I really don’t know how many Twitter clients for iPhone are available in the AppStore. 2000? 3000? Most of them are unusable apps, Twitter.com ripoffs sold as native apps or even ugly copies of other applications. Then there’s the elite, the “Upper East Side” of Twitter clients: you can see Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twittelator, Birdbrain and Twitbit walking there. They’re feature rich apps, with awesome interfaces and great ideas.
Now, developing an elitè Twitter app for iPhone nowadays is hard: I mean, you have to face Loren Brichter, and this is not exactly what people call “an easy task”. But a few developers understood that the big deal is not goin’ against Tweetie: it’s developing an application users would use together with Tweetie. Something different, yet usable and sexy.
Meet Reportage.
Reportage is a unique Twitter client which, rather than give you a list of unread Twitter updates, lets you “listen” to your Twitter followers as if they were radio stations. Indeed, the main screen of Reportage is made by user’s pics with a badge showing the number of unread news. Tapping on a profile picture will open a new screen - which seems a vintage radio tuner - from where you can “switch broadcasts” in the bottom part and read status updates on the top.
Very straightforward.
While reading the news feed, you can tap on a single tweets to open a new screen with a bunch of options: you can reply, retweet (called “Resend” in Reportage), mark user as favorite or send a DM. This is pretty much a classic. Tapping on the “i” you can view a user’s profile with info, mute and unfollow features. The star feature is really useful and interesting: by starring a user you can later read his tweets into a “private” section of the application where only the users you care most go. Another elite, basically.
Reportage has a “timeline” feature too. Actually, you can’t read a list of tweets like you do on Tweetie, but you can read tweets mentioning you and your tweets. You can also read your direct messages, which - and that’s weird - aren’t threaded, hope the devs will implement this in the near future. (together with delicious / Instapaper support)
Overall, Reportage is awesome, and there’s no doubt about it. It’s different from any Twitter client you’ve tried, has a stunning UI (that kind of UI I wish Tweetie 2 will have someday) and it’s smooth.It’s one of those apps you’ll be proud of soon. Sure, at $3.99 doesn’t exactly come cheap but if you’re a heavy user of Twitter I think you should purchase it right now.
And by the way, nothing comes cheap in the Upper East Side.
