I’m play­ing around on App​.net occa­sion­ally, iChris as well there, and while right now it’s a bit of a nerd play­ground there’s cer­tainly poten­tial for it to grow and become a seri­ous com­peti­tor to Twitter.

It’s a bit rem­i­nis­cent of the early days of Twit­ter: fairly nerd/​developer/​design users, no mar­ket­ing spam and auto-​​tweeting douchebag­gery, etc. Lots of navel gaz­ing as to how App​.net should work and how it com­pares to Twitter.

Any­ways. Here are the clients I’m cur­rently inter­ested in for App​.net. A lot of them remind me, just like the ser­vice, of the ini­tial wave of Twit­ter clients we saw back in the day. Only now they’re able to stand on com­mon Twit­ter con­ven­tions that we take for granted — repost­ing, view­ing a con­ver­sa­tion thread, star­ring, etc.

moApp

moApp is a cute and sophis­ti­cated App­Dot­Net client. It’s already very sta­ble and almost fea­ture com­plete and pol­ished. It offers Noti­fi­ca­tions, Global Hotkey, Ges­tures, Favorites (Stars), Dis­abling of the Dock icon and lots more… But, of course it still need a lot of work and per­for­mance improvements.

URL: myow​napp​.com/​apps/

This was the first app I used out­side of the App​.net web­site. New ver­sions come out almost daily, if not weekly and so you get a first hand glimpse at the devel­op­ment process that goes into an app like this.

It feels a bit slow to me to use — like the inter­face is drag­ging a bit. But I’m sure that will improve with devel­op­ment. It’s still in beta so no word on final pric­ing and availability.

Wedge

All of the basics: post, reply, star, repost. View fol­low­ers, threads, hash­tags, and more. Uni­fied Stream of posts and your men­tions. Noti­fi­ca­tion Cen­ter sup­port and an optional sta­tus item in your menu bar. Full sup­port for the Mac­Book Pro with Retina Dis­play. Swipe ges­tures and animations!

URL: wedge​.nat​est​ed​man​.com

I just came across Wedge and really like it so far. It’s replaced moApp in my dock for now. It feels like Tweetie used to before Twit­ter took it out behind the shed and put a shot­gun to it’s face.

Crisp and clean with a smooth inter­face, a proper Pref­er­ences page. Still in beta as well so we’ll see what kind of pric­ing it gets once it’s released in the Mac App Store.

AppApp for iPhone

AppApp is the first native iOS client for App­Dot­Net. It’s main­tained by a global team of badass iOS developers

URL: github​.com/​s​n​e​a​k​y​n​e​s​s​/​A​ppApp

Some­how I was able to get in to a beta for this iOS App​.net client. It’s a decent app that feels smooth and clean to use on my iPhone. I don’t check in to App​.net a lot yet on the go — I typ­i­cally check in on my Mac­Book Air while I’m work­ing — but a great mobile/​iOS app is going to be one of the key ways App​.net takes off.

I’m just not ready to plunk down any cash on a app yet until the plat­form is more solid­i­fied as a go to place to go for con­ver­sa­tion for me.

Which brings me to Felix.

Felix for iPhone

Felix pro­vides a first-​​class App​.net expe­ri­ence. It gets out of your way to let you focus on what’s impor­tant — the peo­ple and con­ver­sa­tions you care about.

URL: $4.99 in the App Store

By the accounts of blog­gers and nerds who have more dis­pos­able cash than I ¹, Felix would appear to be the best iPhone client for App​.net cur­rently avail­able. And for those folks, the $4.99 price tag hasn’t turned them off. For me it’s still too early to tell how much I’m going to use App​.net and so to drop $5 on an app like that just isn’t worth it — yet.

I’ve hap­pily paid money for Twit­ter apps — Tweet­bot and Tweetie ² so it’s not a ques­tion of buy­ing apps.

Update 2012-​​10-​​05

Net­bot

Hold the iPhones. Tap­bots has released Net­bot — an App​.net client based on their hugely pop­u­lar Tweet­bot app.

Net­bot is a full-​​featured iPhone App​.net client with a lot of per­son­al­ity. Whether it’s the meticulously-​​crafted inter­face, sounds & ani­ma­tion, or fea­tures like smart ges­tures, there’s a lot to love about Netbot.

URL: Net­bot for iPhone ($4.99) or Net­bot for iPad ($4.99)

I love Tweet­bot on my iPhone and my Mac (cur­rently in beta await­ing Mac App Store approval) so I don’t know why I wouldn’t love this. Just debat­ing whether to spend the last bit of App Store gift money on a App​.net or Twit­ter client.

What about you? Are you on App​.net? What are you using to post and read?