Twitter has updated its iOS and Android apps today, as well as its mobile site, to include more interesting content to keep you tapping and exploring as you perform searches. As we noted last month, Twitter has started to surface older tweets in its search results. Today, that experience will become more prevalent in Twitter’s mobile experience.
In addition to tweets that might have some age to it, your search results will now include topics and user suggestions based on your query. Since Twitter is a real-time service, this is no easy task.
A few video services have gotten the axe, and the app now has native support for traditional Chinese language. It’s nice to see Twitter combine some sweeping discovery updates with a maintenance release in time for SXSW.
It’s a small tweak, but I’m enjoying the addition of the tweet staying visible when you tap a link, providing some context as you venture off of the network. You can make it go away by tapping the web page:
• As you search you’ll see more topic and user suggestions for your query, based on what’s happening in real time. You’ll also see these suggestions when adding a hashtag or username as you compose a new Tweet. • Top Tweets from big moments in the past pop out when you search for a given term. For example, searching for “election” might highlight Tweets from several months ago. • When you open a web page you can now see the related Tweet for more context. Just pull the tray icon up or down to see or hide the Tweet. • It’s easier to see long conversations in the Tweet details view, which now shows all of the replies to any Tweet • Pull-to-refresh in Discover shows a new, smoother animation • Support for traditional Chinese • Uploading videos vie Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous is no longer supported • Additional bug fixes and improvements
Here’s a look at what you might find when doing a search:
The only old tweet I saw with the “election” search was a promoted one. Hopefully that won’t be the case for all of your searches. As the discovery experience gets better, Twitter can hopefully trap those non-tweeters into clicking more links and following more people.