Sachin Patel

In April of 2010, Twitter acquired Tweetie, the acclaimed, award winning iPhone Twitter app. It was loved by users for it’s beauty and intuitive user interface that was perfect for the iPhone. Nearly two years later, it’s core idea– a fantastic Twitter app for the iPhone –is gone, with Twitter’s unified UI initiative. Here are a few of the reasons why I hate it so much.

1. “Lowest Common Denominator” User Interface

The UI of the content should match the UI of the platform.  On the iPhone, apps are expected to have beautiful animations and gestures. On Windows Phone, the interface has to be largely text based. A unified UI makes Twitter.app feel half done.

Gestures are lost, replaced with large buttons that make it akin to http://m.twitter.com. The finesse that users came to love from Tweetie has been lost forever.

2. Ambiguity

This isn’t just a problem with the iPhone version. 3/4 of the new tabs are poorly named.

“Home” isn’t specific, but the “Connect” tab is worse. What else am I doing on Twitter besides connecting? Whether you want to call it a “social network” or an “information network,” Twitter as a whole is for connecting! 

“Me” implies a profile view, yet loads of other things are buried under this tab.

3. Layout

- A “Me” tab implies a profile, while in addition this is actually a bunch of other features

- Whitespace on the “Home” view- this does not belong on a 3.5 inch screen!

Luckily, on the web, Twitter is faster, cleaner, and more beautiful. The Discover tab is fantastic- Twitter finally paired News, it’s greatest asset, with the current Trends on Twitter to create “Stories.”

Twitter has a lot to concentrate on in these coming months- a sustainable revenue model, establishing it’s focus as a company, and of course, expanding it’s ever-growing user base.

I hope it doesn’t crash and burn in the process.