Recently, I published my survey of Twitter applications in the Symbian world. However, thanks to AllAboutSymbian readers, a lot more applications were brought to light, via comments. Another area that required adding to the feature comparisons was location-based tweets, courtesy of Gravity.
According to my research, and contributions from AAS comments, there seem to be seventeen Twitter options for S60 users. Seven are native S60 applications, and ten are cross-platform options. The latter are split between Java programs and web-based services. Their quality range is wider than the S60 applications, with most Java applications being relatively poor. The exceptions being J1ck.Tweet (to whom I apologise for making errors in last feature grid) and Snaptu. Meanwhile, the web-based applications can easily rival all but Gravity.
To reflect all this, I have split the feature grid into two; one for native S60 applications, and one for cross-platform options.
S60 Twitter Applications
We see again that Gravity remains dominant, with everyone else having a long way to catch up. My arguments of Gravity vs Twittix remain the same here - it is hard to justify the cost of Twittix when you have nearly double the features for only a 50% increase in price, and there are free alternatives with virtually the same functionality as Twittix. Not to mention the benefit of Gravity's unique user interface.
In the middle of the group we have the TweetS60's (yes, plural!) vs Nimbuzz. If you are already a Nimbuzz user then it is hard to justify running another application when Nimbuzz covers a very similar range of functions to TweetS60 Pro. If you don't use Nimbuzz, I think the £1.00 cost of Tweets60 Pro is compelling, especially considering the support for posting photos and inserting links from your S60 bookmarks.
The bottom two of the set score so poorly because they are more social aggregation applications. TMN Pond covers social networks like Twitter and Flickr, etc., while Fring is the familiar instant messaging platform. We therefore shouldn't expect a great deal of Twitter functionality from these.
Cross Platform Applications and Services
I was truly surprised at the quality of web-based Twitter applications out there. Given the amount of features the top two have, it really makes you think twice about installing an application at all. Especially when you consider that both Dabr and TwitStat pack in significantly more features than Twittix and TweetS60 Pro from the native S60 group. Of course, the best thing about web-based applications is that you simply have to set a bookmark - there's no new application to install and find in your apps menu.
Looking at the Java-based applications, these are generally let down by fiddly and confusing user interfaces, and I did not have an enjoyable user experience. Of particular demerit was Twibble, which continually suggested I register an account on their web site.
The two Java applications which are definitely worth considering are J1ck.Tweet and Snaptu. J1ck.Tweet was covered last time has a new version coming out soon which would surely see it scoring higher in this grid. Not covered last time was Snaptu, but also comes with a plethora of other web and cloud based services, and has been recently reviewed by Ewan.
The Top Ten Twitter Applications for Series 60
Below is one more grid, the top ten Twitter apps, by feature count.
Here we see that the cross-platform options win out over all, but Gravity, of the S60 applications. Interestingly the proportions of S60 and cross-platform remain the same in the top 10 as they are overall. Most significant however, is that the 2nd and 3rd places go to mobile web sites, not to applications.
Conclusion
Last time, I recommended that beginners not go for a paid application until they've built up some experience; and that advice still stands. Although now users can either benefit from the speed of an application running on the handset and choose the user interface they like best, say between J1ck.tweet or Snaptu. J1ck best resembles the mobile Twitter site, but Snaptu offers functionality beyond Twitter. Then, when they are ready to experiment with more advanced Twitter features, they can try the best of the mobile sites, Dabr or TwitStat.
Of course, for those beginners who decide they are going to stick with Twitter and want to get the most out of a mobile experience, the power house of Gravity awaits them, for a modest fee.
Links
- Gravity
- Dabr
- TwitStat
- J1ck.Tweet
- Snaptu
- Twittix
- Slandr
- Tweete
- TweetS60 Pro
- Nimbuzz
- TweetS60
- Twibble
- TMN Pond
- Tiny Twitter
- TwitBreeze
- Fring
David Gilson for AllAboutSymbian.com, 3rd February 2010.
You can find me on my blog, and as @davidgilson on Twitter.