The Friendfeed War Continues: Amigo Updates App, Challenges Buddyfeed For Domination (iPhone)

Despite getting rave reviews from bloggers like Scoble and TechCrunch, there are still very few iPhone apps available for Friendfeed. While six iPhone apps have appeared for Friendfeed, only half of them seem to have any active development upon them (at least where the quality is worth the price).

While Buddyfeed seems to have dominated the Friendfeed market (especially with the roll out of Buddyfeed 2.0), it looks as if they may have a new challenger on their hands by the name of Amigo.

Developed by David J. Hinson (of Summer Systems Management), Amigo reminds me of an app in eternal Fiesta, mainly because of its vibrant colors that do not leave one feeling totally relaxed. Priced at $2.99, Amigo costs about the same as Buddyfeed, although the app does have a few features lacking when compared against is main rival.

The Good

Even though both apps have many similar features (too many to list here), the first thing I loved about Amigo was (drum roll please) landscape mode!

While typing away in portrait mode can be fun with one hand, it can become very annoying when you need to post something quickly with two fat basketball thumbs (especially when they get into each others way!).

You can even read your friends collective activities in landscape mode as well, which is really helpful if one of them enjoys posting large images.

Another item I enjoyed was the ability to not only look upon a person’s Friendfeed profile, but individually check out their blog, Facebook account or tweet stream within the app (apart from the Friendfeed stream).

This is extremely helpful if you ever discover someone interesting and you want to subscribe to their blog/twitter account locally, instead of receiving everything via Friendfeed.

Last but not least, I enjoyed how Amigo uses stripes throughout the stream to make it easier to differentiate between posts, which makes it easier to scroll through what your friends have posted throughout the day.

The Bad

Although Amigo does have some great features that I have been seeking in a Friendfeed app for quite some time, there were a few items that I felt were lacking when compared to its main rival, Buddyfeed.

The first feature was the menu bar at the bottom of the screen. Even though Amigo does present a user with the most widely used options, the app does not give users the freedom to select which buttons should appear on the bar (as some users may be more interested in rooms than the public Friendfeed stream).

While I am glad that the latest update to Amigo finally supports uploading images to Friendfeed, they only limit you to one image per post, while two of its rivals (Buddyfeed and Motherfeed) allow more.

Last but not least the search feature on Amigo did not seem to be as advanced as Buddyfeed’s, the latter which allows for one to search for items by their friends, themselves or the entire Friendfeed universe.

Conclusion

Although Amigo is a strong rival to Buddyfeed, it may still need to add some extra features in order to dethrone the current champ from its throne.

While power users would probably be wise to go with Buddyfeed (mainly for its host of features), those seeking simplicity may enjoy Amigo—especially those with basketball fingers (like me).