Tweetie is hailed as one of the best Twitter iPhone clients, and I cautiously agree. It has a gorgeous, iChat-like UI and a healthy dose of features like viewing replies, trending topics, and search. But Tweetie wastes a lot of UI space and its affinity for shifting back and forth through screens really annoys me. Want to visit a link someone tweeted? You’ll have to tap the tweet to shift to a new screen, then tap the link (now that it’s accessible) to shift to yet another screen with a built-in browser.
Look at Twitterrific’s spectacular and condensed—but not cramped—UI. Now look at the reply and star controls that Twittelator embeds on every tweet, minimizing the need to bounce around between screens for functionality. All those saved taps really add up after a while, and so does all the space that Tweetie’s UI wastes.
I somewhat agree. There is something to be said about breathing room and effective use of negative space when you’re designing a text-driven app. It may be the reason I prefer the design to Twitterrific, actually. The only other issue I have with Tweetie is that (unlike Twitterrific) it doesn’t remember where you left off reading (yes, I’m that guy).
