My Fabulous iPhone Blog ~ Helen Crozier

Simply Tweet Upgrades to V2.5 with nice features

 

Simply Tweet upgraded to version 2.5 today. What's nice? Being able to send DM's that are over 140 characters! I don't know how far over they let you go but I went to 168 characters and didn't get any red lights - how brilliant.

I did see in the upgrade notice on iTunes as I was updating that in future upgrades Simply Tweet will synchronise your new twitter 'lists' which seems nice.

'Views' are no longer called 'views' but lists in line with that I guess. There are plenty more 'features' that are new to this upgrade. Read more at Simply Tweet.

I find it the best iPhone twitter app that exists - and I've tried a few!! If you use Simply Tweet what are the standout features for you?

ShapeUp/TripView/Tweetie updates

My Dearest iPhone

Thank you so much for...

Shapeup  - still helping me eat less, make educated decisions and therefore lose weight. Brilliant!

TripView - apparently the Manly Jetcat timetable is in there - thanks for that!!

Tweetie 2 - absolutely LOVE the 'add to contact' feature which I will write a 'how to' about soon. Basically click on the address card in the profile and it will import the avatar, twitter url and notes into your contacts either updating an existing one or addding new... how good is that?

hugs as always...

Hxxx

iPhone Twitter? Simply Tweet's the one for now!

 

 

What iPhone Twitter app do you use? I've experimented with a few and so far Simply Tweet is a winner for me. It has the simple inteface of Tweetie but has thrown in a lot of extra features that actually work. The big buzz about this app was that it gave us push notifications.

Simply put this meant that if you wanted to (depends how active you are on twitter) you could go to the main iPhone settings (outside Simply Tweet itself). Click on notifications, select Simply Tweet. Here you can  tell the iPhone to alert you with sounds, badges (a badge is just the number on the icon that means something - on the simply tweet icon it is telling me I have two new messages or replies) or alerts (the full @reply or direct message pops up on the iPhone screen. I must admit I did get a shock when the first direct message on twitter came in just like a standard SMS message! I had to turn it off because I had too many coming in but there may be a time when you would find it useful to have it turned on - say for instance you were attending an event and trying to meet up with a fellow tweeter for the first time and had arranged to communicate that way. Remember to have push notifications turned on is a battery drain so you should turn it off if you aren't using it.

 

 

One feature missing in Tweetie was the ability to form groups. Simply Tweet has them but it calls them 'views'. Above is pictured by VIP view with the latest tweets coming in from people I don't want to miss. Note there the 'badge' is telling me I have five new mentions and one new direct message.

When you click on more you get access to even more saved views if you have them. Mine are shown below. It is very quick and easy to add a tweeter to a view.

 

 

 

 

There is a conversation thread view as well.

 

 

Here is a full list of all the futures from the developer's website

Advanced Features

• Push notification support for Direct Messages and Mentions, showing new messages in the application badge
• Configurable push notification sounds
• Themes
• Saved views (create groups of friends, etc)
• Photos search
• Saved notes for accounts
• Multiple accounts support, with quick switch support
• HootSuite integration: importing of Twitter accounts from HootSuite
• Support for updating user profiles from within SimplyTweet, including profile picture
• Bookmarklet Support
• Landscape drafting mode (both Tweets and DM)
• Landscape view for builtin web browser
• Tweetshrink support (both tweets and DM)
• URL shortening
• Send direct messages longer than 140 characters
• Unread tweet indicators for all themes
• Instapaper Support
• Posterous Support (multiple photos and video upload) with hashtags converted to Posterous tags
• TwitPic support (multiple photos)
• yfrog support (multiple photos and video upload)
• img.ly support (multiple photos)
• TwitrPix support (multiple photos)
• TwitVid support (video upload)
• Browse conversations - display the reply chain of a message all in 1 screen
• Browse conversations between you and another person - display the tweets between you all in 2 screen
• Bigger text option

Other iPhone clients I have tried include Tweetie as discussed, Twittelator Pro (lots of features but pretty complicated and slow), Tweetdeck (sadly wouldn't synchronise my groups and was very slow too), Lounge (boring I'm sorry) - for me Simply Tweet is a winner because it is so fast and also really pretty in the girlie pink theme!

Hootsuite are rumoured to be working on their own twitter client. I hope and pray it can be as efficient as this one. What do you use for Twitter on your iPhone and are you happy with it?

Price $AUD4.99

Developer - http://motionobj.com/simplytweet/

iPhone App purchases: you need patience

Us iPhone users can be an impatient mob. I was waiting for PocketInformant (a full featured calendar/task tool) to appear in the apps store for what seemed like months. When it landed I forked out the $15 being the desperate puppy that I was and then sort of panicked because it wasn't behaving too well. There has been an update since and the software does seem a lot more stable and usable but I'm really waiting for the features in the next couple of releases before I will feel completely comfortable about giving it a fair review.

Similar situation with TwitterBox. I love the concept of this app - it gives me boxes to group the people I follow in. I have a gold box, a silver box, a celeb box, and a tech box. The problem with the app is that it is diabolically unstable. I zip in there to catch up on my boxes and before I've finished reading their tweets I'm thrown out. I've asked if stability will be addressed and solved in the next release (currently with Apple as I write) but I've not had an answer.

The bottom line is that although we are so lucky to receive great software for the iPhone it does seem that early adopters are really 'beta testers' who have forked out cash. My recommendation before spending too freely in the app store is to read reviews and ask around on twitter before deciding if you want to invest time in software that is less than satisfactory with regard to promised performance.

Looking forward to app updates - watch this space for reviews of Pocket Informant and Twitterbox.

Twittelator 2.0 packs some serious Twitter punch review from Smoking Apples

A large number of iPhone users agree that Tweetie has the most favourable user interface experience. I have also been experimenting with Twittelator (although not the new 'pro' verison as mentioned in the article linked to here. For an extensive review of Twittelator 2.0 read on the link below and see how it compares to Tweetie.

Twittelator 2.0 packs some serious Twitter punch | Smoking Apples

I do keep wishing and hoping that Tweetie would bring in some group or sub group support of friends. Once the numbers get high it makes it so difficult keeping up with those tweeps that stand out from the crowd!