Review of RIM's Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones

Twitter for BlackBerry

Twitter for BlackBerry

Twitter for BlackBerry

I installed Twitter for BlackBerry this morning and am ready to share a few opinions on the product that I've put together so far. Overall, I think it's definitely worth your time and a download when it's publicly available, but there are still some spots that need polishing.

The application offers a clean dark blue and white user interface that's bright and easy to view. Along the top of the screen there are 7 icons: your home page, mentions, profile, direct messages, user name search, Twitter search, and trending topics. My biggest gripe from the start was that I could only view one and a half updates on the home screen, and even when scrolling I could only view two to three updates at the most. You can pull in tweets every 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or hour and display up to 100 at once.

The client mixes with your messages inbox if you choose to let it, but oddly you can only choose to have it update you whenever new Tweets come in or when you get a direct message, but not for when you've been mentioned. Also, to be alerted of direct messages you need to edit your phone's profile settings (under Other) as well the Twitter settings. Moving down the timeline, it's easy to tell if you're hovering over a photo or a link thanks to a lime-green highlight feature, and photos are opened directly within the client itself. Images rise from the bottom of the screen in a drawer-fashion. Replying to people also offers a similar interface in which a menu flows upward from the bottom of the screen. I do wish there was a way to jump back to the top of the timeline. Also, a scroll bar to alert me of how far down the timeline I am would be a welcome addition.

You can embed images into a status update by clicking a small camera icon underneath the status update box, but there isn't a URL shortener, a service offered by most Twitter clients. Also, it doesn't appear that you can include your current location inside a tweet (although you can set your location inside your Profile), however, locations that friends are tweeting are displayed within a map.

Twitter for BlackBerry shines above the gamut of half-baked BlackBerry Twitter applications out there. It's lacking a few features, but I don't see why they couldn't be added in the future. For a beta product it's certainly one I recommend you check out.