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Tweetie 2 is great, but here's why I'm not ready to stop using Echofon Pro.

Just like most people with iPhones I've been playing around with the newly released Tweetie 2 app over the past day or so.  It is definitely fantastic, a big improvement over Tweetie 1 with a lot of great features.  I will keep using it for another week to see if it grows on me, but the competing app Echofon Pro is still the best Twitter app out there, in my opinion.  The differences are small but significant to me.  Here's why I'm sticking with Echofon Pro for now:

  • It shows you how many new updates / mentions / DMs you have.  In Tweetie 2, there's a little glow above the bottom row of icons that tells you there are new updates, but you have no idea how many.  When I turn my phone on the morning, I'd like to know if I'm about to scroll through 200 tweets or 1,000 tweets.  Echofon Pro shows me that at a glance with the familiar red/white numbers above each icon.
  • Direct clicking of URLs.  In Tweetie, you have to click into a tweet to then click on a URL/@name within the tweet.  In Echofon you can click directly on the link/@name from the main timeline (holding the link also opens some neat features, like opening the URL in Safari)
  • Much better bit.ly integration.  I got the Tweetie Safari Bookmarklet to work, but it's still not up to par with the Echofon one.  In Tweetie you have an extra click to shorten the URL once you click to share a link from Safari.  In Echofon it does it automatically once it opens the app, and also integrates with your existing bit.ly account so you can track clicks.
  • Better use of colors in the interface.  Echofon makes much better use of background color contrast to show you where new tweets begin, where you got an @ mention in the timeline, etc.
  • Much easier to block users.  Not a big deal if you don't care about spam followers, but I'm a relentless blocker.  One click in Echofon, three clicks in Tweetie.
  • Option to DM from any tweet.  Sometimes when someone @'s me, I prefer to respond with a DM.  In Echofon you can do that from the tweet page (just click "Send DM").  In Tweetie you have to go to the "messages" tab and compose a new DM.

To be fair, here's where I think Tweetie 2 beats Echofon Pro, which is why I'm going to try it out a little longer:

  • Easy favorites.  I use favorites a lot to store tweets (mostly with links) that I want to read later.  That's 2 clicks in Echofon, a slide and a click in Tweetie.  Time is money!  (Although - Echofon has a Favorites icon right in the bottom bar, while it's a little more difficult to get to it in Tweetie.  So there's that too).
  • Mail-a-tweet. In Tweetie you can email a tweet to someone.  I use that quite a bit, very useful.
  • Nicer profile layout.  The redesigned profile page is much nicer and easier to use in Tweetie 2.
  • Drafts.  LOVE the new drafts feature in Tweetie.
  • Access to saved searches.  Killer feature.

So there it is.  A short rant for geeks who care about this kind of stuff.  Anything you'd like to add?  I'm happy to be proven wrong...