Twitter App Showdown: Echofon Pro vs Tweetie 2

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Twitter is a necessary evil. And so is the iPhone. (But that has nothing to do with this review at all.)

It’s an unholy amalgamation. But so much information is readily available on Twitter that it’s become an undeniable necessity amongst Internet junkies. Like everything else in Apple’s App Store there’s an absurd amount of apps dedicated to the free service. With a slew of free ones that are mostly crap and a handful of paid apps, it’s difficult to discern if any are worth the money. And, no, higher price tags in this case don’t equate to higher quality. Or do they?

(More on Time.com: The 50 Best Inventions of 2009)

Tweetie 2 vs Echofon Pro

I’ll make this simple. Both are full featured and do the basics: tweet, retweet, ability to upload images/videos, geotag, instapaper integration, support for multiple accounts and so on. But each offers something entirely unique to the experience that makes them both so compelling.

Echofon Pro (v2.5.1)

Likes
-Push notifications
-Syncs with desktop app
-Difference in color between new and old tweets

Dislikes
-Settings are not embedded within the app
-Unable to natively send links within tweets
-No draft manager
-Lacks URL shortener
-Push notifications are sporadic (I think every 15 minutes)
-“My Profile” is only accessible from the mentions tab

Tweetie 2 (v2.1)

Likes
-Self contained. No need to go into Settings to tweak
-Built-in URL shortener
-Profile and avatar are updateable
-Draft manager
-Translates tweets
-Support for Lists including creating, editing, etc.
-Report spam
-Full UI caching

Dislikes
-Retweets are pushed out without additional comment
-Doesn’t sync with desktop app (but it’s coming.)
-Difficult to tell which tweets are new and which ones are old
-No push notification

(More on Time.com: Top iPhone Apps)

The list could go on forever with each app, but I felt these were the most pertinent based on how I use Twitter. My default app is Tweetie 2 because of how well it’s organized and streamlined, but I prefer the way Echofon Pro displays new versus old tweets. EP is more straight forward and gives you the bare bones functions while T2 requires a tiny bit of experimenting to figure out what gestures it recognizes. For instance, swiping a particular tweet will pull up a menu that lets you retweet, email, open a link, etc., which is extremely helpful for power users. However, its feature list dwarfs that of EP, so if you want the one that has all the bells and whistles (with a couple minor caveats) then I’d suggest Tweetie 2. T2 is only $3 while EP goes for $5.

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