Twitter IPhone Apps Teardown: Tweetbot Vs. Twitter
There are dozens of Twitter clients for the iPhone, but the official Twitter app and third-party Tweetbot are two of the most popular. One is free, the other is fairly expensive at $ 9.99. Let’s take a look at the main differences between the two and see if the difference in experience is worth the difference in cost.
Applicants
Because of the way Twitter works, developing a Twitter app is a pain. This is expensive for developers because Twitter charges them a fee for keys to access the site, which means that developers tend to pass that fee on to you and then revoke access when you become too popular . Hence, most good Twitter apps, including Tweetbot, tend to be expensive. Let’s start with a quick look at both applications:
- Twitter (free) : When it first launched, the official Twitter app was a bit of a joke, but it has improved slightly over the years. However, this is essentially just a mobile version of the website, which means it is more intended for the average user than for power users who use all of Twitter’s features or manage multiple accounts. It’s easy to use and contains no bells and whistles.
- Tweetbot ($ 9.99) : Tweetbot has been our favorite Twitter client for iPhone for a very long time, but $ 10 is a high price tag for most users. However, Tweetbot is not really meant for most users. It’s made for people who spend most of their day on Twitter, whether it’s for work or a deep-seated obsession with social media. Tweetbot has many customization options, as well as several ways to improve your Twitter experience by customizing your feed content.
Assuming the $ 10 price tag for Tweetbot isn’t enough to turn you down straight away, the choice between the two really depends on how you use Twitter.
Tweetbot has the best customization
The official Twitter app is about as vanilla the experience as it gets. Open it up and you’ll find a website-like interface with tabs at the bottom for your notifications, moments, DM, and your profile tab. The functionality in the application is the same as on the website. You cannot change anything. You cannot change tabs, colors, or even adjust the font size. With the Twitter app, you get what you see.
Conversely, Tweetbot has a variety of customization options. For example, on the bottom tab bar on the right, there are two buttons that you can swap for whatever function you want: activity (which includes mentions, replies, favorites, and new subscriber information), search, profile, likes, filter off, or lists. If you’re using lists to tame your Twitter feed , accessing them from the tab bar will make your life easier. The official Twitter app hides these lists with a few taps. If you use Tweetbot on an iPad or iPhone 6 Plus, you also get support for columns in landscape mode, which allows you to see two tabs side by side. Tweetbot also lets you choose between a pair of fonts, switch between username or full name for your timeline, resize the image in your feed, and even customize avatars. Dark mode is on if you prefer to tweet late at night in a dark room.
Tweetbot also has extremely customizable notifications, so you can customize them to only receive the notifications you want. Tweetbot also has options for links, allowing links to be opened in Tweetbot, Chrome, or Safari, and even includes a reading mode that removes the visual style of the article.
After all, if you want an app that you can customize, you need Tweetbot. The official Twitter app doesn’t let you change anything.
Mute filters and no ads in Tweetbot improve the power user experience
Twitter is a noisy place. People tweet dozens of times a day, the posts never seem to stop, and there’s always a chance for spoilers if you’re expecting any type of media at all . Tweetbot has ways to get around this.
Tweetbot has a powerful set of mute filters. You can turn off keywords, phrases, users, or hashtags. When you do, any tweet containing these things will not show up in your feed. It’s great during the sports playoffs when you’re not a fan, during the elections, or if you’re avoiding spoilers. If you’ve turned something off, Tweetbot is also smart enough to show you responses that might mention these things, so you’re not completely cut off from the world. The downside is that these mute filters don’t carry over to the web version of Twitter, so they really only work inside the Tweetbot ecosystem (which includes the $ 10 Mac app ). If you’re only using the iPhone Tweetbot app that’s great, but if you’re also using the web version on your desktop it’s a little annoying.
Plus, like almost all third-party Twitter clients, you won’t see ads on Tweetbot. Given how often these annoying sponsored posts appear, this is a nice little addition if you’re not a fan of ads.
Twitter keeps you at the forefront
The only area where official Twitter dominates Tweetbot is in support for new features. The folks behind Twitter love to constantly introduce new little features, whether it’s fun things like polls or weird features like Moments . If you are using the official Twitter app, you will almost always see an update in the app to support these new features immediately.
Tweetbot doesn’t do this at all. Heck, Tweetbot still doesn’t support polls. For some reason, many of the advanced features that Twitter decides to deploy end up not working on third-party clients. Of course, this is also a Tweetbot feature if you like the simpler Twitter in general.
Verdict: Tweetbot is the best app, but Twitter is free and still good enough for most people
Let’s be honest: the general population who just checks Twitter a couple of times a day doesn’t need the $ 10 Twitter app. If you only manage one account, don’t mind seeing a bunch of unnecessary junk like ads and nasty hashtags, and you’re not worried when Twitter adds some unfinished new ideas to the app every week, then the official Twitter app is all for you. need to.
If you spend a lot of time on Twitter during the day, then Tweetbot is the best app for enhancing that experience. The mute feature on its own is worth the sign-in fee for some, but the customizable toolbar and action menus make it much easier to manage large-scale accounts.