Twitter applications are hugely popular on the iPhone and PC/Mac and, of course, we’re seeing a whole gaggle of them hitting the iPad. Today, just a day before the iPad’s US launch, Tweetdeck have revealed their latest effort. And it looks bloody impressive.
The increased screen size of the iPad over the iPhone is really proving to be it’s ‘killer app’, with developers being able to show multiple panels and windows at once; on the iPhone this just wasn’t possible. Anyone who used Tweetdeck for iPhone will be aware that while three columns of tweets are viewable at once, it’s not great.
The iPad was made for apps like this. Great use of space
Well thankfully Tweetdeck for iPad is a vast improvement over the iPhone and even desktop versions, and for a change I actually prefer it’s usability in the portrait mode. In this orientation you are given two columns of tweets covering the lower 2/3 of the screen. Of course, you can flick from left to right to view other columns, so if your feed and mentions are visible, your DMs are just a flick away.
The top 1/3 acts as an information display and built-in web browser, showing a tweet when tapped on, the user’s profile, who they are following and who’s following them. Tapping a tweeted link opens the web page in this upper 1/3, which makes a great use of the space available and saves the need to boot up Safari and switch between the two applications.
The upper 1/3: used for profiles and as a browser. Genius
Turning the iPad to landscape removes the top 1/3 window and instead shows 3 columns that fill the screen. Again, you can swipe from left to right to view as many columns as you want.
Tweetdeck for iPad supports both new and old forms of retweet; meaning you can either just tap retweet and be done with it, or edit the original message and then retweet it.
Landscape view gives 3 columns
Despite only the 3G+Wifi version of the iPad offering GPS, location is a big feature of Tweetdeck for iPad. You can tap on a tweet and see a small map of where the message was posted, which can then be blown up to show a full-screen map with drop pins of where everyone in your feed is tweeting from.
Location is big in Tweedeck
I wasn’t a fan of Tweetdeck on the iPhone because the screen was two small, and I don’t like it on the Mac because it takes up too much space. But on the iPad it’s perfect. You can only run one application at a time so there’s no harm is filling the screen and Tweedeck makes a great job of it. Twitterrific may be more simplistic, but in comparison it almost looks lost on the iPads 9.7″ screen.
As Tweedeck themselves have said; the iPad was made for this application. Possibly.
This is a must-have for all iPad owners.
Check out Tweetdeck in action here, and download it here.
Alistair
Hey, thanks for the great write-up. We’re really excited to get our iPad app out there at last.
And this is only just the start, as we already have a whole raft of extra features planned that will hopefully make this the best TweetDeck ever!
Cheers
Richard Barley
TweetDeck Community Manager
Thanks for leaving a comment and thank you to whoever at Tweetdeck retweeted me, my hits have just gone through the roof!
Being in the UK I can’t get my hands on an iPad just yet but hope to ASAP and Tweetdeck will certainly be one of the first apps I download
Looking forward to the updates!
Alistair
Great read. I hopefully will be able to try it out myself when I get an iPad.
Also find it funny that I’m on one of the screenshots.
Thanks very much!
The screenshots are from the iTunes AppStore so you’ll be famous this time tomorrow!
Alistair
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