Round one: Viewing

Twitter HootSuite Seesmic Swift Touiteur TweetCaster Twicca Twidroid Load timeline at launch No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Remember timeline position No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes View geotagged tweets on map Yes No Yes No No No Yes Yes View nearby tweets Yes No No No No Yes No Yes View nearby tweets on map No No No No No No No No View lists Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Enlarge profile pictures No No Yes No Yes Yes No Yes View conversation threads No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Change font size No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Picture thumbnails in timelines Yes No No No No No No No Twitter HootSuite Seesmic Swift Touiteur TweetCaster Twicca Twidroid

Round two: Composing

Twitter HootSuite Seesmic Swift Touiteur TweetCaster Twicca Twidroid Insert location in tweet Yes No Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Old / new retweet options New Old Both Old Both Both Both Both Reply to all mentions No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Look up user names while composing Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Upload photos / videos Photos Photos Both Both Photos Photos Both Both Photo upload service options 2 1 4 4 2 2 1 5 Video upload service options No No 3 2 No No 1 Premium URL-shortening service options 2 1 3 1 Premium 2 1 3 Twitter HootSuite Seesmic Swift Touiteur TweetCaster Twicca Twidroid

Final round: Extras

Twitter HootSuite Seesmic Swift Touiteur TweetCaster Twicca Twidroid Multiple accounts No Yes Yes No Premium Yes No Premium Schedule tweets No Yes No No No No No No Monitor link click stats No Premium No No No No No No Create and edit lists Yes No Delete only No No Yes Yes Premium Edit profile Yes No No No Picture Yes Yes Yes Block / report Both Block Block No Block Both Both Block Color tagging No No No No Yes No Yes No Themes No No No No Premium (2) Yes (2) No Premium (6) Widgets 2 No 1 1 Premium 2 1 Premium Android share integration Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Background notification Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Twitter HootSuite Seesmic Swift Touiteur TweetCaster Twicca Twidroid



Wrap-up

Twicca

In the first round of this shootout, it's clear that Twidroid offers the best Twitter browsing experience, closely followed by Twicca and TweetCaster. Most of the rest fell behind with their lack of support for geotagged tweets -- to view on map or to scan for nearby tweets, leaving just the official Twitter app and Twidroid happily covering both features. On the contrary, Twitter's own client is one of the few apps that miss out on handy tools like font size picker, automatic timeline bookmarker, and conversation thread viewer.Again, Twidroid comes out as the clear winner in the composing category, with Twicca trailing slightly behind due to the missing options for media-upload and URL-shortening services. Seesmic could've easily won the champion title here had there not been that single red cross -- like HootSuite and Swift, it doesn't let you look up user names while composing. The official Twitter app looks about average in this round, mainly due to its inability to let us reply to all mentions with one click, plus the lack of video upload tool just didn't make sense for this newcomer.As you can see in this final round, most of the third-party apps here don't fare as well as the official Twitter app when it comes to list management, profile editing and widgets. On the other hand, Twitter's app could do with support for multiple accounts to catch up with this round's winner -- TweetCaster. Technically, Twidroid's equally as good as TweetCaster in this round, provided that you don't mind paying €3.39 ($4.32) for the pro version; otherwise you'd just have to bear with TweetCaster's ad banners, or pay $4.99 for the ad-free version -- it's nice to support the developers, you know? While we're here, it's also worth pointing out that HootSuite's the only client that offers tweet scheduling and link click metrics (premium), whereas Touiteur and Twicca are the only ones that let you color-tag tweets from selected people.Twitter's first attempt with its own mobile app isn't a bad one -- it's certainly one of the prettiest choices in the market right now, but at the end of the day, for usas the best Android Twitter app, withand. That said, the official app is still the only candidate that offers deep integration within the OS (like the aforementioned contacts linking). If Twitter wants to play catch-up, all we ask for is for its app to remember timeline position, show conversation threads, allow replying to all mentions, and support video upload. Better still, Twitter should consider letting its users view nearby tweets on a map -- we can already do this on Tweetie 2 (soon to be the official iPhone Twitter app), so why not make this a first on Android as well? It'll be super useful for users to find out about regional events, regardless of radial distance. Until these ideas are implemented on the official app, third-party Android developers can safely stay in the Twitter game.