Snaptu Makes You Forget about The iPhone 3Gs

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With all the latest developments in the mobile world, namely the iPhone 3Gs and the Palm Pre release, I would like to focus on something completely different. I know it is hard to believe but some people are still using plain old “dumbphones” as their primary mobile device. In fact, as of now I am using a Samsung F480, which has a Java-based platform, meaning that there are not many quality apps out there to install.

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For this reason, when I was first introduced to Snaptu, via a friend’s tweet, I was immediately blown away. Snaptu is so good, the thought crossed my mind to forget about the iPhone 3Gs and stay with this phone since everything you need is pretty much available if you are using Snaptu. So what is it?

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Snaptu is a mobile app that gives you a wide variety of different applications in an ultra user-friendly interface and like I mentioned, it works on virtually all phones with Web access. If you have any phone other than an iPhone, you really need to check out this app, but I will tell you a little more about it. So you launch the app and are presented with a widget-like screen that displays up to 9 iPhone like icons offering different apps. The options available to you are many and always growing. Some of the best ones include Facebook, Picasa, Google Calendar, an RSS reader, a dictionary, news from all over the world, a weather app, and of course a very very user friendly and advanced Twitter client.

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Now, if you have read any of my blog posts about Twitter clients, you know I am very picky, and somehow the guys over at Snaptu managed to engineer a Twitter app that can seriously compete with the best of em, including iPhone apps, and all on a plain old Java-based platform. To just give a few examples, the Snaptu Twitter client offers the following advanced options: Retweeting, Twitpic viewer, View profiles, URL shortener, and from what I have heard from the developers, the best is still to come.

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As you can tell, I became a huge fan of Snaptu instantaneously, but as time went on and I began communicating with the guys over at Snaptu, which lead me to reviewing the app even more closely, I became even more impressed, which is rare. The developers of Snaptu conduct themselves with the utmost professionalism and what blew me away is that they were asking my opinion, a guy who they did not know from a hole in the wall for feedback on missing features in order to implement them immediately. Any issue I presented to them was already known and being worked on. In fact, when I presented them what I thought would make this app the ultimate app, I was told the feature was in the late stages of development.

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Now, I do not like to sound ALL positive so I will give you a small example of a missing feature. When tweeting on Snaptu, and you receive a DM (direct message) from someone, you are unable to reply via DM back to the sender. This is annoying and when I spoke to the guys about fixing this as soon as possible, I was told “There are people here working around the clock to fix this issue exactly”.  They also explained to me what is the cause of the issue. When you want to DM someone, that person needs to be following you, and since Snaptu works on some pretty basic phones, it would slow down the entire experience for the app to verify if that person is following you. I am no developer, but that makes a lot of sense and I know I would prefer not being able to DM back over having a slow and annoying application.

One of the most important features being developed now for Snaptu is groups for your Twitter friends. This is something missing from even the most advanced mobile clients, including Twitterfon and Tweetie. Once this feature is perfected, Snaptu might become the Tweetdeck for simple mobile phones, which I am sure will add to its popularity among Twitter users.

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In conclusion, I can count on one hand the amount of apps for simple phones like mine that are worthy of praise. These include the Gmail app, Trutap, Ebuddy, and Snaptu, with Snaptu being the best and most useful one by far. Now as soon as Snaptu adds email, IM, and a few enhancements to the Facebook and Twitter clients, I would say forget an iPhone, use Snaptu and save yourself some money!

-Hillel


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hilzfuld

Hillel Fuld is a global speaker, entrepreneur, journalist, vlogger, and leading startup advisor. He brings over a decade of marketing experience with leading Israeli and Silicon Valley startups, and currently collaborates with many global brands in an official marketing capacity including Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Huawei, and others.      Hillel covers the dynamic local tech scene for many leading publications including Entrepreneur magazine, Inc, TechCrunch, Mashable, The Next Web, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, Venturebeat, and others. Additionally, Hillel mentors startups across Israel in different accelerators including The Google Launchpad, the Microsoft Ventures accelerator, Techstars, The Junction, and more.    Hillel has been named Israel’s top marketer, 7th top tech blogger worldwide, has been featured on CNBC, Inc, and was dubbed by Forbes as “The Man Transforming Startup Nation into Scale-up Nation”.       Hillel has hundreds of thousands of followers across the social web and can be found on Twitter at @Hilzfuld. You can learn more about him on his website: www.hilzfuld.com

 

18 thoughts on “Snaptu Makes You Forget about The iPhone 3Gs

  1. I think we spoke about this – I love Snaptu and have been using it on my Noikia e71 for almost a month. In fact, it was an Israeli at a convention booth I visited that introduced me to Snaptu when I complained that I wished I had bought an iPhone! I think you cover the basic pros and very few cons of this application. Mobile app developers should take a look at Snaptu and learn from it – it’s intuitive, creates an “iPhone-like” interface, and pretty to look at! Thanks for shining a light on Snaptu.

  2. Hey Debra, thanks for reading and commenting. Happy to see you agree with me about Snaptu, if an expert like yourself agrees, I know I am in good company 🙂 Keep reading!

  3. im sorry but i wouldve gone with the iphone bud it has everything and more infact it is named the best right now so yeh and nothing can be better im 14 and have one and am upgrading today i just got iphone 3g like a month ago but yeh my opinion ur opinion same thing we have our diff everyone does so yeh

  4. Frank, I did not mean that this app can replace the iPhone literally, I was just saying it gives a very iPhone-like experience on a simple phone. Enjoy the iPhone and keep reading! 🙂

  5. Great application! I installed it after reading your post on my Noikia E71 and the Google Calendar app is fantastic.
    The twitter client is pretty good too, but still not as good as Gravity.

  6. Hey Eti,
    Thanks so much for reading and commenting, I am about to publish a post RIGHT now with your name in it. I am not familiar with Gravity, about to Google it, thanks 🙂

  7. hello,
    great review. Ive been using snaptu for almost a month now &i do agree. Its very attractive, innovative of couse, useful.

    however, i do not like the facebook application as it doesnt allow you to access your notifications.

  8. I’ve just installed it on my SE W595, along with Trek Buddy and the Gmail App. Just those 3 apps give my every function I want from the phone. Who needs to waste all that money on an iphone?

  9. I actually heard about Snaptu ealry this year when i complained to my new media lecturer that I couldn’t use the mobile web with my old fossil of a Nokia 6234 and he told me to download Snaptu. I got so excited because it was like a have a snazzy phone whn people would ask what phone I had. And thanx to Snaptu, I can keep my 13 month relationship with twitter going!!! I’m not gonna buy myself a smart phone anytime soon!!!

  10. I’ve been using snaptu for a couple of days and am impressed to say the least!

    The only issue I have with the Twitter client is that you cannot upload photos to twitpic from the phone – but, it’ on its way according to a recent Tweet from the Snaptu Developers, so thats great!

    One other twitter client is DABR (http://m.dabr.co.uk). It’s a browser based mobile twitter client, that will do all the usual things, including uploading photos.

    Thats not to knock snaptu down at all, because, as we’ve already established, its got so many great features within it!

    Thank You Snaptu,

  11. Snaptu doesn’t want to
    load on my blackberry curve 8520.
    It says check internet settings.please help.

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