TweetDeck’s new iPhone app came out a couple days ago. It is completely redesigned from the ground up and looks more like it’s Android cousin than the first TweetDeck for iPhone. Instead of cramming as much as possible into an iPhone screen, TweetDeck stripped everything out but the essentials. The result is a spare mobile stream reader that packs a lot of punch. We take a look at the new TweetDeck for IPhone in this episode of Fly or Die, along with SounTracking, and Zapd. As usual, the CEO behind one of these products appears as a surprise guest during the show.
With Twitter rumored to be negotiating a $50 million acquisition of TweetDeck to keep it out of the hands of Bill Gross’ UberMedia, it is not clear whether this brand new product will survive such a deal. After all, Twitter has its own iPhone client, among others. It doesn’t need two.
For now, though, you can enjoy it. The new TweetDeck for iPhone still lets you add as many columns as you want and swipe through to view different streams, but you also get a unified Home column, which can combine your Twitter and Facebook streams into one. The app has nice subtle touches, such as the diagonal swipe to see more Tweets from the same account (my favorite). And instead of timestamps cluttering each Tweet, the timestamp changes at the top as you scroll through your stream. If you want to jump to the top to the most recent Tweet, just tap the actual time (yeah, someone had to point that one out to me too, but these are the kinds of hidden features power users love).
In this show, we also look at SoundTracking, a music-sharing app that just passed 250,000 downloads in six weeks. John Biggs, my co-host, calls it Instagram for music. You can Tweet out, or share on Facebook, a link to any song, It can be the song you are listening to in the iPod app on the phone, one that you search for, or one that the app identifies through the microphone.
Finally, there is Zapd, which is also close to 250,000 downloads since it launched only four weeks ago. Zapd lets you create simple, themed websites from your mobile phone. Snap a picture, add some text and a few links, and your site is up in no time, and you can keep updating from your phone. It’s like Tumblr, but even easier.