Twitastic, $.99 in App Store

Twitastic is a simple little application that let’s you quickly post to Twitter. It only costs a dollar, but that is actually a lot to ask for for an app like this. Read on to find out why.

The goal of this app is simple: to provide users with a quick and easy way to post tweets to Twitter. Once you enter in your credentials by tapping on the gear in the bottom-right, you can enter in your username and password (as shown in the screenshot above). Tap on the Connect button in the upper-left to save your information and to begin tweeting.

To begin the tweeting, just tap on the blue callout that’s on the screen. You can then begin typing whatever you want. When you’re done, tap on the Update button in the upper-right. It doesn’t take but a couple of seconds for it to post. That’s all there is to this $.99 app.

There are quite a few things that could be done to this app that would make it even better:

1. Splash screen (Default.png) – This is extremely easy to implement. Nearly every application has one. Having something like this will make the app a lot more professional and whatnot.
2. First-run popup – Maybe have a box that pops up when you first start the app that tells the user a little bit on how to actually use the app,
3. Straight to settings – If there isn’t a username or password saved in the app, then having the app go straight to the Settings screen would be a bit more appropriate.
4. Security – Every user is at risk here. While looking at the small preference file for this application, you can easily see, in plain-text, the username and password of the person who used this app. This isn’t safe for anyone. Anybody could quickly jailbreak a device and gain access to this information. It’s best to put this into the keychain on the device, or encrypt this information in some way.
5. Keyboard return – Have the actual Return key on the keyboard slide the keyboard away, instead of having to tap on the button in the upper-left.
6. Character counter – Knowing how many characters are in a tweet is very important to users of Twitter. Since the max is 140 characters, it’s a necessity to have a character counter of some sort.
7. Tweet clearer – After posting the tweet, the text in the box should automatically be cleared.
8. Tweet history – It would also be nice if one could view a list of tweets made with this app.
9. Nicer settings screen – Let’s face it: I’m sure everyone could agree on the fact that the Settings screen is very plain.
10. Emoji support – Try sending a tweet with emoticons. They’ll end up as question marks when viewing it.
11. API name – When looking at the name of the client that sent the app, it says ‘API’. Having it say ‘Twitastic’ would be great.

That’s about it with Twitastic. In my opinion, $.99 is a bit much to ask for for this app. Making it free seems fine. Maybe sticking some ads in there would yield more revenue. My verdict is to not buy it. There are many free alternatives to this.