HootSuite iPhone app review
I’m a big fan of HootSuite, a browser-based Twitter application with some very nice features. They provide some insightful statistics on their ow.ly shortlinks, provide the ability to schedule tweets in advance, and provided a lists function before Twitter rolled theirs out. They’ve also recently rolled out the ability to update Facebook and LinkedIn statuses (as well as Ping.fm which they’ve offered for awhile). Finally, HootSuite manages multiple accounts as well as multiple users, a feature which I’ve been using on some of my institutional accounts. I use TweetDeck quite a lot as a desktop client, but HootSuite offers some excellent functionality I haven’t found in any other client.
So when I heard they were rolling out an iPhone app, I was most excited. I have been quite pleased with the pro version of Echofon…but I was intrigued by the idea of the uniqueness that HootSuite offers. Unfortunately, the app just doesn’t shape up on the basics to justify a switch for everyday use.
First of all, let’s look at HootSuite’s signature ideas. You can view stats on your ow.ly shortlinks just like the webpage, which is quite nice. I also appreciate the scheduled tweet function. I can remind people to visit my blog, note that I’m in a meeting, or quote pithy sayings…when I’m napping! Shifting between lists in the same account is by swiping, which is about as easy as it comes. And it does make viewing your posted tweets easy, which is more difficult to get to in Echofon. I also like being able to tweet from multiple accounts simultaneously.
However, the app just seems unfinished. It is having some serious crashing problems. HootSuite is saying that the problem stems from geotagged tweets, and that a patch is working its way through Apple’s App Store approval system. But that’s not the only problem. For some reason the profile images don’t preload, so the app hangs briefly each time you scroll down, making the entire process annoyingly jerky. I don’t get any badges that tell me how many new updates are in my home feed, mentions, DMs, etc. It also doesn’t indicate by any visual means which are new messages (the web client has little blue dots that denote new updates). When I do have new messages, it will say something like “20+ new tweets” or “19 new tweets” when I clearly have had more. When I asked why on Twitter, I got this response:
However, Echofon can pull up to the API call limit of 200 and tell me exactly how many I’m getting…why not HootSuite? My followup query to HootSuite’s help account on Twitter has not been answered.
You do have the ability to use Twitter’s native lists (though they’ve crashed the app every time I’ve tried to load one). The other new native Twitter feature, ReTweets, is not supported. It’s baffling to me why they wouldn’t support the RT API. But it isn’t. To be fair, Echofon doesn’t yet support native lists or RTs. But HootSuite is a brand new app, and one would think they would incorporate both of the newest Twitter features.
I know some other folks really enjoy Tweetie, Twittelator, or TweetDeck for iPhone; these all seem to offer a similarly polished, high-functioning Twitter experience, much as I enjoy with Echofon. HootSuite for iPhone just isn’t there yet. Hopefully in a future release, some of these basic features which greatly enhance tweeting will be incorporated; but for now, I’ll use the HootSuite app only when I need to schedule something in advance, or share a link via ow.ly — and stick with Echofon for everything else.
