By September 10, 2011

Quick Review: TweetBook application for the Blackberry PlayBook

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I have recently become an avid Twitter fan because I was originally a Facebook fan. What I liked about Facebook was the ‘posting a status’ feature, however posting too many status’ was seen as socially wrong, whereas, on Twitter, you can post as many ‘Status’ or ‘Tweets’ as you like.

If you had not guessed from the opening rant, TweetBook is a Twitter app for the Blackberry PlayBook; and what a brilliant one it is. TweetBook has nearly all the features you’ll need from Twitter, the ability to view profiles, the ability to search tweets, the ability to view personal lists and the ability to follow and unfollow people within the application.

TweetBook is designed very similarly to the Mobile Twitter website that you find on tablets with the multiple panels and the options along the top bar. On the left panel you have your Tweets that you can scroll down through; scrolling is very smooth and reactive.

 

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When you click on a Tweet, it opens up another panel on the right half of the screen that allows you to see the Tweet and gives you other options for the Tweet. These options are to reply to the tweet, quote or Retweet the Tweet or message the Tweeter themselves. It also gives you the details of the Tweeter below the Tweet. However, what I find good is when you click on a Tweet that has a hyperlink or photo or video in it. When the Tweet is clicked on and it has a Web Hyperlink on it, it shall open up a wider panel so you can view the whole web page which includes Flash and everything you’d need and works well. It also gives you a option to open the link in the browser and to back and forth between web pages. If you were to click on a Tweet with a picture in, it would open up the panel with the picture instead of the Tweeter’s information; in addition, this picture can be clicked on to be enlarged.

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One novelty feature that I liked and adds to the stylishness of the application is the fact that the panels can be dragged from right to left. For example, if you have a panel with a web page in it, you can slide it back to normal size to be able to view other Tweets whilst the page loads. In addition, if you click on a Tweet, then within the Tweet, click on a Tweeter’s other Tweets, it opens up in a third panel which can then be dragged off to the left to get back to be able to see your Tweet lists. It may all sound complicated, but is very simple when using the app.

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Talking of ease of use, TweetBook can be picked up and learnt almost straight away. It is one of the most simplest Twitter applications excluding Blaq.
TweetBook obviously has its downfalls, as does every application. One of the most noticeable problems that I have noticed is that when writing a Tweet, you can’t just put the ‘@’ symbol and tag someone, you have to click on the ‘@’ symbol on the left and even this takes a while to load all the people you follow. Also what I have noticed with this application is that you cannot search for people when searching, if you type in a Tweeter’s name, it will show Tweets that have that name in them, not the Tweeter’s profile. This was a big letdown for me and led me to switching to Blaq for this simple task. Something else I noticed was that when looking at Tweeter’s profiles it shows limited information, in fact it only shows numbers of ‘Followers’ and ‘Following’. I would like it to show other information such as number of Tweets and Favourites and other profile information. Also, the application could do with a speed boost and some nice transitions.
In summary, this application is wonderful  with plenty of potential, but falls short of some simple features that other Twitter applications do brilliantly well. However, if the application were given a small update to fix the small issues, then it could be a contender for the best Twitter application for the PlayBook and the official Twitter application would have a lot to live up to when it comes out.

 

Posted by: Luke

Posted in: Reviews

About the Author:

Five year veteran of the site. BlackBerry specialist, but experienced in most operating systems. Enjoys flower arranging and cross stitch.
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