One of the most glaring omissions from the Android market has been a high quality, free Twitter client. Not anymore.
Announced this weekend on Twitter’s Blog, the official Android Twitter App goes beyond the scope of traditional third-party apps with hooks into other programs and the AndroidOS. To do this, Twitter worked directly with the Google Android team to put out this application. From the post:
Twitter for Android is a fantastic application to use, and sharing any link or photo is super simple too – just look for the share button in your favorite application and choose Twitter.
Reading tweets is easy in a bunch of places on your phone. Quickly access your timeline with the home screen widget, view a tweet location on a map, and see your friend’s latest tweet in your phonebook, GoogleTalk list or any application that uses Android’s QuickContact bar.
Because the Twitter App is only for Android 2.x devices like the Droid line and Nexus One, only about a quarter of Android users can use the application. That is, unless they hack 2.1 onto their older devices. Twitter recommends using the mobile website for older Android devices.
Twitter also announced that the new Android Twitter App will soon be open-sourced by Google so that developers can add to its progress.
Twitter bought iPhone Twitter client Tweetie last month and plans to use it as the official Twitter client on the iPhone in an upcoming update.