Brizzly for Twitter

Rather than trying to be all things to all users, Brizzly (free) focuses on providing a simple and clean user interface with a focus on the key features that most Twitter users are likely to need. A main menu provides quick access to the user’s timeline, mentions, direct messages, and favorites as well as options to view their own profile, tweets, or perform a search. Twitter timelines are presented as a series of conversation bubbles which you can tap on to view more details. Brizzly also nicely provides a timestamp bookmark whenever new tweets are loaded so you can see where you left off in your Twitter stream. Brizzly is not a direct Twitter client, but interfaces with Twitter through the Brizzly.com service.

Echofon / Echofon Pro

Twitterfon, has been renamed Echofon and split into two versions: the standard Echofon remains free, but is now ad-supported. A paid version, Echofon Pro ($5), removes the ads and provides global Push Notification support. It’s also worth noting that users can upgrade from the free version to the Pro version via in-app purchase, which saves users the trouble of having to install the Pro version separately and reconfigure all of their settings.

Over the past year Echofon has continued to advance with a facelift and support for numerous new features, including Twitter Lists, new-style retweets, saved searches and video support. Echofon displays the standard bottom menu bar to allow you to choose from the main timeline, mentions or direct messages as well as browsing lists and performing searches. All links are active in the main timeline, allowing you to quickly open a link by tapping directly in the timeline, however this can also make it difficult to get to the detailed tweet view as you need to be careful to tap away from any active links. Replies can also be shown in a threaded conversation view, and links can be saved to either Instapaper or Read It Later.

HootSuite / HootSuite Lite

HootSuite is an iPhone Twitter client targeted primarily at users of the HootSuite Professional desktop solution. Users can choose to sign in to their existing HootSuite account, create a new account or simply add Twitter accounts directly without connecting to the HootSuite service. HootSuite is available in two versions: The full HootSuite ($2) provides support for unlimited Twitter accounts and built-in statistics tracking. The free HootSuite Lite version is limited to three accounts and does not provide stats.

Compared to other iPhone Twitter clients, HootSuite provides relatively basic functionality at this point, with its strongest focus being on its desktop integration. Different streams are shown in a menu layout for each account, with a menu bar at the bottom allowing quick access to stats, search and settings options. The timelines themselves are presented in a standard view and users can swipe left and right to quickly switch between timelines.

SimplyTweet

SimplyTweet($5) provides the standard three streams for friends, mentions and direct messages as well as a search option. Users can choose from several attractive themes to display timelines. New tweets are highlighted and viewing and reading tweets works in the usual way. SimplyTweet provides a landscape view for both reading and composing, a threaded conversation view and user profile and follower management. Links can be saved to Instapaper for later reading.

When composing new tweets, users can post photos or videos, add a map link to the current location and shorten URLs or shorten text. Oddly, the iPhone camera can be used to take pictures, but videos can only be uploaded from the saved photo library.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck (free) for the iPhone stems from a companion desktop application of the same name, and its design is heavily influenced by its desktop sibling. Rather than the standard multi-page UI that most Twitter apps have adopted, TweetDeck uses a customizable column paradigm instead, with each stream separated into its own column. Users can move between columns either by swiping left or right or tapping on the Columns button to display a zoomed-out column browsing view. Although TweetDeck starts users out with a default set of columns, every view is fully customizable, so users can choose which streams they want to view, and add additional customized streams for saved searches, Twitter Lists, or local groups.

A total number of updates from all columns is shown in the bottom left corner, and tapping on this button brings up a detailed list of the number of new items in each column. You can skip to the appropriate column by tapping on its name in the unread items listing. TweetDeck synchronizes columns with its desktop counterpart via a separate TweetDeck account, but it’s worth noting that not all column types are synchronized at this point: For example, local groups and locally saved searches sync, however Twitter List columns do not.

Which is your fav twitter app?, i would love to hear from you! =)