I was going to write up a comparison of various Twitter clients available for S60 mobile phones, but since I haven’t gotten around to it, here’s a list of various apps and approaches.
Native Symbian apps
I generally prefer native apps over Java applets, but in many cases, this means you have to pay for the quality.
- Twittix (4,95€)
- Gravity (7,72€)
- WirelessIRC (15,48€)
- TweetS60 (free)
- TwitS60 (free)
I tried Gravity’s free demo, but the demo’s limitation of not being able to post tweets made it hard to get a day to day feel for the app. Still, it seems quite good, and I’d definitely buy it were I not about to switch phones. (Gravity is bound to the device’s IMEI code.)
NokiaExperts compares Gravity and Twittix, and while they declare a draw, Gravity seems to come out on top.
WirelessIRC is from the same maker as Gravity, but has a wider set of features.
An interesting project to follow is TwitS60, an open source Twitter app in the works. Originally slated for a release in July–August 2009, it seems there hasn’t been much going on since early spring.
Java
As I said above, I generally prefer native apps over Java software, but with Twitter clients, if you don’t want to pay, then Java’s what you get.
Twibble is clearly the front-runner of these apps. The app itself works well, but the settings interface and tweet actions contextual menu are quite jarring.
I haven’t used all of these, but based on their sites, screenshots and feature lists, Twibble and Twim stand out.
Web
Twitter’s own mobile interface if fairly good, but it lacks some basic features, such as deleting tweets — and considering how error-prone typing is on mobile phones, it’s a feature that I’ve sorely lacked.
I haven’t used Dabr or Slandr, but they both describe themselves as more full-featured versions of Twitter Mobile.
Others
Finally, there are the strange ones. Via Twitter’s IM and email posting API, there are many other possibilities of using Twitter.
The usually impressive Fring claims Twitter support, though in the first version, it definitely was an underwhelming experience. Fring basically slopped bunches of tweets as chat messages.
Another mongrel of an app is Jargong.
There are, of course, more apps and web interfaces out there.
Final notes
If you want the best client available, I recommend Gravity. Out of the free apps, I recommend Twibble. Casual use is served perfectly well by the web interfaces.
All in all, the apps available for S60 devices aren’t nearly as nice as those for the iPhone. But then again, the same goes for the apps for a Mac versus the ones for Windows.
Update: Added TweetS60 on August 24th, 2009.
