Twibble–Brings Twitter Closer To Jaiku

I have been using Twitter a bit more than I was before thanks to this nifty little J2ME app for Nokia phones called Twibble. It runs in the background and pulls the latest tweets from my friends over whatever connection I happen to have. I can page through them at my leisure, respond to them–it is smart and will offer to add a @whoever so you can respond. And, of course, I can send in a tweet.

The app is interesting in that it gives you the choice of using data or SMS to update your contacts. There was actually a bug in how the app saved the SMS number to use–I wanted to change it from the default +44 number to the U.S. shortcode 40404–but they fixed it and I get a shout out in the 0.3.8 update note.

Twibble also gives you the ability to use that L: tag to update your location–either with text or by using the GPS. I feel a bit uncomfortable being that specific with my whereabouts, so I’ll stick to the English name updates to my location.

What surprised me this morning was that I actually received a private tweet from someone–in the Twibble application. I can, of course, send them, but I was shocked that I could get private messages as well through the client. Sweet!

So how does it compare to the Jaiku S60 client? Favorably, though clearly the Jaiku client is more polished UI-wise and actually uses the cell towers to determine location. However, Twibble is network agnostic and will run on any connection that can make an IP-based one, and will use GPS. In any case, you can’t go wrong with this app, though I would like to see a somewhat better presentation of the tweet list. That’s just a little extra frosting on this otherwise tasty cake.