TwitBird Review

Ever since I started a Twitter account, I have been battling myself over which iPhone client I favor. As you know by now, the App Store has no shortage of them either. As time goes by, developers must find ways to stand out in the ever-growing sea if they want to survive. Not many people are willing to settle for bland graphics and narrow scope. Just as with everything else we shop for, we want the most for our money. Why should our iPhone apps be any different?

For me there are three main factors I judge by: Features, Visual Style, and Reliability. Even some of the big name clients fail at scoring high in all areas, usually ranking well in one and falling short at another. After a few weeks of serious use, I think I can say TwitBird [iTunes link] has surpassed the others and ranked highest in all three of these categories.

Have a look at that! Very sleek, yet functional, and easy to read. The above showcases main timeline with the Dark theme found in version 2.2. This is my personal favorite theme, but its good to know there are two others that you could choose from, Movie and iChat Bubble, both of which mimic the look and feel of a typical chat window. Another cool feature of those themes was the ability to pick and choose your background image. I really favor apps that give ample customization to the user.

Now take another look at the above picture, look closely at the top tweet (mine lol). Notice anything cool? How about that "in reference to" box just below my @reply? SUPER COOL! That really helps recall what you were replying to, and it does so in style! Thats a huge bonus in functionality plus it tips the visual count too!

Here is a glance at a typical user profile, accessed when tapping on an avatar in the timeline. Not so much of a reinvention, but it just feels right with well chosen fonts and color schemes.

For this review, I purchased TwitBird Premium, which supports up to 2 twitter accounts, and inter-TwitBird push notifications. This is basically invoked if another TwitBird user sends you a Direct Message or a Mention. I didn't get many of these in my testing, which is a shame and something I hope to change with this review! As you can see from the above photo, each account will show a small badge of unread tweets/mentions/DM's and so forth.

After selecting an account, you are brought to the "Home" view which contains a break down of "Messages" and "Tools." MEssages further breaks down your messages in an mailbox style view, each box with it's respective badge as well. A quick scroll down will reveal many more "Tools" such as Drafts, Search, Nearby Tweets, Trends, and Saved Links. Other features include now playing tweets with link to iTunes and voice recordings. Being a musician, I like sharing music, however, I was hoping that TwitBird would also include the cover art in my now playing tweets. Perhaps this will be implemented in a future update. These are all major features that help push TwitBird to the top of my list, most notably the "Saved Links" feature. While there is support for Read It Later and Instapaper, a built in feature is a super nice touch.

Also under the hood, tucked away until needed, is two more features: in-line picture viewing and map link. When a user posts a picture, the picture is included in the tweet view screen (just tap a tweet to expand its contents), along with a small snapshot of the users geo-location! Very neat! Have a look...

When you click on "Nearby Tweets," a map loads with a nice fancy radar type graphic. As users are found, there avatars are loaded and placed on the map. Again, such a cool feature! Just brings a nice feel to the whole UI. This is a great way to find new "tweople" (people who tweet...) and even your own friends!

In my testing, I did have a few hiccups, such as double posts. However, I was able to pin this down to the fact that my iPhone is Jailbroken with a backgrounding/multi-tasking app running. Removing that app cured the double posts right away. Since then, I have not experienced any problems at all.

At the time of this writing, Boxcar [iTune Link] announced they now support all of the TwitBird versions (the free, Premium, and Pro versions). Coupled with Boxcar, TwitBird is my ultimate Twitter client.

WiFiPhoto App Review.

WiFiPhoto is an alternative to syncing your photo's from your iPhone via iTunes. Plus its a LOT faster!

You can add pictures from your camera roll by simply tapping on them to activate the red tick. Click as many as you want and then click done at the top.









Then all the selected photo's appear in a list. At the bottom is a URL link to your photos. Open your web browser on your PC and enter the address.












After going to the link in your web browser the following page appears. Click each image individually and download them, or click the download zip button, and download them all in a compressed zip file.



Its fast and effortless. Unlimited photo's, no quality loss and only 59p. Another app you'll never know how you lived without!

Air Mouse Review.

Air Mouse allows you to control your laptop/pc/mac with your iPhone. Acting like a mouse you can control the cursor, right and left click, scroll, and thats just the beginning!




Air mouse was recommended to me by a friend who had found it for 59p in the app store. It allows control of the mouse via 2 different ways

This is the trackpad. It works in the exact same way as the one on a laptop. Touch it to move the cursor around the screen. Touch the arrows at the bottom and scroll your finger up and the down the screen and you have a scroll function. The buttons to the left and the right of the scroll are your left and right click.

The Keyboard is fully functional, allowing CTRL, ALT and the WINDOWS key for extensive functionality of your computer. Shake your phone up and the keyboard appears. Shake it down it is disappears. Press the arrow key on the keyboard (Top Right) and we move on.



This is the function screen. Using the computer software that coincides with the app, you can change the functions keys to represent different programs. For instance, itunes, firefox, safari etc. Clicking the appropriate button will open the program on the computer that its associated with.

The buttons at the bottom can control programs on the computer. The arrows represent forward and back for instance in firefox. The home key will take you to the browsers home page. The enter key will do the same as if you had pressed enter on the actual computer keyboard.




The button at the top right of the screen switches the trackpad, the scroll in now directly in the middle and a lot bigger.











Turn the iPhone landscape and you get a wide trackpad. The left and right clicks are at the bottom and the scroll function is on the right side.










This is another function screen, this one controls the a web browser with a series of buttons.

Back, Search, Home, Forward, Refresh, Stop and Favourites.








The second way of controlling the computer is via the "air mouse". It uses the accelerometer built into the iPhone to move the cursor around the screen. Very tricky to get the hang of, but once you've got it, it works amazing well.

Currently this app is only 59p. It would criminal to miss out. Its taking pride of place on my iPhone, and although it won't be used too often. Its there when i'm sat on the sofa and my laptop is on the other side of the room hooked up to the tv and i need to pause the movie.

Spotify App Review.

After waiting for what seemed forever for the spotify app, i luckily was one of the first people to use it. After receiving an email from a source i was up and testing it at 5am. Obsessed? Yes. But only slightly.

Its extremely good! Very smooth interface, has only crashed twice since i have been using it.

Now to use Spotify on the iPhone you have to have a premium subscription at the cost of £9.99 per month. Now in my opinion thats a small price to pay for unlimited music, however it has sparked anger with Spotify fans who believe that there should be a free advertisement supported version.

On the App store, Spotify currently has a 2 star rating. This you cannot believe due the fact disgruntled downloaders have tried to use it with a free account and failed, so therefore rating it poorly.

To put it simply, its a great app and maybe the itunes killer we all hoped for. The offline function is incredible and the songs download (in a wifi connection) very quickly and their high quality.

Don't let this app pass you buy. Download and bask in its glory now!

YEEEEES!!

Rockstar have announced it releasing Grand Theft Auto - Chinatown Wars is being released on the iPhone.

As the game play increases and increases with better games this will be Apples first kick at stomping on the Handheld gaming market. It wins in every other category. Why not here!

The app should be with us by the end of the year :D

Still Waiting.

Its been days since the Spotify app was approved for the iPhone, yet were still to see it released into the app store; much the anger of Spotify fans.

What started of as a very clever lets keep people waiting so the hype builds itself marketing ploy, it may be turning into the opposite as Spotify fans turn there backs.

Rumours are curculating that the Spotify app may be released at the Apple "It's not rock and roll, but we like it" music event. Although its doubtful as iTunes 9 is also ready to be released.

We keep holding on, but as spotify users cancel their premium subscriptions and start to turn their backs and look elsewhere for their music kicks. Spotify need to rethink what game their actually playing with its much loved consumers.

Spotify for the iPhone.

This morning the news broke that apple has given the green light to the Spotify App for the iPhone.

Many people had doubts apple would allow it due to the obvious competition it poses against itunes.

The App should be uploaded to the App store within the next couple of days. The App will be free of charge to download. However to stream music users will have to upgrade to spotifys premium package for £9.99 per month. A small figure compared to what the average person spends on itunes a month.

Spotify on the iPhone will work pretty much the same as the one users are used to on the pc's.

One of the most attractive features of Spotify for the iPhone is the ability to listen to playlists even where a network connection is unavailable. For instance on the Underground.

An update will be posted here when the app in released.

But for now, get your spotify for iPhone goodness via this video: