It seems like an eternity since we last used Twitterrific. It was a hugely popular Twitter client for the Mac and was our go-to tool for ages. Development slipped and we switched to other tools such as the official Twitter tool.

Sadly, the official Twitter client is awful. It’s resource-heavy and direct messages can take ages to go through and we often see messages appear on your iPhone or iPad, minutes before they hit our Mac. A frustrating experience, but at least it’s free.

Earlier this year, Twitterrific developers Iconfactory turned to Kickstarter to see if they could get enough (commercial) interest to develop a new version. $100,000 secured, Twitterrific 5 for the Mac was made available from the Mac App Store (despite originally saying it would be distributed outside of the App Store framework).

Twitterrific with it’s Dark Mode

So, what’s it like? First impressions are good. We immediately noticed the excellently implemented light and dark mode. You can open multiple accounts and then run independent app windows for each account, making it really easy to keep an eye on each timeline, without having to switch. You can also synchronise your timeline positioning via iCloud, which could be handy if you want to catch up later.

The key feature is a lack of adverts across your timeline. Twitterrific will remove all promotional tweets, enabling you to keep your timeline free of sponsored posts. We’re not entirely sure if this meet’s Twitter’s requirements for a client, but as Twitterrific is a commercial tool, people won’t expect to view adverts.

Sadly there is some missing functionality. You can’t add photos to a direct message. You can’t start a tweet and save it to drafts for editing later, nor can you edit your geolocation. You can’t edit lists either. Twitter’s own API won’t allow third-party clients to support the new 280-character tweeting either, so be warned.

The biggest issue is the price. Twitterrific 5 for Mac is $19.99 or £19.99 in the UK (effectively making it close to $27!), for a social media client. Which isn’t fully complete. There’s no trial version either, so it’s a straight purchase.