Yesterday, when I wrote that Tweetie was the best iPhone Twitter client not everyone agreed. Fair enough, there are a few other really great ones including Birdfeed (which we’ve covered here) and Echofon (the app formerly known as TwitterFon). And the team behind Echofon has today rolled something that puts it ahead of Tweetie in at least one regard: A native Mac client that syncs with the iPhone client.
While Tweetie does have a (very nice) Mac client, there is no syncing between it and the iPhone version just yet. It is coming, but Echofon has beaten them to the punch. This puts in in the league with TweetDeck, which also has a desktop and iPhone client that sync, but Echofon is nicer because it’s a native Mac app rather than running on Adobe Air. (Seesmic also has an iPhone app in the works that will sync with its desktop client, though that is again, Air-based.)
So how is Echofon for Mac? It’s great. It’s super simple and very fast. It has a very clean design that is entirely silver and white which features your tweet stream, a new tweet input box along the bottom, and columns for Mentions, Messages, and Search along the top. You are alerted to new message updates by a number (the number of messages) placed next to the column name in which the new messages reside. Updates seem to come in quickly (every couple minutes or so).
Adding a picture to a tweet is as easy as dragging one from your desktop into the new message area. Clicking on someone’s name or picture unveils a new tab that displays all of that users information, including most recent updates.
And yes, there is multiple Twitter account support. There is also the ability to set different types of notifications for new messages including badging dock icons and Growl notifications. Also cool is a Highlights area which allows you to keep track of keywords that you don’t want to miss. Yes, this is basically saved search, but it gives you alerts, just like track of old.
Another nifty little feature is that when you click the reply button on a tweet, the message you’re replying to appears right above the tweet entry field so you remember what you’re supposed to be talking about.
It is important to note that sync only works right now for Echofon Pro users, but if you’ve been addicted to Echofon, hopefully you are using that anyway. (If not, get it, it’s $4.99.) Eventually, the plan is to offer the syncing funtionality with the free version of Echofon as well.
Currently, Echofon for Mac is being offered as a public beta. That means it may be a little buggy, and also missing some features (un, manual refresh?), but is also free. Eventually, when it’s ready to launch, it will carry a price (just as Tweetie for Mac does). Find it here.
so much for the browser-based web2.0…
well it’s not like Air is browser-based. In my experience most Air apps are resource hogs. There are plenty of web-based Twitter apps that are great though like Seesmic and Brizzly.
you said it better.. yours truly hates air-anything..
Why would a website need an app? :confused:
There is a lot of added functionality these apps give you over the basic Twitter site. Including advanced searching and sorting, saved states, etc. You should give one a whirl and see what it’s all about.
Well, technically Echofon displays the main parts of the UI using a WebView which means it’s HTML & CSS. That’s why it takes up so much memory and uses 50% of your processor when scrolling around in your timeline.
Wrong. Echofon ain’t using WebView – they built their own fully-featured custom RichText components.
Well, it has have 2 major features I have been requesting in Tweetie since it was released. (Beside the iPhone sync).
A place that I can type out mt tweets that is attached to the main window. I *hate* how tweetie feels the need to spawn a new window.
Supports custom refresh intervals. When at work I delay my refresh so it isn’t a big distraction. However, why is 10 minutes the maximum I can set it to ?!
It uses Twitpic by default, which is what I use anyway. But I know people are going to want options.
I like the highlight feature, that can be rather useful.
Things I don’t like about it.
- Switching between users forces it to reload the timeline, no caching.
- So far, I have not found an option to keep it self in the system menu and “glow blue” when new tweets are there.
- The interface is also pretty boring compared to Tweetie.
- No retweet button
They are heading in the right direction adding features that Tweetie still isn’t getting around to. I need a replacement for Twitterrific, but Tweetie isn’t there yet.
Side note, I absolutely refuse to use any Adobe air apps. They are slow, fugly and resource hogs.
I will keep an eye on it, without pricing information and those missing features I will be avoiding it for now.
Thanks for the (really) quick review. We at naan studio are glad you like it.
Just one thing: To add a picture, you can drop it anywhere on Echofon for Mac, not just the new message area.
Thanks!
I’m very disappointed about the price, I was really hoping this would be free..
A place that I can type out mt tweets that is attached to the main window. I *hate* how tweetie feels the need to spawn a new window.
Very cool. As I brought up in the other thread, Echofon for iPhone already has many of the new features of Tweetie 2 (landscape, badge notifications,push notification, and even desktop syncing via a Firefox plugin) and has always been markedly quicker.
The Tweetie devs have a little bit more of an eye for design, but they’re playing catch-up on a lot of basic features IMO. Also, the lack of a tweet entry box in Mac Tweetie has always annoyed me (you have to bring up a pop-up window to compose) – that alone will make me happy to switch.
echofon is definitely moving up in the world of twitter apps, I knew good things were to come when they changed their name for the better.
I am presently looking into Iphone twitters, so many around. This blog is a very good helping tool
you can manually refresh with cmd+r
How many different Twitter apps/clients do we really need?
I’d ask: Is there a market ($) for all these Twitter clients?
I would actually recommend brizzly. Just don’t see a reason why I need a desktop app when I have a fully function web app. I don’t need offline access for tweets, too as I have that in my pocket already.
To The Powers That Be in TechCrunch, I have two words and two words only:
AppleCrunch and OrnithologyCrunch.
The words simple, fast, and native make me thinnk of Twit Menulet, another Mac client that I love for its simplicity. Haven’t tried Echofon yet but I will.