Twinkle - iPhone Twitter App adds Location Feature
If you are a Twitter addict and liked MobileTwitter, the native iPhone application which I had reviewed few days back then you should also checkout Twinkle, another native Twitter client for the iPhone that has been recently released.
Twinkle has couple of additional features that got me interested.
The two interesting features about Twinkle is the Locate Me feature and ability to add images to your tweets.
The Locate Me feature works as follows: Twinkle lets you use the iPhone's location feature to add location data to your tweets. You can use the ‘Near Me’ tab to see tweets from twitter users who are within X miles of you. The default is 50-miles, and you can choose to change this to 1, 2, 10, 25, 100, 1,000, or 252,000 (it appears that there is a bug as the settings are lost when you exit the application).
The location information is only visible from Twinkle and not on the Twitter website, so this will only work when more iPhone users start using Twinkle.
If you do not fancy this feature then you always have the option to turn it off in the application "Settings" tab.
The other cool feature is the ability to add images to your tweets right at the posting screen, one tap on a camera icon at the bottom launches the camera and once you select the image, it takes you right back to the posting screen with your image file as an attachment. The images are then visible in your tweets as thumbnails which can be enlarged with a tap on the thumbnail.
Unfortunately, just like the location information, the images will be visible only from the Twinkle client and not on the Twitter website.
Other than these two additional features, you can see from the screenshots below (courtesy Gear Live) that the user interface is quite neat and intuitive.
In order to install Twinkle on your iPhone, you will need a Jailbroken iPhone with the cool Installer App installed. If you want to jailbreak your iPhone you can check out these posts: ZiPhone 3.0: New version of Popular tool to JailBreak and Unlock iPhone Released or iLiberty: Easy to use Application to JailBreak, Activate and Unlock iPhone.
Once you have the Installer app on your iPhone, you’ll need to add the Polar Bear Farm source in Installer to see Twinkle.
You need to follow some simple steps on your jailbroken iPhone for this:
- Click on the Installer Icon on your iPhone's home screen.
- Click on the "Sources" icon at the bottom.
- Click "Edit".
- Click "Add".
- Enter: "http://www.polarbearfarm.com/repo/".
- Click "OK".
As always do let me know the things you liked or did not like about this native iPhone application.
[via Gear Live]
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This app is awesome.
I dumped mobile twitter and am using it now instead.
The distance thing has been really helpful to find local people twittering and add them in. I found a few friends I didnt know where on twitter. It is just a very nice app. There are a couple of things I was told they are going to add on ASAP and thats clickable links and the ability to add users to follow. (at present I have to go to Twitterific on my Macbook Pro to add them)
Posted by: shane blyth | April 13, 2008 at 06:10 PM
I've been using this for a little while now, and it works great. I do wish I could see the Location Info, and picture on my computer at twitter.com or something. But nonetheless, it is a great feature for the iPhone and ads a new dimension to twittering, that is special just to iPhone users.
Posted by: David | April 13, 2008 at 06:14 PM
This is the BEST Twitter app, hands down. The location feature is incredible and the fact that you can attach photos is also great (though they have to have Twinkle to see them).
Posted by: The Tuesday Night Tech Show | April 14, 2008 at 07:50 AM
How do you all get the location feature to work? Every time I go to use it, it says, "Trying to locate you" for a minute then crashes the program.
Posted by: Len | April 14, 2008 at 09:06 AM
Twitxr.com has been doing exactly the same for over the last couple months.
You can take a photo, post a text and upload it (location is automatically guesseed), and it can be published to twitter, facebook flickr and picasa at once
Give it a look
Posted by: Albert | April 16, 2008 at 03:28 AM
with the newest version of twinkle, you can see the photos on twitter.com via a url. also clickable links have been added as well as the follow/block ability.
twitxr can't compare to this ... as this is a twitter client with photo and location capabilities. twitxr is really for just posting a photo link to twitter.
twinkle is awesome!
Posted by: ksc | April 23, 2008 at 12:04 PM
Twinkle is AWESOME! As Albert said, the latest version lets your pictures be seen on twitter.com through a tinyurl-like URL. The interface has changed now, too, and you can now Reply, Send Private Message, Follow/Unfollow, and view Profile and Posts of people twittering.
You have to check this out. It's the reason I started using twitter!
Posted by: mpaul on twitter, Mizzike on digg | April 23, 2008 at 01:56 PM
twinkle crashes during the "locate me" also, what gives?
Posted by: lanevids | April 28, 2008 at 05:31 AM
will it work on a jailbroken ipod touch too?
Posted by: Rod | May 12, 2008 at 11:01 PM