When Twitter announced that they would be making an official Android client, I thought they were going to snap up a current developer like they did with Tweetie and the iPhone. For them to come out of the gate with an app from scratch was a complete surprise. What was another surprise, is how high quality the app is and how deeply in integrates with in the Android OS.
When you launch Twitter for Android you can see the polish right away. The home screen is a combination of a white background with animated blue clouds “floating” around. At the bottom you’ll also see a cute, yes I said cute, little Twitter bird that is also animated and surrounded by pop up bubbles filled with trending topics. From here you have access to tweets, mentions, direct messages, lists, retweets, and your own profile. It’s all very eye catching and appealing.
As far as features go, you’ve got almost everything you could want in a Twitter client. For some power users and for owners of multiple accounts, you will notice a few things absent. For starters, Twitter for Android will only handle one account. If you need to handle multiple accounts daily, this app is a no go. Another feature that I use frequently is multiple replies, and sadly it is missing. When you reply to a tweet you can click the option to add people, but you have to manually scroll through your list of friends to add them. So if you’re trying to add your buddy @zomgimfreakinawesome, and you’ve got more than ten friends, you’ll be scrolling for a bit.
What Twitter for Android lacks in a couple of features, it makes up almost everywhere else. Notifications can be set by intervals and by tweets, mentions, or direct messages. They work flawlessly as well, a feat that some Twitter client still struggle with. Also the overall quality of Twitter for Android is outstanding. Images are clear and crisp, the backgrounds are animated and “fun”, the whole app really shines.
Integration is also done so well within this app. When you first log in, you are given the chance to sync all of your Twitter friends, only those that are also in your contacts, or none at all. When you are in Twitter for Android and you click on a friend’s profile, you see the quick contact tabs you would normally see through out the Android OS. This makes it super easy to call, text, email, or IM anyone right from the Twitter app. Another example of the integration is when looking at your contacts, you will also see their latest Tweet next to their contact image. A very nice touch and proof Twitter worked closely with Google on this app.
Twitter has really raised the bar with this app. They have set a quality standard that very few 3rd party apps are even near. With this being a 1.0 release I am really excited to see what they come up with in the future. After using this and a couple of the other top Twitter apps for Android, I have settled on Twitter for Android as my primary client. Although it lacks some features, Twitter for Android makes up in pure quality and integration.
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It’s also missing the ability to do old format retweets. How ever the “share” feature enables insertion into a ton of other apps.