Tweetly Review

The App Store has no shortage of apps designed for social networking sites, but when it comes to finding something especially different from the norm it’s easier said than done. When searching for an app there are generally a number of factors that become essential in terms of usability, and a social networking app is certainly one such category where a user-friendly experience is of the utmost importance. Indee Box’s new app Tweetly is a simple and elegantly designed Twitter app created to supposedly provide the most seamless Twitter experience users could want, but does it truly live up to its promise?

Visually, Tweetly looks outstanding. Presented in a beautiful simplistic style, with an eye-catching pastel interface, it would be hard to overlook such an impressive-looking app. In the first instance, the app provides users with a short tutorial detailing how it works and instructing users with the basics of each of its functions. The home screen offers five options from where users can check their twitter feed, look at their mentions, write a tweet, search for a user, and view their own profile. Its sleek design is complimented with truly accessible swipe gestures that can be used to reply, retweet, or favorite tweets as desired. For example, a short swipe from left to right on a tweet will allow users to reply, a hard swipe in the same direction will result in the ability to retweet, and favoriting a tweet can likewise be achieved by swiping to the opposite direction, from right to left.

Though I’m impressed by its ergonomic design, my experience with the Tweetly app wasn't as smooth as I’d hoped. Typing a tweet was simply undertaken by tapping the bird icon in the center of the home-screen; easily done. Replying to a tweet, however, proved tricky as I sometimes struggled to remember the directions for which direction to swipe. Though the worst factor for me was not being able to view entire conversation threads on my twitter feed. It used to be straightforward to view a conversation thread from its origin and scroll through any responses, but with Tweetly no amount of prodding or tapping on my screen would bring up any option with which to do so. Another niggle was the lack of profile bio descriptions, which I can only imagine is a design limitation.

Don’t get me wrong, I like how functional the app is and it’s incredibly effortless to reply and interact with others after the initial getting used to, but I’m hoping that Indee Box will consider addressing the features that have been unaccounted for. The last point I will make, and this is a huge factor for me, is that Tweetly has no functionality for push notifications.

In retrospect however, Tweetly is sleek, simplistic, accessible, and visually alluring, and I recommend it wholeheartedly as any Twitter replacement.