HootSuite for iPad now available

HootSuite for iPad is finally out of beta and available to all iPad users. We know what you're thinking, "Uh, another Twitter app for me to consider?" We feel your pain, young one. But keep reading to see why Hoot Suite is worth your attention.

HootSuite offers support for three social networks: Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. You'll be prompted through setup at launch. Once that's done, you can begin using the network you configured. On the Twitter side, you're presented with several columns: your main feed, mentions, direct messages (both sent and received) plus your favorites and your most recently sent tweets. Swiping lets you move from column to column.

Tapping the Compose button brings up a new window with the usual features like a photo option, location tagging and translation. Two interesting options let you schedule a tweet to go live some time in the future, and the Contacts option lets you scan a list of your Twitter contacts for quick reference.

On the Facebook side you can browse news updates and any posts that you've set to pending using a similar time-delay feature. All of your networks are listed on the left and it's easy to hop between them.

Overall, the UI is quite nice and everything is legible. We especially like swiping between columns in Twitter. However, I had trouble setting up my Facebook account (I needed two attempts for some reason) and the results are frankly a bit disappointing. There are not direct messages or large photos, for example. As for Foursquare, I don't use it so I couldn't say.

The app is free and universal, so those with an iPad and an iPhone need only grab the one download. If you've been enjoying HootSuite on your iPhone, just grab the update for some nice bug fixes. While it's not enough to tear me away from my preferred iPad Twitter client, it's certainly worth a look for those still searching.

[Via The Next Web]