Account syncing allows you to share your settings across all the computers you use. It accomplishes this by using cloud storage for your application preferences. Typically each service will provide you with a login so you can securely load your preferences, from passwords to column settings in TweetDeck.
This software is funded by advertisements within the software. Ads may range from natural looking tweets, ad sidebars, splash screens, or other formats.
Advanced search is the ability to search Twitter for complex queries. Operators may range from simple AND / OR to multi-layered filters or location-based queries. Some applications provide ways of saving searches, viewing many searches at once, or even sharing them between computers via account syncing.
These applications can control how often they refresh your information. Some can provide separate settings for all friends, mentions, or DMs, while others just provide a flat percentage.
These apps can let you keep your place within a stream, and come back to it later. This feature is useful for users who just want to keep tabs on their friends, or brand managers who need to keep up with each and every mention of their company's name.
These apps have the ability to notify you via email when you receive new messages.
Facebook integration means that this software is designed to interact with both Twitter and Facebook. Some apps may rely primarily on Twitter, some on Facebook.
In Twitter you can "star" or favorite any tweet, and get back to it by going to your favorites page, which is public. But if you want to bookmark a tweet without exposing it in your "favorites" page, some applications offer an option to keep track of them separately, so you can maintain a private list.
This software is available at no cost. It is free in regards to price. For a list of free and open source software (FOSS) please see the term open source.
Groups are arbitrary collections of users that you create from your list of followers in a Twitter app. Examples would be "co-workers," "celebrities," or "my favorite bloggers."
This software uses HTTPS to securely connect to Twitter. Any app flagged "secure" does not necessarily use OAuth. Please see the list of Twitter apps using OAuth.
This software can automatically upload images for quick inclusion with your tweets. Some apps offer a choice between the various image hosts.
These Twitter apps allow an iPhone or iPod Touch user to have a horizontal keyboard while typing up messages.
These Twitter apps allow you to read web pages using the horizontal mode of the web browser. Normally you have to load a link in Safari to view it in landscape mode.
These Twitter apps support the Twitter Lists feature. Inspired by implementations of groups in various Twitter apps, Lists allow you to group users together and allow others to follow the whole list with a single click. Examples: co-workers, Twitter team, family, classmates.
These Twitter apps use a relatively small amount of memory to run. This tag is generally used to denote the smaller memory footprints for a particular platform, so an Adobe AIR app in this category will probably still consume a lot of memory compared to something written in C.
This software allows you to load more than one Twitter account, so you can manage multiple identities on Twitter with one app.
These Twitter apps can display info from or post messages to multiple social networks, sometimes simultaneously.
OAuth is Twitter's preferred method of third-party authentication. It allows you to grant any Twitter app access to your account without storing your password in the app's memory, instead storing a list of "allowed" apps on Twitter. Read the OAuth documentation for Twitter.
OAuth is not directly related to Twitter, and is used for third-party authentication all over the internet. See the OAuth website.
This software is available under a free software license, such as the MIT license or the GPL. This type of license lets users create and distribute their own software using the existing code, provided they pass the same rights along with their derivative work. While not 100% true, the vast majority of this software is also available free of charge.
This software allows you to use Outlook as your twitter client.
This software allows you you use Outlook Search to browse for tweets. As you might have guessed, all apps with Outlook search have Outlook Integration.
Pause is a feature that allows you to stop app notifications while it continues to silently collect data in the background. When you unpause, it continues to operate normally, with all the number badges and other features will displaying the total since you paused.
These twitter apps will remember exactly what you were doing when you shut them, and open back up to that spot when you launch them. This is especially useful on the iPhone, as it can only run one program at a time and this helps it feel like a multi-app experience.
Push Notifications is the unified background messaging system for the iPhone and iPod Touch. IT has several features which developers implement at their choosing, including modal dialogs, number badges on iPhone app icons, and notification chimes.
This software has a development team that quickly and transparently addresses issues. They may or may not have an official Twitter account, but regardless it is easy to contact them with questions or problems regarding their products.
These apps allow you to save your searches so you can check back on them often. Please see each individual review to figure out if they can show more than one search at a time (column format) or just keep a list of your saved searches.
These Twitter apps allow basic public timeline searching. Searches can include basic operators (AND/OR), can search for usernames or hashtags, but cannot do location-based searching or other advanced queries. Check the list of apps with advanced searching capabilities or saved searches.
These Twitter apps are quick and responsive, with intuitive interface decisions and instantaneous, rich application visuals.
Spell checking is when the computer highlights incorrectly spelled words and offers suggestions. Just in case you weren't sure.
These apps allow you to resize the interface. Typically large text provides easier reading, and you can see more tweets onscreen with smaller text.
This software can change its visual appearance. Check each app's details for whether you can create your own theme, use the ones supplied, or just have configurable color settings.
This software provides built-in URL shortening through the variety of services available. Depending on the app, you may be able to configure which one you'd like to use, or even randomize it.
This software allows you to record video (if your computer has a camera attached). The video has to be uploaded to a third-party service, since Twitter does not include any media hosting capabilities (just like image uploading).