Twitter’s Mobile App Now Includes Support For Twitter’s New “App Cards”

Following its announcement yesterday, Twitter has today updated its mobile applications with support for the new Twitter App Cards feature. According to the Twitter app’s page in Apple’s iTunes App Store, version 5.5 of the app brings a number of improvements, including the ability to “help you discover, install and launch your favorite apps from Tweets.” [UPDATE: Twitter has now rolled out the change to Android, too.]

(Oh by the way, we’re capitalizing “Tweets” now. I didn’t know.)

Twitter Cards, which have allowed tweets (sorry, I like it this way) to contain media like photos, videos, articles snippets and more, have now been expanded to introduce users to mobile applications, as of this update. Details of yesterday’s announcement about this change are here.

Going forward, tweets coming from other apps can include a link to their app at the bottom, pointing users to the iTunes App Store to download. Early adopters on the developer side include Delectable, Etsy, Flickr, Foursquare, Gumroad, Jawbone, Path, Rovio’s Angry Birds, SoundCloud, Storenvy, Wine Library, and Twitter’s own Vine application.

This is a major step forward for Twitter that will have on impacts the app economy as a whole, and specifically m-commerce. More on that here.

Other improvements to the app include:

  • Faster launch times and general performance upgrades
  • “Retweeted by” in Tweet detail is now tappable
  • Fix for reply-to-self in conversations
  • Fix for bug that prevented undoing retweets in some cases

Now that Twitter Cards are live on iPhone, Android support should soon follow.

UPDATE: Well, that was fast. Twitter just announced on its blog that the updates have arrived for Android, iPhone and mobile web. The Android app includes other features, too. From the post:

We just released a new version of Twitter for Android. Its new design reflects a native Android experience: wider and taller timelines that fill the screen, a flat navigation bar, tap and hold for quick actions, and more. You can now quickly navigate between tabs by swiping across your screen. And as you type your Tweet or search, you’ll see username and hashtag suggestions, making it easier to connect with friends and join conversations.

In addition to the Android app, we’ve also updated Twitter for iPhone and mobile.twitter.com. All three mobile apps, plus twitter.com, now show more types of content in expanded Tweets: photo galleries, apps and product listings.