By Boid for Android has been in the works for quite some time. If you haven’t already noticed, the app is now out of alpha and is in pre-beta with a ton of improvements.
While I don’t feel comfortable calling this a review, I will say that Boid is already shaping up to be the premier Twitter experience for Android if you have a device running 4.0 and higher. Let’s take a look at what it has to offer.
A Twitter client I can live with
Boid for Android’s biggest draw is its user interface, naturally. Designed from the ground up for Android 4.0, the developer shows a clear understanding of the design practices Google wants everyone to follow going forward. The user interface uses a number of different elements to provide easy composition, viewing, and navigation of tweets.
The app effectively uses swiping gestures, tabs, the action bar and more. With dark and light themes to choose from you can choose the perfect viewing experience for your eyes. The app simply looks great and feels right at home on Android 4.0+.
Perhaps its greatest achievement is its short list of bugs. In fact, I’ve run into no noticeable bugs in my run of the pre-beta.The jump from alpha to pre-beta zapped all of the issues I had, and the relative lack of bugs right now has me very excited for the future. The experience is so smooth that this is my primary Twitter app even without important features like notifications yet (more on that later).
Current feature-set
The app gives you the bare necessities for a Twitter experience in current form. Composing tweets gives you the ability to add photos, shrink links, and attach a location.
You can easily switch between multiple accounts from this interface. The tweet interface will show you the conversation corresponding with that Tweet. You can retweet (natively and via quote), favorite, and respond to a tweet from this view.
You can have as many columns as you want. The default setup is a 4-column cocktail for Timeline, Mentions, Direct Messages, and Trending Topics. The latter allows you to filter between daily, weekly, and local trends. You can search Twitter for tweets and users, and you can save those searches in their own column for constant monitoring.
What it’s still missing
The app may be in alpha but it’s still worth sharing what I’d like to see out of future updates. For starters, basic notifications still haven’t been implemented. In order to get an update you’ll need to go within the app and manually press the refresh button. Speaking of that refresh button, I’d love to see a “pull to refresh” feature.
There are currently no widgets to be had. Android 4.0+ allows you to make scrollable widgets and that would be the perfect style for a Twitter app. We’re sure the developers are looking to add this, but it’s not a priority in pre-beta.
I’d also like to see a combined timeline for multiple accounts. It’s great that we can switch between accounts so early, but being able to view all the tweets from all your accounts in one column would be a fantastic commodity. While we’re at it, color coding each account would put a nice smile on my face.
Once it’s finished…
Boid may not have much competition once it releases. While it’s hard to predict what the developer will implement by the time we’re ready for a full release (or even a beta release), we can’t imagine they’ll skimp out on the features users expect from a Twitter client these days.
With a comparable feature-set, Boid will have a leg up on the competition with its very clean user interface and its delightful experience. The bugs are already minimal for a pre-beta so we look for this to be one of the most stable Twitter applications for Android period once it goes stable.
The promise of “disruptive” Twitter experiences have come from many, and many failed to live up to those promises. Boid has an excellent opportunity to fill the void that still seems to be empty in the Google Play Store, and we’re excited to see what this already impressive application can do once it’s out of beta. Give Boid for Android a go in the Google Play Store here.
Check out Tweedle on the Play Store. Great, clean client.
Plume has all of the features of Boid, including ICS design, push notifications, multiple accounts and widgets.
I have been following the kids developing Boid and commend their efforts but they are still way behind the pack as far as full featured Twitter clients go. They have a very clean aesthetic, but that’s about it.
plume has no push notifications. sadly the only twitter app that pushes is the offical client. and we all know that its crap.
I use the official Twitter solely for that reason…It’s not THAT bad…
Boid’s push notifications are 97% working (that means a day max. until internal tests will be 100% successful) so you’ll be able to ditch the official app soon enough!
Graham – Team Boid
Nice article, very well put. I couldn’t agree more with your point about them taking advantage of ICS and adding a scrollable widget.
We’re going to make two types of widgets: a scrollable one as has been described which will display content from a selected column, and a bar widget with icons for each column showing which columns have new Tweets.
Graham – Team Boid
Hopefully twitter does not try to snatch them up like they have others. That would just suck because the app would basically be put on hold. Look at what happened to Tweetdeck for instance. Very nice app but got sucked up by twitter and basically left in the dust.
We very much hope Twitter doesn’t interfere with our work!
Graham – Team Boid
I’m still trying to find a decent client that combines my Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and G+ accounts into one interface, allows simultaneous posting to all, and doesn’t gimp the experience for any of them in the process. Seesmic and Hootsuite just don’t do it for me on a smartphone; Plume is nice but, besides the lack of push, only gives me Twitter.
Is it really that hard to wrap everything into one client?
Tweedeck and its sister app tweakdeck allows you to access twitter,facebook, and a bunch of others but like i said before tweetdeck got sucked up by twitter and left on the wayside. I havent seen an update to tweakdeck in ages as well and I doubt they have google plus added. They are such good apps that have died thanks to twitter.
Have you heard of SocialScope? It’s exactly what you’re describing; search it on the Store
Graham – Team Boid
Unless this Also includes then for me I dont care, that is why I love tweetdeck Twitter & facebook all in 1 all that all I want, I dont want 2 apps. What would be nice it to also have G+ aswell?
Without a scrollable widget I’ll be sticking with Tweetcaster
How is something “out of alpha” but “pre-beta”?
No idea here.
… And I’m a dev.
We feel it is above ‘alpha’ standard, but below where we’d like to be by beta (it has some features of beta, but more than alpha), so we decided to be as awkward as possible and create our own term; just a name really.
Graham – Team Boid
Ohoho no, you are NOT gonna sucker me into clicking that link with THOSE!
I love the look of Boid but I’m using Plume 99% of the time still. The functions and everything on Plume are great, but the main timeline/feed looks soooo bad.
twicca is the most beautiful twitter client I have ever seen. It does everything I want, even has support for plugins, and is updated regularly.
Look atractive :o gonna try, i love post-ICS UI
The apps looks good but Tweetcaster is better…..So far.
Check out Tweedle by HandlerExploits, it’s an ICS-esque Twitter app. It is very, very responsive. I find that that and Boid are my go-to apps, but Tweedle is far more stable. I am looking forward to what both apps continue to do.
I’ve been trying Boid ever since this post was put up. For the most part it’s quite a solid offering. I love how quick it is to favourite tweets (much, much faster than HootSuite). Unfortunately, I had it “stop responding” frequently while running in the background. I dutifully sent the bug report each time, so I hope the devs are getting what they need from my reports.
Boid will continue to be my primary tweet client until TweetLanes decided to include tablets in their supported devices.
Thanks for the feedback. You may have noticed these background bugs disappear in the past few updates – we’re currently doing a lot of work on stabilising the app, as well as adding notification, contact syncing and everything else on this list:
http://boidapp.com/post/26714587683/what-to-expect-0-8-2-beta
Graham – Team Boid
Nice to see the banner I created being used as the post header image!
BOID FTW.
It’s a very nice banner ;)