I think the Twitter client landscape has really changed in 2010. New approaches and design strategies have yielded some remarkable new Twitter clients.

TvvitterBug 1.3 is currently in the approval process for release on the App Store this week. This release brings together the culmination of all the features, capabilities, and functionality most sought after in an iPhone/iPod Twitter App, including:

1. All of the power you want, without the complexity you don’t.
2. Five (TvvitterBug exclusive) user-customizable Tweet Views.
3. Up to Five user accounts easily accessible from any view.
4. Persistent Tweets between launchings so you can view your tweets anytime.
5. Double-Tap Instant Update to easily and quickly refresh your tweet views on demand.
6. Built-in Photo capabilities to add photos directly to your tweets.
7. Built-in Translation support using any of the state-of-the-art web translation engines you choose, such as Google Translate, Yahoo Babelfish, or Promt Translator.
8. Built-in Web Access to view tweet embedded pictures and other URLs.
9. Editable User Profile, including setting a new Avatar picture.
10. Support for both “Fixed” and “Editable” Retweets – you choose.
11. Landscape support for both Views and Keyboard.
12. Automatic Language detection and display – great when you’re surfing!
13. The same ease-of-use and lightning fast operation as the original version.

I think your readers would be interested in learning more about TvvitterBug from your review.

1) Distinctiveness. I like that it doesn’t look and/or feel like all the other iUI apps popping up. I really don’t mind the “typical” page refresh vs. the iUI “swipe”.

2) The menubar(s). I like the v.1 buttons. They look good IMO. I like the way they “highlight” on click, and they are clear and easy to understand. (One minor suggestion: The star icon is slightly misleading. On Twitter.com, the star implies a “favorite”, and in Hahlo it means, “new tweet/direct message”. I’d go with something else for the “new” icon — perhaps something super-simple, like a Plus sign or a pencil icon or whatever.)

3) Friend icons…or not. I like the current configuration, using the small friend icons. Over WIFI it’s no problem at all. However, over EDGE, it slows things down. It would be GREAT if there were a simple preference for “Text View vs. Icon View” — which would allow the user to choose to view a text-only version (sans friend icons) if they prefer. I think this is the main reason that http://m.twitter.com is so easy to use. It loads almost instantly from anywhere. And as much as I wish it didn’t — speed counts. If I’m at a stop-light and want to post a tweet before it turns green, I can usually do it on m.twitter.com, but maybe not on Hahlo or the others. Fast fast fast. I’d sacrifice stuff for speed (maybe even Google Analytics). People will appreciate it.

4) No rollover on iPhone. I’m sure you know this, but there is no such thing as rollover on iPhone. The reason I mention this is, again, is in the speed category — you could shave down the size of your graphics a tiny bit. Right now you’ve got three states (for example on http://hahlo.com/resources/images/options_toolbar.png). Instead of three states, this could be two (maybe even one) and it would save you a few kb.

5) I’m not sure if you’re already doing it, but have you considered gzip compression. (I’ve heard that the iPhone supports it, and it might help reduce the size of the CSS file and possibly the JS files??) Here’s a link: http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com/weblog/web-development/css/the-definitive-css-gzip-method

Anyway, hope that helps a bit. Great job overall. I love Hahlo.

The problem with the ‘preference’ panel, is because of the fixed positioning. I hadn’t actually realised that I still hadn’t correct that. I’ll have a look at it later and try and fix that, I’ve got a couple of ideas. I guess the update panel suffers in a similar way, but becuase you’re already at the top its not as big a problem.

Re. your comments about v.2, I tend to agree in some ways, I have noticed that the speed is just a little slow, but I’m not sure which part is causing the bottleneck. There are certainly a lot of things for me to consider while looking at version 2, whether it uses iUI or not.

@Justin: I figured that was the case, I was a little surprised at just how much js is included thats all.

Twitter Mobile is definitely my go-to stand-bye. It’s crazy fast, even over EDGE, it gets the job done, and it updates INSTANTLY when I make a post. (None of the others do that.)

I really like Hahlo 1.0. In my tests it loads slightly faster than PocketTweets and I just like the interface better. It feels cleaner and less cluttered. I REALLY like the way the “reply” and “direct” interfaces works. I only have two quibbles: #1) for some reason (I suspect something with the input field syntax perhaps) the text in the input fields is not “selectable” — that is, you can’t use the little iPhone text-select magnifier at all. Frustrating if you get to the end of a sentence and have to go all the way back to change “bog” to “big” or whatever. and 2) when I click the “circle” button in the bottom right, it activates the “view” prefernce dialog, but I have to scroll all the way back up to the top of the list to actually get to the dialog. (for a long time I didn’t even think the button worked because nothing seemed to happen.)

My biggest comment re: Hahlo is this: I beg the developer to scrap the plans to use the “iUI” template for v.2. Homogenization is not necessarily a good thing. The current version is clean, unique, beautiful and works well. And so far at least (and I know it’s still in progress) version 2 is really really slow, buggy, and frankly not as fun to use. I’ll likely stop using Hahlo entirely if v.2 is iUI-ified. I think with a few tweaks to improve speed and some continued refining, Hahlo with interface v.1 would definitely be my app of choice.

That’s my 2¢.