Twitter is an essential app for an Android user who has some degree of social media engagement – whether personal or professional. The official Twitter app for Android was known to have a clean interface with basic functionality. However, with its latest update, the new version brings UI improvements and some features that were only available in the web application. If you haven’t updated to version 3.4 yet, head on over to the Google Play Store and see for yourself.
Improved Twitter Interface and Performance
So what’s new? First off, you’ll notice that loading times are snappier, and there are changes in the overall app design.
The user profile page shows a scrollable header with the user’s avatar in one page, and the user’s bio when you swipe sideways. Below it, you get to see user stats (tweets, following, and followers). Further down you get the most recent tweets, a photo stream, favorites, lists, and similar users.
Follower Requests, Notifications, and Multiple Account Handling
Those with private accounts can now accept follower requests from their profile page. This feature is not available in other third party clients as part of Twitter’s security policy. With this update, Twitter’s official mobile app finally has something that other apps don’t.
Configuring your notifications also got a bit more specific. You can choose to get notified of tweets, mentions, direct messages and favorites either from anyone or only from people you follow.
Notification settings can also be set exclusively for a user, overriding the default global settings. To do this, just go to a user’s profile page and tap on the user icon. You should get a pop-up box, tap on Turn on notifications. When you do this, you get notified of tweets from that user, even if you have it disabled from the Settings page.
Notifications are now more flexible, too. Choose to get notified of tweets, mentions, direct messages and favorites either from anyone or only from people you follow. If you turn off notifications from here, it won’t apply to users with special notifications turned on.
If you have more than one account set up, switching is made easier by the handy user button in your profile page — the people icon. This brings up a popup box showing all your accounts, the current one marked by a check mark beside it. Just tap on user names to quickly change accounts.
This may be a lot to digest in one sitting, and people who’ve been used to the old interface may need more time to get used to the changes. On the other hand, these changes are not so bad, in fact, they’re actually pretty good and well-designed. For Twitter power users who have been using other clients because of lacking features from the official app, this just might be the update that will make them want to use it again.
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