App Acumen: Twitter Apps for Android: Twitli vs. Twidroid vs. iTweet
I am sure that iPhone may be sexy and stylish but Android is on the rise and we have been realizing it since the beginning. What other thing I use my Android most for, besides actually making phone calls, is posting on Twitter. In this post, I am going to show you three apps that will unlock power of Twitter on your Android with the hope of finding one for me that can give me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside.
Platform: Android
Developer: “Christine”
Price: Free
Twitli is the first app on the list which is free from the market place. I downloaded it because I liked the icon which is a little raven sort and is as cute as the Twitter app can be. Once I loaded the application, I found out why Twitli is free. It is barebones simple without any flashy design on it there. Tapping on a tweet, loads a menu of actions where you can tweet, reply to someone or send a DM. Unfortunately, this is the only place to actually send a tweet from and I took over 5 minutes to figure this one out. Once I found it, I was really disappointed. No character counter, no options for inserting pictures or dissection between tweets. It does have support for Google maps so that you can see where in the world are tweets coming from. This feature is cool to see but I can never imagine it using more than once. Overall, Twitli is Okay but the weak interface design and shoddy tweeting options don’t let me enjoy that warm and fuzzy experience I wanted.

My Ratings – 2.6/5
Platform: Android
Developer: “Zimmermann & Marban”
Price: Free
When the G1 came out, the first Twitter client on the scene was Twidroid and the application that was probably used the most. Free in the market, Twidroid has gone through a lot of evolutions since its first release. One of my favourite things Twidroid has is the ability to adjust the number of tweets that will show up in the app. Twidroid does have a tweet entry box. They have kept it super simple which is okay but it is almost too simple. You have got a character counter, the ability to insert pics in but no options for direct messages. One of the reason people stopped using Twidroid is because it was a memory hog. Updating my timeline took a whole lot time and it took up a ton of my phone storage. But the recent update lets you chose where to store your memory cache – on your SD card or on your phone’s internal memory. It also features an easy way to clear cache which totally eliminates the storage issue.

My Ratings – 3.6/5
Platform: Android
Developer: Multiple Facets Inc.
Price: $2.99
For $2.99 in the app market place you can pick up iTweet. You are probably thinking of getting a free solution over this paid one. I had the exact same thought but the moment I loaded iTweet, I can see why it was worth that money. iTweet is the best designed of all the Twitter clients I have used. They provide a tab at the top that allows you to filter your Twitter timeline according to replies, direct messages, favourites, etc. by pressing the menu button you get the menu functions. You can press the ‘Tweet’ button to load the tweet block. You get a character counter, ability to shorten URL, add your location and your pics. The settings area is the most flushed out of all the apps I have seen. There is a whole section dedicated to the styling of the app including theme, font size, title, name display, etc. There are ton of ways to customize incoming notifications including color of LED flash which is something I have never seen before. And separate ringtones for tweets, replies and DMs. My only complaint with the iTweet is that there is no control on the number of tweets downloaded in the timeline. This is not a problem if you keep auto refreshing on but if you are like me and prefer to turn that off to save battery power, you run the risk of missing tweets until your refresh.

My rating: 4.1/5
Twitli
Don’t Download
A bad application for reading and writing tweets and is not worth your time.
Twidroid
Download
With the recent memory management updates, this twitter app is worth it.
iTweet
Download
For the mere three bucks, you get the best Twitter experience on your Android.
So what do you think that I missed a great Twitter app for Android or do you know any other app that you think I should check out? Just leave a comment here.















August 29, 2009
9:56 pm
You missed out Twitteride, not my top app which is twitroid, but twitteride is very useful and I run it on a secondary account which has 500 followers and 300 I follow.
The drawback is that it need refreshing constantly. But when you are on to it it works well.
I have not had the twitroid issue you mentioned, perhaps I tweet less on the account it handles
August 30, 2009
4:05 am
Thanks for the feedback! I will use Twitteride too and will roll out an opinion.
November 13, 2009
2:28 pm
@scobleizer the best Android Twitter app isn't Twidroid. It's ITweet. Used to be $2.99; free since September. http://bit.ly/43Eyq8
December 24, 2009
4:35 pm
You write awsome article, bookmarked
December 25, 2009
3:35 am
Thanks for your feedback. It is a pleasure that you like my posts. Keep coming back!