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Twitter app is utter crap. Alternatives?

J

jon08

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 14, 2008
1,892
109
I'm pretty much ready to call it quits on the official Twitter app because it's simply a piece of junk.

1. I'm missing tweets basically on a daily basis. When I check my Twitter say, in the morning, I get several-hour gaps in between tweets and usually NO "Load more tweets" option, which is downright unacceptable. Just yesterday I had 8 (!) hours of tweets missing from the night before. WTF.

2. "Load more tweets" button is utterly inconvenient. As I said in 1., lots of times I don't even see this button, but when it DOES appear, it pisses me off how when I press it, I will end up in the middle of newly-loaded tweets. I mean what the hell, why doesn't the app simply load all the new tweets *above* the tweet where you pressed the button WITHOUT shifting your on-screen location? As a result I'd always have to scroll down and waste my time searching for the last tweet I was looking at.

I've already deleted and re-installed the app several times hoping it would fix the issues, but same crap all the time. I'm always using the latest version of the app and latest version of iOS. I've reported it to Twitter too, provided them with screenshots on their request, and they said they'd look into my account, but obviously they didn't do anything.

Thus, I'm now considering either Tweetbot or Tweetcaster. I tried the latter and it seems pretty good. It has several goodies that make it quite more convenient for use compared to the official Twitter app.

For example, I like how it shows small thumbnails of pics attachments in the News Feed so that you can see right away what's in the link (and consequently not tap on it if you see that it's nothing useful). I also like how it displays the number of unread tweets with a red notification on the "home" icon. Oh, and yes, it loads missing tweets PROPERLY, unlike the official app.

One thing I dislike about it is that it won't display replies in tweets. And also its price -- it costs about twice as much as Tweetbot.

Now I wish Tweetbot had a demo version too so that I could test it. Does it have any of the goodies I mentioned above?
 
Get Tweetbot. Best 4 dollars (in my country's currency) I ever spent, wonderful twitter client! :D
 
Yeah the official Twitter app is far from great but as I don't use Twitter so much, I have stuck with it on my mobile devices and with the website on desktop.

The sad thing is that Twitter seems to be hellbent on making it harder for developers to build alternate Twitter clients. As far as I've read they are limiting the amount of users that can download and use alternate clients so as to force everyone to either use the website or Twitter's official app.

I think it was Tweetbot that recently reached the limit of tokens and so can't accept any new users. But I am not sure.
 
i was in your same situation right after i got my first iphone. personally, i keep the stock twitter app installed for the built in ios tap to tweet and contact sync.

i use tweetbot as my daily use twitter app. i love the UI, notifications and useability. i highly recommend it. just keep in mind, the notifications are turned off by default in the app, so you need to go in and turn them on. takes two seconds, and theres even a notification test button to ensure they are working. i never miss anything. plus the icon for it rocks lol.

TWEETBOT ALL THE WAY.
 
I second Tweetbot!!!

Best thing about it is the way it syncs between multiple devices. I have it on my iPhone & also on my iPad - you can read your timeline on one device and then when you open your timeline on the other device later on, it scrolls to the first unread tweet ##
 
Dino F said:
I second Tweetbot!!!

Best thing about it is the way it syncs between multiple devices. I have it on my iPhone & also on my iPad - you can read your timeline on one device and then when you open your timeline on the other device later on, it scrolls to the first unread tweet ##
Click to expand...

oh yea, i love that too. when i pick up my ipad and go to check stuff, it works flawlessly.
 
One other thing I like about Tweetcaster is that you have more screen real estate in the News Feed because there's less blank space in between tweets.

From what I gather, though, Tweetbot uses the same amount of space between tweets as the official Twitter app?

EDIT: ok nevermind, I see that it actually doesn't make much difference.
 
Last edited:
Tweetbot or if you want to be able to post to Facebook at the same time Twittelator Neue is fab especially as notifications are free (used to be an annual fee)

PJ
 
Another vote for Tweetbot. Slick interface and like another poster said, the sync capability between devices is a great feature!
 
I went ahead and pulled the trigger on Tweetbot. So far so good! No more missing tweets, and "Load more tweets" works great.

Time to ditch the official app.
 
If you have multiple iOS devices (and even a Mac), TweetBot is awesome.

No matter which device I pick up (iPhone, iPad, Mac), the app picks up my feed from where I left off on the previous device. Perfection.
 
using tweetbot. i dont like the official twitter app. never tried other apps since tweetbot serve's its purpose.
 
The only downside to Tweetbot is that is doesn't have a 'connect' tab to view all your tweets that have been favourited or retweeted in one place
 
iMatt. said:
The only downside to Tweetbot is that is doesn't have a 'connect' tab to view all your tweets that have been favourited or retweeted in one place
Click to expand...

Exactly my thoughts! Let's write to them... maybe if they get enough requests they'd consider implementing this feature.

I've used Tweetbot for a few days now and I think it's a very good app altogether. Seems to work seamlessly. Perhaps they could add a couple of different skins to choose from (I think I preferred the "Twitterish blue" UI to the grayish-black UI they use, but it's certainly not too much of a problem). Speaking of color, they could also improve the "verified account" patch. Currently they put a gray patch with a gray tick on it in the upper right hand corner to indicate a verified account. However, it would be easier to spot if it was blue, for example the same blue color as the "New Tweet" button in the Timeline.

Also, sometimes I feel that I need too many taps on the screen to get the desired info. For example, to view the amount of retweets of a certain tweet, I need to tap 3 times: first on the tweet, then on the gear button and then "View Retweets". Kind of wish it would display on a single tap...

And, the Readability thing seems to be like a hit or miss. Sometimes works great, sometimes renders random stuff instead of the text.
 
I guess I am in the minority here, as I have not had any problems with the native iOS Twitter app.
 
I noticed that if I'm charging the phone and leave Tweetbot open, it will prevent the phone from sleeping. Does anyone else experience this problem?

Another thing I noticed is that the notifications won't disappear from the Notification Center, unless I removed them manually by tapping on "x".
 
I recently bought two more.

Ubersocial Pro, which is now in my dock, and also Janetter Pro, which is also excellent. Both apps also have an Android version which are great, and Janetter has a Mac version which is free.
 
jon08 said:
I'm pretty much ready to call it quits on the official Twitter app because it's simply a piece of junk.

1. I'm missing tweets basically on a daily basis. When I check my Twitter say, in the morning, I get several-hour gaps in between tweets and usually NO "Load more tweets" option, which is downright unacceptable. Just yesterday I had 8 (!) hours of tweets missing from the night before. WTF.

2. "Load more tweets" button is utterly inconvenient. As I said in 1., lots of times I don't even see this button, but when it DOES appear, it pisses me off how when I press it, I will end up in the middle of newly-loaded tweets. I mean what the hell, why doesn't the app simply load all the new tweets *above* the tweet where you pressed the button WITHOUT shifting your on-screen location? As a result I'd always have to scroll down and waste my time searching for the last tweet I was looking at.

I've already deleted and re-installed the app several times hoping it would fix the issues, but same crap all the time. I'm always using the latest version of the app and latest version of iOS. I've reported it to Twitter too, provided them with screenshots on their request, and they said they'd look into my account, but obviously they didn't do anything.

Thus, I'm now considering either Tweetbot or Tweetcaster. I tried the latter and it seems pretty good. It has several goodies that make it quite more convenient for use compared to the official Twitter app.

For example, I like how it shows small thumbnails of pics attachments in the News Feed so that you can see right away what's in the link (and consequently not tap on it if you see that it's nothing useful). I also like how it displays the number of unread tweets with a red notification on the "home" icon. Oh, and yes, it loads missing tweets PROPERLY, unlike the official app.

One thing I dislike about it is that it won't display replies in tweets. And also its price -- it costs about twice as much as Tweetbot.

Now I wish Tweetbot had a demo version too so that I could test it. Does it have any of the goodies I mentioned above?
Click to expand...

For me, the twitter app takes absolutely ages to start up. It gets stuck on the startup image for around 30 seconds before it actually loads! :eek: :confused:
 
Beeplance said:
Get Tweetbot. Best 4 dollars (in my country's currency) I ever spent, wonderful twitter client! :D
Click to expand...
^^^

Yep, tweetbot is hands down the best twitter client to ever hit iOS. If they would just have the retweets and mentions on the same tab it would be perfect.

----------
jon08 said:
Exactly my thoughts! Let's write to them... maybe if they get enough requests they'd consider implementing this feature.

I've used Tweetbot for a few days now and I think it's a very good app altogether. Seems to work seamlessly. Perhaps they could add a couple of different skins to choose from (I think I preferred the "Twitterish blue" UI to the grayish-black UI they use, but it's certainly not too much of a problem). Speaking of color, they could also improve the "verified account" patch. Currently they put a gray patch with a gray tick on it in the upper right hand corner to indicate a verified account. However, it would be easier to spot if it was blue, for example the same blue color as the "New Tweet" button in the Timeline.

Also, sometimes I feel that I need too many taps on the screen to get the desired info. For example, to view the amount of retweets of a certain tweet, I need to tap 3 times: first on the tweet, then on the gear button and then "View Retweets". Kind of wish it would display on a single tap...

And, the Readability thing seems to be like a hit or miss. Sometimes works great, sometimes renders random stuff instead of the text.
Click to expand...

I've already asked them on several occasions to include the connect button... unfortunately there was no response.
 
tekboi said:
^^^

[/COLOR]

I've already asked them on several occasions to include the connect button... unfortunately there was no response.
Click to expand...

Hmm, I see... I wrote to them the other day, too. I hope they will consider it. It would be really convenient if they included "retweets", "favorited tweets" as well as new follows in the Connect Tab, just like the official app does.

And they should simply include the number of retweets in the "View Details" section.
 
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