QuickAdvice: Get a Refreshing New Take on Twitter with Ubercurrent
UberCurrent for Twitter (Free) by Ubermedia, Inc. is a slick Twitter app for your iPhone and iPod Touch.
There are many Twitter clients out there. For the most part, they all look similar to each other. But now there's another Twitter client out there that provides a new spin on how a Twitter app can look: Ubercurrent (formerly UberSocial).
Ubercurrent allows users to browse featured and popular users and tweets. This is nice because it gives people who may not have a Twitter account the chance to preview what Twitter is all about (this could be up for debate). If you have an account, you can sign in with it.
You'll immediately notice either way that the interface for Ubercurrent is smooth and graphically pleasing. It's not a basic looking timeline view, but allows you to have a background image and tweets are on top of a translucent, dark gray layer. It looks nice and scrolls smoothly and just flows naturally.
If you're looking at Top Tweets or Tweeters, you can scroll through various categories at the top, and go through Tweeters via tabs on the left, or Tweets as a Cover Flow-like interface. What about access to your own Timeline and all that good stuff? The button with the Twitter bird in the top left corner will bring a drop down menu that will give you other options for Twitter: My Timeline, Trends, Search, Lists, Mentions, My Profile, Drafts, and the all-important Settings.
Ubercurrent displays timelines in the same background-with-translucent-gray overlay for tweets. This applies to your home timeline and mentions, as well as Trends and Searches. In Search, you can choose between All Tweets or People. Lists are viewed the same way as Top Tweeters (categories at top, people on left). In-line images are supported, so you'll get a thumbnail preview of an image (at least for Twitpic images) before viewing the full thing.
The way to compose a new tweet in Ubercurrent is pretty cool. You can tap the button at the top right, or simply swipe from the top of the screen (top menubar) downward - this will bring up a compose window, where you can also insert media, currently playing song information, geolocation, or bring up Settings and Trends (for easy access).
If you're uploading a photo, the photo will appear as the background image while you're composing the rest of the tweet. This is great because it shows you a visual of what you're uploading, and you can use it to write about it (in case you forgot). The tweet window will show an icon of a picture attached with a paperclip.
Once the tweet is done and sent, the window will melt back in with the rest of the app. Or if you decide to cancel the tweet, you can just swipe upwards or just hit "cancel."
In Settings, you can add multiple accounts (using OAuth), choose a status update sound, background, music tweet text, and various inks to Help and Support, and that good stuff. The app is free and ad-supported, but you can remove the unobtrusive ads via a $1.99 in-app purchase.
I think this app is great for being free, though it has it's own flaws. Currently, you can't view direct messages in Ubercurrent. This will be a huge drawback for some people, and I'm not sure why this isn't incuded already - it's a basic feature for any Twitter client. You also can't choose any other media upload service (it's only Twitpic) and the in-line thumbnail previews seem to be only for Twitpic as well. Also, for those that prefer landscape support, that's not found in the current version of the app (v1.02).
I hope to see updates in the future that will address the missing DM and different media upload services issue, as well as adding landscape support. But even now, Ubercurrent is definitely worth a try. The ads are currently non-obtrusive, so I don't necessarily see the need to get rid of them for the time being. But that's a matter of personal preference.
For the starting price of free, Ubercurrent is a definitely worth a try.
