BostonPocketPC

If you are familiar with the many Windows Mobile twitter applications like PocketTwit, ceTwit, TinyTwitter, Twoble, etc. - it usually requires additional downloads like .NET CF 3.5, Java, etc. to work and it takes a while for the application to get started and sometimes they crash or your Twit post gets lost in the ether of the internet never to return. The folks at Trinketsoftware have a new one for you called Twikini 1.0, which was just released out of beta and after a few quick changes from comments made to the developer via Twitter in a day it quickly jumped up to version 1.1. It has been my Twitter client on my various Windows Mobile devices for a few months now. I used to use PocketTwit, but it was way to bloated and would occasionally crash, but it is also a twitter client with a lot of features, that has pretty large memory and processing requirements to run smoothly.

Twikini is only a 110K download and takes up a mere 240K of space on your device and it runs pretty quick since it is using C+.Twikini offers a powerful and efficient way to use Twitter on your phone, but still is very simple and easy to use. It allows you to quickly update your favorite twitter feeds in the background, and leverages the camera, GPS, media, touch screen, keyboard, graphics and storage capabilities of your device. Also the same code runs on both touch and not-touch screen phones and is very easy to use on both platforms.

Main Features

• FAST! Unlike other Twitter apps for Windows® Mobile, Twikini is written entirely in native C++ code for maximum performance and the fastest load time possible.
• Simple, uncluttered, and customizable user interface. Choose from a variety of themes for the best reading experience. (Screenshot 1, Screenshot 2, Screenshot 3)
• Post tweets using a full screen editor. Optionally, set your location (either manually or using GPS) along with your status updates. (Screenshot)
• Twitpic integration to post photos with your status updates. Select existing photos or click new ones from your device's camera.
• Read status updates just like browsing a web page. Quickly reply, retweet, favorite, or email other people's tweets. (Screenshot 1, Screenshot 2)
• Windows Media Player integration. Automatically tweet the song and artist you're listening to.
• Single download that is compatible with all Windows® Mobile devices - both touch and non-touch.
• And lots more...

Using Twikini:

The controls are very simple - up and down on the directional pad (d-pad) allows you to scroll between your twitter follows with a highlight of the tweet post you are on. To retweet someone's Tweet all you have to do is move your d-pad to the right, to respond to a tweet click on the left d-pad it’s pretty simple really. In your response you have options to add a Picture; Shorten URL with a choice from several services like Bit.ly, Digg, and TinyURL;Add GPS Coordinates and Add GPS Location to your message.

Under Options ->Tools - You also have some other options as well such as Tweeting your Song Info of music playing over Windows Media Player,(which may bother some if its quite frequent, but people want to know what you are doing right?)

You also can go to the selected User, which will bring up their twitter information – followers and who they are following as well as their twitter bio information such as webpage and location. Here you also have the option to Follow/Stop Follow this person, send them a tweet, DM (direct message), view a larger picture or view their current given location on a Google map.

You can also view their updates via the left soft key.

I really like the built-in Twitpic integration, which never is displayed correctly in Internet Explorer Mobile and would only show up in something when redirected or rendered like when using Skweezer or another browser like Skyfire or Opera. It would be nice in future versions would support some other future picture formats that others use like Ping.FM that I see regularly pop-up in Tweets, but TwitPic is pretty much becoming the standard. An option I would more like to see would be automatic Skweezer redirection for quicker render of links in tweets and shortened URLs as an option to the user.

Some of the cool things is that Twikini does is support multiple accounts and allows you to switch between them, there is no timeline merge and personally I kind of like that so you can keep things separate. It would be nice to have them running at the same time, but with some sort of notification bubble, sound or toast of a DM (Direct Message) and allow it to tell me which account it was sent to.

Another thing is that when the Twitter timeline refreshes it now keeps your current position in the timeline. However when you tweet, RT aka retweet or respond it still automatically places you back at the top of the Twitter stack and you have to scroll down to where you left off and if you are not quick enough you may be caught in another refresh.

Another feature request I would like to see would be the ability to have search of topics aka # as something added to the timeline as well as separate like how it handles multiple accounts. Another would be the automatic filling in of those you have messaged in the past as soon as you type the @ sign it will give you suggestions like a spell checker, which may be another added feature, but most of the time people are shortening their tweets with abbreviations and text-speak.

Configuring Twikini

Under Options->Tools you can customize how you use Twikini. Under Timeline display you can adjust the Font Size-small, medium, large; Theme for general appearance; and how you display the name either Full Name or Twitter Screen name. I am using the HTC Black Theme you have several of those (7) to choose from as well so the interface is slightly customizable to your liking – Windows Default, HTC Black, Summer,Seattle, Cheesecake, Cool Winter, and Lounge.

Under Automatic Refresh you can change the refresh interval from disabled so you can manually choose when it refreshes, or have it automatically refresh in intervals every 2, 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes or every hour. Here you can also choose a notification sound of new Tweets and not to auto refresh when you are roaming.

Under Data Download you can choose to download images as well as how many tweets. The default is 20 with other choices of 50, 100, and 200 –which is the slowest and had problems rendering the screen when refreshing. Best sweet spot was 50 with no lag and 100 was good when you check it fairly infrequently.

The last option allows you to clear Twikini’s Cache folder, which it stores for 3 days to increase performance and decrease data download.

You can also check for updates of the application by going to Menu->Twikini->Check for Updates and it will go to a webpage and compare your version with the latest version available and if its older a link to update. It would be nice if had ApptoDate support so you would be automatically notified when updates became available. However, the application is very stable so far, but the developer pushes out updates with new features fairly frequently and following @twikini on Twitter is the best way to know of updates. :)

Summary

Overall, Twikini has won the spot on my device as my preferred Twitter application due to its quick response and overall stability, plus it doesn’t kill the battery on my phone if I leave it on all day. You can get your copy of Twikini for any Windows Mobile device from here with 14 day trial and for with a starting price of $4.95 it won’t break the bank.