Twitter’s Android app has been a sad, stretched-out version of its smartphone app for far too long, but relief is on the way — for Samsung tablets, at least.
Starting today, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 – 2014 Edition gets a proper tablet version of Twitter. In landscape mode, the navigation bar will sit on the left-hand side. Tap on a tweet, and a second column will pop up, showing photos, videos and article previews when appropriate. It sounds a lot like how Twitter’s iPad app works currently, though the Android tablet version will look like it in portrait mode.
Twitter says it’s added some features specifically for Samsung. The app supports Samsung’s Multi-Window mode, so you can run Twitter and another app side-by-side, and there’s an illustration feature for drawing on top of tweets with the Note’s S Pen stylus. Twitter is also launching a new widget that shows tweets, photos and videos, along with country-specific news and updates.
If you’re using a Samsung tablet other than the Note 10.1, Twitter says the tablet version is coming “soon.” For everyone else, it’ll officially be available by the end of the year.
I say “officially” because there’s a good chance some benevolent hacker will grab the APK installation file and put it up on the Internet for all. That’s exactly what happened with Flipboard last year, when the app launched as a Samsung timed exclusive. So far I haven’t seen anything pop up, but I’ll update this post if anything changes.
Until then, check out 25 Android tablet apps that look great no matter who built the hardware.