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In the Apple world, Tuesdays are generally exciting days when Cupertino releases new products into the world. Between The Beatles on iTunes and Google Voice in the App Store, what else could pop up? Turns out that the official Twitter app also has some surprises in store for us.
Twitter, Inc. has just unleashed version 3.2 of their universal app, bringing a host of improvements and bug fixes for the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad. Front and center is the ability to receive push notifications, but there’s plenty more to get excited about, so read on.
Push Notifications
To survive in our razzle-dazzle on the go world, you need to know when folks are trying to get in touch with you -- and as any iOS user knows, that often requires push notifications. Thankfully, the latest Twitter app has been blessed with just such a service for messages, mentions & replies, and you can decide if you want such notifications from only people you follow or everyone.
Twitter calls them “instant notifications” and they aren’t kidding -- in our brief trial with the updated app, the official Twitter notifications beat even Echofon, which is impressive.
For whatever reason, notifications aren’t even mentioned in the 3.2 release notes, but indeed the feature exists. You can find the setting for Notifications by going to the in-app settings, it’s located right underneath your saved accounts.
Inline Media for iPad
A very slick way to take advantage of the bigger screen size, Twitter on the iPad now shows attached images inline instead of the native website view. Tap on a link and the inline image slides in; double-tap on the photo to make it full screen. Nice one!
Manage Saved Searches for iPad
The iPad also gets the ability to manage searches -- you can now save and remove them right from the search screen. Just tap on the Search icon, type in what you’re looking for and then tap “Save Search” in the lower right corner. To remove a search, open it from your list of Saved Searches and then tap “Remove Saved Search” in the same corner. Nice to see this carried over from the earlier iPhone feature set.
User Interface Enhancements for iPad
While we couldn’t find too much specific other than what’s noted above, Twitter claims there are also user interface enhancements on the iPad side of things. One such change is the icon used to create public replies, direct messages, block users or report spam -- it’s now a settings-style gear instead of the arrow it used to be. Feel free to ping us in the comments if you find any other hidden gems!
iPhone Improvements
In addition to push notifications for all iOS devices, Twitter 3.2 also has a heapin’ helping of lesser improvements aimed at the iPhone and iPod touch. Among them are improved display of shortened URLs, correct loading of reserved Twitter paths (i.e., http://twitter.com/newtwitter), a fix for connection errors caused by a device clock being set incorrectly, additional Retina Display graphics and the ability to enable geotagging on your account with a single tap.
As always, the universal Twitter app is free and version 3.2 is available now as a 5.5MB download from the App Store. iOS 3.1 or later is required.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter