Twitterrific 5.0 Review

Our Review by Jeff Scott on December 6th, 2012
Rating: starstarstarstarblankstar :: TWITTER REDESIGNED
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Twitterrific 5.0 is a whole new version of the familiar Twitter client. Designed by The Iconfactory from the ground up to be the perfect Twitter client. Did they do it?

Developer: The IconFactory
Price: $2.99 (promotional price)
Version Reviewed:5.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 5 and iPad mini

iPhone Integration Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar
User Interface Rating: starstarstarhalfstarblankstar
Re-use Value Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar

Overall Rating: starstarstarstarblankstar

Twitterrific 5.0 is a whole new version of the Twitter client from the pixel architects at Iconfactory. While the original Twitterrific was one of the very first iOS clients for Twitter and was rather basic, this 5.0 version has come a long way.

I must preface this review with the note that I am a die hard Tweetbot user. It's easily the number one used app on both my iPhone and iPad. That said, I'm always looking for a better Twitter client. There are, of course, things that I don't like about Tweetbot. It was with that thought that I jumped into Twitterrific 5.0.

The first thing you'll notice is the new design. It's a striking look and really well done for the most part. Unique and yet still familiar enough to use. That's a good thing, and very impressive. Custom themes are supported along with easy modification of the fonts to suit your needs. I chose to shrink the fonts considerably to fit more tweets on the screen. The ability to shrink or enlarge the avatars is a nice addition.

Twitterrific has all of the core Twitter features you'd expect from a really good Twitter client. Multiple user support, lists, search support, etc. While the app has taken a noticeable feature bump from the previous iteration, which was purposefully trimmed down to make it simpler, it remains easy to use.

The issues I have with this app are mainly with a few of the design decisions. It feels almost over-designed in places. Example, the custom pull-to-refresh animation. While cute, pull-to-refresh is now an iOS 6 SDK feature, having a custom designed animation serves only to confuse. Minor annoyances, probably just to me.

On the huge plus side, the excellent handling of the timeline exceptions. One of the toughest things to get right is how to handle all of the strange things that can happen with the Twitter timeline. It can get out of sync, there can be gaps, there can be other issues. A gauge of a well done Twitter app is how it handles the timeline issues when they arise. Twitterrific comes out almost perfect in that matter. The one issue I discovered being the scrolling when when filling in gaps in the timeline. When you click to fill in the gap, the tweets are always pushed up when they should go up or down based on how you have been reading the timeline. The result is a huge jump down the list if you are reading down (newest to oldest) the list. Simple to fix I would hope.

Iconfactory considers this a whole new app. That means if you have the current version of Twitterrific, you'll need to buy it again. A necessary requirement of the simplified sales practices of the App Store and how a traditional development house like the Iconfactory does business, I guess. One big plus is that it's a Universal app.

There are a lot of Twitter clients for iOS. And while I think Twitterrific is one of the best, it's not the king of the hill for me. I started this review ready to try something fresh and to break away from Tweetbot for a while. Unfortunately for Twitterrific I went back after a couple days. The small issues were just too much to keep me from straying back.

Twitterrific is a great start at a whole new Twitter client (with a familiar name). And is certainly worth looking at if you want something new. They should also be applauded for making the app Universal.

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