web browser to access twitter.com or even the official Twitter client on your Mac. With that said I prefer Tweetbot for iOS and Mac OS. Tweetbot is a 3rd party Twitter client that offers more features than the native Twitter support and even the official Twitter clients. First off I like the user interface better. On iOS it’s very gesture friendly to swipe to the right on a tweet to see the full conversation and what really sets it appart from the official Twitter client is the built-in support for popular upload and read later services. For example, I use Instapaper and it’s very easy for me to send a tweet or an article over to Instapaper to read later. Probably the biggest reason I prefer it is that it supports Bit.ly URL shortening. I use bit.ly quite a bit to shorten links, but also to track how many times various links have been clicked on. The native/official Twitter clients do URL shortening, but only via Twitter and you have no way to see the stats. With Tweetbot you can also use your favorite services for uploading pictures or videos. Twitter has support for this now built-in, but once again you have no control over it or ability to easily look at all the pictures/videos you’ve uploaded. With Tweetbot you can configure it to use services like Twitpic and always have control over your pics.
Tweetbot also syncs with iCloud
If you use more than one device such as a Mac and an iPhone, you probably don’t want to waste time reading the same tweets that you already read on the other device. Tweetbot automatically syncs with iCloud and remembers where you left off in your tweet reading. Pickup another device with Tweetbot installed an keep right on going.
Sounds good, what’s the downside?
There really isn’t a downside to the Applications themselves, they rock! However, Twitter has made it clear that they don’t like us using 3rd party clients and slowly but surely they’ve been making it harder for developers to offer 3rd party clients. While Tweetbot works perfectly today, Twitter could break it at some point. The only other downside is the price. Tweetbot isn’t cheap, but you get what you pay for. I bought it originally for iPhone, then for iPad now for Mac. That’s three separate purchases. I don’t regret it, but I’d love to see a bundle price.
Be sure to follow me on Twitter here.
You can get Tweetbot for Mac here
You can get Tweetbot for iPhone here
You can get Tweetbot for iPad here
