• You can now use Twitter without signing in. Basically, this means that you can see trends, view interests and even see the suggested users in various categories.
• User interface has gotten some changes as well. There is now a bar at the top, where users can see tweets, mentions, direct messages and lists.
• Furthermore, the user can now see re-tweets om their mentions column.
• Universal search is also available in version 2.0
• Finally, users can now scan through your address book and see which of their friends are on Twitter

The changes sound and look pretty awesome. Anyone else have an updated version of Twitter for Android? Give us your thoughts in the comments below!

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Twitter came out last week and had a very lengthy post on what Twitter thinks its’ enduring values should be and what they should focus on in the future to be successful.

The post is to mainly explain what Twitter envisions as its future for their website and for their users. The post is quite long, so I will summarise it here. Read the full article at the Twitter Blog.

Enduring Value

By enduring value, Twitter basically is saying that they will uphold the network and their products, such as the Twitter branded client for mobile devices such as BlackBerry, Apple, and Android devices. Twitter’s goal is to continue to support an open platform of information and maintain an API that can garner access to that API so that all clients can access it. The other areas they talk about are providing a consistent user experience (assumably over partner and API products as well), and a revenue model to sustain that open network.

Ecosystem Clarity

This is in response to the Chirp Developer Conference that Twitter held in April 2010. Developers are seeking clarity about what Twitter will be providing and maintaining.

Twitter maintains that their goal is to do the above values in the Enduring Values category.

I feel this is somewhat of a backlash against Twitter developing its own clients and products for other platforms. Developers who work hard to create these experiences then have Twitter come in and create a very similar product with the Twitter brand name on it, hurts their motivation to create and distribute applications and software that are built on Twitter’s API.

Fostering Innovation

Twitter is reemphasizing that Twitter does not own its user’s Tweets, and that the user’s in fact own their content that they publish to the site.

I feel that overall, this post was in response to the backlash at the Chirp Dev Conference and as well as a preemptive strike against Facebook and the problems they are having.

Twitter wants to make sure that users and developers know that Twitter is the more open of the two platforms, while supporting their users and developers to create innovative products and for users to continue to use the service.

I cannot say that we waited a whole year for this, but the release of an official Twitter client for Android was quite a big milestone, which was noticed by the community. Let’s see what Twitter can and cannot do, how it differs from other applications, and whether it is worth installing, and more importantly keeping on your phone.

Twitter’s main screen is a matrix of icons, which lead to various areas of the program. From here you can get to the list of new tweets and check the total number of messages at the same time, check your private messages and mentions. Poplar tags and phrases like “wow” or “ohweee” are displayed at the bottom of this window.

If you turn the animation on, then you will see clouds moving at the top and bottom of the screen. I got tired of this quite quickly and disabled this feature.

User’s picture is shown to the left of each message in the list of tweets and his or her name is displayed above the message. Links are underlined and are clickable in the message itself, and will open in the browser.

If you click on the icon next to tweets, the context menu will open. From here you can respond to the tweet, quote it, add to favourites or re-send.
If there is a picture in the post, it will be displayed as a ‘mini’ picture in the list. This is a pretty cool feature, but unfortunately not really usable on the older devices (with screen resolution below WVGA), as photo thumbnails are too small and hard to see.

You can enable positioning function and include GPS coordinates in your tweets. If you do that, your followers and friends will be able to check your location on Google Maps. To enable this feature, you simply need to press a button that is located above the new tweet field.

I won’t bore you with explanations of all options available in the application, and will get straight to the conclusion. Firstly, the official twitter client is very simple and intuitive. It offers all basic settings such as different notification types, support of picture and URL shortening services, and tweet lists and feeds are called exactly as they should. That is, if you open mentions, you will see the list of messages mentioning your nickname (for example @droidnet). Secondly, this client looks very nice, not fashionable, not creative, etc., but easy and clean.

Strangely enough, but these are the main disadvantages of the client. The main distinguishing features include the abovementioned option to view photos directly in messages, and … that’s it. There is no option to assign different colours to users as in Touiteur or Twicca; no colourful interface and tweet separation to personal and others, as in TweetCaster; no minimalist interface and forethought of Seesmic; and no advanced functionality, which is offered in Twidroid. In short, the official twitter client does not have that key feature, thanks to which some of us choose Seesmic as the main client, while others prefer Twidroid or Twicca. And I’m afraid that this well-built and nice application, made with all the rules of logic and common sense, will just get lost among the competitors, because the company was too late to enter the market.

Below is a video review of the official Twitter client for Android:

Since the time I got my Nexus One, I used a Twitter client called Seesmic, which I reviewed earlier this year. Not long ago I reviewed another Twitter client – Twicca. This time, my attention was attracted by another program of this type – Touiteur. This is a new application, which only recently changed its status to the final version. It is now available for download in the market.

The main window the program displays is a list of recent twitts. Control panel is located at the lower part of the screen, from here you access the messages referring to your nickname (mentions), personal communications (direct), as well as initiate a search or update the list of fresh twitts. Pressing the Tweets button will open a pop-up menu, which allows you to write new twitts, open sheets or trends, or view the selected messages.

In my opinion, one of Touiteur’s best features is the ability to view everything in one list – new twitts from the people that you follow as well as mentions. At the same time these two types of twitts are visually separated – new messages are displayed on a solid background, while mentions are shown on the “striped” background. It is also great to be able to assign individual colours to everyone you follow. In this case, all new twitts from these people will be displayed on selected backgrounds – very handy feature!

You can do almost anything with the messages in the list – answer any of them, re-twitt, follow links or view author’s profile. Personal message background color is selected from this profile window.

New tweet can be created by pressing the tweets button from the bottom menu, or by using the sliding menu at the top. Both methods are equally fast and convenient. You can easily add links or pictures, as well as photos from the album.

In Touiteur you can configure almost everything: vibration, sounds, types of events for which notification will occur (this may be all twitts, or just personal messages, etc.). You can even adjust the light indication. Tweet list size varies from 25 to 250 messages. You can turn the AutoRun option on,  enable sending of new twitts by pressing the Enter key on your keyboard, select the color scheme and much more. The list of options is very long – feel free to explore in your free time.

In my opinion Touiteur is the best twitter-client for Android available today – I liked everything about this application.   I would strongly recommend to install it and try for yourself.   There is also a paid version of the program available, which provides some additional features including desktop widgets, etc.

Thanks for your comments!

There are plenty of Twitter clients available on the Android Market. I have previously reviewed Seesmic, and was quite happy with its functionality and user interface. One of my friends told me about another Twitter client – a program called Twicca. He argued that  Twicca is one of the best twitter clients available for Android. So I decided to check it and compare. Twicca offers all of the necessary and most commonly used features: large number of settings, plug-in support, twitt color separation and much more  – please see details below:

The main screen shows a list of twits. Depending on the twitt length and the size of the selected font you will be able to see five or six or maybe even ten twitts. User’s avatar and nickname are displayed for each twit. Links get highlighted, and if you assigned a certain colour to a user, then his/her links will be highlighted with that colour as well.

There are four buttons at the bottom of the main screen: write a new message, show messages referring to you (mentions), direct messages and list update button. The program allows you to add pictures, photos or videos to your twits.

The main list displays your answers to other people, however (unfortunately)  you will need to open the mentions window to see their responses . Any message can be selected by tapping on it. This will open a pop-up menu from which this message can be re-twitted, forwarded, marked as a favorite, etc. This menu also contains an option to assign a colour label to the user. Once the label is assigned, all messages from this user will be marked with a vertical strip of the selected color. I really liked this feature, as it allows for much easier navigation and sorting of important tweets.

Further, with Twicca you can select multiple twitts and conduct operations with them. For example, if you have a couple of people whom you would like to assign a common color label – just select them all and assign the color. Color labels can be given names for ease of navigation. There is one major problem with the colour labels – the number of colours in Twicca is limited (and is quite small), and from my understanding, it is not possible to add a new colour.

Program settings are divided by types, which is a very good idea. Besides that, the settings window itself is quite accurate and easy to understand. Therefore, despite the large number of settings, it is not that difficult to understand the options. You can configure almost everything, from font sizes for different windows to different types of alarms for various events (e.g. all twits, only mentions or only direct). You can add Twicca’s icon to the system tray. The program also supports plug-ins, but there are only few exist at this stage, so I will write a separate post when more become available.

Conclusion

I really liked the program, especially its user interface and variety of options. I only used it for a relatively short time, but liked it much more than Seesmic. I would recommend everyone to try it. It is free and is available on the Market.

These days you need to have a reliable and easy-to-use Twitter client. I have found a couple of nice ones for Android – Seesmic and Twidroid. In this article I will review the Seesmic, and describe what I liked about the program, what I didn’t, and quickly compare Seesmic and Twidroid. I will post Twidroid review in the near future as well.

Lets start with the interface. Seesmic’s interface is actually simpler and more intuitive than Twidroid’s. There are four tabs at the top, which are easy to tap: list of tweets, list of replies, personal messages and profile details. I didn’t like the fact that active elements (links, retwits, etc.) are not highlighted in the tweet list, as is done in Twidroid. To be able to follow a link, you first have to click on the actual tweet, which will open in a new window, where all active elements will be highlighted.

I liked the way the personal messages tab is organised. Messages from other users are grouped together and shown under the corresponding nicknames. Very convenient. Unfortunately, avatar pictures didn’t work as well – it took a very long for them to load and felt like pictures get uploaded every time Seesmic starts (even if you just close the application and re-open it straight after). Also, even after hours of using the program some pictures did not load properly. And finally, sometimes avatar picture loaded correctly for some posts, but not the others (of the same author).

A very nice feature is that if you hold your finger on the tweet for a couple of seconds, a pop-up menu that allows you to respond to a message, retweet it, or perform some other actions will open.

In the settings you can choose the number of tweets to be displayed in the tweet list (20 to 150), types of new message notifications (including vibration and sound). You can also choose which events will trigger an alert: replies, new tweets or private messages. Upon receipt of new tweets an icon will appear in the system bar.

Conclusion. In my opinion Seesmic is a little simpler and not as convenient as Twidroid. It has a nice interface, but tweet list is very simple, links are not highlighted, there are some problems with images, and it has fewer options. You cannot change fonts or choose whether to show an icon when new tweets are received. It also lacks some other settings that are available in Twidroid. In general, Seesmic is convenient, but not as good as Twidroid.