Recently I moved from my beloved Blackberry to iPhone. I won't bore you with the string of reasons why I did that but, being a Twitter addict, the first issue for me was chosing the right Twitter client. And as someone who was actively using 2 to 3 Twitter clients on his Blackberry, I knew that this would be an even harder choice on the iPhone.

So, let's have a look about my current findings:

1) Tweetings (paid):

This is a very powerful Twitter app with many, many advanced settings making it ideal for the power user. The fact that it can format old style retweets in my preferred "/via" format is a big win. It can also schedule tweets as well. The only downside is that it does crash occasionally - I have had to fully turn the iphone on and off. Still, updates for the app seem to come quite regularly and the developer seems nice enough and open to ideas. Also, I think this app can syncronise your settings over a series of apps (desktop, iPhone, iPad etc); not something I've used but it could be useful (Tweetdeck does this as well I think).

2) TweetList (paid):

This is a very slick app - it handles Twitter lists very well - swipe to scroll through your lists - very nice & quick to use. It is very reliable & doesn't crash (touch wood). Unlike 'Tweetings' it only supports the classic "RT" format for old style retweets so that's a bit of a pain (but I bet the developer will sort that soon...I have whined about it). The makers of the app are always open to ideas and they quickly fixed an issue where, when you encounter a broken timeline of tweets, the new tweets are loaded in but you are dumped in the wrong place. I really don't like having my timeline position lost...I get all jittery! (more on that later).

3) Twitter (the official app)

A cracking app to be fair. Very reliable and full of features. And probably the app which will see any new Twitter features rolled out first (so always worth having around just for that). The Twitter app also has a lovely timesaving "swipe" menu when you're on a tweet (try it!) - this is a real bonus - Tweetings have tried to emulate this but it's not as good. The downsides for me include the strange old style retweet format (it uses double quotes?!) and that lists are a fiddle to use.

4) Tweetdeck

I thought this app would be a winner for me - seeing as I'm now really into using Twitter lists. The app itself is slick (although it has crashed quite a few times) and I do love being able to side swipe between lists/screens. However, I did have some major issues with it; it would lose my position on the timeline (I touched on this sticky above) and sometimes it would seem to lose position when I was in the middle of reading an article linked from a tweet. As someone who likes to occasionaly sit down and spend an hour sifting through all key tweets (panning for gold!), such a flaw was a non starter for me. Pity. I hope it improves.

5) Hootsuite

In fairness I'm not a major Hootsuite.com fan so perhaps I was prejudiced. I just found it clunky and hard to navigate - I'm in and out of my Twitter app all the time so if something takes 3 clicks/swipes when it could be done in one then that'll end up just annoying me. It can schedule tweets and handle loads of accounts. Can't say I played with it much after it failed to wow me though.

6) Twitteriffic

This seemed a nice app but it just didn't chime with me (that's ironic actually because this app does make a lot of noise). The main issue for me is that I like a global menu where I can get to my timeline (or lists), replies, DMs, search etc with one click - it doesn't seem to have one. With this app I seem to have to go back to the menu all the time - haven't got time for that.

And the winner is!...

So, which ones do I use? Well, I've got two main accounts which I dip in and out of - @Jojet (for my company) and @Joel_Hughes (slightly more free ranging and personal)  and, whilst most (all?) of the above apps can handle multiple accounts I do kinda like to keep them separate (anyone who has retweeted a tweet on the wrong account will know the benefit of this!) so my current lined up is:

- Tweetings (Joel_Hughes)

- TweetList (Joel_Hughes lists...maybe edging out Tweetings if they bring in the /via retweet style)

- Twitter (official) (Jojet)

- Tweetdeck (Jojet lists)

...I'm sure this will change all the time and if you have any thoughts on the above or know of any other great Twitter apps (especially ones which handle lists well) or know of any other tweet related apps then please let me know :)

Joel

p.s. there is also a new version of the Seesmic app which I have yet to play with.

Updates:

21/Feb/2011

- I've found the offical app to be a little more crashy recently - typically when you stray into more List related territory - perhaps off the beaten code path a little!

- Another app well worth looking at is Smatr - what it excels at is binding the tweet to the story - you click a tweet and (normally) you are immediately taken to the story. No mucking around with Safari or Instapaper. Very, very good - ideal for a Twitter list which you may consider to be a daily read (e.g. I have my Newspaper).

- Also, Seemic have updated their app. Still looking at it but, initially, it does look slick.