Video: First Look at Carbon for Twitter on Android

by: Kellex | posted 02.03.13 | Apps, News, Videos

Carbon for Twitter is finally available on Android. Yes, on Super Bowl Sunday, the longest delayed Twitter app in history has been released to Google Play – and it’s free. After a few minutes with it, I can easily say that this is one of the better designed apps we have seen. It’s ultra fast, utilizes gestures for navigation, and includes almost all of the features I look for in a Twitter app. Is it better than Falcon Pro, you ask? I’ll let you decide that. What I will say, is that it has a lot going for it.

Here is the list of features:

Tilt Timeline to Refresh
Power Scroll: Scroll/Swipe up or down using Two fingers to jump to top or bottom of Timelines
Tap+Hold on Tweets to make everything clickable right on the Timeline
QuickTimeline, home screen quick Timeline for Lists, Searches, Trends, etc…
Rich Timelines with full inline images and videos
Rich and HD style for User Profiles
Rich and fun Conversation View
Threaded Direct Messages
Background updates with quick actions for Jelly Bean, per account
Username Autocomplete
Filters for Hashtags, Users, and Keywords

As with any app, it’ll take some use before I can decide if it’s going to be my new Twitter app of choice. Falcon Pro is a beast and will be tough to overcome, but you know what, choices are never a bad thing. Go grab it!

Play Link

Gallery

Video

http://www.spinxwebdesign.com/ Spinx Inc.

Falcon Pro is really a king of Twitter apps for Android users. Great look and best option for tweeting.
MikeSaver

Is there an app that lets you get tweets from your lists as notificationa?
ShadrachCA

Might I suggest that for those who install, end up not liking it and uninstall, go into your Twitter settings and revoke access for the app to free up the token? Now that 3rd-party Twitter apps are limited to 100,000 users, it seems a common courtesy to free up a token for an app you’re not using.
Flyinion

Soooo, I’ve been using Tweetcaster forever. I don’t actually do much tweeting (mostly just for contests) but do follow a few people on Twitter. Any reason to use this over Tweetcaster? Anything that would be better for my situation?
http://twitter.com/afgbruins21 Arian

Do the filters for hashtags and usernames and keywords work as a mute? If so, I’m leaving Tweetcaster and their ZipIt. I would LOVE a keyword mute!
Lex_407

All right! He’s a sneakerhead!
Scott Bowen

Carbon is nice but late… FalconPro is my favorite client right now.. Really outside of the animations all I see is a bunch of missing features…
branshaw09

Am I missing something or is there no widget for this?
Br_d

I like that it supports multiple accounts, unlike Falcon Pro.

Both apps annoyingly cut off images in the timeline so you have to drill down into the image to see the whole thing. Carbon is a little better at it but I don’t understand why they don’t just show the whole image inline.

I don’t like that Carbon doesn’t show you how many tweets you have left as you are scrolling up.

I prefer Falcon Pro’s conversation view, because it’s listed in chronological order. Carbon’s is in reverse chronological order, so if you want to read a conversation you have to scroll to the bottom and work your way up. That’s weird.

Other than that, it’s a pretty nice looking Twitter app and I will definitely keep it installed.
http://www.vinsonimages.com yamaha83

ill keep an eye on it… but my favorite feature of Falcon is the internal browser! i love not having to hop between apps to look at links!!
- Br_d
  
  I agree. That internal browser is a killer feature.
http://www.facebook.com/jwiesneski Jeff Wiesneski

Carbon seems to load faster and run better on my HTC One V than Falcon Pro, which is enough to get me to switch.
http://twitter.com/SleepForeverrr Jared.

I enjoy this much more than Falcon Pre honestly. It will get there with features and functionality eventually. The only thing that’s really not great is how to view the pictures and videos.
http://www.facebook.com/jwiesneski Jeff Wiesneski

It opens up and loads content on my HTC One V faster than Falcon Pro, and is at least as smooth scrolling, if not smoother than Falcon Pro. Good enough for me, uninstalling Falcon Pro for this.
http://twitter.com/jdrch jdrch

*Finally:* a Twitter mobile client with username autocomplete for *everyone* you follow. Holy hell, how hard of a feature to implement is that? The only other client I know that does this is MetroTwit for Windows.

OTOH, lack of push notifications is rather Stone Age. That said, this will be very useful for composing tweets while using the official app for notifications.
- Talkdj
  
  Amen to that brother!!!
http://twitter.com/Trooper311 Trooper

Falcon is so much better. After all the hype and drama for this app, it sucks. Falcon Pro ftw.
http://twitter.com/chrismalone chrismalone

are people getting notifications with this app? Have them turned on, but getting nothing.
- http://www.facebook.com/jwiesneski Jeff Wiesneski
  
  I think I am also not getting notifications every 15 minutes, but that might be because my MESSAGES was off in the settings for notifications.
jcorf

Yeah, I’m gonna stick with Falcon Pro.
Joe Fischer

Needs push notifications and an option for refresh interval
- John
  
  Ya as soon as I saw that you couldn’t change the refresh interval, I uninstalled & went back to FalconPro
http://twitter.com/claydos66 Mike C.

No tablet support…. Sniffle
xxdesmus

completely unnecessary animations. Sticking with Falco Pro without question.
- http://riteshtripathy.wordpress.com/ Ritesh Tripathy
  
  All UI animations are “unnecessary”. So what’s your point?
  - xxdesmus
    
    My point was a pretty obvious. Sticking with Falcon Pro.
- http://znewman.com/ Zachary Newman
  
  So intrusive that I am 15 minutes in and no longer using it.
lamenting

Swipe from left to right on the home tab to switch accounts, btw..
http://twitter.com/Magnious Ron H

I still think that Plume is quite possibly the best twitter app I’ve ever used, and have yet to see one come close to taking it’s place.
- Marcus Thomas
  
  I agree. Plume is easily better than Falcon Pro and I’m not that impressed with Carbon so far. It looks nice, but that’s about it. same for Falcon Pro. It looks nice, but Plume still beats it.
- Br_d
  
  Why? What does it do better? I’m not trolling, I’m genuinely wondering as I haven’t used Plume in a couple years.
Orlando Ja, Jr.

No tablet support
jaw_shoe_uh

It’s…so…black…
- Good_Ole_Pinocchio
  
  hmmmmmmm
- brian
  
  Color scheme, especially on AMOLED screens is crazy!!! He should alternate between grays and blacks, coz am seriously getting confused, especially in the timeline. And I also wish the tabs were permanently stuck up on top!!! Either way, they have a very long way to go before they can reach Falcon Pro level
Rodeojones000

Forgive my ignorance here, but what’s wrong with the actual Twitter app? I’ve been using it for years with no issues. I’m always curious as to why there’s talk of these 3rd party apps.
- codemonkey85
  
  Third party apps tend to come with more customization and more advanced features, not to mention improved widgets.
  - Rodeojones000
    
    This is the beauty of Android – options. I must say, it is quite nice. I like the dark theme. I just wish it was tablet compatible. I might give it a try for a while on my phone.
- Emmanuel Korkodilos
  
  For 2 years the actual twitter app wouldn’t store my username and password, so I had to enter both in every time. I gave up about a year ago, there was not point in being frustrated.
  
  This carbon looks very nice so far.
- Br_d
  
  No inline images, can’t view Instagram images within the app, no link previews, no unread counts, doesn’t display the Twitter client that tweets were posted from, no TweetMarker support, no tablet version, no dark theme. I’m sure I would find more things wrong with it if I actually used it regularly, but those things are the reasons why I don’t.
- Scott Bowen
  
  The Twitter app seems outdated and doesn’t take full advantage of Android’s coding techniques… like swiping to a new screen versus pressing a button..
http://www.facebook.com/sean.plantz Sean Plantz

Falcon is way better, but as always, gotta keep eyes on the others!!
https://plus.google.com/110773438514346746273/ tjhrulz

Now if only there was a facebook replacement app that worked this well and used the holo theme
- http://www.facebook.com/minh43 Minh Ly
  
  I personally like Friendcaster. Doesn’t use the holo theme, but has a dark theme when you open the app.
  - michael arazan
    
    I saw friendcaster and first thought it said Friendster
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MCERGZBEMMYO7SY23NYDXSLOIM db., heyu
  
  Yeah really, I’m sick of FB’s lamo colours.
- TheWenger
  
  I’m working on it
Qbancelli

You’re right about Falcon Pro, that guy is constantly improving with added features.

I’ll give this a try, but so far not digging the black color.
- possomcrast1
  
  Seriously Falcon Pro is a great value. It was great to begin with but has gotten multitudes better with so many updates.
  - http://www.droid-life.com Kellex B
    
    Tough to beat Falcon Pro. But may as well give this a quick look since it’s free.
- dylan84
  
  Falcon Pro is definitely the best one out there. Great app. Tried Carbon for a bit but came back to Falcon pretty quickly.
possomcrast1

Looks a little like Falcon.
- http://twitter.com/thefritzo fritzo
  
  in what way? … and, so far, Falcon Pro is better, but I hate to compare the two. They both stand out on their own, and are both better than the Official app. Looking forward to updates.
  - possomcrast1
    
    The sliding and darker theme.