The app is small, but don't be fooled because it packs a lot of features for such a little guy. Many of the most commonly used options are included, such as creating new messages, listening to audio, and watching video.
After logging in, the first thing you'll see is the public timeline, which displays all of the most recent messages sent by everyone.
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You can change this feed at any time by clicking view menu and choose any of four different options:
- All: The default public timeline with everyone's messages
- Recent: Only messages from the friends you follow
- Inbox: Only messages sent directly to you
- Sent: Only messages that you've sent
As far as audio and video playback is concerned, the app did a decent job handling media. The quality and the performance wasn't bad at all. The usual player functions were all there as well: pause, play, volume control.
Another minor complaint is that you have to type the names of contacts and groups in their respective fields. There isn't an auto-fill or dropdown list feature at this time. This could be a problem because it requires users to remember every contact and group name as well as their correct spelling.
The ability to send private messages to individuals or groups is an excellent option that will be used a great deal by everyone.
There's a handy filter for Groups, which Utterli announced recently. This makes it easy to check out only those messages sent to the groups you want to view at that time. It works just like the Rooms for FriendFeed filter on the twhirl client. Once you click the Group menu you'll see all of the groups that you belong to. After you select a group you'll be able to get all of the audio, video and text messages from that group.
While the desktop app isn't as fully functional as the Utterli website, it does provide a great deal of features in a compact little program. You can easily navigate throughout the entire Utterli system with the app, and when desired you can access the full website with the click of a button. Since this is a beta release, we can expect many more features and functionality to come in future releases. In the meantime, it's a good way to catch up with Utterli messages outside of the browser.
You can grab your copy of the app right here.