So, Tweetie 2 Is Awesome. What's Next?

Screen shot 2009-10-12 at 1.14.22 PMAs we noted on Friday, Tweetie 2, the new iPhone Twitter client by Atebits, launched in the App Store. We did a preview of it a few weeks ago, noting that it was the best Twitter client out there. Judging from the response on Twitter and elsewhere, most seem to agree. So what’s next?

Atebits has a short post today outlining what we can expect from them coming up. First and foremost are all the small bug fixes for Tweetie 2. Noting that despite the name, Tweetie 2 is a 1.0 release, developer Loren Brichter says the bugs will be fixed “soon.” But the bigger story is what he wants to squeeze into the next release of Tweetie:

  • New-style retweets
  • Per-tweet geotagging
  • Lists

Of course, all of those are contingent upon Twitter having the APIs for those features ready to go. But the Geolocation API, for example, is already partially deployed and should be a go soon. Brichter notes that Tweetie 2 was built to take advantage of all of these new features, and we saw that the other week when geolocation unexpectedly went live and tagged everyone’s tweets just off the coast of Africa.

Both the Retweet and Lists features are also currently being tested and tweaked as they near launch.

We also know that Atebits is preparing a new version of its Tweetie for Mac client, that will sync with Tweetie 2. And in his blog post, Brichter hints at another project he’s been working on not related to Tweetie. “Oh, and I haven’t been all Tweetie all the time, there is this other thing… stay tuned,” he writes.

In terms of how well Tweetie 2 is actually doing post-launch, Brichter declined to comment on specifics, but noted that it was the “#1 Top Grossing app in less than 24 hours, and currently #2 Top Paid overall.  Pretty frickin’ insane,” he wrote to us in an email.

Update: Oh yes, and I have asked Brichter about the all-important Push Notification functionality. I will update when I hear back, but it is coming at some point. For now, try Boxcar.