Coming into the world as the first priced Twitter client for Android carries with it some inherent expectations. Twidroid has never disappointed me, and the interface is as sleek and professionally crafted as one could hope for. There are options galore, and the app works flawlessly. With this in mind, I went ahead and paid the $2.99 for Loquacious - even though there is a 14-day, fully-functional free trial version in the Market.
In order to compete with an app as powerful and satisfying as Twidroid, the developer of Loquacious, Shaun Kelly, took a different approach. The app's description states that it contains not a trace of turquoise. And yeah, it is kind of a nice change.
Besides the fairly standard Twitter client options of direct message, reply, retweet, follow link, and favorite, Loquacious has a killer filter menu. You can set up filters based on user ID or the source client; i.e., from Web, Twidroid, etc. The latter is an excellent feature, and probably the one thing that could pull me away from Twidroid - but only for viewing. And once you follow enough people, it makes sense to view with one client and tweet with another.
The filters are based on whatever shows up on your account - not a list of current Twitter clients. So, not only will you not need to scroll through a huge list of irrelevant clients, the app will automatically recognize new clients when they are released.
For now, Twidroid is still my favorite. But Loquacious has a lot to offer. A simplified interface, unencumbered tweet list, and perfect filters will probably draw a more than a few converts. It's at least worth checking out the demo. I had to search by name - it didn't show up for me under social apps.
