tl;dr: Tweetie has had a great following for some time on the iPhone, so it was a logical jump for atebits to transfer some of the goodness of Tweetie to all the desktop Mac Twitter users.
A little late to the game? Sure. Worth the wait? Definitely.
atebits today released Tweetie—a full-featured and fast Twitter client—for the Mac. Tweetie has had a great following for some time on the iPhone, so it was a logical jump for atebits to transfer some of the goodness of Tweetie to all the desktop Mac Twitter users.
The Playing Field
What Apple is to computing bliss, Tweetie is to Twitter desktop client bliss. I've used (and still use, from time to time) Twhirl, Tweetdeck, and Lounge on my Mac, and all of these apps have had one or two bugs that simply kept me from settling in for more than a few weeks.
Lounge brought me very close to Twitvanna, but was sorely lacking in the speed and efficiency department. Sometimes refreshing would take almost a minute! I bought the iPhone app version, and it works pretty darn well, but the desktop version (still in early beta) just doesn't cut it for me.
Twitvanna in Tweetie
Tweetie brings almost every feature I've wanted to the playing field:
- Speed: When dealing with short 140-character posts, why should it take more than a few seconds to update? Tweetie updates fast.
- Multiple-accounts: You can add as many as you'd like, and switching between them (as well as seeing which ones have updates) is quite easy
- Tweeting: I recommend you set up a shortcut for making a new tweet. There's no 'tweet box' within the window itself—which is both a plus and a minus. It saves room, but it requires either a click or a shortcut to post a new tweet.
- Timelines, searches, etc.: All here - just double-click on a tweet to see the full conversation. Click on the search button to search Twitter. View only replies, DMs, etc.
Tips for Tweeting
Some of my favorite little tidbits:
- Double-clicking any tweet opens up the 'conversation' - meaning you can see all the replies that go along with a certain thread.
- After typing a new tweet, press Command-Return to send the tweet.
- Pressing Command-Shift-Down or Command-Shift-Up switches accounts in the sidebar.
- All of the main shortcuts are listed in the 'Twitter' menu - memorize 'em!
Still Not Perfect
Tweetie is still not the perfect client. While it's blazing fast and drop-dead simple to use, I'd like to see some more features:
- The ability to have a tweet-posting area in the bottom or top of the main window.
- More customizable keyboard shortcuts, especially for moving through accounts and tweets.
- The ability to have growl notifications, and possibly a sound played when a new @reply or DM is received.
I think that these things will be addressed over time, and for at least the next few weeks, I'm going to be using Tweetie exclusively.
Tweetie can be downloaded from atebits website; you can choose from a free ad-supported version, or pay $14.95 (introductory price until May 4, 2009) for the full version.