Twittelator Pro Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!
Twittelator Pro is a twitter client with support for multiple accounts. It is beautifully designed and feature packed to make your mobile twitter experience quick and enjoyable. It would take a book to review each and every feature of Twittelator Pro, so I will pick what I consider the highlights and direct you to Twittelator's full feature list for more.
General Interface
Twittelator Pro has 3 different themes to chose from: Gradient, Dove, and Raven. Here are some screenshots demonstrating all three.
Big Stone Phone claims that each theme is ideal for different lighting conditions: Gradient for indoors, Dove for outdoors, and Raven for night.
The Tab Bar at the bottom has what you'd expect from any Twitter application: Friends, Mentions, Messages, Settings, and More. However, Twittelator distinguishes itself by making it customizable. When in the More tab, hit edit and you can now drag any item to any of the four locations next to "More".
Reading Tweets
I absolutely adore the experience of reading tweets with Twittelator Pro. The above photo (stolen from Twittelator's website) shows how much info is included with each tweet. Not shown in the picture, however, is that you can have both the username and real name of the tweeter displayed (as seen in my screenshots). This is great for people like me who want to see real names but are terrible at remembering usernames.
Tapping a user's avatar brings you to their profile. If there were any other users mentioned in the tweet, then you will be asked who's profile you want to view. The profile interface includes the typical info, including the option to follow or stop following. There is also a magnifying glass to quickly search for other screen names and what looks like a price tag to bookmark the user.
Tapping a username brings up a list of options for that tweet: reply, private, re-tweet, email tweet, copy tweet, favorite tweet, or copy link to tweet (more on copying later). You can save a tweet by tapping and holding for 2 seconds.
If there is a #hashtag or hyperlink included in a tweet, tapping the paperclip will take you to the the hash feed or website. When viewing a website, you can copy the link (again, more on this later). If there is a photo attached (with yFrog, Pikchur, TwitPic, MobyPicture, or twitgoo) there will be a thumbnail of it to the right. Tapping it will allow you to view it. When viewing an image, there is a little two-way arrow icon at the upper right which toggles between filling your screen vertically or horizontally. It's nice to be able to view photos in full screen even if the photo wasn't taken with an iPhone. Tapping on the photo will give an option to save it to your camera roll.
If there is a bubble around the time since the tweet was tweeted, then this indicates a conversation. Tapping the bubble will allow you to read the chain of replies. If there is not a bubble, then tapping the time opens a new @ reply to the tweeter.
Writing Tweets
Writing a tweet is an experience of its own with Twittelator Pro. There are many options, characters, and features that make writing tweets fast, easy, and fun. Twittelator does support landscape keyboard (and can be disabled from settings).
If you had previously copied a link or tweet, you can paste it into your tweet by tapping the bottle of glue. Even if you've exited the application, Twittelator Pro will remember what you have copied. To add a photo, tap the camera. Tapping the drop pin will add link to Google maps of your current location. Unfortunately, opening such a link will not launch the native Google maps application on the iPhone.
Underneath the current character count, you can tap on the icons to bring up 8 pages of characters. The characters are viewable with other twitter clients as well as on the web. Very cool.
At the upper right of the New Tweet screen, there is a button called "@friends". Here you find a scrolling list of who you are following. Scroll to who you want to @mention, tap +, and Twittelator adds them to your tweet. I think this is a great feature, but feel as though it can be better. I only follow 93 people, and it can take awhile to scroll through the list. I can't imagine if I was following 300+ users. I think something like Contacts with the alphabet on the side would be better. Ideally, I'd like to see an autofill feature.
Inside the tweet bubble, there is a # on the bottom right and two arrows facing each other on the bottom left. Tapping # will provide a scrolling list of all the #hashtags you have used before. Tapping the arrows will shrink your tweet (including URLS) with common abbreviations. This is nice for those situations when your tweet is 10 characters or so over the limit.
One of the coolest things I found about Twittelator Pro is the ability to tweet from Safari. First you must go into Twittelator's settings and tap "Add Safari Bookmarklet". This leads you to a website with the instructions for setting up this feature. It's very simple - just save the page as a bookmark, then edit it by deleting the beginning of the URL. Once set up, just open the bookmark with Safari and it will launch Twittelator Pro with the URL of the website you were viewing added to a new tweet. Awesome!
Pressing Send does not immediately send your tweet. You are given the option to send, or save as draft. I do not like this, but luckily there is an option to disable it! If disabled, you must hit cancel to get the option to save the tweet. Twittelator Pro allows you to save as many drafts as you want. This is awesome for those times you don't have reception, want to log a quick thought, or for iPod Touch users. If you have any saved drafts, you will see "tap for drafts" under "New Tweet", so tapping here gives access to your drafts.
More
There is much more you can do with Twittelator Pro. Some of the highlights are:
- create subgroups
- view tweets of users you have bookmarked
- access saved tweets
- see just your tweets
- delete your tweets/messages
- play mp3 and video within Twittelator Pro
- search nearby tweets
- switch between accounts while creating a new tweet
Conclusion
Twittelator Pro is the best iPhone twitter client I have used. It is clear that the the developers put a lot of thought and effort into this app with its nice interface and many features. At $4.99, Twittelator Pro isn't the cheapest client available, but it is worth every penny.
Pros
- Multiple accounts
- Auto-refresh
- Full-featured
- View conversations
- Link a page from Safari directly as a tweet (via bookmarklet)
- Copy/paste tweets and links
Cons
- GPS links do not launch Google maps
TiPb Review Rating
Twittelator Pro is available for $4.99 from the iTunes App Store.
