Twitter has updated both iOS and Android apps with a Live button that starts a Periscope broadcast. It’s actually a bit of a cheat, though, as all the button does is open the Periscope app – or prompt you to download it if you don’t already have it installed.
There are nearly 1.5 million applications currently on Google Play and with so many to choose from, finding interesting new experiences can be a hassle. That’s why today we’re kicking off a new series here at 9to5Google highlighting 5 different Android apps each month that are worth checking out.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at our picks for the month.
Messaging apps are among the most important — and indeed most used — by millions and millions of users every day, so it is only logical for them to implement new features as they evolve.
WhatsApp, despite being used by over a billion users, has remained a fairly simplistic chat app over the years, but things seem to be changing…
Created by a single developer, Weather Timeline is one of the best examples of Material Design on Android. Packing the same attention to design, Sam Ruston’s next app is a highly customizable Twitter client. Everything from the look of Flamingo to how the interface functions can be personalized to your liking…
While the Android N Developer Preview 3 removed a system-level dark mode, apps can still automatically switch between day and night modes. Introduced as part of the Android Support Library 23.2 in February, developers can now easily add a night mode that switches based on the time of day and location. Twitter appears to be A/B testing a night mode in the alpha version of its app.
Twitter has been A/B testing a re-designed Android app for nearly a month with a launch likely coming soon as more people are seeing it. In the mean time, Twitter has completely overhauled its mobile site with a new design that matches the Android revamp.
Update: And it’s back. It seems Twitter has extended grace and granted the developer more tokens.
Fenix is without a doubt one of the most popular Twitter clients for Android, but it looks like the app’s days are numbered (if not already depleted). Announced today on Twitter, the developer says that the app has run out of Twitter API tokens and will no longer be accepting new users (although current users of the app may continue using it of course)…
Popular short-form video sharing service Vine has today announced a new feature that avid users of the service could appreciate. In a blog post, the Twitter-owned service announced that there is now a “Watch” button on all Vine channels that allows viewers to seamlessly watch all of the content from a single channel with one tap.
In a sea of powerful, feature-packed, and well supported third party clients, the official Twitter app has generally never stood out as a particularly good choice for enjoying the social network’s experience.
One of the main gripes some users have had over the years is in regards to design; given the service’s popularity, it was odd to see its stock Android app maintain a fairly anonymous — and not particularly brilliant — UI, markedly in dissonance with the platform’s guidelines. However, the San Francisco-based company may have been hard at work to fix that…
Twitter announced in a blog post today that it’s adding a new capability to its Moments feature on iOS and Android. While Twitter Moments originally supported content like photos, videos, Vines, and polls, publishers can now added add links to Moments to continue telling their story on their own website.
Twitter has toady announced long-awaited support for native GIF search with partners Giphy and Riffsy. The addition of GIF search means that users will now be able to search for GIFs from a library of thousands and instantly insert them into their direct message or tweet.
Android is an operating system better known for its openness, which means users can enjoy a great deal of customizability and overall choice. It goes far beyond picking up a shiny wallpaper: you can choose your own default apps, tweak the notification center with widgets, add those widgets to your homescreen, and switching to a whole different launcher is an app install away.
That’s why Android users are accustomed to using products and services that go beyond the stock options offered out of the box, and know that the Play Store is quite the well to draw from. Twitter clients are no exception, so keep reading for our roundup of what we think are the best alternatives to Twitter’s default offering…
The Google Glass social media accounts—including Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and others—have finally been shut down after many months of continued #throughGlass postings and “Happy [insert holiday]!” images. This doesn’t come as much surprise as plans to bring Glass to the consumer market (at least by that name) have long been abandoned, but multiple people familiar with the matter say that Glass: Enterprise Edition is only just now starting to see wider adoption…
Periscope has announced a couple of new features for its popular video-streaming app for Android, both of which will make watching and finding videos much more convenient and wide-ranging…
Earlier today, Twitter ditched favoriting tweets in favor of liking them, and in turn replaced the social network’s beloved star icon with an adorable heart. This change is of course — as with every change that comes to pretty much every social network, ever — very controversial, with many arguing that it’s simply a lazy move. Many say that it’s simply more evidence of Twitter’s problems in a world where its main competitor is now moving beyond likes to reactions that are more complex.
But if you use Google Chrome, and statistics says that you probably do, favorites don’t have to be completely dead quite yet. Thanks to a new Chrome extension called “Fav Forever,” you can keep those stars around as long as you want…
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Image: Forbes
As unsurprising as it may be, an early Twitter investor came out several months to say that Google still doesn’t understand social and should buy struggling Twitter. And while that hasn’t quite happened (and we don’t really have any hard evidence that it will), it appears that ties between the two companies are strengthening. Twitter’s once-again-CEO Jack Dorsey has today announced that Google’s previous chief business officer Omid Kordestani has been appointed as the social network’s executive chairman.
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When Twitter launched Periscope earlier this year, the live broadcasting app embraced the natural way to hold smartphones: it portrait mode. But video wants to be shot in landscape as it looks best on TVs and computer displays, and Periscope doesn’t want to be trapped in your phone.
Paving the way for expanding to smart TVs and immediately creating a better viewing experience on the web, Periscope is adding support for broadcasting in landscape for the first time in its latest update for Android. The update lets broadcasters shoot in either landscape or portrait mode and viewers can continue to view new landscape streams in portrait orientation.
There’s also a new Android-only enhancement called Mutual Follow:
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Last night, Vine announced that it’s bringing greater music controls to its popular video-looping app on Android. While users have always had the ability to include audio of any kind in their Vines, this new update makes it far more precise. The biggest update is a feature called ‘Snap to Beat’ which enables users to more easily create a seamless loop, or perfect loop where you can’t tell the beginning of the audio from the end.
To get Snap to Beat working for you, choose a song by tapping on the music note in the ‘Details’ screen. Snap to Beat automatically identifies how much of the song to use to make a seamless loop, then trims the video to fit that music clip. If you don’t want it happening auto-magically, you can switch off Snap to Beat and edit the audio manually yourself. This gives the user complete control over how much sound to include in the Vine, and which part of the video it should play over.
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As a part of Vine’s new-found focus on music, there’s also a new audio discovery tool within the app. First up is a new ‘Featured Tracks’ section which you can explore when you create a new Vine and tap on the music note to add a song. What’s more, you can use Vine to detect what you’re listening to while watching other Vines. If a musical note icon appears beneath a Vine, tap on it, and it’ll show you the name of the track, and the name of the artist performing.
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The Music on Vine updates will be rolling out to Android from today and will be available to download from the Play Store for free.
Twitter is getting serious about messaging today. The social network has begun rolling out updates to its iOS, Mac, and Android apps, in addition to TweetDeck and its website, that remove the long-existing 140 character limit from individual direct messages. This change will roll out over the course of the next few weeks, so all users may not see the change immediately. The old 140 character limit for messages will remain for Tweets sent publicly and direct messages sent via SMS.
Sony has taken to Twitter to tease some kind of camera announcement for August 3rd. Specifically, the company says that it will introduce “a new way to capture split-second photos.” And that’s basically all we know.
It’s possible that this will mean the announcement of some kind of new handset, packed with hardware capable of taking photos like the one you see above. Most recently, the company brought the Xperia Z4v to the United States.
It’s also very much possible that the company is simply going to announce some kind of new software feature. This would admittedly be a lot less exciting, but it makes sense considering the toying the company has been doing with software as of late.
Focus closely now, a new way to capture split-second photos is coming. 03.08.15 #Xperia pic.twitter.com/VVE21DKLyk
— Sony | Xperia (@sonyxperia) July 30, 2015
Twitch has an interesting new update out that lets anyone on Android view live streams from anywhere on their device (pictured above). The common term for this is “picture-in-picture” – Twitch calls it “Pop Out” – or displaying one thing on the whole screen and another, completely separate feed of content or video inside a smaller viewer simultaneously, still within the main screen. Users of the app have for some time had the ability to continue watching streams while browsing the rest of the app, and this is a continuation of that.
Falcon Pro 3, the “ultimate” Twitter experience for Android, has received a new update that brings some changes for avid users of the real-time communication network.
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Between Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the 100 other apps and services that vie for my attention in any given day (okay, maybe an exaggeration), it can sometimes feel very debilitating to try and keep up with everything happening in the world. Unless you read all day and train yourself to be a speed reader, how are you to see everything that’s happening in your areas of interest? Most of us just don’t have that kind of time in our lives to stay informed, work 8 hour days, and still maintain a healthy lifestyle. And as we’ve seen in cases like Internet providers’ attempting to prioritize their own services over those of companies like Netflix, being informed matters.
