Even after the most recent UI refresh, Twitter on the web is far from optimal to consume the tweets & mentions from our friends and followers. The meteoric rise of Twitter’s popularity and adoption is attributed mainly to the third party apps – both on desktop and mobile. These apps made Twitter “cool”.
For a long time now, Tweetie has been the leader in the Mac and mobile apps market. After getting acquired by Twitter, new updates are hard to come by and people are waiting for the next killer indie app. Enter Weet for Mac.
After the jump we will take stock as to whether Weet has got what it takes to be the ultimate Mac Twitter companion.
Overview
Weet for Mac comes from the the house of Raptor Apps, the makers of the popular Twitter client that goes by the same name. Weet for Mac is currently in beta and is free to use till then. While there is no official homepage yet and no official download links have been put up, you can find the download link from here.
The version available for download is a bit old, but after installing you will be notified of any new updates. If not, you can upgrade to the latest one from Weet ->Check for Updates from the menubar.
Installation & Set Up
Login Screen
After a simple single click installation and updating to the newest version, a login credential submission page shows up. Once you enter the login info, the app gets down to business right away and all tweets, mentions and direct messages are populated.
If you have new tweets or messages, the appropriate section gets a blue dot over it to draw your attention. For those of you who haven’t got a mention or message in a while, don’t get excited if you see blue dots since the app considers older tweets as newer ones upon first launch.
The interface is clean and refined. At first glance, one can be sure that Weet for Mac is not a Tweetie clone but a very refined version of it. First, the user interface is more streamlined and compact than Tweetie for Mac. For instance, the sidebar navigation of Tweetie has been ditched for that of a navigation with buttons. The design is minimal and the blue & white color theme is soothing.
Timeline & Tweets
Timeline View
The timeline display is standard, with a profile pic and the tweet displayed side by side. Options to reply to it, add it to favorites and retweet it are available on the top right corner of every tweet.
Profile View
A nicely designed and thoroughly compiled profile page is displayed if you click on the profile pic of an account. All the vital stats you were looking for – followers & following count, number of tweets, URL etc. are shown. If the user is or isn’t following, that is also shown as well. All the tweets, mentions and favorites of the user can be accessed from the respective tabs.
Mute Options
After a while, if you find an account to be too noisy or tweeting irrelevant things, you have the option to mute them from the tweet stream. Alternatively, you can just block them if needed.
Lists
Creating a List
Weet for Mac gives access to your existing lists or. if you don’t have one, lets you create a new list from the app itself.
List creation works the same old fashioned way, give a name to the list and start adding accounts to it. It took some time for the list creation to complete though!
Saved Searches & Trends
Saved Searches & Trending Topics
The search tab is home to saved searches and trending topics. To create and save a search, start exploring the results by searching for keywords. Once you find the right keyword that brings in perfect results, come back and hit the + button to save it. Multiple searches can be saved in the same manner.
Trending Tweets
Weet for Mac shows the list of trending topics and hashtags in real time. While tweets related to the topic were displayed neatly, I could not see them updating in real time like tweets in my timeline did.
The tweet compose section allows you to add an image from the desktop. If you have lengthy URLs in the tweet, Weet for Mac will shorten it for you as tiny bit.ly URLs. Links open up in the default browser and there is no support for Instapaper or Read it Later yet.
Final Thoughts
While the Weet for Mac icon on the dock shows the number of unread tweets, the one on the menu bar doesn’t. This could be considered a bit of an inconvenience if you have a hidden dock like me, though equally you might prefer not to have a constant reminder of new tweets anyway.
Also, notification alerts — like those offered by many desktop apps — might be a welcome addition in future releases. There were a few crashes and connection errors while using the app but considering the fact that this a beta app, it was very bearable.
I guess the inspiration for developers of Weet for Mac is “What Tweetie would have been had it not been acquired?”. And to their credit, they have gotten a lot of things right. If Tweetie adopts a rapid development schedule to play catch up, this space will definitely heat up – to our delight!