Today, Twitter announced a pretty big redesign for their Android app. Gone is the “iOS clone” that the app has had for a while now and in is the material design version with a floating action button (FAB). Something that all Android users will love. This version has been in a limited alpha test for quite a few months, so it’s not all that new, but it is nice to see it rolling out to all Android users finally. There’s no hint of the “dark theme” that we had seen surface not too long ago, however.
In this update, we have a slide-out menu which gives you access to your Profile, Highlights, Lists and your Connect stream. Additionally, you can get into the app settings, switch accounts and view your Twitter Ads through that menu. As for the four tabs across the top, there is your home screen, Twitter Moments, your notifications and mentions (also known as “Connect”) and then your Direct Messages. These four tabs are swipe-able, making navigation a breeze in this update. You also have a floating action button at the bottom, which you can tap on and be taken to the Compose Tweet screen. Other than that, the app is mostly the same. This is likely to keep the user experience mostly the same for users. As large updates like this can force users to stop using the app, or to never update to the latest version.
The update has been much anticipated, so it’s great to see that it has finally arrived on Android. It may not get a lot of users off of the third-party apps like Fenix, Carbon or Talon. But it is a big change, and we can likely thank Joaquim Vergès (who built Falcon Pro, then was hired by Twitter) for helping make the Twitter app more material design looking.
According to Twitter, the update is rolling out today on Android. So you can head into the Google Play Store and get your update right now. This should be version 6.0.0, and it’s definitely worth that version bump. If you don’t see the update available in the Google Play Store yet, you should be seeing it soon. As this may be a staged roll out.