October 10, 2009 

Tweetie 2: First Impressions

tweetie2Last night the long awaited update to Tweetie was released on the App Store and within minutes the app was bring downloaded by 1000s of eager fans. Atebits was very clever in allowing various tech sites to have a sneak peak at what was to come and has generated a huge amount of anticipation.

photo 3So far its feeling pretty slick, the updated interface works quite well and is a joy to use.
The search function (very similar to spotlight and ipod search) is really useful especially if you spotted something in a tweet right down your timeline you don’t have to go scrolling like mad to find it.

However not everything is quite as rosy as had been made out. A big feature that was announced was  user level notifications, but as far as I can see its not working, nor have i been asked if I want to receive notifications from Tweetie. Also it feels as though some features are missing from the original, for example updating your location for your twitter bio is not possible using your gps reference, something i used to use a fair bit, also if you post is too long now you only get tweetlonger as an option, what happened to tweetshrink?

photo 2The biggest thing for me though has got to be the theme, bring back the dark theme! its too bright now.

These are minor issues and I’m sure could be quickly resolved with an update, and hey maybe that’s whats planned.

Is it worth £1.79? ($2.99). Ask yourself this question, is a bottle of beer drink worth its cost, it helps to destroy your brain cells and liver and lasts a short time, Tweetie is a highly polished app by a talented developer that you’ll use for a long time and get a lot out of. So yes its worth every penny and anyone who thinks otherwise is just cheap or been spoilt too much by free updates on the app store.

You can find the app here (Itunes Link) :)

I welcome your comments

Update: For some reason the app store is showing photos of the old version so dont panic!


Related posts:

  1. Tweetie for Iphone – Guest post over at Mikes Life Just another quick post to let you know I’ve just...
  2. Quick Review: Boxcar 2.0 Notifications (iPhone) It seems like an age ago now that the highly...
  3. Tweetdeck 2.0 for iOS – First Impressions Unless you have been living under a rock for the...

Tags: , , , , ,

  • http://www.appsandhats.com Christine Morris

    I'm just thinking what exactly is so different to warrant me essentially throwing away an app that I already paid for, in order to pay for it again? I realise that may be tight, because I would pay for say, Sally's Spa, then pay for Sally's Salon etc… different games but essentially the same, but when sooooo many Twitter apps are free, and there are so many good ones, I'm a bit annoyed they didn't just update the current version. I'm not giving it a go just yet, I'm still in love with Echofon Pro.

  • ben_gillam

    Can agree in a way, but if it were software for the pc you you have to pay for an upgrade most of the time. It's a side effect of the race to the bottom economy, apps now have to be cheap to get attention but don't offer a paid upgrade path either. I would pay Maybe £10 for something like tweetie if it had lifetime updates but that won't happen anytime soon.

    And the big thing is without new revenue what insentive does an app developer have to improve their app or add new features. I think the tweetiegate story is only as big as it is because it's the first real example of a paid upgrade of sorts. I don't think it will be the last either.

  • http://twitter.com/zhatie Zoe Hendrickse

    There's two good reasons why we should have to pay for this and not just get a free update.

    a) A lot may look similar, but it is it truth a totally new app. Re-programmed from the ground up. Weirdly enough, if he had said “I'm not longer working on Tweetie, but here's my new client 'blahblah', I think less people would have had an issue. Since he's purposely kept most of the old front-end design however, and called it Tweetie 2 – a lot of people feel he's just added a few features and tried to charge for it… but this is not the case.

    b) Yes there are a lot of apps out there that do most, if not all that Tweetie 2 does. The latest Twitterrific in free (if you use the ad supported version) and does most of what Tweetie 2 can. However the one thing I've personally found with both versions of Tweetie has been that it just runs, and opens a lot faster, and seems to use less bandwidth for interacting with Twitter. Add to this the fact that Tweetie 2 apparently has support already added for upcoming twitter features not yet available to the public, then you're using a very powerful yet optimized app.

  • http://www.appsandhats.com Christine Morris

    Yes, I know the dev's have said it's a whole new app, I appreciate that. I also think that it seems to be so difficult to make any profit now from the app store, and I support devs (i even donate to WP plugins!) so I understand. I also wonder why we do now expect for an app basically to be supported for life, as every time Apple change the OS they have to update their apps. I can't see how this will be sustainable at all, and this is maybe something Apple need to look at.

    I guess I just worry that if I buy an app I want it to work until I want to delete it, but I guess it will be out of my control… ( I will of course get Tweetie 2, I have all the Twitter apps and feel it is value for money).

  • ben_gillam

    well tweetie the original will continue to work, i think atebits should just keep an eye on the original for existing users for a few months at least and fix any silly bugs, e.g. twitpocalypse etc.

  • http://www.appsandhats.com Christine Morris

    Well I have to say – it could easily be the best ever Twitter application the planet has ever seen. *eeks* I'm a hardcore Echofon fan :(