Best Twitter Client on Android Market "Plume" (Download)

 

 

When it comes to Twitter clients, Android users are really spoilt for choice, there is a wealth on the Market that are worth looking at. You can, of course, go with the default Twitter for Android application, however this is a little lacking in features and you may want try out one of the many third-party offerings available, such as Seesmic, TweetDeck or Tweetcaster. But the burning question is, which one is the best?

I look for three things in a good Twitter client:

• Features: I want something more than simply being able to tweet and re-tweet.
• Usability: I don’t want to spend an hour learning how the program actually works before I start using it.
• User interface: I like bling and eye-candy, so naturally I want a Twitter client that does its job with a little flair!

 

As an avid Tweeter, I have tried out pretty much all the Twitter clients available for Android and I can safely say that I have finally found one which fulfills all three of my requirements! Plume is a feature-rich and well designed Twitter client available for Android devices running Android 1.5 and above. The app is free, though you will have to put up with ads intruding your timeline if you want to remove these, then Plume Premium is available for €1.99 from the Market.

Looking at Plume, you get the feeling that the developers have really kept these three things in mind whilst they were designing the application. Lets take a closer look at Plume to find out whether it is the Twitter client to have out there.

Introduction

Plume, from developers Level Up Studio is a feature-packed, highly customisable Twitter client available for Android devices running Android 1.5 and above. The application has also been optimised for Honeycomb tablets. The developers say that Plume will "change the way you feel about Twitter" and whilst I was testing this program, I certainly did get whiffs of this.

The previous Twitter clients for Android have been a bit bland and boring especially if you have migrated from iOS. They did their job well but tended to be quite simple and not exactly eye-catching. But Plume is different. Its crawling with features and the best part about it is you can play around and tweak almost every aspect of the program to give you an ideal tweeting experience.

 

Features

Plume has everything you will need in a Twitter client. You can tweet, retweet, upload pictures, shorten links and so on. Your mentions and direct messages are easily accessible via icons at the bottom or, on devices running Android 2.0 and above, you can swipe through columns.

 

To tweet, you pull down on the top of the screen to reveal the New Tweet box, which I find aesthetically pleasing and a refreshing change to most Twitter clients, where you simply tap on an icon.

 

In the tweet box, there are icons allowing you to shorten links automatically and insert mentions and hash tags. This feature does save you a lot of time hunting round your keyboard to try and find the relevant keys. Plume saves all the hash tags you use and can also analyse your timeline or your individual tweets for the most commonly used hash tags, allowing you to pick them out easily.

 

If you are a keen Bit.ly user, then you can enter your details into Plume as well, allowing you to track your posted links. Links in tweets can either be viewed via the default Android browser or via the in-built browser in Plume, however this can be a little temperamental at times and does not offer the best browsing experience.

Customisation

Plume is probably the most customisable Twitter client out there on the Market. You can tweak and adapt the app exactly to how you want it, such as the colour of your tweets, whether you want to hide user avatars to allow for a faster loading time, or whether you want to use the pull to refresh system.

You can also choose different themes to suit your mood. Personally I am fond of the dark theme, but if this depresses you then you can change to a nice bright one!

On a Tablet

Plume makes excellent use of the larger screen on Honeycomb devices and presents you with a column view for your tweets, mentions and direct mentions (though this can be customised), a bit like TweetDeck.

Plume on Honeycomb devices has all the features of the phone version. Another useful hint is that the Honeycomb-optimized version and the normal phone version are one and the same, so you can use the same client on both devices.

Download _{(Android Market)}

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