Twitter Does Android, Winningly

By  |  Friday, April 30, 2010 at 11:43 pm

A couple of weeks ago, when Twitter announced that it would soon release an official Twitter app for Android phones, I fantasized that the company was going to port Loren Brichter’s miraculous Tweetie Twitter for IPhone to Android. It didn’t. But it’s done something pretty pleasing on its own terms: It’s released a really nice original (and fre) Twitter app for Android. For now, it’s replacing the very-respectable-but-not-spectacular Seesmic as my Android Twitter client of choice.

The best thing about Twitter for Android is the user interface. It’s arguably a little on the twee side: the Twitter bird is everywhere, there are animated clouds, and trending topics joggle up and down. But overall, it looks really attractive, it’s nicely intuitive, and everything’s legible–virtues which are never a given on the Android platform. (Twidroid Pro and TweetCaster are powerful Twitter clients for Android, but they make my eyeballs hurt.)

Twitter for Android’s most interesting feature is its contact syncing: You can meld your Twitterfriends with your Android contact list, merging photos and other information and putting links to tweets in Android’s contact list. (The program lets you choose between bringing all the people you’re following on Twitter into the Android contact list, or just syncing the people who are already there.) The client also supports geolocation and lists, has a widget, and is generally pretty full-featured with one notable exception: It doesn’t support multiple accounts.

I’m still getting my head around Twitter releasing its own client apps rather than leaving that challenge and opportunity to other folks. But this is a good one. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed that existing third-party Android developers will respond not by giving up but by trying to beat Twitter at its own game.

A few screens after the jump.

 
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8 Comments For This Post

  1. Hamranhansenhansen Says:
    May 1st, 2010 at 6:31 pm

    Note this only works on Android v2.1, so about 70% of Android users can’t run this.

  2. @Lydiaw96 Says:
    August 18th, 2010 at 8:47 am

    I like many of the features offered by this twitter app for droid.
    I DON'T like that my location is now attached to EVERY tweet I post through the app with no obvious or apparent way to turn off the geo location for the app.
    I don't really want everyone is twitter land to be able to see my EXACT location with the click of a button.
    Another feature I enjoyed was the option to retweet with a comment. Twidroid offered this (something that twitter its self doesn't even offer) and it was nice to be able to post a reply to a users tweet and include that tweet without having to copy and paste it.

    Until twitter puts a way to turn off geo location on this app….I'm going back to Twidroid.

  3. James Says:
    October 19th, 2011 at 8:34 am

    Twitter for Android and iOS are awesome.

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    October 20th, 2011 at 3:00 pm

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    October 31st, 2011 at 11:56 pm

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  8. adam Says:
    November 5th, 2011 at 3:19 am

    I do like some new features but yes, I DON'T like that my location is now attached to EVERY tweet.
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