Top 10 mobile Twitter apps

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For Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile client Twinkini doesn’t feel as polished as the many iPhone apps out there, but that’s as much to do with Windows Mobile vs iPhone OS as anything else.

Once it let me login, Twinkini loaded quickly, but its features are basic. It will let you add your GPS location to your Tweets and pull pictures from the phone’s library, retweet, mark a Tweet as a favourite and send via email - whatever that is. You can also check user info from where you can unfollow someone if you wish.

For Nokia Series 60

Gravity takes the prize for having the best name of the bunch, and is one of the few Twitter apps available for Nokia phones.

All your favourite features are supported, such as viewing, replying, and sending direct messages, marking as favourite, and follow and unfollowing. Sending pictures from your phone is a commonly supported feature, but not many let you search for hashed keywords tags as Gravity does. The downsides are reports of crashes and battery drain, but look out for updates that will hopefully solve these issues.

For Blackberry

Blackberry seems rather underserved for Twitter apps, and the default option is the obviously named TwitterBerry. It can be downloaded from its website, to a PC and then copied over straight to your phone. It lacks the looks of Twitter apps for other platforms, but it’s straightforward.

A simple interface shows you how many characters you’ve got left, while all basic features are catered for. You can view the public timeline, or just your friends send and sending Direct Messages has recently been added. A default choice for Blackberry owning Twitter fans.

For Android

Like Windows Mobile, Android suffers from a paucity of Twitter apps, with only a few averagely rated apps available in the Marketplace. TwitterDroid is not available there but this open source app can be downloaded online.

It can’t be installed over-the-air and is fiddly to install. It’s essentially a port of Twitterific from iPhone to Android and lets you view your last 20 Tweets from your friends but not much else. Android is still very much in the “watch this space” phase when it comes to Twitter.

Cross Platfrom

Another Twitter app with a great name, Slandr app is cross platform as it is web based. It uses Twitter’s own API but aims to deliver a better experience than Twitter’s own mobile site. It’s a quite clean interface, though take care not to mistake the update box for a search tool, which appears on a separate page.

The downside to Slandr is that is has somewhat insalubrious ads in between Tweets such as, “Meet local woman in Glasgow”. This is hardly appropriate, and not even very local - perhaps this is why it’s called Slandr.

Another cross-platform app is TinyTwitter. It comes in two flavours - one that will work on any Java enabled phone, so good for Nokias and Blackberrys, and one specifically for Windows Mobile.

TinyTwitter is lightweight, so it downloads and installs quickly. While it’s not the prettiest or the most feature heavy, it does what it says on the tin. From the menu button you can @reply, and direct message someone, follow just their timeline or unfollow and it beeps discreetly when a message arrives and you can set the time interval for checking for new tweets.

What are your favourite mobile Twitter apps? Are there alternatives you swear by that we’ve missed? Drop us a line at comments@itpro.co.uk or leave a comment below.

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