Rating: 

Verdict: It's great to see Twitter finally taking Android seriously and putting the effort in to launch its own official app, and while it looks and functions well there still are a few key features which are missing

Platform: Android

Pros: Gorgeous design, excellent interface, plenty of cool options

Cons: Sluggish performance, only supports native retweets, no support for multiple accounts

Version: 1.0.1

Publisher: Twitter

Price: Free

More Info: Twitter website

It seems like we’ve reviewed an almost infinite number of different Twitter clients across the Android and iPhone platforms over the past few months, each one with its own personality, feel and interface.

Twitter’s previous reluctance to field its own self-built application has encouraged some developers to produce absolutely fantastic pieces of software – including Twidroid, Touiteur and Seesmic – but over the past few weeks the company’s attitude has changed.

First Twitter aquired Tweetie from developer atebits, essentially making that app the official choice on Apple’s iPhone. Android has now followed suit, although unlike Tweetie, Twitter for Android benefits from being coded from the ground-up as a first-party proposition.

The aesthetic difference between this app and other unofficial Twitter clients is immense, and when you consider that Twidroid and Touiteur weren’t exactly ugly, that’s saying quite something. The design is unsurprisingly tied in quite closely to the look of the web-based portal, with the familiar bird mascot and the calming blue and white colour scheme. In short, it looks gorgeous.

In terms of how it actually functions, Twitter for Android works a little differently from its rivals. Your main screen presents you with a grid of options, including timeline tweets, mentions, direct messages and lists.

One particularly cool element is the trending cloud which appears on the bottom of this main display. This slowly populated with popular hash tags which, when tapped, will bring up a list of all the relevant tweets. Granted, it’s not an wholly unique feature – most other clients offer the ability to view popular topics – but the way in which it is presented makes it feel fresh and new.

When you’re viewing a timeline of tweets, tapping one brings up a separate pop-up menu, similar to the one seen in Touiteur. This is useful as it allows you to access the various options without having to drop to a different screen.

As you might expect all of the usual features are present. You can attach photos (from both within the app and when you’re browsing your Android phone’s gallery), add people you’re following to a tweet, geo-tag your tweet and even shorten URLs automatically.

However, when it comes to retweeting, Twitter for Android is a little more restrictive than its competitors. You can’t use the old-fashioned “RT” method and instead must use the new “native” process, which simply re-posts the entire tweet – completely unedited - to your own timeline so that your followers can see the message.

It seems like a simple omission but if you’re used to adding your own comments to retweeted items then it’s bound to irk you to some degree. It also sticks out like a sore thumb because practically every other Twitter client out there offers the ability to use both methods.

It may be something which Twitter will address in future versions of the application, but when you consider that the company is trying to eradicate the old-fashioned retweet method, it’s not looking too likely.

Another unfortunate oversight is the lack of support for multiple Twitter accounts – something which again is present in most other Android-based Twitter clients. However, we’d guess that the number of people out there who actually have more than one Twitter identity is probably quite small so it’s not a massive issue.

To round off the negative aspects it has to be said that Twitter for Android runs quite slowly at times. You can speed things up by turning off the pretty but ultimately superfluous screen animations but there’s no escaping the fact that this app is quite sluggish.

Bearing these points in mind, it’s hard to truly endorse Twitter for Android when there are so many well-developed clients already available. Over time we fully expect that more features will be added and the overall performance will receive a much-needed boost, and there’s no denying that Twitter for Android is the best-looking option currently available. It also benefits from being an official app, which means it should get new features before its rivals.

However, unless you’re particularly unhappy with your current Twitter client then we’d advise waiting a while before jumping ship. For once, official doesn’t necessarily mean superior.