App of the week: TweetBot

This week I take a look at the most popular of the infamous Tapbots app range, Tweetbot, a stylish, easy to use and cleverly designed Twitter client that blows all its competitors out of the water.

To start off, Twitter has, and will always be, a very weird and interesting part of the Internet for me. Millions of people posting pics, sharing stories and having conversations in 140 characters or less. Rich Mulholland once said, and I still believe it is the most apt description of the micro-blogging service, that tweets are like those cardboard newspaper headlines tied to the lamp posts that you read on the way to work every morning. Short sentences like “Walmart taking over” or “Lambie No 1 at No 10” give you a little bit of info, and you can then decide whether to find out more or not, but you’re still aware of the little news tidbit and won’t look like an idiot when the guys are all talking about it at the office.

If you gotta have it, you gotta have it
So in our current state of online everywhere smartphone madness, it makes perfect sense to have a decent, fully functioning version of Twitter that we can keep in our pockets. Up until about a week ago, I was using the stock standard Twitter for iPhone app to read and share news articles, which is nothing special and could look a bit better, so naturally I went looking for something new.

If you’re not familiar with the Tapbots range yet, I suggest you take a look. They’ve basically taken your standard, nothing special at all apps (calculator, unit convertor, weight tracker etc.) and put a new spin on things, creating premium, robot-like versions by reinventing the concept behind the idea and blending it with a cleverly designed interface and original, quirky sound effects. Enough adoration, though, I will get to those apps at a later stage, let’s get down to business and have a look at what TweetBot does to make it the best Twitter client for iPhone.

Clean. Spotless even
First of all, Tweetbot is clean, spotless in fact. From the quirky icon to logging in, quickly working through the tutorial and loading up your new tweets, you’ll be hooked (well, at least I was). The design is crisp, functional and in some cases, ahead of it’s time. The user interface and experience is really something to marvel at and they have clearly thought a lot about this aspect of the app. All the basic Twitter functionality is there, but what sets this app apart is how they’ve simplified aspects that you wouldn’t need simplified or didn’t think could be simplified any further, so the average, low intensity Twitter user (read: me) is able to post, share, read and search tweets with no hassle at all.

For you hardcore Tweeters out there, Tweetbot adds complex functionality like multiple timelines, customizable tabs and geo-tagging options as well. Tagging, retweeting and replying functions are all smooth and efficient. The sound effects really round this app up for me; they’ve (thankfully) steered away from obvious iOS-esque sounds and created their own unique and high quality sounds that add even more quirk to the app.

So, whether you’re like me and use Twitter to keep up with news and revered business leaders, or can’t experience anything without Tweeting it to your hordes of followers and adoring fans, Tweetbot is all you need. It’s slick, fast, good looking and has a cool icon that will be at home on any home screen. At US$2.99, it is a little more than you’d probably like to pay at first glance but trust me, you’re paying that little extra for a truck load of quality.

Name: TweetBot
Publisher: TapBots
Category: Social Networking
Price: $2.99
Size: 9.0 MB

Available for iPhone