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Always Be Up To Speed On Twitter With TweetStream

April 19, 2012

TweetStream - A Realtime Twitter client (Free) by Rivolu Pte Ltd is a real-time Twitter app for your iPhone.

Twitter is something that can be a bit hard to understand if you're new to it. It's one of my favorite methods of communication though, and it can be really effective. For those that still wonder about Twitter, I'd recommend watching Robin Rhys' video about making Twitter fun.

TweetStream is a new app that focuses on the real-time updating of Twitter, rather than be an all-in-one app, such as Tweetbot or the official Twitter app. If you don't necessarily care about staying on top of your timeline, then TweetStream may not be for you. But if you do care about staying up-to-date on everything that happens on Twitter, TweetStream is perfect for that.

The app uses your Twitter accounts via iOS 5 integration. Once you grant it permission to use all of your accounts, the main screen will be shown. There are two bars at the top to navigate between: Trends/Timeline/Search bar, and the accounts bar — assuming if you are running multiple accounts.

You can swipe on the accounts bar to view all of your available accounts, and then tap on the one that you want to see the timeline of. The selected account will be highlighted in yellow, so it’s easy to differentiate from the rest. Once the account is selected, you can switch between the Trends, Timeline, or Search views.

Even though I’m not a huge fan of Trends on Twitter (they always seem stupid, for the most part), I like how TweetStream implements it. Just like the accounts bar, you can view the top 10 trends, and select one that you want to see the tweets for.

The Timeline view will be just your regular Twitter timeline; in other words, the default view on Twitter. Unfortunately, you can’t manage lists, DMs, mentions, favorites, or any other features on Twitter that you can find in other apps. You only get the Timeline view and nothing more.

The Search view is useful if you prefer to use Twitter as your default search tool, since you can see what real people are saying about a topic. You can search for new keywords, and even access your most recent searches from the list.

Regardless of which view you picked, TweetStream will show you new tweets as they come in using the live stream feature of the Twitter API. If you keep the tweets scrolled to the top, then new tweets will automatically push down older ones as soon as they come in. While this is great for staying on top of everything that happens, it can be a bit too fast-paced if you are following a lot of people (since I follow almost 900 people, it moves way too fast during peak hours).

If you scroll down to catch up on tweets while the live streaming is on, there will be an indicator on the bottom (displaying “…”) to let you know that new tweets have come in. Of course, if it just moves too fast for you overall, the live stream feature can be paused with the button at the bottom; to resume, just tap it again. There is a button that will hide the top bar (the second bar will still remain), giving you more space to view tweets.

Tapping on a tweet allows you to select it, and you can reply, retweet, or favorite it. Additionally, you can view someone’s profile, follow/unfollow, send them a mention, view their tweets, and even see their mentions. If someone tweets to much, you can also add them to your mute list within TweetStream.

Of course, what is a Twitter app without the ability to tweet from it? TweetStream allows users to compose tweets, though it is not a fancy screen — instead, it’s just the native iOS 5 Twitter integrated compose screen. It also offers the bare minimum, so you can only send text tweets (no multimedia) and attach a location.

The app includes several options in the settings menu. Management of muted users, account selection prompt for retweets and favorites, and even the option for the old “RT” style retweet can be found here. If you care about trends, you can set filters or choose the location of trends that you want to see.

TweetStream is good if you just want to see tweets as they come in. However, if you’re a power user and require management of mentions, DMs, lists, retweets, and more, then TweetStream won’t be able to replace your main Twitter client.

Check out TweetStream for yourself and let us know how you like it. It's available for free for a limited time in the App Store.

UPDATE: The app does support mentions, actually. Users will have to swipe left from the timeline. The developer has informed me that there will be more features added in later.

Mentioned apps

$1.99
#TweetStream for Twitter
Rivolu Pte Ltd
$2.99
Tweetbot for Twitter (iPhone & iPod touch)
Tapbots
Free
Twitter
Twitter, Inc.

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