I use Tweetbot for iPhone as my primary portal to Twitter, and I’ve been following the Tapbots duo of @TapbotPaul and @MarkJardine on Twitter for a while now, and over the past few months, they’ve done their best to make it seem like Tweetbot for iPad was a while away – all the while teasing us […]
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Tweetbot for iPad is Here (And it’s Incredible)

Feb 8th 2012 by

I use Tweetbot for iPhone as my primary portal to Twitter, and I’ve been following the Tapbots duo of @TapbotPaul and @MarkJardine on Twitter for a while now, and over the past few months, they’ve done their best to make it seem like Tweetbot for iPad was a while away – all the while teasing us with the notion that app #006 was coming soon. Then I logged on earlier this afternoon and saw this @Tweetbot tweet, announcing the release of the app I’d been told not to expect. Oh.

One of the things I should mention right off the bat is that Tweetbot for iPad is not a universal app; it’s a completely separate $2.99 purchase, regardless of whether or not you own Tweetbot for iPhone. I always appreciate it when apps become universal after an update, as was the case with apps like Twitterrific and 2Do, but I don’t have any problems with paying $2.99 for the iPad version of Tweetbot. There’s really nothing else like it out there, and I’ve wanted to see this app on my iPad so badly that I’m very happy to trade the price of a coffee for a robot-shaped portal to Twitter.

Tapbots Charm

The usual Tapbots charm is well intact in Tweetbot for the iPad, so you can expect that every tappable or scrollable element responds beautifully. Much like the puzzle games from the Kieffer Bros., the animation and the feel behind Tweetbot for iPad make the whole UI come to life; elements in the app feel tactile and are accompanied perfectly by the sound effects. This is beep, boop, beep at its best.

Tweetbot All Grown Up

This iPad version of Tweetbot has also scaled very nicely from the iPhone interface we already know and love. Landscape has a great two-panel layout with generous spacing for section headers (Timeline, Replies, etc.) along the left side, while Portrait mode focuses mainly on the Timeline view and shrinks all of the headers to show just the icons.

One great touch is the addition of text to the pop-up controls that appear after you tap on a tweet. The buttons for Reply, Retweet, Favorite, Actions, and Details are made up descriptive text and icons. Tapbots could simply have jammed more buttons into this section and relied purely upon icons, but I’m very glad they opted for a simpler, clearer control scheme instead. Relying on icons to relay functionality can work on the iPhone because there’s not enough space to show everything, but the iPad has a lot more space to play with, and I love it when developers make the effort to take advantage of that fact (something PhotoForge2 could still learn).

Tapbots also does something very clever with their Twitter profile view. It’s a little tough to describe in text, so I filmed a quick video that should get my point across:

I really wouldn’t call this post a review because I’ve only had this app for a couple of hours, but seeing as Tweetbot for iPad has kept all of what I loved about the initial iPhone version intact, I have no hesitation in recommending it. I think the official Twitter for iPad app is interesting, but too convoluted, and although I’ve been happy with Twitterrific for months now, I feel instantly at home with Tweetbot. The duo at Tapbots basically designed exactly what I needed in secret, asked for $3, and then delivered the best Twitter client I couldn’t possibly have imagined.

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