Web 2.What?

So at SXSW Interactive 2009, I noticed an alarming trend. EVERYONE was using Tweetie on the iPhone. (Oh yea, everyone had iPhones, too). It was alarming to me because I used TwitterFon, which I not only loved–it’s also a free app (Tweetie is $2.99).

Going on the belief that if it’s not broke-don’t fix it, I kept on contently using TwitterFon, but I always had that little wonder in the back of my head: “Is Tweetie better? Is it worth $3 when I have a perfectly good free app?” Yes, I *know* $3 isn’t a lot of money, but it’s more about principle…

So if you’re using TwitterFon and wondering if Tweetie is worth the money, don’t worry, I’ve checked them both out and compiled a detailed comparison for you here.

So first, my short answer: If Tweetie married TwitterFon and had a baby, *that* would be the perfect app. I know that’s not a great answer, so let me break down what I like and didn’t like about each:

Tweetie

The good:

• Manages multiple accounts awesomely
• Loads much faster when you follow a lot of people
• Uses the GPS functionality to find nearby users (a feature I loved about Twinkle, which I ended up dumping because it lacked many of the features I wanted)
• Settings include lots of options to optimize your Tweetie experience

The bad:

• Does not provide notification of new replies and DMs (you have to click the tabs to see)
• The search function-works fine, but does not save past searches, if you often search the same terms (as I do) then TwitterFon has the leg up here. Also no search refresh-doesn’t seem to update itself

The ugly:

• Only one criticism here, and it may be my own fault. When you load Tweetie with multiple accounts it launches the account you were in last, which can lead to posting from the wrong account. *Yes* it says right at the top which account you are in, but sometimes my fingers work faster than my brain. I’ve fallen victim to this once.

TwitterFon

The good:

• Notication. I love how it uses the little red iphone style numbers to notify you of new replies or messages.
• Highlighting new tweets, another one Tweetie doesn’t do is colour code new responses since refreshing.
• Search cache – saves your searches so you just need to type in the first letter or two and it will appear. Very handy if you search the same terms often.
• Links I strongly prefer the way TwitterFon opens links–you click on the link icon beside the tweet and it presents a list of all the possible links (i.e. other user names, URLs) whereas Tweetie just shows the tweet again with clickable links (I find this redundant)
• DM conversations display like the iPhone text messaging, which I LOVE.

The bad:

• No support for multiple accounts. Which means before I downloaded tweetie I used multiple free apps to manage my multiple twitter accounts.
• If you have more than one DM from the same person, it only displays the latest. Therefore if you get a lot of DMs and do not use the email notification you could potentially miss some.

The ugly:

• The one thing that drives me CRAZY about TwitterFon is how it completely freezes when loading. The more people you follow the longer it freezes, I’m following about 2,100 so it’s pretty unbearable.

Conclusion:

To be perfectly honest, I really like both and will continue to use both. I will probably use Tweetie more often because of the quicker load times and the multiple account support… However I’ll keep on wishing it had some of the features I love about TwitterFon.