Research In Motion(RIM) announced today that they will finally release the beta Twitter app for BlackBerry to the general public tonight at 9:00 PM Eastern Time — 6:00 PM Pacific Time. The application will be made available to users around the world in the Test Center on the BlackBerry App World.
RIM originally released a preview of the application to a few lucky users back in February 11. Ever since, the company has been tweaking and improving the application based on feedback by those who were invited to try out the application. RIM originally promised to release the application on March 31. The company retracted the announcement a few days later, stating that no launch date had been chosen. However, this public release comes just eight days after the original launch day, which is not bad at all.
Make your way past the break to read the full changelog.
- Notifications of New Tweets and @Replies/Mentions
- When an @reply/mention is received, the user will be notified with a splat on the BlackBerry home screen ribbon as well as the application icon
- Users will also be notified of new tweets in the BlackBerry Messages list
- Twitter Lists Functionality
- Comprehensive option to build a list of Twitter users on any subject
- Ability to add members to the list and view subscribers of the lists
- Users can also view other users’ lists
- Profile Editing
- Users can edit their own Twitter profile from the application
- Users can also change their profile image from the application
- Personalization Settings
- Users can customize the look of the application with the ability to:
- Show/hide the navigation bar and tweetbox
- Change the font/style to their own preferred choice
- Users can click on a Twitter profile image and it will be enlarged for better viewing abilities
- Improved in-Application Caching/Polling
- Increased on-device caching for Timeline; Mentions to improve application performance
- Enlarged Avatar (Profile Picture) Viewing
- Push Notifications for Direct Messages
- Timeline Support
- Following & Followers
- Posting, Sending, Deleting, Replying and Re-Tweeting Tweets
- User/Saved/Keyword/Proximity Search
These new features build on Twitter for BlackBerry’s strengths at its original preview launch:
- Tweet Photos/Links
- Trending Topics
- Seamless integration into core BlackBerry Applications
- URL Shortening
- Auto Update