I had my Twitter account (@tomstitzer) for well over a year before I actually did anything with it. It wasn't until a friend of mine joined that I decided maybe I should start posting stuff. Very quickly I found myself rather enjoying the Twitter experience and started searching for Twitter clients to use from my iPod Touch. I balked at paying for an app, and restricted my searching for free ones: http://tinyurl.com/m5sn8l. After more Twitter use though, I found myself wanting to do things, or looking for features that just weren't available in the free versions. Thus, I made the decision to pay for an app.
I tried several new apps, all of which have lite free versions. For the record, if you want people to buy your app, there's no better way I can think of to hook them, than to offer a lite version with ads or stripped functionality. Seriously, it gives you a good idea of the workflow you could use, the feel of the app itself, and whether or not you see yourself using it regularly.
The two I tried were TwitterFon Pro and SimplyTweet, though I also looked at Twitterific's paid version as well for what it added to the mix.
I ended up liking and hating bits and pieces of each one:
LIKES:
landscape support in TwitterFon and SimplyTweet
dark themes in SimplyTweet and Twitterific
the tweeting simplicity of Twitterfon's interface
Twitterific's groups
DISLIKES:
no landscape in the paid Twitterific (really? REALLY?)
too many clicks and browsing through to view/navigate links and pictures in SimplyTweet
Twitterfon's lack of a nice dark, night-time theme
In the end, I bought Twittelator. Wait what? Where'd that come from?
Well, in my search for the perfect paid app, I kept coming across Twittelator ($4.99). But as there wasn't a free version available to try out anymore, I kept passing it by. However, as my testing went on, I kept seeing feature after feature listed in Twittelator and started to realize that maybe this WAS the app I was looking for. I read review after review, pored over it's help file and features, and finally found what I was looking for and more.
Some of my favorite features:
Mute/Blocking- this just removes selected people from your timeline if they are annoying, posting a million links, or you just want a break from their comments. It doesn't stop you from following them and doesn't tell them you muted them. It is ... extremely useful.
Simple navigation of pics/links. Someone posts a picture? There's a thumbnail right in the timeline, click it and see the whole thing. A link? Click the paperclip and boom, link is opened. To get back to the timeline from either of those? Hit DONE and you're back (SimplyTweet was the worst offender of this, forcing you to click back, back, back multiple times to get back to the timeline. I did email the developer about this and he said he was exploring other nav methods but would probably stick with this one for now. Ok. Your choice).
Landscape. It is simply easier to type this way. I mean, really Twitterific. REALLY?
SubGroups. Similar to Twitterific's Groups and one I use all the time.
Themes. Finally, all these features and a nice dark colored theme.
Other things not so important to me but perhaps to you: Multiple accounts, search for nearby tweeters, video support, auto splitting of long tweets, auto posting to TwitLonger for mega long tweets, shrinking of tweets, tap to view avatars full size, trending topics, the public timeline and oh so many, incerdibly many more at http://www.stone.com/Twittelator/Twittelator_Pro_Features.html
Twittelator had just the basic requirements I wanted, plus an army of more features I haven't even begun to delve into. It's a twitter client for the geek in you, for the guy/girl who likes to fiddle and adjust and tweak. It's a client that makes things simple and easy but does so with an extra added dash of style that makes it all the more enjoyable than any of the other apps I tried.
One final note, while I was definitely put off by not having a feature-lite free version, the raves and features all convinced me that Twittelator was right for me. Thanks Stone Design, for feeding my Twitter addiction!
