Twitter on Windows Mobile 6

Over the last month or two I’ve been looking for a Twitter client for my HTC Touch Pro, as I wasn’t too keen on the mobile web version. I asked for recommendations on Twitter and the majority of people recommended either Pocketwit or Twikini.

I downloaded both clients so I could test them out simultaneously on the device during my day to day activities. All pictures taken from the relevant twitter client site. So here are my findings:

Pocketwit

Pocketwit had the more flash of the two interfaces, allowing the user to scroll up and down the timeline using via the phones touch screen. The tweets were in a nice big font with the person avatar to the right hand side.

Navigation was performed by dragging the tweets either left for context specific options on a tweet or right for a main menu like set of options. Whilst this looked excellent I found the binding to selected tweet was a little dodgy as sometimes the context menu wasn’t for the currently selected tweet.

I also had problems swapping from vertical to horizontal screen orientation when I opened the keyboard. The screen would get stuck in the previous orientation which meant options and navigation became a bit fiddly.

Twikini

Twikini has a more classic windows feels to it and doesn’t take advantage of the touch screen for navigation. Friends, Mentions and Direct Message are selectable from a menu option which then loads the appropriate timeline.

The tweets themselves are not always displayed in full, so you do have to open a tweet from time to time to read it in its completeness. Each tweet has the users avatar to the right of their tweet, and the text is in a very readable font.

During my use of Twikini I didn’t encounter any of the selection and orientation problems I had with Pocketwit, which has lead me to stump up the huge charge of $5 to get a full license :) A couple of weeks on, and I’m still happy with the client.

If I were to change anything about Twikini I would include some sort of status bar on it so I can see any new mentions or direct message, as currently I have to open those timelines up explicitly to see if any have arrived.

Conclusion

Both are cracking clients, but for the time being I’ll stick with Twikini, even though Pocketwit is free. Once Pocketwit gets out of Beta I’ll be revisiting it to see if they’ve managed to sort out the bugs that were enough for me to opt for Twikini.