Flamingo’s Twitter Client Gets a Big Update

The official Twitter app is a decent enough mobile client, but if you’re looking for more control and customization you can always turn to third-party apps. One such option is Flamingo, which popped up in the Play Store last year and quickly established itself as one of the better clients on Android thanks to its Material Design aesthetic, features like GIF support and more. Developer Sam Ruston, who also makes the popular weather app Weather Timeline, just pushed an update to Flamingo that includes some major improvements, along with some new animations.

The big addition in this update is GIF support, which means you’ll be able to see full-autoplay media in your feed and even use Giphy to tweet out some of your favorites. There’s also a new tablet layout, an improved attachment preview and more. But the most notable change is that you’ll now be able to select a color for your toolbar and background, giving you a total of 30 options to choose from. You can also customize the default font and color for text, links, FAB, and bottom bar.

Previously, Flamingo was also the only client to support streaming of Twitter video clips and photo uploads. Now, you’ll be able to view those on a timeline or in a profile, as well as download the original file. Another big improvement is that the app now shows more info in the image view for photos and videos. It will display captions, a date and time, the number of views and the creator’s username.

This update has a few other minor tweaks, too. For example, it now shows a notification when you receive a reply to one of your direct messages. And it adds a new way to filter the timeline to show just direct messages or replies from people you follow.

You’ll also be able to set the keyboard shortcuts to refresh and mute your own account, and you can customize the interface on an account-by-account basis, with various behavior settings. Lastly, there’s now a night mode and the ability to create customized shortcuts for composing tweets and searches.

This is a big update for Flamingo, and it’s an especially welcome development since Twitter’s latest restriction on third-party apps made its way into effect earlier this month. The limitation essentially forces developers to create x amount of tokens for their apps, and once you reach that limit the app won’t work anymore. Fortunately, this is just a temporary restriction for most of these apps. But it did cause Flamingo to shut down for a few weeks until this update came out. For more information on the new features, check out the full blog post below. You can grab the updated version of the app from the Play Store now. It’s available for both phones and tablets.