There are a few good iPad Twitter applications available. Osfoora is a very popular twitter client and this is for a good reason. In this review I’ll go through the main functionalities of Osfoora.
Osfoora has 6 main screens which will be described here. There are also 2 other screens which are important in Osfoora: “New Tweet” and “Profile”
New Tweet
The new tweet button is visible on the top right corner of every screen except from the “Nearby” screen. I like the way the new screen button is implemented in Osfoora.
It doesn’t matter in which of the other 5 screens you are, the button is always available within 2 taps on the screen and most of the time within one tap. The new tweet screen looks good in portrait modus, but in my opinion better in landscape modus. I think this is because the iPad’s on-screen keyboard is larger and better to use in landscape modus.
When composing a new tweet you directly see from which account you’re logged in into because you see the Profile picture from the account you’re posting from. There’s a large textbox on which you’re able to enter the 140 characters.
Below the textbox there are 7 buttons.
Add Picture: Add a picture from the iPad’s Photo Album (yFrog, TwitPic, Posterous, img.ly, TweetPhoto)
Tweet Song: Tweet the current playing song or tweet a song from the Library
@Reply: Add an @-Reply to a twitter user you’re following. (This also has the Random #FF button)
Location: Add your location to the Tweet.
Hash-tag: Add a hash-tag to your tweet. Recent searches are automatically added to the Hash-tag quicklist.
Shortening tweet: Shorten your tweet when you’re past the 140 allowed characters. (I didn’t get this to work)
X-button: Clear everything in the textbox.
Profile
The profile screen becomes visible when you tap on a twitter user’s profile picture. This view has a lot of functionality and depends if it’s your own user profile or a user profile from an other twitter user:
View user stats: View the number of followers, following, tweets and favorites of the user.
When you push one of these stats you’ll get to see the list of the selected stat. For example here a screenshot after selecting my following stat.
Mentions: See the list of mentions from the twitter user.
User’s Lists: See the list of twitter-lists the user created.
Lists follwing paul: See the list of twitter-lists which follow the user.
Lists user follows: See the list of twitter-lists the user follows.
Create new List (Only on your own profile): Create a new twitter-list.
Retweets by me (Only on your own profile): See the list of all the Tweets you’ve Retweeted:
My Tweets, Retweeted (Only on your own profile):See the list of all your Tweets, Retweeted by others:
Retweets by others (Only on your own profile): See the list of all Tweets whom your followers Retweeted
Edit Profile (Only on your own profile): Change your profile settings.
List Membershipt (Only on other’s profile): Add the user to one of your twitter-lists
Follow / Unfollow user (Only on other’s profile): Follow or unfollow the twitter user.
Block user (Only on other’s profile): Block the current user
Report user as spam (Only on other’s profile): Report user as spam
Send Message (Only on other’s profile): Send the user a Mention or DM
Settings
The Settings button shows a screen overlay with the Osfoora HD Settings. With the settings it is possible to customize the application the way you like it.
Pretty interesting settings are the Follow Friday Setting in which you’re able to set the Follow Friday Settings from Osfoora HD.
In the settings-Section “Services” you can choose which services you’d like to use for several functions. In the “Image Service” section there are 5 different services, but I miss one: Mobypicture. I hope the developer will add this service in a next release.
I would recommend to change the “Split View” setting to “On”.
When you have split view set to on, the screen in landscape modus splits into 2. On the left side you’ll see your normal Tweets and on the right side you’ll see one specific tweet with ten buttons.
Reply: Write a reply to this tweet
Favorite: Mark the tweet as favorite
Retweet: Retweet the current tweet. (You’ve got the possibility to Retweet or make a “Quoted Retweet”)
Direct Message: Reply to the twitter user with a Direct Message
Mail: Mail the tweet from one of your mailaccounts. A new message is directly composed inside Osfoora
Translate: Translate the current tweet in English
Delete: Delete the current tweet (only possible for your own tweets)
Navigate up & Down: Quickly scroll one tweet up or down.
Timeline
The timeline is obviously the most used screen of Osfoora HD. Here I’ll describe in detail what can be found on the Timeline screen. Of course here you’ll see all the tweets in your timeline, and if you’ve selected “Split view” in the settings, You’ll also see the options for the selected tweet.
Above the timeline there’s a filter tweet textbox, to search for text in tweets in your timeline.
The top-bar is in most screens different. Only in the ‘Timeline’ and the ‘Mentions’ it is the same. It shows in total 7 buttons.
Twitter Accounts: The most left button on the top is the “Twitter Accounts” button. With this button it is possible to manage your Twitter accounts within Osfoora. Most people only will have 1 twitter account, but if you manage more than one twitter account this is the place to add another account and switch to the selected account.
Settings: Displays the Settings overlay, which was described above
Profile: Displays the Profile screen from the current twitter account
Go to top: The button go to top scrolls you to the top of the screen.
Mark Tweets as read: The button mark tweets as read, marks all the tweets in the current screen as read.
Drafts & Snippets:In the drafts & Snippets overlay it is possible to save drafts and snippets. A draft can be made by composing a new tweet and pressing the “Close” button. But more about that in the next paragraph.
New Tweet: Create a new tweet
Mentions
The mentions screen shows all the buttons on the top of the screen just like the Timeline screen. But the tweets in this screen only shows mentions to the currend twitter account.
Messages (DM’s)
The messages screen shows the Twitter usernames from whom you’ve received or sent DM’s. Behind the twitter username you’ll also see a number indicating the number of messages communicated with the user.
When entering a DM conversation you’ll see wich DM’s you’ve send to and received from the selected contact.
In the main Messages Screen there are 4 buttons in the top:
Edit: For deleting a specific conversation with a contact.
Mark tweets as read: Mark all the DM’s as read.
DM to contact: Select a contact and directly compose a DM to the selected contact.
New Tweet: Create a new tweet (This isn’t particular a DM, but just the normal new tweet button)
Search
The Search Screen automatically adds an overlay of the Recent Searches. When tapping one of these search-queries Osfoora searches the latest tweets which match the search value.
On top of the search screen there’s a large textbox for entering the search string. Right next to the textbox there are 6 buttons:
Saved Searches: Displays an overly of all your saved searches.
Save Search: Adds the current search text in the textbox to the saved searches.
I found out that the Save Search functionality doesn’t always work the way I think it should. I think that when you push the save search button, and then push the “Saved Searches” button, the saved search should be visible in the “Saved Searched” overlay. It turns out that the only way to get the search string into the “Saved Searches” overlay is by restarting the application.
Recent Searches: The recent Searches is also an overlay and displays a list of all the recent searches in alphabetical order.
Search User: Enter the username in the textbox and push the “Search User” button to find the profile details of the searched user.
Twitter trends: Shows a list of the current Top 10 trends on Twitter. Tap one of the items in the list to search the selected trend.
New tweet: Create a new tweet
Lists
The Lists screen shows an overlay of all the list you’ve created and all the lists you’re following. Selecting a list will display all the tweets from all the users in the list.
This screen only has 2 buttons on the top:
Lists: Shows all the lists you’ve created and all the lists you follow. When selecting a list, all the tweets from this lists are shown in the main screen.
New tweet: Create a new tweet.
Favorites
The favorites screen shows all the tweets you’ve marked as a favorite. It shows 2 buttons on the top:
Accounts: Manage your twitter accounts.
New tweet: Create a new tweet
Nearby
The nearby screen shows a Google Maps screen with twitter balloons for every nearby tweet. I don’t know for sure, but I think here you’ll see only tweets from the last 24-hours or so.
Final thoughts and wrap-up
I’ve been using Osfoora for a couple of days now and must say that I really like the application a lot.
It’s one of the best applications I’ve installed on my iPad at the moment and basically when I need to read my recent tweets or write a new tweet I always use Osfoora. There are a few points the developer should work out in a next version. High on my personal want-list is mobypicture integration as a photo service.
Other points I’ve mentioned in the review are the saved search addition after the restart of the application and (which I didn’t mention) I’d like to see the DM chat style in a different way. The DM chat-style doesn’t fit the layout of the rest of the application in my opinion.
Those are just small comments on an application I basically don’t need to criticize. Because it’s just one great Twitter application!
