Twitter revamps its mobile apps to make it easier to discover on the go

Twitter’s mobile presence just got a careful restyle to make it easier to spot important updates and trends in the endless stream of random tweets you probably see daily. The updates to the Android and iOS apps, as well as the mobi site, allow you to see all the information you’re looking for in a single continuous stream.

The social network said the update is designed to make it easier to find what’s “important to you when you’re on the go”. To this end, they’ve tweaked the search functionality so it displays a unified stream of relevant people, and links, photos and mentions in tweets, and given iPhone users the search button that’s been on the iPad and Android apps for a while. It’s the first time Twitter hasn’t separated ‘tweet search’ from ‘people search’ on mobile — and while it seems like a minor detail, the process behind it was quite lengthy, as the Twitter engineering team has explained in a detailed blog post.

The most noticeable update is the discover tab — instead of starting with a tweets and article snippets from trending stories within your network, and having to scroll to see other updates and trends, you’ll now be greeted with a much more detailed top section filled with the recent activity of people you’re following and the current trending topics, and a more easily accessible suggested users list and enlarged feature images for stories shared by certain accounts.

By default, the connect tab now only shows mentions, retweets and new followers. If you’re just interested in seeing who is @’ing you though, you can change the settings for this. The team has also made it easier to get out of the Twitter bubble, as you now only have to tap a link once to go to an external website, instead of waiting for a second preview window to load and then click again.