Tweetie

Warning! If you don't know what Twitter is, stop right now, go take a look at this movie by Common Craft to catch up, then go here to create a Twitter account. Next, head to Twitter and follow @148apps. Then, come back here and continue reading.

Tweetie is not just another Twitter client for the iPhone, it is the Twitter client for the iPhone. While there are others that are good, Tweetie is just great. Nearly perfect even. It has all of the features that the average user needs and all the features the most powerful of power users need.

Tweetie is built very solidly. While navigating through the app, you'll see how solidly built it is. Seems that just about any app that includes an embedded browser suffers from crashing problems, and Tweetie is, unfortunately no different. But outside the embedded browser, a crash in the app is rare, if ever. Tweetie is easily an app that I use 50% of the time my iPhone is turned on.

Every feature you could need is there. Multiple account support, reply, retweet, direct message, search, trending topics, saved searches, the list goes on.

One of the most innovative user interface features in the app is the ability to swipe to reply. While looking at a tweet, you can swipe left or right to reveal some actions you can apply on that tweet. It's a quick way to expose these options without needlessly cluttering the user interface.

Speaking of the user interface, the developer of Tweetie has done a fantastic job of creating a very iPhone-esque application here. Compared to other Twitter apps like Twinkle and Twittelator, this app just feels iPhone native. The way the app provides so many features without cluttering the UI or confusing the novice user is great.

Another cool feature is Instapaper integration. Instapaper is a service that allows you to mark web pages for later view and have them download for offline viewing on the iPhone via the Instapaper application. The integration in Tweetie allows you to quickly mark links for Instapaper download by marking links in a Twitter message. Next time you load up Instapaper, it will download the content from the marked link.

If you are a Twitter user, this is, hands down, the best Twitter client currently available. It supports all user types from beginning users to the Twitter power user with a great UI and all the features you need. Considering that 1/2 the time that my iPhone is turned on, it's in Tweetie, I think the $2.99 I paid for this app is a steal!