Why Native Twitter Apps for iPhone Fall Short
Lately, I've been raving about Hahlo for iPhone. I absolutely love this app but the one thing that keeps this application from being highlighted by every blog out there is the fact that it is a web app. Web apps only run on the iPhone's web browser and don't run as a native application. There are three native applications for the iPhone from 3rd parties that are available on the app store that are currently the most popular.
Those are Twittelator, Twitterific and Twinkle. These apps are great but I've uninstalled all of them because they all fall short of the power of Hahlo. Hahlo is so amazing that I have packaged the website into a self contained application that I run on my Mac full time. It's a beautiful and full featured client that has so many innovations that nothing else compares.
Here are my favorite features of Hahlo:
1. It's always running. When I open Safari, Hahlo is exactly where I left it and hitting "refresh" shows me all of the latest tweets.
2. It supports deletion of tweets. No one else does this.
3. I can search Twitter (formally summize) right from Hahlo.
4. I can see all of my followers and people I'm following as a list or grid of their avatars and search that list.
5. I can see replies and direct messages to me and respond to them.
6. Click on a user's name and you can see their tweets / profile.
7. The interface is dynamic and loading of various pags is inline with no complete reload of the page.
8. Hahlo tells me when Twitter is at fault. If Twitter is down, Hahlo tells me.
9. It works on your computer's browser! Open up your browser and try it out. It works seamlessly.
Simple features like search, grid view of all of my friends, a section for direct messages and a beautiful interface make this application an awesome app that I can't stop using. None of the web apps have a special section that shows you replies and I can follow and un-follow people directly from hahlo.
