Pros and Cons of Twitter for iPhone
A couple of weeks ago, after getting the new version of Twitter for iPhone (iTunes), I found myself unsatisfied. I set out to write exactly why and found that creating a pro and con list led to many more cons than pros. Instead of writing a post about it I ended up trying a few different Twitter clients for the iPhone. If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably read my critiques and praises of some of the features of the clients I’ve tried. Unfortunately each one had an issue that drove me back to Twitter for iPhone.
Here is my list of cons in no particular order:
- In previous versions of the app you could swipe your finger over a tweet in your stream to bring up a menu bar of actions you could take on it (reply, retweet, etc.). In the new version you must tap on the tweet to enter the details page for it before taking any of these actions. This takes away some convenience and hurts the user experience.
- Previous versions had an icon on the top left corner of the stream view that would go to a list of accounts (for those users who had multiple accounts). In the new version you must enter your profile (by tapping the Me icon on the bottom right) and then tap Switch Accounts at the bottom of your profile. Once again some convenience is sacrificed as well as user experience.
- There is no option for a URL shortener or custom photo sharing. These features were actually removed several versions ago but are important to the way I use Twitter so bears repeating in my own list of cons. I understand why they removed these features (they have their own versions that help their own income that they want people to use) but it’s annoying to me nonetheless.
- Poor use of screen space. There are margins on the left and right of the stream and the top bar, which bears nothing but a Twitter logo and a post button, is too big. I’d have no problem with the size of the top bar if it were more functional but there’s no reason for the margins. An iPhone’s screen is only so wide so why not make use of the whole width?
- The time of tweets given as how much time has past since the tweet was posted as opposed to the actual time of the tweet. This is not such a big deal for tweets within the last hour as they are given in the format of x minutes ago. But anything over an hour is approximated by the hour. For example anything between from 60 minutes ago to 119 minutes ago is 1 hour ago, anything from 120 minutes to 179 minutes ago is 2 hours ago, etc. When I’m catching up on tweets in the morning seeing “5:23 am” is more useful to me then “2h”.
- There is no way to add someone to a Twitter list. No joke. Twitter’s own app cannot use their own feature.
- One of the things I liked about the previous version was that the date a user joined was on their profile. The omission of this information in the current version is not a big deal but I liked it.
- When someone does a twitter style retweet their real name is displayed instead of their Twitter handle. I’m more likely to recognize who the retweeter is if they Twitter name is displayed.
- When viewing a Twitter retweet (tapping it in the stream to see the tweet itself) the name of the retweeter disappears so you have to go back to the stream to see it.
- Discover has replaced the DM button on the bottom of the screen. I’d rather have DM there and put Discover in the Me section. Again, this is one I understand (Twitter trying to spread it’s wings and commercialize itself) but it hurts the user experience since this is pretty much a useless tab.
Twitter for iPhone isn’t all bad. In fact I have a list of pros as well. Here they are in no particular order:
- When you opened the old version it would load the last 100 tweets in your stream. If there were more than 100 tweets since the last time you opened the app there was no way to fill the gap between the last 100 and the last tweet previously downloaded. The new version has a ‘load more Tweets’ link that loads 100 more tweets to fill in the gap. If there’s still a gap just hit ‘load more Tweets’ until the gap disappears.
- When viewing a tweet (tapping it in the stream to see the tweet itself) replies to the tweet are listed. There are also links to lists of the people who have retweeted and favorited the tweet.
- The Replies button on the bottom of the screen has been replaced with Connect. Tapping this gives the user the option of showing Interactions (mentiones, retweets & follows) or just mentions.
- Search functionality has been added to the Connect section.
- When viewing a mention in the Connect section the previous and later replies (if any) are displayed. It’s like reading a conversation.
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