You might not have heard of Boid, but if you’ve got an Android phone you’ll want to check it out: it’s the best Android Twitter client we’ve tested, and it’s just graduated from alpha status to beta, with lots more features to come – and a grand plan to give Facebook for mobile the same makeover.
Sometimes it only takes a few keen amateurs to outdo the best professionals. Twitter may have its own official Android app, but a group of teenagers from around the world thought they could do better, and Boid was born. It’s an Android Twitter app with multiple account support that incorporates Google’s new Holo design theme for Android 4.0 – and though it’s still far from finished, it’s really, really fast.
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After several months in alpha status, Boid has now graduated to beta on the Google Play store: the new version now lets you pin columns to the top (like TweetDeck used to, before Twitter ruined it), and includes new filters including Nearby tweets.
Still to come: all-important push notifications in the Android message tray, multiple column support for Android tablets and Facebook integration. Helpfully, the team provide a full list of planned features on their website, as well as a roadmap for future Boid apps, including a Facebook browser. If it’s as good as Boid for Twitter already is in beta, Mark Zuckerberg really ought to be worried – the Facebook Android and iOS apps are notoriously slow. That or he should just buy them.
You can check out Boid beta on the store here – if you’ve got the alpha release, it’ll now stop working and prompt you to upgrade. Let us know how you get on with it in the comments – and what other Twitter apps you use.
