There are people who genuinely can’t stand Adobe Air applications. I don’t know why - sometimes the skin you’re in doesn’t matter when it’s executed incredibly well. Thus is the case with DestroyTwitter, which has evolved from an overly complicated yet powerful client into a focused, well-oiled machine.
What’s remarkable in DestroyTwitter 2 is just how refined it feels on the Mac despite its Air origins. Featuring a non-standard yet still sexy black title bar, multi-touch gestures, and a pleasant user interface that shouldn’t dissuade new users from DestroyTwitter’s industrial look and feel.
Running through the features, DestroyTwitter no longer consolidates all of your options in the preferences, and instead places things like URL shortening at the actual tweet drawer – a smart move that enables users to change their services at any time without navigating elsewhere in the app. DestroyTwitter offers appropriate, contextual actions where users need them throughout the app.
Divided into canvases, DestroyTwitter allows users to easily move through the interface by clicking on a tab. At Home, you’ll find your timeline intact, scrolling automatically as Twitter users chirp about the world around them. Mentions and Messages are pretty self explanatory, and Search allows you to instantly discover how many people are talking about MacStories on the inter-webs.
Some features of DestroyTwitter still aren’t obvious, and it mainly shows with a series of arrows you might find in the top right corner of each canvas. I’m not sure how DestroyTwitter determines how far it goes, but your arrows allow you to quickly travel forwards and backwards through your timeline - kind of like rewind and fast-forward buttons. The double arrows take you to the latest tweet, which is useful if you happen to lose your way. The check button is where you can configure various options (like refresh rate and tweets per page), and you’ll find this button as you highlight individual tweets and explore other canvases.
On the topic of options, DestroyTwitter is one of the few Twitter clients I’ve found that actually let you refresh tweets every thirty seconds. Most clients will default refresh rates to every three minutes, and some won’t even give you an option to change the setting.
As far as the timeline goes, I do miss proper Retweet abilities, as you’re confined to the traditional “/ via” or “RT” rather than Twitter’s built in, more elegant solution (Retweed by). Otherwise, included is an incredibly nifty filter feature where I can remove users from my timeline based on client, username, or keywords.
I won’t delve into Mentions or Messages (not much has changed here), though I will say that the performance of DestroyTwitter 2 has substantially improved over the last version. While the original DestroyTwitter could easily eat away at 100MB of memory, version two settles around 45MB for me, with developer claims of lows around 25MB. For an Adobe Air client, this doesn’t feel bloated at all, nor does it make your Macbook’s fan churn at every launch. In comparison, Tweetie uses around 35MB at launch.
Currently missing is the ability to theme DestroyTwitter (a feature from the previous version) and manage Groups, which the developer says he’ll be re-implementing as those features are improved for this latest version.
Sure DestroyTwitter is an Adobe Air application, but if there’s only one to run, this is it. I’m impressed with how well it feels, and how easy it is to get into this version compared to the first. Plus, the visual style is gorgeous, and the entire application features subtle animations and notifications that make for an engaging experience.
Make sure to read about all the new launch features at DestroyToday, and download DestroyTwitter from the *launch page.
*If the site is down, try again later. The developer has recently moved to a new host, and there may be some issues to iron out. In the meantime, you can find a direct download link here.
