App: Twidroid Pro, by Zimmermann & Marban

Price: €3.39 (approx. $4.59)

Features: Option to view *real* names, theming, trends, lists, geo, photo/video, URL shortening, etc., etc.

Tested: 03/19/10, Nexus One | Version: 3.1.9

Twidroid Pro is quite possibly the most well known and widely adopted Twitter app for Android. It’s undergone a long list of significant changes since its public release in October of 2008. And just in the last year, it’s gone from one of few viable options to one of the most equipped, usable, and complete Twitter packages out there. Twidroid Pro won’t win any awards for being the slimmest or simplest app of its kind, but it is becoming the sleakest of what I consider to be the feature rich Twitter apps. This thing has features up the wazoo…

For example, with Twidroid you can post/follow from multiple accounts, chose one of six skins, invert the background for reading white on black, see real names instead of user IDs, remember your place in the timeline when closed, reply to all mentioned in a message, manage photo and video services, shorten URLs via bit.ly, refresh by shaking the phone, use the SD card for app data, view lists/trends, access via plugin for Google Maps, and utilize tab (context) sensitive menues. That’s just a quick skimming of the app though. Twidroid Pro is quite robust and one of the more capable clients out there. Check here for a more complete list of features.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Twidroid offers 3 different sizes of widgets. You can send a tweet with attachements, view – and scroll through – your timeline, and see how many DMs/@replies you have. The total package is killer, and well worth your four dollars and change. Zimmermann & Marbann were the first names – that I’m aware of – to turn up in the Android Market with a solution for Twitter junkies. And while it’s clear that virtually everyone who has developed an Android Twitter app has benefited from observing their successes and failures, no one has learned as much from Twidroid as the creators themselves. I’ve seen flaws come and go and I’ve seen some ups and downs, but the lifetime trajectory of Twidroid Pro – both in terms of quality and popularity – is most certainly at a steep incline.