3 Alternative Weibo Mobile Apps For iPhone and Android That Have More Eye-Candy

Like with Twitter, the best mobile apps for firing off Weibo missives are not the official ones that the respective companies – such as Tencent (HKG:0700), Sina (NASDAQ:SINA), and NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) – make. That’s because there are some indie, design-oriented startups making much funkier alternative apps with more eye-candy.

Microblogging has taken off in China to the extent that we now see nearly half of all Chinese urbanites in larger cities on Weibo. That’s thanks to the major microblog platforms from Tencent, Sina, and NetEase (in descending order of user numbers). Many users might be thankful to discover that you’re not forced to use the dowdy official apps when tweeting on their smartphones.

Here are three neat third-party apps for Weibo:

Weico

Weico (pictured avove) is available for iPhone and Android, which is superb, but it only supports Sina Weibo and not the other platforms, which might be a downer for some. Sadly, no English support either.

Made by a start-up called Eico Design (which counts BMW (FRA:BMW), HTC (TPE:2498), and Firefox among its clients), the Weico app looks fantastic with a crisp blue and white colour-scheme that’s highly customizable. On iOS, many ‘skins’ for the app are available as in-app purchases; on Android, they’re free. Weico incorporates some swish features as well, such as an Instagram-like photo-filter that can spare you the hassle of using a separate photo app for all that Lomo and vintage posing action.

Here are the Market and iTunes download links.

YiBo

This app (pictured avove) is for Android only, with no indication from the developers, MinSheng Studio, if an iPhone version will ever roll out. On the plus side, it has a good English localization.

For me, this YiBo app hits the sweet spot of good design, requisite features, and minimal layout. Plus, it supports a lot of other Chinese microblog services, plus also Renren (NYSE:RENN), Fanfou, and Twitter.

Here’s the Market download link.