Supports Retina display, has bugs waiting for your reporting, requires Lion

Jul 12, 2012 08:21 GMT  ·  By

Tapbots has finally rolled out the desktop version of Tweetbot, the company’s popular Twitter client initially available on iPhone and iPad.

Borrowing heavily from its iOS counterparts (especially from the iPad version), Tweetbot for Mac arrives as a public alpha.

The developers ask users to note that there are bugs, crashes, and incomplete features, and that they are “looking for brave souls to help them shape Tweetbot into a fine Twitter client for the Mac.”

In a more detailed blog post, Tapbots outlines that “Developing for the Mac is no easy task, especially a full-featured Twitter client.”

But the alpha build they’ve just rolled out is said to be “usable.” Their decision to release this public alpha is said to be first and foremost to motivate the development team to finish faster.

The second reason is to get feedback to help the team build the best Mac incarnation of Tweetbot. “You can love it or hate it, but rest assured it will only get much much better from here,” the team promises.

Updates will be automatically pushed out to users. Brave hearts are encouraged to install them as they roll out because “each new build will fix bugs and possibly add new functionality,” says the team at Tapbots. “Old builds will also expire after a certain period of time,” the company adds.

Unfortunately, Tweetbot for Mac won’t be a free application when the final version rolls out: “When we hit 1.0, you’ll know whether it’s worth your hard earned cash or not.”

For people using Apple’s all-new Retina MacBook Pro, the application is supported “for the most part.” Tapbots says they’re still waiting for theirs to arrive “so until then, there are a few glitches here and there.”

Before you jump to the download, know that Tweetbot for Mac requires OS X 10.7 Lion or later.

Download Tweetbot Alpha for Mac (Free)