The iPhone's home to an array of both paid and free Twitter clients; you're really spoilt for choice. On the free front, it's hard to go past Tweetdeck, which does a remarkable job of mirroring the functionality of its bigger, Adobe-AIR based desktop PC brother. One word of warning though; while it's quite powerful, it's also not unknown for it to be a bit unstable.
 |
| Tweetdeck is very powerful, but it's also known for sometimes throwing a wobbly |
On the paid side, we favour Tweetie ($3.99), one of the earlier iPhone Twitter clients. It's got a simple interface that responds quickly, can handle multiple twitter accounts and is very stable.
 |
| Tweetie is powerful and robust, including public timelines and trending topics |
One final Twitter app to recommend: iTweetReply ($2.49). As a simple client it's very simple indeed, but the secret sauce in iTweetReply's recipe (beyond the fact that it's developed and supported right here in Australia) is that it supports push notifications of any replies and direct messages.
 |
| Hardcore twitter junkies start here |
It's not just Apple's rather heavily hyped smartphone that gets all the Twitter loving, however. Blackberry users should check out the excellent and lightweight Twitterberry offers location-based tweeting for Java enabled mobiles, including Blackberries, Nokia S60 phones and Sony Ericsson handsets. Android users should check out Twidroid, while Windows Mobile users should check applications such as Pocketwit or Twikini.
With any modern smartphone -- or indeed any web-capable mobile phone --you're not stuck with installing an App if you don't want to - the mobile version of Twitter's web portal is still quite capable and relatively quick.
Also in this series, Amazing apps for your phone:
Part 2: here's how to get cheap iPhone apps
Part 1: How to make the most out of your iPhone's GPS