It is no secret that Twitter bought the super famous Tweetie iPhone app and hired the developer Loren Brichter. The Twitter iPhone app has been my favorite for a long time and I occasionally switch to Osfoora or SimplyTweet iPhone app.
But, since the release of the Apple iPad it has been an eye sore that Twitter didn’t have an official iPad app. There were many players like Osfoora HD, Echofon, Twitterific who filled the need but it was still odd not to see the official version. Until now.
Twitter for iPad from @atebits has landed and here are my first impressions on the app.
First off, it was nice to see that you could see tweets timeline, trending topics, etc without even signing in. So, anyone new without a Twitter account can still open up Twitter and see what the hoopla is all about.
Once signed in, you are greeted with the menu on the left and the timeline in the middle. Tapping on a tweet, you are taken to a second pane with all the actions you could do in the right top corner. This screen has 2 parts – top part displaying the tweet itself and the bottom large part displaying what is in the tweet. It could be a link, a photo, a video or a checkin. It will automatically be loaded in this part saving a click on opening a browser window. I like this.
When you are here you will see that you can still see the timeline pane and you just tap on that area to go back. This is where Twitter has done well. You could also intuitively swipe left or right to move between the panes.
I also love the fact that when you are waiting for a picture or video to load in a pane, you could still browse through your timeline.
While we are in the timeline, you could do a couple of cool things. Just pinch on a tweet to see details about the author and you can take actions like Retweet, reply, etc.
And if you put two fingers on a tweet and pull down, you can open an entire thread of conversation leading to that particular tweet!
The left menu gives you access to your Mentions, Direct Messages, Lists, Profile, etc reminding you of the Tweetie for Mac interface. To mark all messages/DMs read, just tap and hold to see a pane open up with that action in it.
The compose interface is also very neatly done with a nice notepad like background and the necessary action buttons tucked neatly to the bottom right. It is also nice to see your timeline as you write. With the timeline window being narrow, it works well in both landscape and portrait orientation.
Although in landscape mode, I feel like there is so much space being wasted but I believe this is probably better than if the window resized in width. Another thing I want to be able to control is the font size. The timeline fonts seem a little too big for me and wish I could play with what works well.
On the whole, Twitter for iPad is what we have come expect out of the maker of Tweetie and dare I say it even has set a new standard in interacting with the UI in the iPad.
Tweetie set the standard for Pull to refresh and now the two finger swipe to see threaded conversations might do just the same in various iPad apps.
Twitter for iPad is FREE and you can’t beat that price for such a quality app. Download it now and give it a go! Oh and don’t forget to follow us @TopiPad.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Availability: App Store
Price: FREE
Reviewed at version: 3.1
