When old becomes new again
Back in the day, the first two Twitter clients I used were Tweetie and Twitterrific. Both apps I used on my iPhone and without them, I probably would have never used Twitter. Tweetie was eventually bought by Twitter and subsequently dismantled and Twitterrific fell off my radar when they dropped the Mac client several years ago. It was truly sad and I constantly searched for something to replace my old friend because without one platform I didn’t want the other. It’s not that Twitterrific didn’t make a wonderful iOS app, but I wanted my Twitter clients to work with each other between platforms. Since it seemed like Twitteriffic’s developer, Iconfactory had thrown in the towel for the Mac version, I moved on and started using different apps to manage my Twitter accounts.
Here we are, years down the road and a Kickstarter campaign launched to revive my favorite Twitter client for Mac. The developers did this to make sure that the community truly wanted Twitterrific to be resurrected before putting all the coding hours into creating the Mac app once again. The fans didn’t let them down. Twitterific for Mac: Project Phoenix had a funding goal of $75,000. Over 2,800 backers exceeded that goal by nearly 144% with a total of $108,346 raised. And with that, the Twitterrific development crew was ready to bring back a masterpiece we all missed.
Twitterific for Mac’s claim to fame is its ease of use. It’s easy to understand and it’s a true multi-account/multi-window system for Twitter. You have the option to view mentions, messages, and favorites quickly and efficiently so that you don’t drown in the clutter that some other clients provide you. Twitteriffic’s timeline will sync across platforms via iCloud and you will receive system-wide alerts for mentions and direct messages through Notification Center. The app is also fully accessible through VoiceOver.
In addition to all the Mac-based features, there is an entire subset of features based on general Twitter functions. Some of these features include:
- Support for retweet and quoted tweets
- Autocompletion of usernames and hashtags
- Global and local trending topics are available in-app
- Support for tweet storms and chained tweet threads is available
- Follow or unfollow users directly from their user profile
- Block and report spammers
- Theme control and customization available
Twitteriffic for Mac also has a mute-style function available called ‘muffle’. While I appreciate that this feature is now available, I am a bit let down that you have to manage it from the iOS app. Any changes you make to your muffles in the iOS app do carry over to the Mac app through iCloud syncing, but you can’t manage the settings on the Mac. The problem here is the Mac app still shows these people but in a super odd way. I can’t unmuffle them from the Mac app or start the process from that version. I find this to be a waste of time because if I’m bothered by a massive Tweetstorm, I have to stop what I’m doing on my Mac to jump to my iPhone to muffle someone. I also don’t like how I don’t have the choice to just muffle someone temporarily. It’s all in or all out. I hope that Iconfactory will update this in the future.
Even though Twitteriffic does support multiple account management, I’m not a big fan of how they designed this feature into the Mac app. I have my personal account and the MacSources account entered into Twitteriffic. About 20% of the time, the MacSources Twitter account is managed by me. I have to open two windows within Twitteriffic — one for my personal account and one for the business account — so that I can see them side by side. I would prefer to have two accounts within one window. For example, Tweetbot shows two accounts in one window, just separate columns. I’m not sure why Twitteriffic can’t keep the windows attached. What seems like a waste is that both windows host them same buttons. This makes it more cluttered on my desktop. Now I can also say if I run two Twitter accounts but only have one column I can still use both accounts but I have to use shortcut keys to switch accounts or the tab in the center of that window. Its a very clean interface that way but I like to see both timelines at the same time so it’s aggravating to me.
Aside from these two issues, I really don’t have any complaints with Twitteriffic for Mac. It’s been a very stable client for me for Twitter and I really enjoy using it. The syncing between the two platforms is flawless and I finally have the Twitteriffic Mac client that I’ve always wanted.
DOWNLOAD – Twitterrific for Mac – $19.99
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