When Apple told us we were going to get push notifications way back at the dawn of time (well, it feels like it was that long ago!) I started looking forward to pushed tweets. Since we finally got the fabled notifications with iPhone OS 3.0 we’ve bee treated to a trickle of Twitter apps promising to take advantage of push.

So why was I so keen on getting my hands on some pushed goodness? For me, there were two type of apps that were crying out for some kind of instant notification. Those were instant messengers and Twitter clients. For me, Twitter is a tool for finding new and interesting people and then having conversations. Instant, pushed notifications suit this kind of app perfectly.

Having said that though, I personally don’t want my entire Twitter stream pushed. Imagine 300 people’s worth of tweets getting pushed to your iPhone. If you DO want everything pushed though, there ARE apps out there for you. Thankfully they give users the option of turning that particular feature off.

So here I find myself, with an iPhone full of various push Twitter apps. I’ll be writing here about a few of them over the coming days and weeks, pointing out there good and bad points. Some of them are apps built purely to let you know when there are new tweets, while others are full fledged Twitter clients. There really is an app for everyone.

First up today we have iTweetReply from Syncode.

iTweetReply (iTunes link) was one of the first out the door with a Twitter app built for push, and it’s changed a fair bit since its release. It’s always good to see a dev keeping on top of new features and bug fixes. Thumbs up for that ! This app is also one of the apps to offer pushed timelines as well as the usual replies and DMs.

When I said there were two types of push Twitter apps, I actually lied. iTweetReply manages to fall smack bang between the two types I mentioned earlier. While this is a full app, it lacks the fleshed out features of some other offerings. Don’t expect to find the usual trends, search or favourites. All the main things you need a Twitter app to do are there though; reply to tweets, create new tweets from scratch and send/read direct messages. A feature I like my Twitter apps to sport is in there too – you can see tweets in a conversation view. Here you can keep track of who replied to who and when, which is really helpful if, like me, you find yourself keeping multiple conversations running at a time.

As far as the interface is concerned it’s pretty much what you’d expect. Buttons for replies, direct messages and your timeline are found across the bottom of the screen, with refresh and new tweet buttons at the top. This leaves the vast majority of the screen free for your tweets, which is what you’re there for after all !

This is all very good, but we’re all here for the push. So does it work? Yes, yes it does.

I did a few tests and everything came through as expected. The test @ replies took on average 5 minutes to get pushed, where direct messages took around 3 minutes. The reason for the delay is the Twitter API. iTweetReply’s servers need to poll the API in order to check if there are new tweets. Twitter allows 150 calls per hour, so if it polled more often you would run the risk of not being able to use any other apps because your push app had used them all. Until Twitter increases the number of calls you can make, this isn’t going to change.
Pushed timeline tweets took around 4 minutes to arrive.
One thing worth adding to the push situation is how iTweetReply works with other iTweetReply users. If tweets are sent from another user of the app, the notifications are sent instantly. Whether that’s useful is down the the user, but it’s another feather in Syncode’s cap.

So there we have it. iTweetReply does exactly what it’s supposed to do, and for £1.19 I don’t think you can go wrong so long as you don’t mind the lack of a few features.

Keep an aye on the blog and Twitter for my thoughts on some of the other push Twitter apps for the iPhone and let me know how you get on with iTweetReply in the comments !