Is there a way to sync Twitter timelines between platforms?

[gnirkatto]

Now that TweetMarker is dead, is there any other way of how to sync timeline positions between different platforms? I'm using a Mac, an iPad and an Android phone, so iCloud won't work for me.
I think the absence of a sync feature is a nightmare. Twitter as my main source for information, and now in total chaos as the timelines no longer sync.
Or ist anyone aware of any other trick or tool that might do that?

 

[ManiacJoe]

I know of no way to do that successfully.
The closest you can come is to set each device to use the "latest" (pseudo-chronological) time line and note the timestamp as you swap devices.

 

[gnirkatto]

What I'm currently doing is to force myself to complete reading a timeline on one device (a challenge if you are a few hundred tweets behind), and once I reached the top, to scroll to the top on every other device that I'm using, so that wherever I continue reading, I will be at the same position.

THis is stupid and annoying. Will I have to move back to an iPhone just to get my timelines in sync, by use of their iCloud based service, which eg Tweetbot supports?

I Absolutely do not understand why such an essential feature does not exist by default. In Twitters case, it might be that they want to continue treating users like children, by means of their "most relevant" - "feature", which is plain BS imho.

Also, what is the point to always presenting the latest tweet first, even if hundreds that were sent before will then potentially remain unread? And, for certain conversations, this makes you completely not understand the connections and where the latest tweet came from.

Maybe another developer wants to continue Tweetmarker as a service, or develop something new, as far as I'm concerned, I'm absolutely willing to pay for that.

 

[ManiacJoe]

I think one of the big hurdles for any app like this is that Twitter does NOT present your timeline in a true chronological order. Some tweets are not correctly ordered, some are missing, some end up in the "did twitter forget to show this to you section".

 

[gnirkatto]

I think one of the big hurdles for any app like this is that Twitter does NOT present your timeline in a true chronological order. Some tweets are not correctly ordered, some are missing, some end up in the "did twitter forget to show this to you section".

I partly agree, and consider the Twitter app as a big, infantilizing mess. That's why I've been using 3rd party clients since forever. Blaq on BB10, Talon or Flamingo on Android, and Tweetbot on iOS. Somehow, all these apps managed to present the timeline in a well sorted order, allowed for "keeping the position in timeline", so you continued, where you stopped, and to sync timeline positions via Tweetmarker, or alternatively via iCloud, in case of Tweetbot (not so Blaq, if I remember correctly). Even on Windows I used a client that was capable of the same (I just don't remember its name).

So chronological presentation still is possible, but based on the statement on the Tweetmarker developer's website, Twitter is still to blame for him having to decide to stop support & development, as the maintenance of the API became too cumbersome.

Non-chronological timeline presentation and no timeline position "bookmarking" turns Twitter from an outstanding information delivery and opinion exchange tool into a big, annoying mess.

Shame on you, Twitter.