Flashier Twitter apps have come and gone, but I'm still pretty enamored with Plume. One reason is that the developer (LevelUp, of Beautiful Widgets fame) is constantly rolling out new features, and today's update adds a doozie: push notifications. You should get notifications for new tweets, replies, mentions, and messages more or less instantly, and the widget and main feed can now use a "Live Stream" mode.

The service experimented with push background notifications before, but the developer wasn't satisfied with the battery-hungry feature. The new implementation shouldn't have a negative impact on your battery. The feature is off by default in Plume 5.4: to enable push notifications and "live streaming" in the main app view and widget, go to Settings, General, Live Stream Mode, and set it to Always. The new update has also added color-coded unread counts on the column view in the main feed, which are likewise optional.

Other changes include some minor memory tweaks, fixes for the account add dialog, and a fix for the avatar display errors. I've been noticing that particular bug over the last few weeks, and it seems to have disappeared after the update. Plume is a free app with a .99 ad-free Premium unlock, and it's compatible with Android 2.1 or higher.

2013/10/8 - 5.40

- support always-on live streaming (push notification)

- column counters now show the amount of unread tweets

- use less memory when in the background

- fix avatars not always showing in the widgets

- fix adding accounts failure when the device clock is incorrect

Plume for Twitter Developer: UberMedia Inc.
Price: Free
2.9
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