When Apple announced iOS 7 back in June at WWDC 2013 Tweetbot fans were excited to see what the Tapbots developers had planned, but as the iOS 7 launch day arrived there was still no update in sight. After 4 months of hard work Tapbots answered with Tweetbot 3 for iPhone, a full-featured Twitter app re-designed from the ground up for iOS 7, priced at $2.991Tweetbot 3 on sale at $2.99 for a limited time, regular price of $4.99..
Tweetbot 3 has been re-imagined for iOS 7 and feels right at home thanks to its integration of icon outlines, the Helvetica Neue font, and circular avatars. With all Tapbots apps the amount of detail the developers have put in is clear with each perfectly placed pixel.
A swipe to the left on any tweet loads the ‘tweet detail’ screen giving easy access to conversations and replies to a tweet, image previews, faves and retweets counts, and many other tweet actions.
Tweet composer is now WYSIWYG2What you see is what you get. so you know exactly how your tweet will look before flooding your thoughts to the masses. The automatic syntax highlighting is useful for checking if you’ve got your #hashtags, @mentions, and URL correct. The draft feature, with total draft count, appears as a bottom right fold when the composer is blank.
Tweetbot 3 adds physics-based animations and gestures to improve the overall experience. Want to close an image? Simply hold down the image and flick it away. It’s these little touches that make Tapbots amazing.
For those media-rich timelines and lists, why not say goodbye to the world of just 140 characters and view Twitter as a ‘media timeline’ instead?
Twitter lists are no longer the focus in Tweetbot 3 and relocated to its own section within the 2 customisable tabs. This has been subject to much criticism and using lists as your timeline is making a return in Tweetbot 3.1. Two other dismissed features making a return in Tweetbot 3.1 include the ‘triple tap’ shortcut—now a swipe—and controlling text size—although support for iOS 7 Dynamic Type remains for those who prefer it.
Power users will be happy to see Tweetbot’s extensive muting system to hide tweets based on various conditions, including support for regex, among other power features such as multiple account support and iCloud sync for timeline location/DM read status across all versions of Tweetbot.
Tweetbot 3 isn’t a free update with Tapbots and many other developers adopting the paid update strategy for their iOS 7 revisions. Users may not agree with the strategy, but will have to ultimately decide if the new design and features are worth the price or settle with the old app. Tweetbot is also available for iPad—not yet re-designed for iOS 7—and for Mac.
