iPhone App Review #1: Birdfeed
There are probably over a hundred Twitter apps for the iPhone. The most popular ones being Tweetie, Tweetdeck, Twitterfon, Twitterific, or something else. They’re all good in their own way. It’s all about your preferences in the long run. Some of these have features that another app won’t have such as a trends option, location finder, ability to search for tweets in your area, Retweeting Options, etc…
I’ve used most of these Twitter apps. My current favourite being Tweetie. It’s the only one that has the trends option. If Birdfeed had this option it’d be my new Twitter app and would definately be on my first page on my iPhone with Tweetie being on the second.
My favourite thing about Birdfeed is how great it looks with the iPhone. It’s the best looking iPhone Twitter client out there. It runs smoothly and is extremely easy to navigate. All your directories are there for one-touch-navigation. One great thing this app has, that isn’t in this picture, is the ability to show a counter for how many messages are waiting in your timeline, Mentions, and DMs when you open the app.
The Profile page is pretty clean and simple. It shows how many tweets you’ve made, how many followers you have, and how many people you are following. You can search for your @insertnamehere and look at your recent tweets. Of course, these are all standard in other iPhone apps, but it jus works so much better in Birdfeed.
One problem with Birdfeed is the fact that it doesn’t have a trends option. Ever since trends went live on Twitter, it’s been a big feature on their main page. You can see the top ten trending topics and take part in those conversations. This seems like a no brainer to add, but so far, the only app I know of that has this feature is Tweetie. Maybe in an update…
Another isuue I have is the ReTweet functionality. This is a problem with most Twitter apps other than Birdfeed. The command for ReTweeting is “RT: @insertnamehere <retweeted tweet>”. It seems like it’s standard, but apparently not. Birdfeed just adds a - @insertnamehere for their retweets. Tweetie does it with a (via @insertnamehere) at the end of a tweet. Honestly. Why do we need more than one option to do the same thing? Standards people!
I’m starting to rant now, so I’ll just end this. Birdfeed is my favourite iPhone Twitter app, but I won’t use it solely until they add a trending topics option. It is the graphically best one out there though.
Birdfeed is available in the iTunes store for $4.99 USD.
