Twitter updated for iOS and Android

Twitter would be happier if you used their official app, and to make their case more compelling they have released updates to their iOS and Android apps. Both versions have enabled swipe shortcuts (or “re-enabled”, as the case may be), and added an explicit confirmation dialog that makes sure you know that using the “Find Friends” feature means Twitter will be accessing your contact data.

The privacy issue likely arises from changes Apple made to their App Store policies after popular iOS app Path was found to be lifting users contact data without permission (something that was possible, and not unique to Path, until recently). The Android version of the app already asked for permission when you installed it, but we’re always happy to see app makers reminding users of the consequences of their choices inside of the app UI.

Twitter for iPhone also got copy and paste back, as well as improved support for links within tweets, and improvements to direct messaging. Android users get expanded support for popular low-cost tablets like the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, as well as better support of Android 4.0 devices.

The utilization of hardware acceleration on Ice Cream Sandwich devices may be the largest single usability upgrade for Twitter on Android, as scrolling on previous versions was often jittery, if not downright painful when you needed to scroll through several hundred tweets at a time.

We’re happy to see Twitter making steady improvements to the official app. You can get links to the relevant markets in the source linke below. Let us know what you think of the update!

source: Twitter via iMore