Okay Geek Farm
Twitter App Review: TweetDeck Beta for Android
Darryl Cobb
August 12th, 2010 will be forever remembered as the day TweetDeck became self-aware. The Official beta for TweetDeck for Android was made available for download on boy, does it have many things to live up to. If you are familiar with TweetDeck, this day couldn’t come soon enough and if you’re familiar with TweetDeck, it’s deserving of at least a look. So with that, let’s dig into our preliminary look at TweetDeck for Android.
The Fluff:
I always seem to start out with the user interface and for good reason, looks are what hook you. Looks are what will make you give something a shot, at least for a little while. And well, TweetDeck for Android is a looker. The colors, which are dark pastels and the trademark yellow, aren’t too shocking on the eyes, the font choices are easy on the eyes along with the size and well, the interface just looks polished (especially for a beta). Now if you are a fan of the light themes then chances are you don’t use TweetDeck. This is the Darth Vader of Twitter clients. But trust me, it will grow on you. And for those that feel the font maybe too big, don’t fret, you can now adjust the sizes of the fonts.
Something else you’ll notice is that TweetDeck for Android is smooth as melted molasses. Switching between columns doesn’t show any lag whatsoever, And scrolling is incredibly fast. It’s a small things but it’s nice to see how the time keeps pace with each post as you scroll so you can see when each one was posted. Very nice and thoughtful.
My favorite feature is the Contacts Page. This is grid of 12 spaces that you can put your closes friends or profiles you seem to check frequently but you might not want to make a Column. I enjoy this feature because there are some people you talk to frequently and this makes sending them a message very convenient. Out of all the Twitter clients I’ve used, I’ve yet to see something like this. I like this bit of innovation quite a bit.
And speaking of profiles, the information is laid out very well. It puts all the valuable information upfront and within clear view. The usual sections are visible like followers, following, average tweets per day and lists. However, for you stalkers, on some profiles, you can see anyone that sends the holder of the restraining order a message. Now, to clarify, I don’t mean direct messages, just the messages that someone sends direct with their “@” in front of their user name So ladies, make sure your profile is set accordingly.
Now, on the time line, something else that I am a fan of is the way TweetDeck for Android handles previews of pictures when they are uploaded and how TweetDeck for Android handles links and multiple mentions in a single post. Each object that is click-able (links or mentions) are individually click-able Granted, it’ll take you to an outside browser but I’d rather TweetDeck for Android leave it out rather than include a sub par one.
The Reality Check:
I did find somethings that I didn’t like as you might expect. The most glaring thing that would separate Android and iOS 4 is the use of widgets. Android fanboys and girls love widgets. This is noticeably absent because I’ve become so used to updating my statuses on Twitter on the fly but with TweetDeck for Android, you have to open the application up every time That is ok if I’m stationary for a while and I’m just doing some steady posting but not for something quick. Good thing is, widgets are planned. I hope they are there when TweetDeck loses it’s beta tag.
Now I understand branding but Android is all about customization. So, even though I love the color scheme, there should be settings to change the look to the liking of the user. This was a knock I had against the The Official Twitter App for Android. Where Twitter’s App locked you into the light side of the force, TweetDeck for Android locks you into the darkside. I don’t feel those should be choices we should have to make. Why can’t we alter the color schemes more to our liking? But this feature isn’t available on any of TweetDeck’s other offerings so it’s no surprise.
And as smooth as the scrolling is on your time line, TweetDeck for Android needs a button to jump to the top. It sounds simple until you leave your Twitter account unattended for 30 minutes and you have a 100 messages you have to scroll through.
Also, something that was annoying was the inability to create a dedicated column for my secondary Twitter account. My primary account it the on I interact with readers and friends and my secondary account is strictly news feeds to keep me update. And not being able to create a column for that feed had me sort of miffed.
The Facebook integration is ok. You can only add 1 facebook account and you can check direct messages from TweetDeck for Android. In their defense, this is also how the desktop application works so this really isn’t a surprise. And, not too many other Twitter client has native Facebook support so I could just be picky here.
My verdict:
Just as a matter of professional courtesy, I don’t give ratings to products in Beta. It’s unfair to the developers and especially in this case. In the past week, the TweetDeck team has cranked out three upgrades to the TweetDeck for Android beta. Some of the things that got addressed were setting refresh intervals, being able to share pages and images from browsers on Twitter from TweetDeck for Android and being able to re-size the font. What I will say is TweetDeck has made good on their promise of bringing a well thought out product that was built for Android. So with that, I will say, download this and give it a try. I didn’t get to try out the FourSquare and Google Buzz integration but I will once the official version is released. I look forward to the final version so I can give a final verdict. So in the mean time, if you’re on Twitter, follow @TweetDeck for all the latest beta downloads and if not, you can download it here.
