If you’re a dedicated Twitter user and have been relying on the website to get your fix, a standalone app is something worth looking into. These clients introduce new features and quality of life improvements to your Twitter experience, along with removing some of the frustrations of the official Twitter app.
Why Use a Dedicated Twitter App
While the official Twitter app is fine, it does have a few shortcomings that standalone clients try to fix. And those little improvements can go a long way to make using Twitter more enjoyable. Here are just a few general features that many apps offer:
- Timeline Options: Sometimes Twitter can be really stubborn about your timeline if you want to use chronological mode. It’s well-known that Twitter often users to the algorithmic or “Home” timeline even after they’ve selected chronological, and that’s something most clients won’t do. Some clients also feature tools for filtering through your timeline more efficiently, like keyword searching or media filters.
- Customization: This is a big one for a lot of apps. Many clients will allow you to customize various visual aspects of Twitter, whether that’s colors, text size, or how large images appear on your timeline.
- Multiple Accounts: It can be useful to have multiple Twitter accounts signed in at once that you can quickly switch between. Stock Twitter does support this, but it’s still great to see in clients as well.
Best for the Web and ChromeOS: TweetDeck
TwitterTweetDeck is an official dashboard for Twitter that was acquired by Twitter itself a few years ago. TweetDeck allows you to view multiple columns at one time, such as your timeline, messages, and notifications–it makes the most of widescreen monitors basically. You can pick and choose which columns appear on your TweetDeck, so you can customize this to your liking. You can also schedule tweets ahead of time, use advanced muting and filtering options, and switch between multiple accounts on the fly.
TweetDeck also benefits from third-party extensions, such as BetterTweetDeck and Tweeten. BetterTweetDeck keeps the feeling of normal TweetDeck, while adding in some new features like more visual customization, a better media viewer, and advanced muting options. Tweeten is in a similar vein, but the design significantly changes the look of Tweetdeck. You can download videos straight from the website, and use similar muting and visual customization options as BetterTweetDeck.
TweetDeck, BetterTweetDeck, and Tweeten are entirely free to use.
Check Out TweetDeck
Best for iOS: Tweetbot
TapbotsOn the default Twitter app, you don’t have a lot of options when it comes to sorting through your timeline. You can view it in algorithmic or chronological modes and that’s about it. Tweetbot gives you a lot more options though: You can filter your timeline to only show media, retweets, or links, and create custom filters for specific words or hashtags. Tweetbot gives you full control over your timeline, and you can create multiple timelines with different filters that you can switch between.
Besides that, Tweetbot also has some other useful features such as “Profile Notes” (so you can write private notes about users you follow), removal of ads, and full cloud syncing with the MacOS version of Tweetbot.
Tweetbot costs a one-time payment of $4.99.
Best for MacOS: Twitterific
The IconfactoryTwitterific has been designed from the ground up specifically for Mac users, and it gives you an impressive number of options for customizing your Twitter experience. You can pick and choose multiple timelines to appear on your screen at once, stick to the chronological timeline at all times, and even change the font, type size, and the way media appears on your timeline.
Twitterific is also available on iOS, and all of your settings and preferences can sync between the two platforms.
Twitterific costs a one-time payment of $7.99.
Best for Android: Talon
Klinker AppsThere’s an impressive number of Twitter clients on Android, but we picked Talon for the incredible amount of customization it grants the user. There are hundreds of possible color combinations, you can edit what pages are available via the quick swipe menus, and use the deep notification settings to make sure the app only bothers you when you want it to.
You can also easily switch between up to two accounts on the fly, use the app’s great built-in media viewer for videos, gifs, and photos, and even schedule tweets ahead of time. There’s also a basic photo editor for cropping and tweaking photos you want to post. Wrap all of this up in a nice clean UI, and Talon makes for a fantastic Twitter experience.
Talon costs a one-time payment of $2.99.
Because there are so many options available for Android, we wanted to give Fenix 2 a runner-up nod for its excellent UI, theme support, and wide feature set. If you’re not totally sold on Talon, it’s worth checking out.
Best for Windows: Fenice 4
Fenice for WindowsFenice 4 is just a great Twitter experience on Windows. Like the other desktop clients mentioned so far, Fenice 4 allows you to pick and choose multiple timelines to appear on your screen at once. It also features in-depth mute filters for keywords and hashtags, use of up to two accounts (with the option to expand to five with the in-app purchase), and free-range to customize the accent color and column sizes on your timelines.
Fenice 5 is currently in development according to the developer, which is sure to bring even more features and improvements to the already great app. This is a separate app that you will have to pay extra for. Don’t worry though, even if you buy Fenice 4 now, the developer has promised a significant discount for Fenice 4 when Fenice 5 releases.
As for now, Fenice 4 costs a one-time payment of $2.29.
Buy