The first thing one notices when using Tweetie is its absolutely gorgeous user interface.  I’m not sure if the company is using some sort of core image/core animation integration or if they simply wrote the UI animations themselves, but either way, they’re beautiful.  The theme of the app fits in perfectly with Mac OS X Leopard and it makes heavy use of OS X’s keyboard shortcuts, which is a must for any heavy Mac user.  Here is a look at a profile page within Tweetie (my own of course). [I would insert it into this post, but I'm having issues with image insertions.]

So from this picture alone, it’s very easy to tell that atebits put quite a bit of work into making a nice looking app.  Here is a look at the main timeline. [Again, image insertion issues.]

Besides simply looking nice, the functionality of the app is incredible.  It makes full use of the Twitter API by allowing users to basically perform every Twitter function such as DMs, @replies, following/unfollowing, and search, all within the app.  In addition, it provides a lot of added functionality that the Twitter website itself does not.  This includes the ability to have URLs automatically shortened, image uploading simply by dragging an image into the compose window, and inline viewing of photos posted by other users.  Personally, my favorite feature is the ability to preview shortened links before they’re load.  Yes, that truly means no more rick rolling me!

When comparing this app to other Mac Twitter apps such as Twitterrific, it’s easy to see why this app shines.  Twitterrific was written back when users were using and interacting with Twitter differently than they are now.  Don’t get me wrong, I used Twitterrific for a long, long time and loved it; It simply didn’t evolve with the service its meant to interact with.  Twitter was and is changing, the way users are using twitter is changing, so Twitter apps need to make sure they’re changing and providing added and increased functionality for their users.  Tweetie is absolutely doing that by packing every possible (well, almost every possible – more on this in a second) feature into a very lightweight, clean, and professionally designed application.

Overall, I’d rate this app 10/10.  It’s almost damn near perfect.  My only three complaints/suggestions are these:

• There is no ability to hide the dock icon.  Whenever hiding a dock icon is OS X, the application loses its menubar, so I can see why the company isn’t doing this at the moment.  It should, however, be an option in the future.
• There is no option to delete a tweet.  This seems like it was most likely a simple oversight on atebit’s part.  I’m sure it’ll be coming soon.
• For retweets, there should be an option in the preferences to use the “RT @username” style rather than the “(via @username)” style.

Other than that, this app is excellent.  I think that anyone who uses Twitter on a regular basis and is a Mac user should pick up this app.  It’s offered in two versions: a free, ad supported version, or the paid version (again, 15 dollars for now, 20 dollars after May 4th).