Twitter for Android turns 2.0 with slew of improvements

By Phil Nickinson  | Feb 10 2011 | 5:34 pm  | 28 Comments

Twitter 2.0 for Android

Android's "official" Twitter client -- the aptly named "Twitter for Android" -- just hit Version 2.0 and brings with it a host of performance and user interface improvements. Changes include:

  • Easier navigation and layout
  • Scan contacts to find friends who are on Twitter
  • Universal search
  • Autocomplete usernames when composing tweets
  • Easier photo uploading
  • Faster tweet actions

We're going to give this a couple days' use before passing judgment, but so far it certainly looks better than the previous version. Download links are after the break. Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

 

Phil Nickinson

Phil Nickinson Editor in Chief

"Phil is a recovering print journalist, editor of Android Central, subtitles and street signs."

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There are 28 comments

SanGo says:

Tweeting about Twitter For Android from Seesmic, funny.

joshua.worth says:

Hopefully its good.

Air Force One says:

Did they add a new/better widget..? because the one they have now sucks

Coolaaron88 says:

We need a scrolling list widget for Twitter

oldschoolbb says:

Hopefully they fixed the ability to automatically start from the last-read Tweet like the other Twitter apps do...

mkheraj says:

Nope, still starts at the latest tweet. You have to scroll down to find where you left off.

I do like the way they refresh the tweets.

CanuckMackem says:

Thats probably the only reason I don't use it.

reverepats#AC says:

I acually liked the way the old version looked...I may be the only one though LOL.....new version is nice and PICS load very quick....they did a great job

EvanJ18 says:

I wish they had a scrollable widget. Until then ill stick to plume.

xFenixKnightx says:

I wonder if they switched from quote tweet to a RT? For whatever reason I like the RT's better.

katielynn783 says:

It has a pretty big bug: tweets from users w/ private profiles are not appearing in lists.

andrewjanderson says:

I can see tweets from private users, not sure what you're dealing with.

Log out then back in?

awtryau89 says:

"Hopefully they fixed the ability to automatically start from the last-read Tweet like the other Twitter apps do..."

This was always a deal breaker for me. Anyone know if they fixed this?

mkheraj says:

Not implemented. I don't know if they consider it a "fix" :(

andrewjanderson says:

I like how you can view the full picture in a tweet instead of having to select a little thumbnail.

Daedalus says:

I tried it for a few mins and I was not impressed. I will be sticking with tweetcaster and twidroid

afazel says:

Meh, Twitter is one case where I don't think a first-party app has any hope whatsoever of competing with third-party apps.

Pl4ub says:

Meh, HTCs Peep is enough.

DougB541#CB says:

Its pretty nice...has a nice polish and cohesiveness to it. THe not starting from the last read tweet is a bit annoying, otherwise it does everything i need twitter to do.

Not sure if i'll switch, but i'm just giving it a test run for a week to decide.

distantstorm says:

It has the one thing I've been looking for, the ability to see the responses somebody else has had to a tweet without doing an "@user" search. I can't believe how rare this is on mobile AND desktop clients. Probably no coincidence my first client was Tweetie on the Mac and this is now very similar to the old Tweetie for iOS (now the official iOS Twitter client). Definitely some convergence in UI going on.

p1eric says:

I've always preferred and used the official Twitter app. This version looks good so far. Don't really care for the new notification icon but maybe I'll get used to it. Otherwise thumbs up.

Mobius360 says:

Overall I think it's improved but I miss the easy trends search from the old app. In fact the whole main page from the old app I kinda liked.

GutterIsATool says:

Anybody figured out how to see trending topics?

freshnezzz#AC says:

its smooth but i can't see whats trending!!!!

npercy says:

Its not a bad effort, but why did they have to change the notification icon, it looks terrible on my Milestone 2. Much prefered the t icon to the bird. I still prefer the old version as its much eaiser to navigate, the new one is a bit to icony.

Trending is found by hitting the magnifing glass (i.e. search)

CeluGeek says:

I hate it. I'd love to go back to the previous version. This new one brings out everything that is wrong with today's touchy-feely user interfaces. A bunch of meaningless icons with no idea of what the heck they are for... no text underneath and no screentips either if you hold your finger over them... just touch them and see what they do. Really?!?! It took me forever to find out what icon was supposed to post a new tweet and of course, my tweet was about how much I hate this "upgrade".

Accessibility went down the drain too. The previous version could've used a little help in that department, since Android's TalkBack app could not read the list of tweets - you had to open each tweet individually to read them with TalkBack. The new version is even worse: not only you still have to open each tweet individually to read them, but now you can't even type a tweet without the entire field updating for each an every character typed, causing the screen reader to read the whole thing rather than the new character typed. AAARGH! I HATE IT!!!!!!

Capric0rn says:

I love this new version. What I do want to know though is how can I let it search for contacts? I know it did this at first startup, but I had to tap it away. Does anyone know how?

JeremytheIndian says:

Until twitter gets a Scrollable widget it's gonna be Plume for me.