I’ve decided to spend a lot more time online starting this year, in order to do that one of the things I’ve decided was I need a very good Twitter client on my Symbian based Nokia 5800 mobile phone. I’ve tried out several Twitter clients for my mobile phone (I’ll write another post on this because these Twitter clients do have their own merits) and I found Gravity from MobileWays to be the best fit for my needs.
My connected phone requirements for a Twitter client are pretty steep. Since mobile phones are such small devices, it’s one thing to use a less full featured twitter client on a notebook/desktop computer and be able to do the other tasks using a web browser on the Twitter site. On a mobile phone, I want a full featured twitter client — one that will provide me with all the Twitter functions without having to use a mobile browser. After looking at several Twitter clients, I thought I’d never be able to find a mobile Twitter client that would satisfy my needs — that is until I found Gravity.
There’s just one downside to Gravity that I found out in the past days that I’ve been using it and I thought I’d get it out of the way at the very start of my post. It’s not FREE and it costs about US$10 to use it for more than 10 days. Personally, I think that a $2.99 price tag is the killer price point in this time of global app economy. If you’re looking for a free app, go look somewhere else. If you’re willing to shell out $10.00, I think it’s still worth the money if you want to use Twitter on your connected phone.
That said, here’s some of the things why I found Gravity (from MobileWays) such a useful Twitter client for the Symbian based Nokia 5800 smartphone. BTW, Gravity currently runs only on both Symbian S60v3 and S60v5 devices. I hope the author, Jan Ole Suhr (@janole), would consider writing versions for the other mobile platforms.
Gravity is actually Twitter client plus some other cool features. It’s more than just a Twitter client. Here’s some of the added features besides the Twitter client functions:
- Gravity also allows you to use it for your identi.ca / Status.net microblogging accounts and has support for multiple accounts.
- You can post images using popular Twitter image sites like Twitgoo, TwitPic, Img.ly, Posterous, MobyPicture and Yfrog.
- You can also perform twitter searches and save them for later use.
- You can update your Facebook status (currently in beta)
- Read RSS feeds from your Google Reader account (currently in beta)
User Interface
Gravity is one piece of well-engineered software. One of the very first things I found out when I started using it was it has kinetic scrolling, a very useful UI feature especially when you’re dealing with long lists on a mobile phone. Something that I have been waiting for like forever for Nokia to implement on my 5800 (I know there’s already a firmware update that provides kinetic scrolling on my Symbian based 5800xm but it’s still not available for update on my part of the globe). Back to Gravity, it’s just so great to have kinetic scrolling as a feature.
Another feature that I love is the way “tabs” are implemented as lists. Click on an item and your screen slides horizontally to a new window. It’s made is such a manner that navigating Gravity allows you to have “tab” functionality as lists.
When browsing to your lists of status updates, you can also use the arrow keys below the list to navigate your timeline, replies, DM’s, favorites, Twitter lists and saved searches.
Access to the different functions is usually just a touch away. Click on an update on the list and you’ll get an expanded view with buttons you can click to perform actions like reply, retweet, DM, tweet author information (you get a lot of very useful info). You can also forward a tweet as SMS or copy it to the mobile phone clipboard.
Short URL’s are also detected and you’ll get a button that will allow you to browse it using your smartphone’s web browser or copy the URL to the clipboard.
One feature that I think would also be great to have is the ability to expand the short URL so that mobile phone owners would be able to know where the URL would lead them. It’s going to be very especially useful for filtering out spam.
Symbian is a mobile platform that allows developers to freely create a UI (user interface) for their application, Gravity provides such a great UX that I wish all Symbian apps would follow the way Gravity is implemented on Symbian.
Features
There’s so much to tell here. I’ll begin by saying that if there’s a Twitter function you need, Gravity has it. Of course that didn’t stop Mobile Ways’ Jan from putting in a lot more useful features on the mobile app.
- For starters all the basic Twitter functions are available — status update / tweeting, reply, retweet, DM (direct message), follow / unfollow, favorites, search, block, saved searches and twitter lists (now available in latest update).
- Social functions like viewing user tweets, viewing user profiles (even us a cool follow conversation feature to allow you to join in on conversations about a topic) allow you to meet other people on Twitter.
- You can view your Timeline, Replies, Messages, Friends, Followers, Lists, Favorites, Saved Searches
- You setup multiple accounts for Twitter, Status.net (Laconica/Identica), Facebook, Google Reader
- You can post URLS in tweets to del.icio.us and Instapaper
- Post images on popular Twitter image posting sites like Twitgoo.com, Twitpic, Yfrog, img.ly and MobyPicture
- Ping.fm support by simply sending “p message” or “p #group message” – something I haven’t tried but can be very useful if you want to update several other social networks
- Built-in auto-update function
- For Nokia N97 users, a Homescreen widget
- You can write your tweets and save it in a draft folder. You can later post it when you get online (very useful for people who are not constantly connected to the Internet). You can even schedule them for later posting on your accounts.
- Theming support although currently limited to fixed two themes right now – one dark and one light theme
- Switching to full screen mode to be able to use more screen area on your mobile phone
Some screenshots of Gravity
Thoughts
The latest version (currently beta) of Gravity has included Facebook and Google reader functionality into it’s list of already very useful features. I’ve been using it for several days now under demo mode. Chances are I might be shelling out the 10 bucks to get the licensed version which ties the mobile app to my IMEI. I really wish I can transfer that license to another mobile phone if ever I decide to buy a new smartphone.
Also there are some features that I can think of right now that would be great to have on Gravity:
- Mark the most recent updates in a different color – it makes reading timeline updates if the last downloaded updates are in a different color.
- Be able to integrate several streams/timelines into a single screen.
- Expansion of short url’s – it’s something that Twitter users can really use when trying out to filter spam urls in tweets.
- Not sure if possible but it would be nice if Gravity will use the notification light on Nokia 5800 to notify phone owner of new/unread DM’s (Direct Messages)
All in all, I’d say Gravity is the most powerful Twitter client that you can use on a Symbian smartphone. If you use Twitter a lot and don’t mind the $10 price tag, I’d say you should get it.
