Tweet tweet, Zune HD finally gets a twitter app – now available for downloading via Marketplace, free of charge. Design wise it looks great, but once ending with registration process and firing up the application, this is where it start getting buggy and the UI performs a bit sluggish. Despite malfunctions, you can send tweets, follow your Twitter feed, view replies, search on Twitter, send direct messages and watch your favorites tab as long as you want – until it freezes up (no lists support at the moment).
Update1: Surprisingly, it forces you to be polite while using the app, otherwise your cursing tweets will snappily get trashed and brutally thrown out of the line. Stay tuned for more about that.
Update2: Microsoft has taken this Zune HD Twitter app censorship way too far from expected, and couple hours later, after setting the stage for turmoil, and getting knocked from every possible direction, it finally unleashed a statement, vowing to fix these chopped cuss words “issues” as soon as it finds a proper code line replacement. Here’s what Redmond had to say:
The recently released Twitter for Zune HD application has been abbreviating some explicit words in tweets when viewed on the device; however these explicit words do appear in their full text on the Twitter site or on any other Twitter client. We have identified the issue and are taking steps to update the application as soon as possible to ensure Twitter for Zune HD users are able to view tweets in their original state.
Update3: And one day later… Microsoft releases firmware update v1.1, which allows free Twitter expression, without any censorship or limitations. Bugs, lags and other malfunctions are yet to be fixed though.
[via Zune Insider; engadget]