Skip to Content

Twinkle: location-aware Twittter client for iPhone

by Erica Sadun Apr 22nd 2008 at 1:30PM

According to Installer, Twinkle from Gogo Apps is "Twitter plus Location." It's a Twitter client that adds photos and geolocation as well as clickable URLs and Follow / Stop Following control within the app. With it, you can find people twittering near you -- in fact it seems to be using my findme utility to power its location-awareness. And no, I have no financial interest in this thing -- I gave permission for them to use the utility so long as the app remains non-commercial.

I logged in, entered my Twitter account info (yes, the account information is stored in clear text in ~mobile/Library/Preferences) and within seconds, it found tweets within 50 miles of my location.

You can tweet directly from Twinkle. Tap the pencil button at the top-right corner (it's the one that for quite a while I mistook for a mis-shaped lower-case "i"). From there, you can enter your tweet, specify whether to tag with a location and optionally snap a photo.

Twinkle offers a professionally designed interface and good ease of use. The only negative occurred after I mistyped my password. I ended up in an infinite loop of authentication errors and had to force-quit the application.

Twinkle

  • Home Screen
  • Settings Screen
  • Near Me
  • Public
  • Post Screen



View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

iPod Family iPhone

According to Installer, Twinkle from Gogo Apps is "Twitter plus Location." It's a Twitter client that adds photos and geolocation as well...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

16 Comments

Filter by:
Titus

Enough about social networking apps. You should check out this application here. It lets search the search engines by just taking a picture of anything with your mobile phone. No typing! Just clicking! Here's a link to an Apple Ipod demostration of the application:
http://www.thetidy.com/blog/2008/04/23/vipr-visual-search-engine-on-the-apple-iphone-and-other-mobile-phones/

April 23 2008 at 6:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ryan

On my Touch, it crashes every time I try and login and then I get can't authenticate issues every time i try and load my tweets. Looks like they have some work to do.

April 23 2008 at 9:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
LittleJoe

Twinkle pretty much rules my life at this point.

It's a great tool for meeting new people in your area and posting pictures/status when you're out and about.
Brought me back to life from a Twitter-free coma.

April 22 2008 at 9:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Karl

Professionally designed? by who?

April 22 2008 at 7:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bill

Erica, the "Locate Me" on Twinkle doesn't work on my Touch - I know for a fact that my home AP has been mapped by Skyhook*, but Twinkle refuses to provide a location. Doesn't crash like someone else had, but doesn't work either. A shame too, because it's a cool idea, but without working location, its limited functionality and the fact that it doesn't show the whole text of longer tweets, I've gone back to MobileTwitter for now, because it just plain works.

*Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the giant antenna covered monstrosity of a van they use to map the APs pass by my house - they should have it play music like an ice cream truck so people can look and stare in horror as it rolls by...

April 22 2008 at 5:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
drphred

Doesn't work on a touch. Crashes when you try to locate.

April 22 2008 at 4:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ronald Distor

The new version of Twinkle has the new features. Version 0.75. Make sure you update via Installer.

In order to follow people in Twinkle, you tap their tweet, and there's a button that says "Follow".

This new version also adds a snipurl link to the picture you attach. Keep in mind that the picture/link will take 25 out of your 140 character limit of your tweet.

April 22 2008 at 3:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Ronald Distor's comment
Tom

That's _really_ lame, and there's still no main website for this app, just a twitter account. Twitpic.com is the same length as snipurl, but xrl.us is even shorter (and has an API, too). However, twitpic.com uses 3 character shortcuts at the moment, and I think snipurl has much longer ones due to it's popularity.

April 22 2008 at 3:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dom

Twinkle looks great and has lots of potential, but I can't find the follow/unfollow functionality either.

Also, the "locate me" stuff doesn't work on the iPod Touch (the feature on Google Maps works just fine, so I assume it's possible to do.)

April 22 2008 at 2:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Aron Trimble

It would really be nice if the photo option uploaded the photo using Twitpic or Tinypic or SOMETHING that way they could provide a link that others can see the photo even if they aren't using Twinkle

I can't tell you how stupid I felt tweeting: "This is my so-and-so: " on the assumption that everyone could see it and not just users of Twinkle.

MobileTwitter does this, but you have to take the picture first and have it already in your photo library. It's an extra step but definitely worth it compared to Twinkle's route.

April 22 2008 at 2:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Aron Trimble's comment
Tom

They JUST fixed the images in twitter thing 1 hr ago:
http://twitter.com/twinkleking/statuses/794481657

And I agree, I like being able to attach pics too. If it had both, that'd be great. And if the location aware info could maybe be attached as a comment to the twitpic, that would be _awesome_. As is, the location aware is crap:

1. Twitterlocal.net can find people near a location with the location field, Twinkle can't
2. Reversa (but seriously, adding maybe 20-30 chars of location might be bad, but twitter used to support more than 140 chars, only you'd only be able to see it on the website and through the API, it just wouldn't go to phones)

April 22 2008 at 3:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JTWG

Yes, I felt that same sense of stupid this morning when I realized none of the photos I posted with Twinkle were visible .

April 25 2008 at 1:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lilbyrdie

Apparently I missed the follow, unfollow functionality. Not sure where it is...

I definitely like the look of the app, though. I just wish there was some other way to get to the images and location data that they track. A "check out this pic" tweet through it just doesn't quite work for very many yet.

April 22 2008 at 2:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.