The trouble with releasing a device with a different resolution or aspect ratio than currently available, is that all apps created up until that point need to be updated to support the new display. The MacBook Pro with Retina display arrived in the summer, and the 13-inch edition joined last month, and while plenty of apps have been adjusted to look good on the super-sharp display, many are still awaiting an update. Among them is the official Twitter app for Mac, but for those that do not wish to wait any longer, one third-party developer has taken it upon himself to make some adjustments.
Twitter for Windows Phone has just been updated with support for Windows Phone 8, and although it appears only to be bug fixes at best, it's good to see Twitter attempting to keep on top of its official application for the new platform. Twitter - like Facebook - has struggled to deliver the goods on both Android and iOS in recent times, with performance levels looking sketchy at the best of times, but with Windows Phone 8 comes a new start, so don't be surprised to see many more meager updates at frequent intervals from the social networking site.
Those whom see the likes of Instagram as the debase of real photography, will be less than enthused to learn that Twitter is planning on integrating some kind of photo filtering system into its official mobile apps.
Twitter may be in the midst of a rather dramatic fall from grace amongst the technology community, but the company has announced at least one piece of news which is certain to bring a smile to the faces of the Technorati.
Aside from Facebook, which is fast-approaching the magical billion milestone of users, Twitter is the most popular way for people to express themselves, sharing their lives, images and whatever they please - provided words are kept to the strict <140 character limit.
Apple maintains a tight grip on the smartphone, tablet and premium notebook market with the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air/Pro. They make their own software for these gadgets; controlling the whole “widget” as Steve Jobs used to say. Yet, there are markets where Apple is hardly relevant. One such market is online social networking. Microsoft has investments in Facebook, Google of course has their own Google+ while Apple has nothing at all.
Twitter’s iOS and Android native app offerings came under fire when they announced a complete redesign earlier this year. They removed established power user features that were first introduced in the Tweetie iPhone app (that Twitter acquired). This resulted in many folks jumping ship* to third party Twitter apps. Now, Twitter is doing their best to keep the new design while bringing back the power user features that were lost in the major update to version 4.
Plugging a hole that has been around since its release in 2010, Twitter's Windows Phone app now sports push notifications, bringing it in-line with the iOS and Android versions of the app.
With the App Store containing close to 600,000+ apps, it is no surprise that a lot of software gets lost in the jungle and never makes it to the publics attention. With that said, apps that can bring new user experiences to the table are generally picked up on and quickly gain significant traction amongst iOS users, something that was particularly evident with the Clear app that offered a beautiful gesture based experience.
Statistics at the back end of 2011 showed that Twitter, the micro blogging service set up in 2006, now has over 300 million active users and is growing its user base rapidly on a day to day basis. Users of the Twitter social network are responsible for posting over 300 million tweets a day and generates an estimated 1.6 billion search queries each and every day which just shows how important the network is becoming.
