iPhone Twinkle : Twitter + Location

Ever since I bought an iPhone I have been talking about how great it is and how it is a total game changer. One of the applications I would always tell people to jailbreak for was

Tapulous‘ Twinkle, this is no longer the case as it was available in the app store for FREE quickly after the stores launch.

What makes it so great? Well it’s Twitter + location. All the microblogging goodness of Twitter with all the benefits of a device that knows where you are at any given moment. It is quite simple really. They have a timeline that is only available through Twinkle, when you post something they add it to their location based timeline and to your Twitter timeline. If you post anything while you are not on Twinkle, it copies it into your Twinkle timeline from Twitter.

This has allowed me to have conversations and get informed I things that are happening around me. That I would have never have found out about otherwise. Really making the whole Twitter experience a whole lot more enjoyable.

This is not to say that Twinkle doesn’t have it’s faults, because it seriously does.

1. While Twinkle synchronizes with Twitter, it is not Twitter
   Twinkle uses it’s own timeline and it’s own usernames. When you first log into Twinkle it creates a Twinkle account and you then have the option to tie in a Twitter account. Having a Twitter account is actually optional.
2. Not requiring a Twitter account is confusing
   My girlfriend kept sending me messages for a week or so through Twinkle that I kept getting late in the day when I’m on my way home and check Twinkle. While at work I use Twitterrific and she had forgotten to tie up her Twinkle and Twitter accounts. She thought she was posting to Twitter, she wasn’t.
3. Separate Twinkle and Twitter accounts break Twitter more than they help it
   Twitter’s @reply system is already quite broken. There is no need to break it more with names that are not valid and names that are not correct. There is a guy who posts around the Denver area that has the Twinkle name ‘The Internet’ if I @reply to him it would tweet ‘@The Internet’. Anybody will tell you that won’t work because Twitter names don’t have spaces. Twitter will think that I replied to @the. Also there is a Twitter user called @theinternet and they are not related. It’s stuff like that that doesn’t help the platform, because it segregates and creates wrong data that then gets added to my feeds.
4. People think Twinkle is Instant Messaging
   Too many times have I logged on to Twinkle and it is completely useless because one user decided he/she was going to reply to everysingle message in the last hour and effectively spammed my feed. In the Denver area there’s like four serious offenders. This gets worse because there is no way around it. I would make it so that after 2-3 messages back and forth it would get parsed out and I would see a ‘conversation between x and y’ post in my timeline instead of the whole thing. Also, Twinkle does not let you filter/block people, which is really frustrating.
5. Expand the application further
   Make it so that I can create a beacon and have people within 100 feet from me know that I am near them this would make for random encounters between the Twitteratti easier.

I really am now thinking of a more robust Twinkle that can do what they are doing now, better. A tool that allows for Twittering and chatting based on locations. Twitter + location + irc. But that’s another blog post all together.

Twinkle version 1.2 has been promised to be out soon with at least being able to block users, but that is not necessarily a good thing because honestly, I don’t mind the chatterboxes, Id just rather have the option to read all their messages or not.

In conclusion, go get Twinkle now if you own an iPhone. But please pick the same name as your Twitter account!