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Twitter's official Android app is coming -- will it be bought or built?
At its Chirp developer conference in San Francisco, Twitter announced that an official Android client is on the way. What we don't know yet is whether it will be developed from scratch or acquired and rebranded. Twitter has taken both routes with its official apps thus far: the BlackBerry app was built in a partnership with RIM, and the iPhone app will be a rebranded Tweetie.If Twitter were to buy an Android app, I'm not sure which one it would go for. As far as I can tell, no app has distinguished itself on Google's mobile OS the same way the award-winning Tweetie did on the iPhone. Plus, partnering with Google to build an Android app would definitely have some advantages for Twitter. The two companies already seem to be getting cozier, with Google launching a Twitter timeline search this week.
What do you think? Will Twitter's official Android client be all new, or will Twitter buy an existing client? Which ones look like smart targets for acquisition?
[via TechCrunch]
Comments
2
Subscribe to commentshalophoenixApr 15th 2010 12:00PM
Absolutely there's an app that's distinguished itself on Android as much as Tweetie has on the iPhone: Twidroid.
That's not necessarily a great thing either - Twidroid is the champ when it comes to Android twitter apps not because it's great, but because it's pretty well polished, it's stable, and it was one of the first richly featured apps to market. There have been some recent solid competitors like Seesmic and Twitride, but most people I know with an Android phone settle back to Twidroid one way or the other - it's the only app that just doesn't feel .9, if you catch my drift.
The downside though to the app is that the developers are notoriously resistant to feature suggestions and regularly brush them off from users, and they insist on releasing an update every time they make even the most minor bugfixes, which means people running Twidroid can find themselves with updates for the app multiple times a week at times (although it's been getting better). Still, it's the dominant app. If Twitter's going to buy an app, it'd likely be that one, unless they want to buy out someone with a likely cheaper framework and build more robust features into it.
loox42Apr 18th 2010 3:42AM
Who cares? Twitter can already be done on android.
And how hard is it to make an app that displays text only? If they buy an app, that'd be quite stupid... a download text / display text app should be pretty damn easy.