Twitter apps are in plentiful supply on Android and choosing one can be a bit of a hit and miss affair. Having used Twidroid as my main Twitter app for sometime, I decided to give Swift a try as I felt Twidroid was getting a bit clunky. Swift claims it is “The best damn twitter app for Android†and that’s a big claim.
The key features are the usual access to mentions and direct messages but you can also search for trending topics or “search near meâ€. Searches can be saved also which can be quite useful.
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The UI is nice and tidy and the text is a nice size. Clicking on the main bar drops down a quick access menu which can be hidden again by clicking it. The icons on the top bar light up when you receive new DM’s or mentions but the icons are a little small. The new tweet button can be accessed from the top of the screen or through the phone’s menu button.
Clicking on received tweets opens up a new window that displays the tweet and links to any pics, sites etc within the tweet and there is also a link to the user’s profile which all open within an integrated, simple browser in Swift. You can also copy the text from tweets and even save them and send them to people via email, handy if you want to share tweets with others.
There is no option to change your profile picture and you can’t view your followers or who you are following, although there is a profile search function. You can also see your remaining API’s by clicking on the about button within the main menu.
You have all the usual notification options and connection seems to be quite quick and sending tweets is a painless affair. I haven’t had many connection issues so far but when using an app like this it’s hard to tell if tweets are taking long to load because it’s the app or because it’s Twitter itself. We all know that Twitter can be a little temperamental at times. Overall I like this app, it’s quick and looks nice and I think I will be sticking with it for a while to see how it develops.
Swift App is available for free in the Android Market.
I have tried Swift several times and always gone back to Twidroid. The main reason is the inconsistency of the UI like the icons showing up on the left and/or right side of the screen at various times and it's latency for updates.
While the UI is nice I prefer the more compact look of Twidroid but Swift is a nice 2nd place.
I've just uninstalled TwiDroid as it wouldn't allow me to upload images – kept saying it couldn't connect to phodroid (even though I'd set it to use YFrog!).
Swift works, so I'll use it :)