Twinkle: native Twitter app for iPhone with location-awareness
By Danny Mendez
Twinkle, a soon to be released iPhone and iPod Touch app, adds major Twitter functionality — including location-aware features — to Apple’s devices.
While currently unavailable, JustAnotheriPhoneBlog managed to get a sneak-peek at Twinkle release candidate 4. The public release should happen any day now, so keep an eye out for this one.
It seems the poster had a favorable impression of the app, praising Twinkle’s "roomy" posting screen, the ability to add pictures to posts, the user interface, and the new tweet indicator, which works by displaying the number of new tweets over the (software, not hardware) home button.
Another big feature to look out for is "Locate Me", which is available through the "Near Me" tab. It allows you to see tweets from fom anyone within a certain distance from you. The default is 50 miles, but it can be shortened to 1 mile and expanded to 252,000.
While Twinkle is definitely an intersting app worthy of a test run by any iPhone wielding Twitter user, Locate Me requires other Twitter members with an iPhone and Twinkle. As a result, the app might suffer from the "Zune effect" — no one shares songs between Zunes because Zune users can’t find each other — so Twitter users may never have a chance to truly use Locate Me.
Can’t wait for Twinkle to get to Twittering on your iPhone? Other Twitter programs exist including Thincloud, a basic Twitter web app. However, unlike Thincloud, Twinkle is a native application, and native programs are typically more convenient than web apps.
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April 10th, 2008
This is great news, I’m already using MobileTwitter on my iphone and Twinkle sounds like an even better version of it.
I’m @waynesutton on twitter and I want to Twinkle
April 29th, 2008
What about those of us who don’t care for iPhones and use a Blackberry Curve or something else? Twinkle seems cool, but you could double your market if the app was cross-platform.