Twitter has had a long history of supporting Android fairly well over the years, and while things like the API count have soured things more recently, Twitter has always tried their best to deliver a decent experience on Android. Not too long ago, Twitter started expanding into other apps on Android, offering the Twitter Kit SDK to developers looking to embed tweets and such into their own apps. Then, there’s also Digits, which was spun off from Twitter Kit some time ago. This allows people to signup using their phone number on Android, and streamlines things for users. Now, Twitter is open sourcing both of these developer tools, making it much easier for budding app builders to make Twitter part of their apps.
Those interested in Twitter Kit can get access to the following APIs from GitHub starting today; twitter, twitter-core, tweet-ui and tweet-composer. Meanwhile, Digits predictably offers, Digits. Apps like Citymapper offer a good example of how Twitter Kit can be used on Android, and it appears that the network in general is turning more of their attention to Android, no doubt due to upcoming announcements from Google I/O. Earlier this week, Twitter launched their Periscope app for Android, giving Meerkat yet another thing to worry about, as well as letting Android users join in the streaming fun.
The official blog post from Twitter states that there will be more “open source news in the coming months” which could be a way for Twitter to win back the Android community after the API count fiasco which put a dark cloud over third-party Twitter clients that users often felt were better than Twitters own offering on Google’s platform. Either way, this is a move in the right direction from Twitter, and hopefully this means there’s more open sourcing to come. If companies like Twitter and Google continue to open source their development tools, it will not only provide a little more transparency, but also help the community shape – even in a small way – the future of these platforms. Those interested can take a look at the source link below for more info.