Apple Thoughts: Tweetie for Mac, Another Option for Your Twittering Needs

Figure 1: Tweetie for Mac in action, reviewing some tweets from your favorite website!

Since the social networking site Twitter was introduced in 2006, there have been many desktop applications created to make the Twitter experience more functional. Some of the more popular programs, besides using the Twitter web interface, are TweetDeck, Snitter, Twitterrific and Twhirl. Well, now the popular iPhone application "Tweetie" has jumped into the desktop realm. Having used several of these at one time or another and settled on TweetDeck as my Twitter client of choice, I wanted to see if this one was worthy of all the hype it generated. The grass is always greener right?

Figure 2: The logon screen right after install.

There are two versions available, a free one that has ads (I haven't noticed any however in the short time I have been using it) and an ad-free version that costs $14.95USD (only until May 4th and then the price goes up to $19.95USD per their website). Installation is a snap. Once you download the 1.2 MB file and install it, a logon screen pops up so you can enter your Twitter username and password. Once this is done, the program starts up and loads up your "tweets".

Figure 3: Interface displayed when you start Tweetie.

The interface is very simple, clean and Mac-like, which is to be expected since it is a native app and not done via the Adobe Air process that some of the desktop applications use such as Snitter and Twhirl. Granted, it doesn't have the flash that some of the other applications have, but that may be a reason why it is so nimble and responsive. It is also very unobtrusive, working in an adjustable window that takes up a minimum of space, yet does quite a lot in the process. If you have the iPhone app, this will be very familiar as it appears pretty close to what it looks like on your iPhone screen.

Figure 4: The interface explained.

As you can see above, there are several options from the screen. Note the blue circle next to the icon along the left side of the window. That means that you have an update in either your main Twitter window, in your Reply window or in your Direct Message window. You can also customize the appearance to a degree in the preferences section by adjusting font size, display name, font shortening service (bit.ly, tinyURL, etc) or the photo posting service you want to use (twitpic, etc). Additionally you can set it up to refresh for new tweets or hold the position so you don't miss any, leaving you to scroll through them manually.

Figure 5: New window to tweet from.

When you click on the new tweet button in the lower left hand corner, a new window pops up so you can continue to monitor your main timeline. The same process happens if you click on the error notification icon in the lower right corner. This is handy so you don't clear your view of incoming tweets, or the view of the reply window if you want to keep your train of thought as you shoot of a reply in one of your never ending threads.

Figure 6: The conversation thread.

Keeping track of what you were talking about with someone can be difficult, especially if you have an ongoing conversation with several people. Tweetie takes care of this. Double click on one of the tweets and get another tabbed window that displays the conversation within your main window. Nice way to keep real estate usage to a minimum. This can also be used for your direct messages as well as in the main window to follow the thread on someone else's conversation.

If you are a fan of keyboard combinations, have no fear as you can use them with Tweetie. Control + 1 takes you to the main window, use the Control + 2 to get to your replies, the Control + 3 will take you to direct messages tab and the Control + 4 will get you to the search mode. Very handy to cycle through the tabs quickly.

Want to get info on someone in your Twitter stream? Simple as clicking on their icon to bring up their stream, profile info, etc. You can follow them from this screen by clicking on the gear icon, as well as find out if they are following you. For some of you, the best feature of all is the ability to add several Twitter accounts, easily accessed by clicking on the icon for each account displayed on the left side of your main window. And if you like to re-tweet, simply ctrl+click on the tweet and it gives you that option, although they label it "RePost."

There are some downsides to this program. If you send tweets to multiple people, Tweetie doesn't have an option for it so you will have to do it manually. Also, searches open up in your main window and are not easily saved unless you go to the menu bar under "Window" and "Open in New Window." This will display a search window with all of the results next to your main Twitter view. It isn't a bad way, but it isn't very convenient. The last thing is the notification of new tweets. The only notification you get is a blue dot next to the tab where there is new information. If you currently count on audible alerts from your Twitter client, you may not like this. Not that big of a deal for me as I kept the side of my display just visible to the edge of my browser window, so at a glance I could see if there were updates. But if you like birds chirping and bells ringing, you wont like this application. At least for now, visual clues are the only things you get as a notification.

Conclusion:

Overall, a pleasant experience with Tweetie for the Mac. The interface is very clean and simple. I found the more I used it the more I liked it. Simplicity is the key feature of it and after using several applications that had all kinds of ways to notify me of updates either audibly or visually, this was a refreshing change. I haven't given up on my current iPhone twitter client Twitterfon just yet for Tweetie, but for my laptop, I'm going to continue to use this for awhile. Besides it is free if you get the version with ads, which have been non-existent but I'm sure will change soon enough.

Jeff Campbell is a fan of all things Apple, an X-boxer (the 360 kind) and geek. He works as a floor supervisor in a 911 center in the Portland, OR area, and lives in a small town just north of Mt. Hood with his wife, two kids, two dogs, a snake and a tarantula.