Official Twitter app for Windows Phone finally gets Notifications in latest update

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

The offiical Twitter app's new Toast push-notification in action

If there was one nagging issue with the official Twitter app for Windows Phone, it was the inability to get Toast notifications for new mentions or re-Tweets. Even after receiving a new update just 3 weeks ago, there was still no sign of any of these advanced features.

So we were a tiny bit flabbergasted to actually see a new notification section in the latest update, version 1.2.4555.39631 (or just v1.5 in the Marketplace) which just went live tonight. The updated Notification area has the following options

  • Mentions - Off, From people you follow, From anyone
  • Favorited - Off, From people you follow, From anyone
  • retweets - Off, From people you follow, From anyone
  • Direct messages
  • New followers

That's actually a fairly robust selection of possible notifications for Twitter these days and yes, they are the Push type i.e. nearly instant. What's more, while there is seemingly no Live Tile counter, the Tiles does flip to show you new mentions or notifications in addition to the Toast alerts (which work quite fast from our experience).

While there is no counter, the Live Tile flips to show mentions

While it may have taken nearly two years to get this feature on Twitter, we are just going to sit in awe now and enjoy what we have.

Pick up the official Twitter app (v1.5) for Windows Phone now in the Marketplace. Thanks, Osvaldo C., for the tip

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

55 Comments
  • Will notification work over WiFi
  • Of course.
  • Even while the phone is asleep?
  • I wonder if Twitter is working on a Windows 8 app....
  • Lets hope so. Metro Twit is so far the best available. Rowi, tweetro and flip toast have a ways to go. It would be nice to see official social media apps with win 8.
  • Finally
  • Is this actual push notifications, or just the timer based pull notification?
  • Push.
  • I've never gotten a twitter app cause of so many and none seemed to have all the desired features, so with this update, does it make this the best twitter app to have?
  • I'm with you... Waiting for an answer...
  • I'd look at Mehdoh or Rowi as the best IMO.
  • Here's to hoping that 2.0 will be a UI/UX refresh. 
    Rowi holds the crown for me.
  • Best twitter app is mehdoh hands down the best
  • Carbon
  • I'm with you on that. I hope they bring on push though
  • the new bird logo shows up now too!
  • I prefer the real thing to 3rd party apps, but the previous version of Twitter stayed on 2 days on my phone. I maybe convinced to give it another try
  • Hell must be freezing right now!
  • Not IMO.  The best for me is 'Rowi' ... Carbon is somewhere after Rowi.
  • About effing time! Thanks jeebus!
  • Me tile has done that and better for the last year, good update tho.
  • This has to be the best week 4 my WindowsPhone! First the Tango Update pushed to my Nokia Lumia 900 (Thanks XDA) then RIM reports BB10 is delayed until Q1 2013 and now Twitter Official gets the ability for Toast Notifications in its app!!! I would say it was pretty good week for WPNation. :-)
  • Does any twitter app have a timeline counter on the live tile? That's the feature I am missing most.
  • Tbh I dont get why people need a timeline counter. Care to explain why its that impt?
  • Because I want to see if there's any timeline tweets that I missed, without having to open the application.  If it's something like 10 tweets, it's probably not worth it to me to open the app, but if there's like 50, then I'll probably open it up and scroll through.
  • So... Is anyone else's push notifications not coming in?
  • yea mine's not working
  • This seriously disgusts me. No push notifications ever work for anything
  • Yeah its a pretty broken feature.
  • Me,,me,,me
  • I am one happy guy today. :)
  • I might use it again to try the notifications, but I really like and love using Mehdoh. It has great features like Save for later, instant image preview and multiple accounts.
     
    Twitter should update all its apps and this kind of features. I still don't understand why they don't compete with third-party apps on all platforms.
  • So is this the only feature coming? Kind of disappointed :-(
  • Mine seem to be working find
  • Seems to perform better (less choppy) but it still doesn't show twitt replies :-(
  • Looks like it has the new Twitter logo too!
  • As soon as it has large inline images like carbon or gleek I'll use it, un till then im keeping with gleek
  • What? BlackBerry should run Windows Phone?
  • Working for me. This is great :D i use the offical app for instant push notifications and carbon for my main app mainly because of the awesome inline images. The lack of tile counter is ridiculous though
  • Finally
  • Mine are working now but occasionally come in delayed! Still better than nothing :) and I also am only use them for the notification instead of text message updates
  • Try Gleek, has everything you need!
  • I like the new bird/logo. :)
  • OT: Can someone tell me what the stocks app is in that picture just above the twitter tile?
  • I would like to know this as well.
  • Markets & Me http://www.wpcentral.com/keep-track-stock-market-market-me-windows-phone
  • Love the new Twitter logo. But the push notification is still not instant. Would also prefer it to have tile counts for mentions.
  • Agreed
  • About time!
  • so basically this is just marginally better than the Me Tile.....got it!
  • As a live tile, I agree that it's obsolete. But I'd install it just for the notifications.
  • The app also has a slight theme refresh with Twitter's new colours. The push notifications and live tile rock!!!!
  • It also changed the bird, mine now looks different, flying up.
  • Everyone should just use text message updates from twitter for mentions, retweets, and dm's. They come instant and you can easily go look at all of them in your inbox instead of missing the push notification and actually having to open the app.
  • Ripper!
    Zune installed the same update twice but never mind.