Have you been looking for a well designed, full featured, Twitter screen saver for Mac OSX? So have I! The good news is I have been able to find a few screen savers for the Mac (some listed below). The bad news is that none of them are what I am personally looking for.
What I want in an OSX Twitter Screen Saver :
- Elegant design
- Utilization of Quartz, maybe with a little 3D action
- Ability to customize the source of the tweets (people, keywords, lists)
- Ability to customize the fonts and colors used
- Display of avatars next to the name of the person
- Integration of geo data if available
- Integration of photos (show me a preview of the link)
I was able to find some decent screen savers for Windows. Flitter looks close to what I was thinking I would find when I first started looking. Damn you Windows. Damn you.
Twitter Screen Savers for Mac
Twistori (3/5 Tongues)
This is the most interesting of the bunch. Twistori is a Twitter screen saver (and website) that displays tweets based on emotional keywords (love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish). It’s funny to see how people express themselves, you can certainly get sucked into this experience.
Twistori is available for both Leopard and Snow Leopard . I am bummed that this screen saver has zero customization options. I wish I could add my own emotions or get rid of certain words like hate. I have no desire to have the word hate repeating on my screen all day… it’s just bad karma.
TweetSvr (2/5 Tongues)
TweetSvr is a very basic Mac screen saver that displays tweets from you, your friends, or the public timeline in floating clouds. I grew board with this screen saver instantly. You can’t customize the font or size of the text. It’ doesn’t display the avatar of the person that made the tweet. The graphics are just blah. The only good news is that it works with Snow Leopard and doesn’t seem to have any technical issues. You can download it here.
If anyone has found a Twitter screen saver for OSX that they really like please let me know. I would love to check it out.
I don’t step away from my computer long enough for a screensaver to even come on. Sad.
@BenSpark:
I am mainly looking for a screen saver for my living room tv. I have it hooked up to a mac mini and often use the setup for background music when I am working on my laptop.
There is a Twitter Screensaver called “The Tweetverse” that is part of the Mac OS X Development tools. You can also download it on quartzcomposer.com. It looks beautiful when tested in QuartzComposer but I can’t get it to work live. Maybe because Twitter has changed its authentication protocol? If anybody knows how to update it, I’d be very grateful.