Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re an avid Twitter user and an avid Android smartphone user, you’ve been waiting for this day. The day where those developers at Twitter’s headquarters man up and release a Twitter app that can seriously compete with the likes of TweetDeck, Twidroid, and HootSuite. Well, fellow tweeters, it appears that time has come — the official Twitter Android 2.0 app just hit the Market and it includes a pretty drastic UI overhaul, some bug fixes, and a few more key features.

Naturally, we hit the update button as soon as it popped up on our Droid 2 Global, and we have to say the first thing we noticed was the speed increase — our feed loaded quickly and jumping over to the different columns was snappy. Speaking of those columns, Twitter wiped the previous, overly-cutesy main homepage for four tabs that run along the top of the screen — there’s your regular feed, mentions, direct messages, and lists. It feels more like the iOS app, which definitely isn’t a bad thing. You can still pull-to-refresh and swipe left or right over a particular tweet to respond, retweet, or favorite it. So, what’s the best improvement? Besides the tidied up interface, we have to say it’s the auto-complete for usernames — punch in the @ symbol and start typing a name and you’ll get a list of suggested names. Twitter’s also improved the search functionality, but we’d suggest checking that out yourself. It won’t cost you a penny, we just hope you’re running Android 2.1 or higher. Nope, not even Twitter is safe from the evils of fragmentation.

Twitter updates Android app, we go hands-on in more than 140 characters originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google’s announced on its official blog a small project they’ve quickly cobbled together to help Egyptians (who –in the midst of protests — are having serious connectivity issues) communicate via Twitter. With almost no connection to the internet through normal channels, Google has made it possible for anyone to send a Tweet simply by dialing one of several international phone numbers (+16504194196, +390662207294 or +97316199855) and leaving a voicemail. What happens next? The service Tweets the message using the hashtag #egypt via the Speak to Tweet account.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Google, SayNow, and Twitter team up to make Tweeting from Egypt possible via voicemail originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple kept to their 90-days word—it’s January 6th, and the Mac App Store is ready for your custom. There’s over 1,000 apps—both free and paid-for—for Macs, with all that’s needed is Snow Leopard and an iTunes account. More »

Cast your mind back to the ancient time that was this August and you’ll recall Eric Schmidt telling you, with no lack of pride, that 200,000 Android phones were being sold each and every day. Skip past Steve Jobs’ snide remarks about what’s included in that tally, and fast-forward to today, where Andy Rubin is blowing minds with the latest, very nicely rounded, total: 300,000 daily activations. Yes, in spite of being the most fragmented thing this side of our 10-year old hard drives, the Android OS just keeps growing at an exponential rate. So Steve, any comment on today’s data? Were they counting it wrong?

[Thanks, Dell]

Andy Rubin: over 300,000 Android phones activated daily originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 02:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In August, PayPal added a donation feature that allowed users to make charitable contributions from within the services’s iPhone app. In late October, Apple made them pull the plug with no warning and little explanation. More »