One of my major gripes with the Android platform is a lack of apps that are on-par with the iPhone. Sure, the total number of apps is getting up there, but for the most part, in my opinion, they’re nowhere near as good. One area where this was evident was with Twitter clients. While the iPhone has a number of great ones (led by Tweetie, which Twitter just bought), Android’s options are pretty weak. Seesmic is pretty nice, but wouldn’t be in the top 5 on the iPhone. Today, Twitter may have just solved this problem.
The service has just launched it’s own Android client. We noted they were working on it just a few weeks ago when CEO Evan Williams made the announcement at the company’s Chirp conference. Now, just over two weeks later, it’s here.
Twitter has just announced the client on its blog. When we first wrote about it, it wasn’t exactly clear how they would make it (all internally, or a partnership), now it appears that just as with the BlackBerry one, Twitter’s team of developers and designers worked closely with the Android team over at Google to get the client out there. But they also note that they’re hiring an Android engineer, so you can expect that person to be in charge of future versions.
Some cool-sounding features:
Twitter for Android is a fantastic application to use, and sharing any link or photo is super simple too – just look for the share button in your favorite application and choose Twitter.
Reading tweets is easy in a bunch of places on your phone. Quickly access your timeline with the home screen widget, view a tweet location on a map, and see your friend’s latest tweet in your phonebook, GoogleTalk list or any application that uses Android’s QuickContact bar.
It clearly looks as if thanks to Android’s more open nature, the Twitter client can be deeply integrated into your phone. For example, there’s a seamless way to sync with the contacts on your Android phone. For Twitter addicts, this level of integration is very nice. “This is just the beginning,” Twitter notes.
A word of warning, this client is apparently only for Android phones running version 2.1 and above of the software. For older Android phones, Twitter suggests using the standard mobile site.
Created in 2006, Twitter is a global real-time communications platform with 400 million monthly visitors to twitter.com, more than 200 million monthly active users around the world. We see a billion tweets every 2.5 days on every conceivable topic. World leaders, major athletes, star performers, news organizations and entertainment outlets are among the millions of active Twitter accounts through which users can truly get the pulse of the planet.
Android is a software platform for mobile devices based on the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It allows developers to write managed code in Java that utilizes Google-developed software libraries, but does not support programs developed in native code. The unveiling of the Android platform on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards...
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