Comparison of Free Android Twitter Apps

Friday, March 12^th 2010 no comments

I’ll be comparing Twicca, Twidroid, Seesmic, HootSuite Lite, Swift, Touiteur, and Tweetcaster. Non-full-featured apps were not considered.

Updated 03/13/2010 – Touiteur feature updates and Twicca review.

How I use Twitter

I check Twitter about 3x a day: morning commute, lunch, evening commute.
I favorite tweets with interesting links, and subscribe to the RSS of my favorites so I can view links when I get on my computer.
I tweet about every day activities.
I following interesting people/companies/news.
I message people on Twitter.
I maintain another Twitter account for an organization.
My timeline gets about 100 tweets an hour (not much for some, too much for others).

Factors considered and scoring

A -1 or +1 is placed at the end of valid points for or against the category listed.
A total score of 0 is considered passing for the category.
Each -2 will cost one letter grade.
The points are probably more useful than the letter grade.

User interface: How does the app look? Are the buttons big enough? Will I make a mistake pressing anything?
Caching Behavior: How many tweets can you load and remember at once? Will I miss out on anything? What happens when the tweets load?
Save timeline position: Can I resume where I left off?
Multiple account support?: Does it have? Easy to switch accounts?
Ads: Are there any? Are they in the way?
Extra Features: Are there any worth using?

Applications I’ve tried

Here we go!

Twidroid (Grade: D, -6)

O, how the mighty have fallen.

User interface: Fail. (-4)
Ugly colors. (-1)
Tapping on a tweet takes you to a dialog with options to do anything tweet related.
I’ve accidentally retweeted from the dialog before. (-1)
Dialog gets really long if a tweet has multiple @mentions and/or links. (-1)
Sometimes crashes and kicks you out when the app loads and there are a lot of tweets. (-1)
Caching Behavior: Fail. (-1)
Doesn’t tell you it’s loading and messes up your scrolling/reading when it does. (-1)
Multiple account support: Fail. (-1)
Pro version only! C-grade app if pro. (-1)
Ads: Pass.
Extra Features: None. A ton of options in the Pro version, none enough to influence grade.

Tweetcaster (Grade: B, -2)

Newcomer.

User interface: Pass.
Dark theme is nice. (+1)
Tapping on a tweet takes you to a modal menu with really thin options.
Too thin. I accidentally retweeted something I wanted to favorite. (-1)
Caching: Fail. (-2)
The load more “ripped page” button is only provided so far back, so I miss out on anything beyond that. (-1)
There are tweets below it, so you have to stop scrolling when you see it otherwise you miss it. (-1)
Save timeline position: Pass.
Multiple account support: Pass.
Ads: Fail. (-1)
Ad that keeps rotating on the bottom. It really draws my attention away. (-1)
Pro version would be a B-rated app.
Extra Features: Yay! (+1)
Inline filter! Useful for finding that tweet I accidentally scrolled past. (+1)

Seesmic (Grade: B, -2)

One of the original best on Android.

User interface: Fail. (-2)
Ugly colors. (-1)
Tapping on a tweet takes you to a fullscreen view of the tweet that lets you do a few things (not add favorite). (-1)
Caching: Pass
Infinitely scrolls back at least 8 hours/1000 tweets (don’t need more than that!)
Save timeline position: Pass.
Multiple account support: Pass.
Ads: Pass.
Extra Features: Nothing extraordinary. Search and display trending topics/users/tweets.

Swift (Grade: B, -2)

Old competitor. Swift was acquired by HootSuite shortly before this article was written so I would no longer consider it.

User interface: Pass. (+1)
More “clean” than vanilla looking.
Fast loading. (+1)
Tap to go to full screen tweet with options to do ALL tweet related tasks.
Times are displayed as actual time instead of “X hours ago.”
Caching: Fail. (-1)
Infinite scroll with loading notification.
Unloads recent tweets when you scroll down to load older ones. (-1)
Save timeline position: Pass.
Multiple account support: Fail. (-1)
Ads: Pass.
Extra Features: None.

Twicca Beta (Grade: B, -1)

Newcomer. Still in beta.

User interface: Pass.
Very simple, dark presentation. Uses maximum screen space. (+1)
Tap on a tweet to open a dialog menu.
The dialog menu can get long if there are a lot of tags/mentions/links. (-1)
Dialog menu options are thin. (-1)
Tweet input has nice link/attach/geo location options. (+1)
Caching: Pass.
Save timeline position (-1): Fail.
It can remember the scroll position or jump to the top of your read tweets, but it can’t stay on the current tweet.
Multiple account support: Fail. (-1)
Ads: Pass.
Extra Features: Yay! (+1)
Very customizable options and can edit your profile. (+1)

HootSuite Lite (Grade: A, 1)

I use the webapp for Twitter and Facebook.

User interface: Pass.
Super vanilla looking tweetlist.
Works with HootSuite account, so you have to set it up twice. (-1)
Tap to go to full screen tweet with options to do ALL tweet related tasks.
Very nice tweet screen with link/image options on bottom. (+1)
Really fast. (+1)
Times are displayed as actual time instead of “X hours ago.”
Caching: Pass.
Infinite scroll with loading notification.
Does the Tweetcaster thing of showing latest and oldest, but you can actually load ALL of the ones in between so it’s not bad.
Save timeline position: Pass.
Multiple account support: Pass.
Ads: Fail. (-1)
Ads disguised as tweets! (-1)
Extra Features: Yay! (+1)
Hootsuite Streams! (+1)
Queue tweets (would never use this…)

Touiteur (Grade: A, 2)

Newcomer.

User interface: Pass.
Beautiful. Really. And completely customizable. (+1)
Tap on a tweet to accordion open an icon menu. Single screen features! (+1)
Three taps to favorite something: tap tweet, tap more, tap favorite. At least you don’t have to go back.
Icons on bottom of app open thin menus (-1).
Tweet input has nice link/attach options. (+1)
Caching: Pass.
Infinite scroll with loading notification.
Well, not infinite, stopped at about 20h (1000 tweets?).
Save timeline position: Pass.
~~If you tweet or retweet something, it will jump to that position. (-1)~~
Multiple account support: Pass.
Ads: Pass.
Extra Features: None.

Conclusion

Touiteur is my app of choice, currently, winning over HootSuite for aesthetics. If the thin menus change on Touiteur and they add a “favorite” button to the accordion button menu, I am sure I will love it more. The other apps have a little work to do, but overall they aren’t bad.

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