Finally! Twitter adds DM syncing in mass update of 7 apps

Twitter released a massive coordinated update of seven different apps this morning, and appropriately enough, coordination is one of the key new deliverables.

In the dark and benighted past — yesterday — when you answered a direct message on Twitter.com, your iPhone or Android app still showed an irritating (and false) notification that you had an unread message.

Today, that no longer happens.

Above: Twitter for iPhone now includes a built-in reply box on tweet details pages

Image Credit: John Koetsier

Each of Twitter for Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac have been updated, as has Twitter.com, mobile.twitter.com, and TweetDeck. And, as you update the apps on your various devices, direct messages that you read on one platform will be also marked as read on other platforms.

Note, it may take some time for this function to roll out fully. I just tested it on Android, iPhone, and web, and reading a direct message that I sent to myself from my @SwitchCube account to my personal @johnkoetsier was not immediately or quickly detected by either the new Android or iPhone app.

Twitter has an explanation: Syncing will roll out gradually. How long that will take is unclear.

Other enhancements and improvements include better mobile search and more user information. Twitter says you “may see expanded user results,” which I believe means that popular users, promoted users, and verified users will show full bios in an “account preview,” while recent and occasional users may not. In addition, when you swipe account previews left, you’ll see similar accounts, which you could decide to follow as well.

Another update, just for iPhone, gives you a built-in instant-reply tweet composer for tweet detail screens. Oddly, Twitter’s Android app did not get the update:

Finally, Twitter updated its Mac client to include Interactions, which is Twitter’s word for retweets, favorites, and mentions by others, and to support six new languages: Danish, Filipino, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Thai.