Tweetcaster Is Now Available For Android

When I first got my HTC Eris from Verizon, the first thing I looked for was a decent Twitter client that supported multiple accounts. I manage 4 different Twitter accounts, so being able to use all of those and monitor the various feeds is a major requirement. On my Symbian-powered handsets, Gravity covers this quite nicely. The first recommendation I got for Android was to check out Twidroid Pro.

Unfortunately, I purchased Twidroid Pro, specifically for the multiple account support. Shortly thereafter, my HTC Eris began locking up uncontrollably and I quickly realized that Twidroid was the root of the problem. With all four accounts loaded, the application crawls to a slow halt, making the whole phone unusable. The interface isn’t all that great, either, and I quickly uninstalled it.

Not too long after, I was contacted by the folks at Handmark to help them beta-test their new Twitter app, dubbed Tweetcaster. When I saw it was going to support multiple accounts, I quickly said yes and installed it to my Eris. For starters, once I got my 4 accounts plugged in, I was pleased to see that Tweetcaster doesn’t lock my phone up while updating itself. Brilliant.

I’ve put together a walkthrough video, which you can see below:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE-DG3njIt0

Overall, Tweetcaster is quite nice if you need to manage multiple accounts. If you’re a single-account kinda person, I prefer Seesmic for its superior performance and simplicity. Tweetcaster looks awesome, but the UI gets in the way of usability, often taking up far too many pixels on fancy graphics and leaving too much empty space between tweets.

With Tweetcaster running, I haven’t noticed a significant hit on battery life – it seems to do a great job of not using more power than it really needs to, which is good. For the official release, they included customizable notification settings, which is great. Unfortunately, they forgot to include the ability to choose the notification *sound*, so I’m stuck with my default ‘DROID’ sound for email, SMS, and Tweetcaster – not very helpful in determining what the notification is informing me of.

Another major complaint that I have with Tweetcaster, even with a full license, is the blasted loading page. It’s displayed for at least 5-6 seconds every time I launch the application, and that gets really old, really fast. I don’t mind having load or nag screens for the free version of an app – in fact, I expect it. However, for the fully licensed version, this should be eliminated, and quickly.

You can download Tweetcaster to your Android-powered smartphone here.