5 Twitter apps for the iPad

With the impending international release of the iPad (May 28th) and over a million already sold in the US, the adoption of the platform is in full swing. And that of course means the new apps are flying fast – over 4,800 are available already. If you ask us, a smooth Twitter app plays a big part in the iPad’s usefulness. Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay for the majority of these apps. Of the Twitter apps we found, only one was free, but none was more than $5. These are the early days of iPad development and some of the apps clearly aren’t 100% there yet. With a few more revisions, all of these apps should be outstanding. As it stands now, they’re all pretty good solutions, but some have more problems than others.

TweetDeck for iPad (Price: free) - The transition to the iPad has been an easy one for the master of the desktop Twitter apps. All the features we love in the desktop app are available here including easy to navigate columns, multiple account support, photo sharing, and all the others we’ve come to rely on. It’s the best of the free Twitter apps.

Twitterific for iPad (Price: free; $4.99 for Pro account) - Twitterific Pro is the best iPad Twitter application we tried. The switch between portrait and landscape view is fluid, and even the free version has all the basics you need like being able to reply, re-tweet, DM and more. The $5 upgrade to Pro lets you add multiple Twitter accounts and remove the ads. It may not be free like Tweetdeck, but the small cost is worth it for the better functionality. 

 

Twitepad (Price: $1.99) - For $3 less than Twitterific and Twittelator, Twitepad gives you most of the same functionality: multiple Twitter accounts, multiple columns, bit.ly stats and instapaper support. But you get what you pay for as it’s a little buggy, which is the only thing that keeps us from strongly recommending it. They have fixed a few of the bugs but it needs another round or two before it’s as good a tool as its competitors.

TwitRocker (Price: $4.99) - TwitRocker is another great app that features all the bells and whistles you need. With bit.ly URL shortening, multiple account support, OAuth security, search functions, list imports and all the basics such as retweeting, direct messages, and following/unfollowing people, TwitRocker truly does rock Twitter for the iPad. It’s a solid choice, but if you’re going to pay $5 for your app we’d still recommend Twitterific. 

 Twittelator for iPad (Price: $4.99) - Coming in at the more expensive level, Twittelator is easy to navigate and has great customization options. But $5 is expensive for an app, so it better work. With slow load times, problems switching from landscape to portrait mode and missing some of the iPhone features, Twittelator isn’t quite worth the price tag. Give this one a pass until it goes through a couple of revisions to work out the kinks. Once it does, it has the potential to be a great app.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.