Hidden on Twitter amongst the chatter about today’s lunch menu and the best spots for happy hour lays a mound of up-to-the-minute user generated commentary on just about any major topic. While Twitter Search helps you wade through this endless torrent of tweets from within the browser, Mustache Inc’s iPhone application Summizer aims to squeeze that functionality into a package more friendly with on-the-go use.
Once you’ve punched in the topic of interest, Summizer uses the Twitter Search API to dig through the database for related tweets. If you’ve got a topic that you search for more often, you can save that search for later use for the sake of sparing your thumbs. Summizer also automatically pulls down the latest trending topics from Twitter, giving you a quick and easy way to see what’s on the collective mind at any given moment. It’s currently focused solely on searching and trend watching, so it doesn’t offer any means of logging in, tweeting, or following users.
While the application currently sits at version 1.0, an update was submitted for Apple’s approval just last night. Version 1.1 introduces automatic updates, link viewing without leaving the application, and the ability to view more tweets from any user you come across. I’ve been playing with the update throughout the evening, and everything seems to work well.
At $4.99, the price may be a bit steep for the general Twitterer. However, if work, research, or just plain old addiction have you digging through Twitter regularly, the time you’ll save with the native interface and saved search features might make it plenty worth the cost of admission. Personally, I’d love to see Mustache Inc. partner up with the folks behind Twinkle (Tapulous) or Twitterific (The Iconfactory) to get this functionality integrated into one of the popular iPhone Twitter posting/following applications.
Check it out in the App Store >>
Good find and screenshot, I know that guy :) Going to download it on my iPhone. Thanks
did not know such a function existed
I am prone to twitter and I simply love this.
I think I’ll stick with the Twitter Search website, which looks great on the iPhone/iPod touch, and is free. Good idea…but not enough there to justify the $4.99 price tag.
So true, I purchased the app but especially if you have the 3G iPhone just save a bookmark to your home screen of search.twitter.com page. Now if the app adds the ability to tweet from it, I’ll like it even more and justify the $4.99 price.
I’ve been using this app since it was released and I have been extremely pleased with it. The fact that I get instant trending from over 500,000 users is a super nice feature. Who needs digg when you have an app that trends things for you?
Nice, but how many $4.99 twitter utilities will there be? You’re right, this should get bundled into another product so you can have a 1 stop interface on your iPhone.
Whatever happened to creating apps and devices across multi-platform… not everyone went the iphone route
No, but at least when you develop for the iPhone you know what to expect. Diversification – the scourge of mobile developers everywhere.
$4.99! You mean, we need to pay for it. Ha!