Busy bird Twitter is getting up to all sorts this week, releasing its app for Windows 8, introducing line breaks to tweets, and apparently working on a standalone music discovery app.
Twitter for Windows 8 is available now from the Windows Store in a choice of 22 languages. The app has the usual Home, Connect, Discover and Me tabs, but it has also taken on features of the new Microsoft OS, such as the Share and Search charms.
The Share charm will let users easily and quickly tweet no matter what they’re doing on their devices or computers, while the Search charm can be used in-app to find users or follow a hashtag.
Twitter for Windows 8 also makes use of Live Tiles, Windows 8’s way of keeping users up to date with notifications from specific apps at a glance, and an all-new landscape view gives users a better look at photos shared on the network.
Twitter Music on the cards?
Meanwhile, CNET reports that Twitter is working on a standalone music discovery app following its acquisition of music service We Are Hunted. It’s said that the app, dubbed Twitter Music, will suggest artists and songs for users to listen to, which will be personalised based on who they follow on Twitter. Users won’t necessarily need a Twitter account to use the service, but it will enable the app to better tailor recommendations. Connecting the two accounts will also mean that songs users listen to will be pushed out as tweets.
Songs will be streamed via SoundCloud and iTunes and, according to AllThingsD, Vevo will also be integrated to allow users to watch music videos using a Twitter-built player. That said, AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka also speculates that the app will focus on playing tasters of tracks as opposed to full songs, skirting around the issue of obtaining rights from a multitude of artists and labels.
The Twitter Music app is rumoured for release on iOS at end of this month.
Breaking up
Finally, to its core service, Twitter has added support for line breaks. These breaks in text will be visible on Twitter.com and in Twitter’s official mobile app, however, they are not visible through third-party clients or in embedded tweets and streams.
So, if you look at this haiku officially announcing the inclusion of line breaks from Twitter outside of its website or mobile app, it just looks like the brand has lost its grasp on punctuation. Be warned!
