Twitter refreshes its terrible iPhone app with revamped search, tweaks

Twitter mobile search

The popular micro-blogging platform Twitter today announced a freshly redesigned search experience for its iOS/Android apps and the Twitter.com web interface. This helps you find relevant tweets, trends and people to follow in a single stream. Plus, the reorganized search is now available anywhere in the mobile apps via a new icon.

You can see your five most recent searches, tap them to redo the search and clear your recent search history. Twitter says the updated iOS client launches faster, especially on older iDevices. It’s a nice, albeit way overdue refresh. If you’re using Twitter’s official client, you can update your devices now. I’m sticking with Tweetbot

Twitter says its iOS/Android client now has a dedicated magnifying glass icon for quick access to search features from anywhere in the app.

It certainly beats tapping your way to reach search in the Interactions tab.

We’ve also added a new search button to Twitter for iPhone, letting you search from anywhere within the app. This button was already available in the Android and iPad apps. Look for the magnifying glass icon next to the button you use to compose a Tweet.

Clicking a URL in a tweet will directly open it from any timeline, as opposed to just expanding the tweet like before.

As part of the house cleaning, all of the tweets, activity, trends and account suggestions are now presented as a single stream in the Discover tab.

Another handy improvement: the Connect tab now defaults to Interactions and you can check a box to tell the app to only list your mentions.

Twitter 5.3 for iOS (iPad screenshot 002)Twitter 5.3 for iOS (iPad screenshot 001)
Tap the new magnifying glass icon to get to search from anywhere in the app

Check out Twitter’s gallery of iPhone 5 screenies.

Here’s the full changelog.

Discover: Now all the content in Discover — Tweets, Activity, Trends and suggestions of accounts to follow — appears in a single stream, on both iPhone and Android. You can also dive into Activity and Trends from new previews at the top of the Discover tab.

Search: Search results now surface the most relevant mix of Tweets, photos, and accounts, all in one stream (similar to the stream in Discover). We’ve also added a new search button to Twitter for iPhone, letting you search from anywhere within the app. (This button was already available in the Android and iPad apps.) Look for the magnifying glass icon next to the button you use to compose a Tweet.

Connect: To provide a simpler experience in the Connect tab, the default view is now Interactions, which shows you new followers, retweets and mentions. If you prefer to view only your mentions in Connect, you can adjust the default in settings – find the “Connect tab” option and select “Mentions only”.

Links: Click a URL in a Tweet to go directly to that website from any timeline and get to content highlighted on Twitter faster. (Previously, when you tapped any part of a Tweet, it would first expand and then a second click was required to get to the website.)

Twitter version 5.3 is free to download from the App Store and Google’s Play Store.