Twitter just made it a lot easier to stay social with friends and associates in your network, even while you're on the go.
The company has updated its mobile app for both iOS and Android devices, streamlining its Search and Discover tools so that it's easier to find subjects that are relevant to you, whether it's checking responses to previous tweets, following links related to the topic or checking up on current trends.
Twitter did this by simplifying the page flow in a new Discover tab, where tweets, Activity, Trends and Account Follow Suggestions are kept within a single stream. If you need to further narrow them down, you can also use a new Search tool, which looks up keywords and related photos and accounts that link to the topic. And it's not just recent activity, either — Twitter actually digs deep and finds content older than a week, which had been the extent previously. These are based upon how many times something is retweeted or favorited, as chosen by users. See also: How Twitter Can Make Your Life Better .
To test the update, we performed a couple of experiments to see what results came up. Using the search tool, we searched for "Die Hard," hoping to find results related to the Bruce Willis sequel "A Good Day to Die Hard," released Feb. 14 in theaters. What came up were links to official Twitter accounts for the movie (such as @diehard and @diehard_UK), then images of Bruce Willis and other actors at the recent premiere event for the film. Underneath that, a variety of tweets from popular media sites and casual users showed up.
We then went into the "Discover" tool, which was already customized based on previous searches. In this case — since I was previously looking into a video game story — there were images up top with users related to the video game industry on the left, and search topics highlighted on the right, complete with hashtags (including promoted ones like #bestweekever). Related tweets and follow suggestions were a bit lower on the page, but very easily organized.
In addition, Twitter also added a global search button for iPhone users, which iPad and Android users alike have had access to in a previous update; and you won't have to go into an individual tweet anymore to access a URL link, as you'll be able to tap on it in the main page and automatically look something up — a feature that is bound to be convenient for users who want to go directly to the page.
The free update is available now.
