Ubiquitous microblogging service Twitter on Friday released an updated version of its iOS app with native support for in-app "Peek and Pop" 3D Touch gestures, while Google refreshed its flagship search app with integrated Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology.
The latest Twitter version 6.54 builds on existing 3D Touch integration introduced shortly after Apple rolled out iOS 9 last year.
In particular, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus owners can now preview individual tweets, Twitter Moments and embedded links, pictures, videos, GIFs and more using Apple's 3D Touch interface. Pressing down on iPhone's display invokes a peek event, while a deeper press pops selected media into an associated app, like Safari or YouTube.
In peek mode, users can swipe up to access additional functions including mute and block user, report tweet and options for sharing via Twitter direct message or iOS Share Sheets. The same swipe gesture works on pictures and other embedded media, but is limited to sharing operations.
Prior to today's update, Twitter's 3D Touch integration ended at Quick Action home screen gestures for composing a new message, tweet or search.
Twitter for iOS is a free 68.6MB download from the App Store.
Google pushed out a new version of its eponymous search app on Friday with support for the firm's AMP initiative, an open-source project that allows participating publishers to craft quick-loading web pages on mobile devices.
With Google for iOS version 15.1, users have near instant access to popular news articles served up through Google search. On iOS, the specially coded pages show up as scrollable cards located under the "Top Stories" of a search results page and are marked with AMP's lightning bolt logo.
In addition, the latest Google app update brings sports highlights to the platform's "Now" cards, another attempt at streamlining the mobile browsing experience. Users with Google Now activated can watch select sports videos directly in cards presented on the Google app home screen instead of opening the content in a new webpage.
The app also introduces shortcuts for external iPad keyboards and a tweak to Google's search UI that surfaces the busiest hours of popular destinations and local businesses.
Google for iOS comes in at 73.7MB and can be downloaded for free from the App Store.