Nokia N9 has an amazing Twitter application which leaves almost nothing to be desired. Thanks to its latest update, your pictures, locations and messages can be shared wherever you are. But you don't have to be bound to the native Twitter app - there are very good alternatives around which are a joy to use. AllBout N9 picked out two of them, QNeptunea and TwimGo.The three "competitors"
Twitter by N9: The all-in-one solution
QNeptunea (beta): The trendsetter - modern, fast and fun to use
TwimGo: The technical one - not very intuitive, but overly-complex
(scroll down for downloads)
We tested them in following categories: Usability, Design, Completeness and Special Features.
Watch our Youtube-video for a short overview - more details below the video.
Usability
Twitter by N9
+ Very user-friendly and self-explaining
+ Easy to look for and add twitter users into tweets (are transformed automatically into @twitteruser)
+ Add pictures from gallery and current location very easily
+ A big blue "Tweet" button - we like that
+ Pictures in tweets can be opened within application
qNeptunea
+ Great navigation through different menus
+ Pop-up menu with sub-categories
+ Possibility to see Saved Searches mixed together
+ Very comfortable to write Tweets with adjustable input window
+ Media and current location can be added
+ Pictures can be opened within application and viewed in different sizes - great!
TwimGo
+ Pop-up menu with many options to find tweets or users
- Button to text new tweets seems a little bit hidden - it's called "Status"
- No options to add pictures to tweets (only current location)
- Graphic glitch in text input window (turns grey when texting)
- Feels overfilled, user interface could be improved
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| Twitter / qNeptunea / TwimGo (with graphical glitch) |
Design
Twitter by N9
With a general MeeGo Harmattan user interface, it looks good and neat plus has all the features of Harmattan (for
example fast scrolling through tweets). Even though the usability is
self-explaining, everything feels a bit static. Unfortunately auto-rotation isn't supported - tweets can only be written in portrait mode. That's a pity, since landscape mode often offers the best writing experience.
qNeptunea
Amazing design – choice between a white and dark
theme at witch the dark one looks outstanding, especially with N9’s amoled display. Furthermore you find customization options like font
size, icon sizes and more. Future versions of qNeptunea will even
include custom themes and fonts – we’re looking forward to those enhancements!
Thanks to the well thought-out user interface it’s totally easy and fast to use qNeptunea. Links, mentions and hashtags (#) are all shown in a different color and size.
By scrolling through tweets, the application header always
shows time and date – this makes scrolling not that fluid though. Auto-rotation is fully supported what enhances the experience even more.
I like to compare qNeptuneas user interface with N9’s MeeGo
Harmattan: Beautiful, fast, intuitive and a joy to use!
TwimGo
Supports two different themes: White
and dark one. The dark one looks very good, while the white one lacks of good
contrasts. TwimGo doesn’t use typical MeeGo design elements (matches Maemo 5 of Nokia N900), but it doesn’t look like a “foreign particle” at all. A strong features of TwimGo's design is landscape mode - Tweets are shown in a 4-square view which is a smart idea.
TwimGo loves buttons – there are tons of them everywhere. If
a tweet contains user names or links, TwimGo will show a button for that.
This can be confusing and feels to over-packed. But some users might like that,
because with the buttons you always know what you can do or access at.
Compared to the two previous applications, TwimGo doesn’t feel
as snappy and fast to use.
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| Landscape mode of qNeptunea (left) and TwimGo (right) - N9's Twitter app doesn't support that |
Completeness and special features
Twitter by N9
PR 1.2 added many more functions to Twitter. I don’t really
miss anything essential. It’s a completed mobile Twitter client which can
satisfy any Twitter user.
Tweets can be shown on N9’s feed screen and new tweets get your attention with
system-wide notifications.
Qneptunea
Has everything and more… Again, nothing essential is missing
– all seems to be there. Qneptunea allows you to click on everything - links, pictures, users etc. Although, I couldn't find a list of Retweets.
A great feature are customizations. This way everyone can
adapt Qneptunea to her/his needs and preferences.
Unfortunatley feed screen implemention and notifications are
missing. But if needed, you could use a mix of the native Twitter app and
Qneptunea.
TwimGo
Covers almost everything. While TwimGo let you look for and at
tweets in any possibile way, texting tweets doesn't go that well though. TwimGo is complex and shows that – but makes easily an overfilled impression. This application was ported from Maemo 5 to the N9, hence it doesn't support any MeeGo Harmattan features
Versions are available for Maemo 5, MeeGo and Symbian, an
advantage for users who switch between platforms or are new to MeeGo but
knowing TwimGo.
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| System-wide notifications with Twitter app / qNeptunea has amazing customization options |
All three applications are more than just usable. Twitter on N9 doesn't miss anything and is hard to beat with the flawless system integration. TwimGo isn't the newest application anymore and had its best time on Nokia N900 (Maemo 5). But I have to say, that TwimGo used to be for a long time the best Twitter client on the N9 - now with PR 1.2 and qNeptunea it has been left behind - still a good Twitter client though, but needs further development to catch up with the two competitors.
qNeptunea is very promising - our presented version (0.0.13) is a very early release and we will see lots of improvements until the official published version 1.0 in Nokia Store. But try it out - it will captivate you.
Download qNeptunea (download newest version from list)Download TwimGo from Nokia Store (free)How do you tweet from your N9? Please leave a comment.
twitter birds “Cute Twitters!” by Mirjami Manninen http://www.mirkku.com/
