What’s The Best iPhone Twitter Client?

Giles Turnbull ()

failwhale-20081117.jpg

The Fail Whale enjoying a well-earned break, yesterday.

Today’s big question: what is the best Twitter client for iPhone? I asked everyone in my house, but neither of them had an opinion. So I asked Twitter instead.

At the time of writing, there’s a lot of praise for Tweetsville and Tweetie (not actually publicly available yet, it seems) and Twittelator.

My favorite right now is Twitterfon. I only discovered it a few days ago, while discussing iPhone software over a pint in the pub, but it as soon as I’d got it installed, it replaced Twitterific as my daily quick-must-check-my-Tweets-else-I’ll-probably-die app. (Did someone say something about time and attention? No? Good.)

Why do I like Twitterfon? Mainly because it’s fast, also because it looks like an iPhone app. Twitterific was too pokey, too cramped, too dark, for my liking.

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Annnnnyway. What’s your fave iPhone Twitter tweet-o-tron, oh lovely Cult reader? Hmmm?

18 comments »

About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He writes for the Press Association and The Morning News. He has a website you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

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Posted in iPhone, Opinions |

  • MJV

    I find myself using NatsuLion right now. It’s quite nice to use, and also fast. And free.

  • Daniel Ramirez
  • http://www.abovetheinternet.org Stuart Gibson

    I’m still pretty hooked on Twinkle, despite some flaws, but I keep Twitterfon on the phone for emergencies (like when the Tapulous servers go down).

  • DRPR

    I really enjoy Twittelator, which I use on my iPod Touch. I can easily list tweets posted geographically close to my location, can see a list of tweets by those on y friends list, a list of only my tweets, replies to me, or the public timeline. I also can see “trending topics,” can save certain tweets as my favorites, or save certain tweeters as favorites so I can view their recent tweets- or even look at the favorite tweets saved by my favorite tweeters (not that I care, but it’s an option). I can also have multiple accounts, which is perfect- it’s easy to switch between my two Twitter accounts.

    It’s simple to change the look of Twittelator’s through several color schemes (I prefer black) and to toggle certain features. There’s an emergency button that allows you to send a quick tweet that lists your current location and a help message, but I disabled that annoying feature because it was too easy to press- but for some people it may be quite useful.

    I won’t say this program is without problems. Once in a great while it crashes and I have to restart it. But it’s fast! The interface is clean, and sending tweets is easy. The only other Twitter app I keep on my iPod now is Twittervision.

  • firesign

    i’ve been happy with twitellator. does the job, free, stable.

  • http://www.joncobler.net Jon

    Twitterator is the way to go! Love the “confirm twitter” feature to avoid premature twitters.

  • http://punklabs.com Skunkie

    I have tried all the free iPhone/iPod Touch twitter apps and I have come to love NatsuLion for the iPhone. It is the easiest for me to read, has the bests scrolling, and does the job just right. No it doesn’t have the ability to post pictures to TwitPic (etc), but that’s what Twitxr or email is for. :) I definitely suggestion giving it a go.

  • Jona

    Twinkle is so much better than these other ones, guys! Those UIs are horrendous!

  • http://chetiboy.blogspot.com Chet

    Thanks for referring Twitterfon. Everything else i’ve tried seemed to be either too crashy or too slow.

  • http://www.chaosboi.com chaosboi

    Twitellator by far, it’s also worth paying for the pro version for only a few dollars.

  • Gary_S

    I’ve tried just about all of them and for me it is TwitterFon, it works, it’s quick and it is a lot more readable for my aging eyes, I found the others too dark or with too small a font. On the desktop though it’s Twitterlator all the way.

  • Trakix

    I use Twinkle. I just can’t imagine Twitter without the location based social aspect. It has quickly become my most used iPhone app, despite the occasional crash or server failure.

  • http://evolvingmusic.wordpress.com Sandra Possing

    For me, right now the main issues are a clean, simple UI and multiple user account support. I was using Twinkle for one account and the iPhone version of twitter.com for another account.

    (On my mac I’ve tried Twhirl, Spaz, Tweetdeck, Twitterific and Syrinx – currently prefer the latter two.)

    A few days ago I discovered Tweetie. It’s freakin awesome. Easily switch between accounts and the interface looks like an IM conversation.

  • http://blog.swash.org Swash

    TwitterFon has something others dont have (I think). TwitterFon will let you do a search on Twitter. its an interface to http://search.twitter.com/ And it also shows the most popular Searches. Really useful recently when I was looking at all the #mumbai tweets after the terrorist attacks.

  • vassaar

    Tweetie is the best for $3, followed by TwitterFon

  • Rylan

    I’ve tried them all….I now only use TwitterFon.

  • Josh

    I agree with this. I was using Twitterific, but then tried twitterfon and now i use it all the time!

  • wilburforce

    TwitterFon is awesome and complete. I am also trying NatsuLion as well although it does not do photo’s it is fast and very useable.