Regular readers may know that I’m a big fan of twitter. I hope you all notice my twitter feed on the homepage. Anyway a while ago I wrote two articles on twitter apps, one was about features twitter apps where distinctly lacking (read the article here); the other was a comparison between TwitterFon and Twitterrific, btw. TwitterFon won that read why here.

A couple of weeks ago TweetDeck joined the apps market and I’ve been testing it ever since. Here is how it stands up against TwitterFon, my previously preferred app.

1. TweetDeck allows you to manage multiple personalities. Yep, that’s right if you have more than one twitter profile (like me, follow @uberbusy and @martinbeauchamp) then you can tweet on the fly without logging in and out of apps. TweetDeck wins on functionality!

2. On loading the apps, TweetDeck goes a little mental and throws out so much information it is confusing, especially if you have a few different accounts running (you can turn some of this information off in setting). TwittFon is more simplistic in its behaviour, probably because mutiple accounts is not supported. TwitterFon wins on simplicity!

3. Use of colour, seriously this is important distinction between the two apps. TweetDeck uses sleek but indistinct shades of gray to communicate information. TwitterFon is far more obvious with its choice of palette. Giving a nice visual display of unread vs read tweets, it took me at least a week to see that TweetDeck does change the colour of read tweets, something that needs improving. TwitterFon wins on usability!

4. New updates, apart from colour, both apps deal with things differently here. TwitterFon lets you read from where you left off. TweetDeck starts you at the latest information first. I much prefer TwitterFon’s ways here. I don’t feel like I am potentially missing out on something important.

5. This only applies to TweetDeck. Syncing (columns) between your desktop and iPhone version. All very cool, as it cuts down setup time plus makes great use of desktop TweetDeck. Where columns are so important in organising and grouping information. For this I thank thee… it knocks off point 4 of must haves in my 6 features post. (edit: One minor point here, if you setup an account for syncing, don’t bother if you have special characters in your email you registered to TweetDeck on, because it won’t like it – thanks to @digitalandy and @CalvinRobinson for pointing this out – I still ask why people have hyphens in their emails, sooo 90′s ) . TweetDeck wins on functionality!

6. Ever wanted to email a Tweet? Yes! Well you’ll love TweetDeck. What a great addition!

7. Internal browsers, well neither are particularly good, neither are they particularly bad. However, TwitterFon does allow you to launch Safari, which I often use. Simple functionality that TweetDeck definitely needs.

8. TweetDeck crashes on me all the time. Mainly when I want to add a user to a group. I’m sure it is a bug, but it is uber annoying.

9. In TweetDeck once you write a post you are committed. You can’t cancel and come back to a half written one like on TwitterFon. This is a frustrating if you want to quickly check what someone has written before you respond.

10. @ anyone! TwitterFon makes sending message @ someone a simple as pie. They have a directory of people you follow in every new tweet, making it easy for you to just find that persons name a tweet them. No such luck on TweetDeck, you have to be some kind memory man. Bet loads of tweets have gone lost by misspelling.

11. Quick delete a half written tweet. TwitterFon has the trash icon and a simple touch allows you to start again. TweekDeck forces you to use the back button, so time consuming!

12. Want a free app without adverts. TweetDeck is the app for you.

Edit: 13. TweetDeck doesn’t allow you to click search hash tags?! WTF. Come on, this is so important in the twitter world.

After two weeks of playing around with TweekDeck, I must say that it is impressive and has a tonne of new features that others clearly don’t have. However it is not the clear cut winner in the mobile twitter apps market. TwitterFon can still hold its own in for its shear simplicity of design and a couple of important features such as 9, 10 and 11. My final verdict is that I will be running both apps until TweetDeck can fix some of the aforementioned points. TwitterFon remains quick and easy to use and when I have to tweet in a hurray I’ll be rushing for the blue and white icon.