Twitter for Android finally gets PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

wow... just wow.

So I used Plume, Tweetdeck and Twitter, and none of them had push notifications til... today. This is just pathetic.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/14/twitter-for-android-gets-push-notifications-multiple-account-su/

Definitely a welcome change, but this is as bad as Apple releasing copy and paste 2 years late and having the crowd cheer. Except when Apple released push notifications in 2009, it rolled out insanely fast across apps and Twitter apps had it in no time.

Edit: What's odd is I don't even see a button for Push Notifications still? There's an option for refresh interval but how does this even matter? Shouldn't there be an option for PUSH (real time updates) or pulled updates (intervals)? At least that's how my other iOS apps worked. I really don't get the Facebook and Twitter push APIs on Android.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Made sure sync twitter is checked in Accounts & Settings, and then I did a test mention.

My internet's acting up like slow as hell, but before the tweet could show up in my browser after hitting send, my iPod dinged. 6 minutes later my Android phone is silent. Either I'm not setting something up or this push notification business sucks balls on this platform.

 

[Anubis]

yea im not seeing what the big deal is here, worked fine before and TBH i never cared or noticed that it didn't push notifications
im gonna have to make sure i disable this so my phone isn't yelling at me every 2 seconds

 

[Red Storm]

I wouldn't equate a single app's inability to use push notifications to a system-wide feature like copy/paste. Personally I have my twitter app set to check every 6 hours. I guess this is nice for those who have been wanting it.

 

[slag]

twitter.. lol

People still use twitter?

 

[Deeko]

Eh...there are some apps that benefit from push notifications, but I don't see Twitter as being one that really drastically needs it. Its one thing if you're on an OS that lacks background updates, but with Android Twitter clients, you can just open it up once and it will silently poll in the background.

 

[AstroManLuca]

twitter.. lol

People still use twitter?

Agreed, most useless social network ever. I think people are finally catching on to the fact that Facebook and Google+ have all the features of Twitter plus other features like the ability to share more than 140 characters at once.

The only reason to use Twitter is to follow celebrities. Like I care about that.

 

[Dulanic]

Agreed, most useless social network ever. I think people are finally catching on to the fact that Facebook and Google+ have all the features of Twitter plus other features like the ability to share more than 140 characters at once.

The only reason to use Twitter is to follow celebrities. Like I care about that.

Agreed. Where is that breakdown picture... like 5% of users make 95% of the tweets and 50% of the accounts are inactive and haven't tweeted in 2+ weeks?

Edit: Found it! I was a small amount off but same idea.

Disclaimer: If this post was on twitter it would have ended at "tweeted" because anything longer has the capability of causing mass confusion.

 

[Oyeve]

Now I can get all my twats on my phone.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Google+ pushes 1 billion updates a day
Twitter pushes 350 billion.

Google+ and Facebook do not have as big of an urgency to be instant, but Twitter does. IT makes all the sense in the world to have Twitter with push notifications. If you're gonna poll 30 minutes, then it's kinda pointless.

Google+ is competing with Facebook. Less so Twitter. They're very different.

 

[Deeko]

Google+ pushes 1 billion updates a day
Twitter pushes 350 billion.

Google+ and Facebook do not have as big of an urgency to be instant, but Twitter does. IT makes all the sense in the world to have Twitter with push notifications. If you're gonna poll 30 minutes, then it's kinda pointless.

Google+ is competing with Facebook. Less so Twitter. They're very different.

I believe every single Twitter app allows you to configure how frequently it polls, so yea...if, for some strange reason, its really urgent you get tweets that frequently, you'd be pretty stupid to set your poll interval to 30 minutes, and yes, that would be pointless.

Its a nice feature to have, but its really not THAT big of a deal - and honestly, if you follow a lot of people, or people that tweet really frequently, do you really even WANT push? Seems like a whole lot of extra battery draining. I can see it both ways, and using this as a reason to attack the platform is disengenous.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Well even if I follow 150 people, I don't get DMed or mentioned 50 times an hour... It's like Facebook. If you're on it a lot, the photos you comment on or the stuff you post will also have other commenters and you get notifications. The same with Google+. I'd say you get pinged the same amount of times. So while Google+ has push notifications, I don't know why this doesn't. I don't know, it just doesn't make sense.

Plus, wasn't the idea of push to get better battery life than to have constant polling? I don't mind polling but how does polling really help on Facebook and Twitter? Does an updated feed give you anything unless say you have the HTC Friendstream widget where you see everything? Updating your whole stream is only useful in instances where you have a widget. The important part is notifying you when you get messaged, commented, etc. This is exactly why Google+ and Facebook notify you via email when comments or messages arrive. It's a redundant notification that's also in-app. This shows that what people care about are when information is directed at them. Having a constantly updated feed via polling is nice but it's not as useful.

Plus, whether you poll or not, the app updates your whole feed the minute you launch it.

 

[Deeko]

Well even if I follow 150 people, I don't get DMed or mentioned 50 times an hour... It's like Facebook. If you're on it a lot, the photos you comment on or the stuff you post will also have other commenters and you get notifications. The same with Google+. I'd say you get pinged the same amount of times. So while Google+ has push notifications, I don't know why this doesn't. I don't know, it just doesn't make sense.

Because they didn't add it as a feature yet, because while its nice to have, most people wouldn't consider it to be that big of a deal.

Plus, wasn't the idea of push to get better battery life than to have constant polling?

Unless you're getting a LOT of notifications, in which case push is worse.

I don't mind polling but how does polling really help on Facebook and Twitter? Does an updated feed give you anything unless say you have the HTC Friendstream widget where you see everything? Updating your whole stream is only useful in instances where you have a widget. The important part is notifying you when you get messaged, commented, etc. This is exactly why Google+ and Facebook notify you via email when comments or messages arrive. It's a redundant notification that's also in-app. This shows that what people care about are when information is directed at them. Having a constantly updated feed via polling is nice but it's not as useful.

Plus, whether you poll or not, the app updates your whole feed the minute you launch it.

Speed - one of the things I like about my Android phone is that when I open up my Twitter client, its already up to date - I don't have to wait for it update itself. Is it that big of a deal to wait a few seconds? No...but I'd rather not do it.

And for the record, Twitter also emails you when you get a mention/DM.

Like I said - its a nice option to have, but its really not THAT big of a deal, so I don't really get the vitriolic nature of the OP.