Yes, you can actually tweet from the 2017 Nissan Titan

Trucks have not always been the go-to platform for tech.

In most cases, the size of the truck bed, the traction you get from the tires, and the engine torque were the most important tech considerations. Yet times have changed. People who drives trucks today are often business owners who need to stay connected or people who drive them on a commute.

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Recently, I tested the 2017 Nissan Titan, a full-size pickup with a starting base price of $29,580. It has a V8 engine, can pull around 9,000 pounds of cargo, and has a 390-horsepower engine that provides some zip for merging into traffic.

Nissan started offering a “connected car” services with the Nissan Altima a few years ago, but the Titan is the first truck I’ve ever used that allows you to do Google online searches by voice and let people know where you are using Facebook check-in (which is admittedly a forgotten feature and rarely used — it dates back to when people used Foursquare). What impressed me the most is the ability to check a live Twitter feed and tweet directly from the cab of the truck.

To tweet, you need to use the NissanConnect app. I loaded it onto my phone, and it worked smoothly in terms of logging in and finding features. I was in a press vehicle, so I selected the one I was using and then connected my phone by plugging a USB cable into a port next to the steering wheel. I also had to authenticate the Twitter app. Once it was all synced, I pressed an Apps button on the dashboard and then clicked the Twitter icon. You can scan through a live feed of tweets or compose a new tweet. If you decide to tweet, you can use a keyboard on the dash or select a stock tweet.

For example, I used the “I love my Nissan” automated tweet. I’m guessing my Twitter followers wondered about that one. Then I typed in a few custom tweets like “Driving up north to see family” and “Heading to a meeting,” although I am not sure I’d ever actually use those. I mostly use Twitter to ask questions these days, to let people know about articles, and to make bad jokes. If anything, I’d type a custom message related to my day, which is probably a little more effort than any tweet needs.

That said, I liked how it worked. On a long trip, I could see adding more custom tweets and keeping my feed active. The only problem with that? You can only tweet when the vehicle is stopped. In my tests, I tweeted several times while I was driving around an urban area. However, the live feed was active at all times. My problem there is that I tend to search for people and check their feed more than anything.

Yet even if this is all still in an early stage, compared to how the rest of tech has moved into AI, chatbots, and many other areas of innovation, I’m still a fan. I see a car as a moving computer on wheels, something that will eventually drive itself and let us live tweet, check Facebook, and even hold a meeting over Skype. The Nissan Titan gets us a step closer to that vision.