Tweetie for Mac: The Ultimate Twitter Client

Twitter has taken the Internet by storm. It can be used to stay in touch with friends and family, but more and more people are using it to connect with people in their industry and promote themselves and work. Although you can use Twitter directly from the site itself, it is much more practical (and fun) to use a remote client. An assortment of these clients have arouse in the recent months. Today, I am reviewing Tweetie, a desktop twitter application for Mac.

Tweetie was first made for the iPhone. This version had extraordinary success, and is still the top Twitter client in the app store. The developer, atebits, recently released a version of Tweetie for the Mac. The release was highly anticipated, and the reception was great. In this review I will overview the features, the design, and the usability of the application.

The Design and Usability

The design in Tweetie is slick and intuitive. Everything I wanted to do when I first opened up the app I knew how to do without reading any kind of instructions. Say you want to see a person profile, click on their avatar next to their tweet in the timeline. From there you can see that person's recent tweets, favorite tweets, mentions, and profile information. You can also follow, un-follow, and direct message that person.

The main window is dived into the timeline of your followers tweets, and a small sidebar. In the sidebar sits you avatar, tabs for the main timeline, mentions, direct messages, search, and any other accounts you have. A beautiful animation occurs when you switch between the tabs. They are smooth and clean. I have never experienced any lag. When you click on an image link in your timeline, another animation occurs. Rather than opening in your browser, Tweetie opens a small, unobtrusive window that automatically re-sizes to fit the image. When you close out the window, it has a suck effect into the corner and disappears. I work on a 2.0GHz MacBook, so any computer should be able to handle Tweetie's animation.

Features

Tweetie has all the features you could ever want. The most powerful is the integrated services. Tweetie has 4 different URL shortening services built right in, a must for Twitter. To use this feature, paste a link into the tweet window. When you post the tweet, it will be shortened via the service of your choice. Video and image tweeting is also supported. You can capture a video through your built in iSight camera, or drag the video directly into your tweet window. To tweet a picture, drag the image of your choosing into the tweet window. Tweetie has 6 different image services for you to choose from. Another unique feature are threader direct messages. The messages are styled like iChat chat bubbles, and are divided by the person whom you are talking to. Tweetie divides tweets and replies into conversations, double click on a tweet. You can see all the tweets leading up to that tweet. Multiple Twitter accounts are supported, allowing you to Tweet, and check the timeline of each different account.

Price and Other Info

Tweetie is available for free with, (gorgeous) ads via Fusion. You can disable the ads for $20. Right now, Tweetie is the best client out there. Give it a try, I'm sure you wont be disappointed!