Lost without TweetDeck? Try these alternatives - CNET

Lost without TweetDeck? Try these alternatives - CNET

The folks at Twitter announced Monday that the standalone TweetDeck apps for mobile will no longer be supported after May of this year. While Twitter says that it is putting more resources toward the Web version (which can easily be used on the desktop), there are surely plenty of people who are upset that their beloved mobile clients are going away.

For those of you looking for an alternative to TweetDeck, here are a few mobile apps that should prove adequate for your tweeting purposes.

TweetDeck alternatives for iOS

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Tweetbot ($2.99) is an extremely popular Twitter client for good reason -- it has a well-designed interface, gesture-based controls, multiple timelines, and all the tools you need to browse and interact with the site. You will have to pay for it, but it comes with a lot of features and is completely ad-free.

Tweetbot doesn't have the swipable columns you used in TweetDeck. But you can just as easily use the buttons at the bottom to quickly navigate between your timeline, mentions, and direct messages, and you get two more buttons with pop-up menus where you can assign your most-used actions.

The app also lets you add multiple accounts, and you can view multiple timelines that you can quickly switch to by touching the top center of the interface.

While Tweetbot is not a complete replacement for TweetDeck, it has so many useful features that it may become your go-to Twitter client anyway.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

HootSuite (Free) gives you a similar experience of using columns to browse like you had with TweetDeck, but you also get a lot more. The app lets you sign in to your Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare accounts from a single application window, so you can browse and post messages and statuses from all three social-networking services.

To add a column like you did in TweetDeck, you can simply go to the Streams window, touch Edit, and then add one of your lists, create a saved search, or just enter a keyword. Once it's saved, then there will be another column you can quickly get to by swiping horizontally from your timeline.

HootSuite's beauty really lies in its powerful posting capabilities. It lets you post to multiple accounts, attach pictures, shorten links, and add geotags with ease, all from a single "Compose message" screen. It even lets you schedule posts and track statistics, which most other clients can't do.

TweetDeck alternatives for Android

(Credit: Screenshot by Jaymar Cabebe/CNET)

Plume (free) has long been a viable alternative to the official Twitter app on Android, but lately it's been losing some of the spotlight to standout releases like Carbon and Falcon Pro. It's true, Plume might not be quite as visually attractive as those two, but this old dog can more than hold its own when it comes to features. And the truth is, TweetDeck wasn't much of a looker anyway.

Something TweetDeck devotees will appreciate is that the meat of the Plume app is organized into customizable columns. You can add, edit, and delete columns as you see fit, which is great because Plume supports multiple Twitter accounts and even Facebook accounts. This means that you could conceivably swipe between various Twitter timelines, mentions, saved searches, and your Facebook news feed, all from within a single interface. One thing I like to do is create columns for my Twitter Lists. This gives me one-swipe access to all my NBA news, tech pundits, and food-related Twitter users.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jaymar Cabebe/CNET)

TweetLine (free) is a simple, column-based Twitter client for Android that could be just the TweetDeck alternative you're looking for. It may be a relatively obscure title, but in some ways I think TweetLine is actually better than Twitter's soon-to-be shuttered app.

Compared with other Twitter clients on Android, TweetDeck's interface is a huge letdown. That is not the case with TweetLine. This app's interface is a lot cleaner and more intuitive. All of its basic functions sit on a slim navigation bar along the bottom, and there's a Settings screen for the rest. The app autocompletes usernames and lets you look at trending Twitter topics, both things that TweetDeck doesn't do.

There is also an ad-free paid version of TweetLine for $1.68.

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