Android Twitter Apps Review

Android may be a new platform, but that doesn't stop it from having tons of options for posting to Twitter. Ron Richards looks at 3 Twitter apps, Twitli, Twidroid and iTweet and cuts through the 140 characters to find you the best app.

Today on App judgment twitter apps for Android. Hey welcome to App Judgment Revision3’s mobile phone application show. My name's Ron Richards and on the resident G1 owner here amongst the App Judgment crew. And sure the iPhone may be sexy but Android is on the rise and we’ve had copy and paste from the beginning. One of the things that I use my phone the most for aside from making actual phone calls is posting to Twitter. On this episode I'm going to show you three apps that unlock the power of twitter on Android with the hopes of finding the one that gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. First up is Tweetly which is free from the Android marketplace and I downloaded it because I like the icon which is the little raving ass. You know it was cutesy as most Twitter apps can be. Once I loaded the application I found out why Tweetly is free. It’s bare bone simple without any real flashy designer or anything. Tapping on a tweet loads up many of actions from where you can tweak, reply to someone or send a DM. Unfortunately this is the only place to actually send the tweet from and it took about five minutes to figure that one out. Once I found it talk about disappointing. No character counter, no options for inserting picks or distinctions between tweets or DM’s. It does have a hook on the Google Maps so you can see where on the map tweets are coming from, a feature that's cool to see but I can't ever imagine using it more than once. Overall Tweetly is okay but combined with the weak interface design with the shoddy tweet enter screen and I'm not feeling it. So when the G1 came out the first Twitter client on the scene was Twidroid and it was the application that probably I use the most. Free in the marketplace Twidroid has gone through a lot of evolutions since it was first released. One of my favorite things Twidroid has the ability to adjust the number of tweets that's show up in the app. Tweet 50 or 250, which if you follow a lot of people what I do is key. I hate missing on posting my timeline because the application won't let me load all of them. Twidroid does lack a bit tweet entry box. They kept it super simple which is okay but it's almost too simple. You've got character count, the ability for photos and locations in but no options for tweet versus a direct message. One of the reasons why I stop using Twidroid is because it was a memory hag. Updating my timeline took forever and it ate up a ton of phone storage. But a recent update to the application features the ability to choose where to store your memory cache on your SD card or in the phone's internal memory. It also features an easy way to clear that cache which totally eliminates the storage issue. That said the app can still be slowing down when you tweets and can be a bit sluggish. So for $2.99 in the App marketplace you could pick up iTweet. You're probably thinking of yourself $3.00 it better be worth it and I have the exact same thought. But the moment I loaded iTweet, I could see why it cost money. iTweet is the best design of all the Twitter clients I've used. They provided tabs and stock that allow you to filter your timeline including a filter for app replies or your post, direct messages as well as the users you follow or users that follow you and your favorites. By hitting the menu button, you get a menu functions, press here to load the tweet entry screen from where you can choose to tweet or DM. It also features a big screen for any of your text with that much needed character counter and you could also add your location or a photo. The settings area is the most flushed out of all the apps I've seen. There's a whole section dedicated to the styling of the app where you can set the theme for the look and feel, the font size as well as the bunch of other options. You can turn on or off checking for tweets automatically and set the duration. There are tons of ways to customize you notifications including change in the color of the LED flash which is something I've never seen before and separate ringtones for tweets versus app replies versus the apps. My only complain with iTweet is there's no control to the number of tweets downloaded in your timeline. This isn’t a problem if you have auto refreshing on. You’ll get all your tweets but if you're like me and turn that off to save battery power you run the risk of missing tweets since your last refresh. I don’t think I've ever said the word tweet so much before but these are the things we do for you here on App Judgment. That said here’s your breakdown of Twitter apps or Android. Tweetly, don’t download. A bad interface for reading and writing tweets makes this not worth your time. Twidroid, download with the recent memory manage and updates this free Twitter app is worth it. iTweet, download for a mere three bucks you get what I think is the best Twitter experience. So what do you think? Did I miss a great Twitter app for Android or do you know of any other apps you think we should check out. Email us at appjudgment@revision3.com.