If some of our readers have been following Twitter politics in regards to third party apps read on, because we have been greedily keeping up with this polemic. In the last weeks Twitter has been undergoing a perilous paradigm shift: apps such as Boid, Tweet Lanes or TweetBot (for iOS) have been limited to a certain amount of call via API. Furthermore, third party apps must adhere to standard design laws. The reason I labeled this shift as being “perilous” is because it is precisely thanks to these third party apps that Twitter can today enjoy the kind of success and following it has garnered. By parting ways with said clients the stock Twitter app is more or less forced to change gears and rocket into stellar level.
I've been using Plume and Boid mostly of late, and the first thing that struck me working with the official Twitter app is the prevalence of “sponsored posts”. Ads are meant to hit home, and thanks to these posts they do.
Twitter for Android comes with a lot of functions we users are looking for: auto-complete for user names and hashtags, for instance. What's missing are clearly the various filter functions. Why, for instance, can't users block certain hashtags? That would save a long roundabout way of blocking out information you don't want or need.
On the bright side, various essential features – Retweets, responding and writing posts – are easy to do and feel intuitive.
What feels a lot less intuitive, on the other hand, is the confusing manner in which options are displayed. You're meant to be able to access them by swiping a Tweet—but this does not always work and just feels messy.
Aside from these drawbacks the official Twitter app is a solid one. No big surprised, no wow-effect, but good, dependable functions such as we would expect from any half-decent Twitter app.
Bottom line:
Twitter for Android comes with all of the features on might expect from a Twitter app and as far as functionality goes we can recommend this app. As far as intuitive navigation, controls and even design are concerned, there's still room for improvement.
[Update 17.05.2013]
After the last major update, there have been a few changes to the official Twitter app. It has now established itself as a default app. Despite various cuts, the app is still worth recommending. One of the unique features is the interactions in the ''mention'' column. This shows the users quickly which tweets are spreading via re-tweet and whether they have followers. These interactions are really good and the rest of the functions are basically the same.
Almost all of the functions can be operated like some found in TweetCaster, but the content consumption is better managed. The only problem is the lack of individuality in the app where you could arrange certain features to your liking. All in all, it still leaves me with a good impression. The biggest news, however, can be found in the next category.
Note: It wasn't possible to upload mobile photos with the Nexus 4. Tweets were also published at irregular intervals and ''wandered'' accross the screen. This improved though since the last update.
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Whatever Follow Me @RickyosoRadical i will Follow BAck : )
not appearing in the android market for me...can't find it